Her-Self:Early Writings on Gender by Malaylee Women 1898-1938

Her-Self: Early Writings on Gender by Malayalee Women 1898-1938

Translated from the Malayalam and edited by J.Devika. Foreword by V.Geetha

demy octavo hb 268pp ISBN 81-85604-74-6 Rs 450 Feb 2005; rpt, April 2008

This collection of early writings by Malayalee women, translated for the first time into English, gives us, in the words of V. Geetha, ‘texts that dazzle’. Written between 1898-1938, they reveal the vigorous debate over modern gender relations that was taking place in this period. Women reflected on what was ‘Womanly’, on education, duties, vocation and civil roles, an ongoing discussion, first influenced by reformism and later by nationalist and communist ideas, which remain alive today.

The anthology also contains many spirited rejoinders to distinguished male intellectuals who opposed women’s employment or ‘intrusion’ into public space. J. Devika also discusses what is excluded from the Womanhood that is being talked about as well as a need to define what is non-Womanly.

J. Devika is a research associate, Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. V. Geetha is an independent scholar and editorial director of Tara Publishing.

Review:

'Her-Self: Early Writings on Gender by Malaylee Women 1898-1938 edited by J. Devika

is an attempt to know what women were thinking in Kerala much before Indian women were aware of such words of jargon as ‘feminism’.'

Nilosree Biswas: The Telegraph, 30 May 2004

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