Feminism in Printmedia
Indian Journal of Gender Studies http://ijg.sagepub.com 'Feminism ' in Print Media
Maitrayee Chaudhuri
Indian Journal of Gender Studies 2000; 7; 263
DOI: 10.1177/097152150000700208
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Downloaded from http://ijg.sagepub.com at University of Sussex Library on June 2, 2010
’Feminism’ in Print Media
MAITRAYEE CHAUDHURI
Locating the issue of feminism in the institutional context of the print media, we discover two popular versions of feminism that the media promote, a feminism of choice’ and a ’traditional feminism’. At the same time, they express hostility, both covert and not-so-covert, to organised women’s movements. This simultaneous cooptation and backlash is seemingly a sign of a consensus over some of feminism’s demands, such as equality, while it also perverts the agenda of feminism itself—in the interests of a newly liberalised economy and a resurgent majoritarian religious political party movement.
Introduction
Twenty-five years ago the Indian media tended either to ignore women altogether or confine its attention to the problems of middle-class domesticity. But when women’s organisations initiated major movements against gender violence in the late 1970s, the media had its own role to play. In the 1990s we not only had a much greater visibility of ’women’ but also explicit deployment of the term ’feminism’ in the media. The women’s question today is part of the public discourse. As Butalia notes, ’At the
Maitrayee Chaudhuri
Indian Journal of Gender Studies 2000; 7; 263
DOI: 10.1177/097152150000700208
The online version of this article can be found at: http://ijg.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/2/263 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Indian Journal of Gender Studies can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://ijg.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://ijg.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.in/about/permissions.asp
Citations http://ijg.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/7/2/263
Downloaded from http://ijg.sagepub.com at University of Sussex Library on June 2, 2010
’Feminism’ in Print Media
MAITRAYEE CHAUDHURI
Locating the issue of feminism in the institutional context of the print media, we discover two popular versions of feminism that the media promote, a feminism of choice’ and a ’traditional feminism’. At the same time, they express hostility, both covert and not-so-covert, to organised women’s movements. This simultaneous cooptation and backlash is seemingly a sign of a consensus over some of feminism’s demands, such as equality, while it also perverts the agenda of feminism itself—in the interests of a newly liberalised economy and a resurgent majoritarian religious political party movement.
Introduction
Twenty-five years ago the Indian media tended either to ignore women altogether or confine its attention to the problems of middle-class domesticity. But when women’s organisations initiated major movements against gender violence in the late 1970s, the media had its own role to play. In the 1990s we not only had a much greater visibility of ’women’ but also explicit deployment of the term ’feminism’ in the media. The women’s question today is part of the public discourse. As Butalia notes, ’At the
Citations: http://ijg.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/7/2/263 Downloaded from http://ijg.sagepub.com at University of Sussex Library on June 2, 2010 addressed’ (1993: 590). Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110 Downloaded from http://ijg.sagepub.com at University of Sussex Library on June 2, 2010 Today the story is different. A comparison with the backlash in the US (Faludi 1991) and the UK (Faludi 1992) is in order.2 Alongside the strength Downloaded from http://ijg.sagepub.com at University of Sussex Library on June 2, 2010 265