Do women who hear and read and study about gender imbalance actively question it and fight it in their personal lives, asks activist and Chancellor of Kerala Kalamandalam Mallika Sarabhai.
“When we talk of women’s studies, we seem to talk about it as though it is another species out there. I find that strange because we are really our study,” she said, delivering the valedictory address on the last day of the 17th national conference of the Indian Association for Women’s Studies at Government College for Women, Vazhuthacaud, here on Sunday.
Ms. Sarabhai said she had tried to use the performing arts, film, and video to take what women’s studies scholars studied to people who were not in academics. A question that arose then was how did women who heard each other in conferences or read what the others wrote make a difference since questions about gender, caste, and poverty were still being raised as had been decades ago. ““How do we treat in our own lives the reality of being a woman? Academics can only become practice if we practise it and use it as a menu for change.”
