Livia: Ray on Women's Movements in Bombay and Calcutta

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Ray’s second chapter of Fields of Protest discusses the variability of the women’s movements in Bombay and Calcutta. In Bombay, women’s movements have typically centered around issues such as violence against women, sexual harassment, etc. However, in Calcutta, women’s movements have tended to focus on issues such as employment, wage discrimination, and literacy. Ray notes that Bombay’s women’s activists are typically more in line with the second wave of feminism in the United States and Western Europe, as their movements place an emphasis on challenging labor and patriarchal power (24). Thus, Bombay’s women’s movements are considered as a signal to the West that feminism has “arrived” in India. Contrastingly, Calcutta’s activist focus on state and economy rather than the role of men or the family is recognized by the West as a narrow conception of feminism, and evidence that feminism has yet to arrive in that city. Ray argues that the differences between such women’s movements arise because both cities are situated within two kinds of political fields, which are influenced by a society’s culture and distribution of power. More specifically, Ray attributes much of the distinction between Calcutta and Bombay’s as a result of the distinct types of groups which advocate for female rights in these cities. In Calcutta, women’s interests are primarily represented by the ruling CPI (a parliamentary communist party), which tend to subordinate women’s interest to the larger interests of class (43). However, Bombay, women’s interests are mostly represented by politically autonomous groups that can focus on issues that more specially target women (43).

Ray’s analysis of Bombay and Calcutta helped to illuminate the role of national politics and culture in influencing women’s rights movements. I am curious as to what extent the global political climate influenced the way in which these different women’s movements decided to advocate for rights. Was Bombay’s (the various women’s movements) choice to focus on women’s violence and the role of men in the family largely a strategic choice to align with the second wave of the feminism in the West? It appears that could have been likely. By appealing to these Western feminism values, Bombay women movement’s likely could have garnered both attention and support from the West in their pursuit for more equal rights, i.e., global media pressure to induce stress on Bombay’s government, support and partnerships from NGO’s, etc. While such values may have already been important/needed within society, I wonder if their focus on particular women’s rights is a product of what would be globally respected/aided. Similarly, did the women’s movements within Calcutta choose to focus on more universal issues such as employment, wage discrimination, etc. as a way to appeal to a more general audience globally? It seems that neither women’s movement focus could be a result of solely national factors.

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