Women have been active in several political and social movements over a very long period of time. Women’s activism is what has sustained them over centuries. Without the activism of women such as Savitribai Phule, many of us would still be at a great disadvantage even in terms of basic rights like education. There have been so many women activists in different periods of time in different countries that fought for their rights. To cite a few examples: In 1955, a 42-year-old African American Rosa Parks, refused to get up and give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomerry in the USA. Or the women migrant textile workers who went on strike in 1912 at Lawrence Textile demanding an increase in their wages and also to be treated with equality and dignity by flashing the slogan: ‘We want bread, but we want roses too!’ There were also the Suffragettes in the UK who fought women’s right to vote.
Different periods in history have raised different issues and women have played a key role in shaping them and responding to them. The issues women face, depend upon their historical and geographical location.
Impediments and constraints
From the very beginning, women’s movement has characterised an important aspect of the current social structure and system that men control mobility, labour, sexuality and the reproductive capacity of women.
Sexual division of labour at home or at workplace has consistently put women in a disadvantaged position. Women have been made to be responsible for all the work in the household. At the same time women are discriminated against in the labour market for precisely the same reason – that their primary responsibility is supposed to be the home!
The other problem that circumscribes women’s activism is societal attitude towards women and their spaces. Women are supposed to be confined to the family and other spaces that the family ‘allows’ her to be in like her work space. Anything outside those spaces is frowned upon and aspersions are cast on her ‘character’ and she is stamped as a ‘loose woman’ or some stigma is attached to her. That itself may make it unsafe for women to be active as it may invite violence of the kind that is reserved for ‘women who deserve it’. Most of the issues that were addressed by women’s organisations were precisely those that put serious constraints on her lives.
The phase of the women’s movement that began in the middle of the 20th century looked at women’s rights to their own lives and bodies. Women came out of their homes in large parts of the world demanding right to autonomy, right to their bodies, right to health, right to education, right to work. Women in every country demanded that violence against them should end.
Rise of women’s activism
In the context of India, the 1980s saw the emergence of the new wave of women’s activism. Rape and sexual assault were the earliest issues that women from different personal and political backgrounds took up. That decade saw women’s organizations coming up in large cities, small towns and also
villages in some states of India. Gradually, domestic violence began to emerge as a crucial issue in the consciousness of the women’s organizations that had already been formed in the media as well. By the end of 80s, there had emerged a loose network of women activists and women’s organizations. This facilitated a greater sharing of issues and strategies by drawing out the commonalities in the situation of different sections of women.
Hence issues like women’s rights to their bodies could be taken up in a more holistic manner. Apart from direct issues of violence, women’s right to contraceptives of their choice, women’s right to be born were raised and, these issues took on the form of campaigns that went beyond one or two cities and took on a much larger form, raising issues organize campaigns, and much more. From street-level and community level campaigns to legal struggles, different organizations raised issues on women’s health and women’s right to their bodies.
One strand of the women’s movement – the autonomous women’s organizations – attempted to consistently raise issues of organizational structure and decision-making processes. They emphasized on collective functioning and non-hierarchical organizational structures.
Campaigns for legal reforms underlay several of the issues that the women’s movement took up – from the right to be born to women’s right to be free from all sorts of violence, especially sexual violence. This also included communal violence and women’s experiences in communal violence situations.
Deepening activism
In the meantime, voices of women who were from communities that were marginalised and hence faced the same issues with even greater gravity were raised. These were esbian women, adivasi women, dalit women, Muslim women, women belonging to the Denotified Tribes and so on. While there was an insistence that the by now ‘mainstream’ women’s movement take up the issues of women from the marginalised communities, there were attempts to form independent organisations and movements as well.
Women workers in the informal sector contributing to the economy were organising different groups. For instance, some as workers against the police and the authorities, some in terms of their right to safe and secure housing. Some women in rural areas are part of movements that voice a more holistic view of their lives – as women, as agricultural or domestic workers, as adivasi women or dalit women, and as beneficiaries of government programmes etc.
Women who worked in occupations that were stigmatised were gradually organising themselves. Organisations of sex workers had emerged all over the world. Some were trade unions and some were non-governmental organisations. Bar dancers got together in the city of Mumbai to fight for their right to earn their livelihood. These sections directly questioned the staid and often patriarchal notions of society. The women’s movement insisted that the interests of women could not be subsumed under those either of the ‘family’ or of the ‘community’.
The road ahead
These attempts at activism and issues revolving them dot the country as they do the globe. Women’s activism is there to stay as without that women’s survival is precarious.
However, looking at the present spate of sexual assaults on women and girls, one begins to question – what has women’s activism meant all these years; what has it achieved? I would like to believe that without women’s activism the situation that prevails now would have been even worse. That it is the voices of dissent, voices of protest that question the power of men over women, that interrogate the easy equation of women as disposable and dispensable beings that have been anchors for women and girls to personally and collectively resist and assert themselves in whatever situation they are in.
The task before the women’s movement especially in the present context of rescinding of and denying the earlier won rights, minority bashing and increasing crimes against women and girls is to devise methods and strategies that support women, especially from disadvantaged groups and communities to come together, to recognise the allies – potential and contemporary – and create conditions and grounds for such alliances and networks to fight the forces that want to take us back to a period of darkness that we had fought our way out of.
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Sujata Gothoskar
The writer has been a part of the women’s movement and the labour movement in Bombay for over four decades. She has also worked as a researcher and writes on different issues relating to women’s work,women’s rights and the women’s movement.[/column]