SURMOUNTING CULTURAL INGRAINATION OF GENDER AND NATURE IN INDIAN WOMEN’S LITERATURE: THE ECOFEMINIST WAY

DR. G. CHENNA REDDY; SARALA DEVI MANUKONDA

Volume : VI, Issue : I, January - 2016

SURMOUNTING CULTURAL INGRAINATION OF GENDER AND NATURE IN INDIAN WOMEN’S LITERATURE: THE ECOFEMINIST WAY

Dr. G. Chenna Reddy, Sarala Devi Manukonda

Abstract :

It is well researched and documented that the discrimination, subjugation and inferiorization of women in Indian society is ought about by patriarchal constructs, which had been embedded into the culture and traditions of our society over the ages. The glorification of women in popular culture and their frontal positioning in religious and cultural ceremonies are just decoys, to subvert and thwart any form of resistance to patriarchy. Culture is a nebulous force, which has its origins in the region, language, religion, and caste and class stratification of the society; and can ruthlessly inhibit people within its gambit, from overcoming its influence. Language as the primordial component in the creation and dissemination of culture, has a manipulative clout over all other components; and can be discerned in all literature, be it poetic, fictional or scholastic – academic, political, philosophical or religious. Religious literature relegates the secondary status of women as God ordained and all other forms of literature ingrain this in culture, unintentionally as in women’s studies or innately as in fiction. Popular culture on the ubiquitous TV and www too, has a literary base as scripts, storyboards or content, which only gets accentuated with explicit visuals. A critical examination of contemporary literature in English by Indian women writers including émigré writers reveals that most are still entangled in the gendered concepts of nature and culture. To surmount this, women writers need to appreciate that as midwives of comprehension and knowledge, they must overcome self discrimination, evolve a gender neutral language, exemplify women who have triumphed over all odds in their narratives, document their coping, nay, overcoming strategies with statistical proofs, develop a deep ecology consciousness and strive towards an egalitarian environmental and cultural ethic for our post–modern societies, which is ecofeminist in approach.