Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 25: The Centre for Women’s Studies, University of Jammu, organized a special lecture on “Status of Women in India and Women Studies Centres”.
The speaker was Dr Anjali Deshpande who apart from being an academician of repute, is currently member of UGC Standing Committee on Women’s Studies and member of Central Advisory Board of Education (Ministry of HRD).
Dr Anjali Deshpande pointed out how the popular perception about women’s studies tend to be exclusive in the sense that it is taken to be the exclusive domain of women, both in terms of its functions and agenda of research. This, she added, is a mistaken notion as women cannot be studied in isolation rather for the proper understanding and the insights of women, it is necessary to study them in relation to male. She pointed out the need to deviate from the Western models of feminism and look for perspective which emerges out of Indian context. She also pointed out the necessity to develop an extensive data bank on women by working in the field.
Prof R D Sharma, Vice-Chancellor, JU, who presided over the function, spoke about how the situation is changing now and women are become more visible and well represented in different realms of society. He also argued how the gender centric division of works is being diluted. “Now men have started stepping into the area of child rearing which was considered to be the domain of women,” he said and pointed out the need for introducing more courses on women studies, and the need for generation more and more hard data on different aspects of women.
Earlier, the welcome note was presented by Prof Suman Jamwal, Director, Centre for Women studies.
The lecture was followed by a discussion which was moderated by Dr Shyam Narayan Lal. The function ended with vote of thanks by Dr Priyanka Katoch. The lecture was conducted by Saranjit Kaur.
The function was attended by faculty members of the university, research students and the members of civil society.
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