Life Experiences, Resistance and Feminist Consciousness

U. Kalpagam
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U. Kalpagam: Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad 211 019, Uttar Pradesh, India

Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 2000, vol. 7, issue 2, 167-184

Abstract: This article traces the relationship between the organised women'.s movement and the numerous individual acts of resistance women perform in their everyday lives. Drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu's ideas about habitus and doxa to explain women's internalisation of patriarchy and subordinate status, as well as their ways of overcoming it, we explore why a majority of women do not identify themselves as feminist. How do they manage (or not) to bring the experience of their subordination from the field of doxa to the field of opinion—a precondition for 'feminist' politics? Feminism, for its part, must learn to theorise women's 'experiences' and to invoke the entire range of human relations that constitute such an experience. The argument is intention ally provocative in its critique of feminism as a way, further, of opening up fresh theoretical problems and resources for women's movements in India today.

Date: 2000
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:indgen:v:7:y:2000:i:2:p:167-184

DOI: 10.1177/097152150000700202

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