Women's Empowerment from a Subaltern Perspective

Contents-Women's Empowerment from a Subaltern Perspective 1. Foreword 2. Acknowledgement 3. Introduction 4. The Reality of Indian Women 5. My Vision of Empowerment 6. Gender Sensitivity, understanding gender 7. Right Brain- Left brain Integration 8. Patriarchy 9. Empowerment of Women 10. Feminism 11. Gender Sensitization 12. Impact of Patriarchy on Women 13. Training for Critical Consciousness 14. Status of Girl Child in the Family 15. Our Economic Structure: An Unjust and Exploitative Structure 16. Growing up, Adolescence 17. Balanced Diet 18. Marriage: A Game of Fate 19. Gender Division of Labour, Creating Dependency 20. Broken Dreams and Scattered Hopes 21. Women and Men View Life Differently 22. Women — Saraswati, Lakshmi ,and Durga 23. Women, the Torch-Bearers, Remaining in Darkness 24. Transformation for Self-Reliance 25. No Health, No Empowerment 26. Diseases Specific to Women 27. Alcoholism and Drug Addiction as Diseases 28. Discrimination : Women, the Untouchables 29. Organisation, Unity 30. Exercise —The Wealth of India 31. Exercise - Rice Bowl 32. The Role of Leadership in the Organisation 33. Exercise - Paper Chain 34. Exercise — Human Machine 35. Economic Empowerment 36. Onward to Progress — to Build a New Society 37. Training for Empowerment : A Personal Experience ABOUT THE BOOK Women's Empowerment from a Subaltern Perspective Training provides the crucial vehicle for taking forward the programme process, and for building and strengthening the values and vision of the programme. The objective of the training programme is to help the trainees to internalize enabling attitudes and values to assist them to understand and critically analyse prevalent socio-economic and political structure, and encourage creative leadership in the society. It is an effective tool to help the women to recognize their power within and to build their own self-worth and confidence. I have made use of the methods and the module used in this book in the trainings. Above all, I have seen the transformations that have taken place in the trainees who have gone through the trainings. Therefore, I can say with a degree of certainty that the matter presented here will be of immense help to those engaged in training women and girls. - Sister Sabeena SND ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sister Ajita holds a Master's Degree in Social work from Mumbai University and is at present working as the key trainer and State Level Resource Person for Bihar Mahila Samakhya Society since 1994. This book is an outcome of her long years of experience in training the rural women of Bihar and other groups in North India. Thus the training methods given in this book are evolved from her personal experience and of the thousands of trainees. Sister Mary Ajita, SND Sisters of Notre Dame