Introduction to Women's Studies
What it is
Unit I lays the foundation: the vocabulary of gender studies, Women's Studies as a discipline and its turn to Gender Studies, gender sensitisation, women's movements abroad and in India, and the national committees and commissions that turned the movement's demands into policy. UGC-NET tests it through concept–author matching, chronology and committee–report pairs, so exact attribution and dates carry the marks.
Core concepts
Key concepts: sex and gender. Sex is biological (chromosomes, hormones, anatomy); gender is the socially constructed set of roles and expectations attached to it. Robert Stoller drew the distinction in psychiatry (1968) and Ann Oakley brought it into sociology (Sex, Gender and Society, 1972). Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) argued that one becomes a woman rather than being born one, defined as man's Other. Gayle Rubin named the "sex/gender system" (1975); West and Zimmerman's "Doing Gender" (1987) treats gender as accomplished in interaction, and Judith Butler (Gender Trouble, 1990) as performative.
Key concepts: patriarchy and intersectionality. Kate Millett's Sexual Politics (1970) made patriarchy the central political concept; Gerda Lerner traced its origins (1986); Sylvia Walby (Theorizing Patriarchy, 1990) gave six structures (paid work, household production, the state, male violence, sexuality, cultural institutions) and a shift from private to public patriarchy. Uma Chakravarti's "Brahmanical patriarchy" (1993) ties gender to caste purity. Arlie Hochschild's The Second Shift (1989) names the double burden of paid and domestic work. Kimberlé Crenshaw coined intersectionality (1989). Equality means equal rights and outcomes; equity means fairness that may need unequal measures.
Need, scope and challenges; Women's Studies as an academic discipline. Women's Studies arose as the academic arm of the women's movement, to make women visible in knowledge and expose androcentric bias. It is interdisciplinary and questions value-free objectivity through standpoint theory (Dorothy Smith, Nancy Hartsock, Sandra Harding). San Diego State College began the first US programme (1970). In India came the Research Unit on Women's Studies at SNDT Women's University (1974, Neera Desai), the Centre for Women's Development Studies, Delhi (1980, Vina Mazumdar) and the Indian Association for Women's Studies (1982); NPE 1986 asked that women's studies be promoted within courses. Challenges: ghettoisation, thin funding, the label "activist, not academic", integration versus autonomy.
From Women's Studies to Gender Studies. From the late 1980s many programmes became Gender Studies. Joan Scott's "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis" (1986) treated gender as a primary way of signifying power relations. The shift makes gender relational, studying men, masculinities and sexual minorities alongside women; critics warn that it can depoliticise the field and dilute the focus on women's subordination.
Need for Gender Sensitization. Sensitisation makes people recognise bias and change practice, moving from gender-blind to gender-sensitive to gender-responsive. Vishaka v State of Rajasthan (1997), after the 1992 gang rape of the sathin Bhanwari Devi, framed workplace sexual-harassment guidelines from Articles 14, 15, 19(1)(g) and 21 and CEDAW. The POSH Act 2013 requires an Internal Committee where there are ten or more employees and a Local Committee in each district (as of 2026-10).
Women's movements: global. The first wave (to the early 20th century) sought legal rights, education and the vote: the Seneca Falls Convention and its Declaration of Sentiments (1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott), suffrage in New Zealand (1893, the first), Britain (1918 partial, 1928 equal) and the US (1920). The second wave (1960s–80s), opened by Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963), turned to family, sexuality and work: "the personal is political". Rebecca Walker announced a third wave (1992); the fourth is digital (#MeToo). The UN held world conferences at Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995; Platform for Action, 12 critical areas of concern) and adopted CEDAW (1979, in force 1981; India ratified 1993).
Pre-independence movements in India. Reformers used law: abolition of sati (1829, after Ram Mohan Roy's campaign), the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act 1856 (Vidyasagar), the Age of Consent Act 1891 and the Child Marriage Restraint (Sarda) Act 1929. Savitribai and Jyotirao Phule opened a girls' school in Pune (1848); Tarabai Shinde wrote Stri Purush Tulana (1882), and Pandita Ramabai founded the Arya Mahila Samaj (1882). Organisations followed: Bharat Stree Mahamandal (1910, Sarala Devi Chaudhurani), the Women's Indian Association (1917, Annie Besant and Margaret Cousins), the National Council of Women in India (1925) and the All India Women's Conference (1927). Sarojini Naidu led a 1917 deputation to Montagu for the vote.
Post-independence movements. The Constitution guaranteed equality (Articles 14, 15, 15(3)); the Hindu Code Bill passed as four Acts (1955–56). The 1970s revived autonomous organising: SEWA (1972, Ela Bhatt), Chipko (from 1973), the anti-price-rise agitation in Bombay, anti-dowry campaigns, and the protest over the Mathura custodial-rape acquittal that produced the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 1983. Cruelty by husband or relatives (formerly IPC s. 498A, 1983) and dowry death (formerly s. 304B, 1986) are now under the BNS 2023 (as of 2026-10). Shah Bano (1985) and Roop Kanwar's sati (1987) put religion and personal law at the centre.
Contemporary Debates. The 2012 Delhi gang rape led to the Justice Verma Committee (2013) and the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013. The 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992) reserved one-third of local-body seats for women; the 106th Amendment (2023) reserves one-third of Lok Sabha and assembly seats, effective after the delimitation that follows the first census after its commencement (as of 2026-10). Live issues: a uniform civil code versus personal-law reform (instant triple talaq set aside in Shayara Bano, 2017), the marital-rape exception, and Dalit feminism (Gopal Guru, "Dalit Women Talk Differently", 1995).
National Committees for Women. The National Committee on Women's Education (1958–59) was chaired by Durgabai Deshmukh. The Committee on the Status of Women in India (CSWI, 1971), chaired by Phulrenu Guha with Vina Mazumdar as member-secretary, reported as Towards Equality (1974): the sex ratio had fallen from 972 (1901) to 930 (1971); Mazumdar and Lotika Sarkar dissented in favour of reserved legislative seats. The Shramshakti report (1988) of the National Commission on Self-Employed Women and Women in the Informal Sector, chaired by Ela Bhatt, documented unorganised women workers.
National Commission for Women. The NCW Act 1990 created the NCW, constituted on 31 January 1992: a chairperson, five members (at least one each from the SCs and STs) and a member-secretary. It reviews legal safeguards, recommends amendments, looks into complaints of deprivation of rights and has civil-court powers while investigating; its recommendations are advisory. Related machinery: the Central Social Welfare Board (1953), the Ministry of Women and Child Development (a department from 1985, a ministry from 2006), Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (1993) and the National Policy for the Empowerment of Women (2001).
Worked example
Arrange in chronological order, earliest first.
| Code | Event |
|---|---|
| A | National Commission for Women constituted |
| B | Towards Equality report of the CSWI |
| C | CEDAW adopted by the UN General Assembly |
| D | Shramshakti report |
| E | Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing |
Options: (1) B, C, D, A, E; (2) C, B, D, E, A; (3) B, D, C, A, E; (4) B, C, A, D, E.
- Date every item first: A 1992, B 1974, C 1979, D 1988, E 1995.
- The earliest is B (1974), so option 2 falls.
- C (1979) precedes D (1988), so option 3 falls.
- D (1988) precedes A (1992), so option 4 falls.
- Verify option 1: 1974, 1979, 1988, 1992, 1995 rise strictly. Had you used the NCW Act year (1990), A would still sit between D and E.
Answer: option 1 (B, C, D, A, E).
Common traps
- Towards Equality (1974, Phulrenu Guha) is the CSWI report; Shramshakti (1988, Ela Bhatt) is the informal-sector commission's.
- The NCW Act is of 1990, the Commission of 1992; CEDAW was adopted in 1979, in force in 1981 and ratified by India in 1993.
- Stoller (1968) drew sex–gender in psychiatry; Oakley (1972) carried it into sociology.
- The Women's Indian Association (1917) is not the All India Women's Conference (1927).
- Intersectionality is Crenshaw's coinage, not bell hooks's or Patricia Hill Collins's.
Speed technique
- Learn committee–chair–report triples: CSWI–Guha–Towards Equality 1974; informal-sector commission–Bhatt–Shramshakti 1988; women's education–Deshmukh–1958–59.
- UN conference string: 1975, 1980, 1985 at five-year steps, then Beijing 1995.
- Organisation ladder: 1910 Mahamandal, 1917 WIA, 1925 NCWI, 1927 AIWC.
Check yourself
- Who chaired the Committee on the Status of Women in India?
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Phulrenu Guha — its report, Towards Equality, appeared in 1974. - Who brought the sex–gender distinction into sociology?
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Ann Oakley — Sex, Gender and Society, 1972. - How many members sit on the NCW besides the chairperson and member-secretary?
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Five — at least one each from the SCs and STs. - Which judgment framed workplace sexual-harassment guidelines before the POSH Act?
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Vishaka v State of Rajasthan (1997) — drawing on CEDAW and fundamental rights. - Whose 1986 essay treated gender as a primary way of signifying power relations?
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Joan Scott — "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis".
Try it: Introduction to Women's Studies questions
Real questions from the NET Women Studies bank on exactly this skill. Pick an answer to see the full solution — the intuition, the worked steps, the faster methods and the traps.
The report Towards Equality (1974) drew attention to a decline in India's sex ratio (women per 1,000 men) between the Censuses of 1901 and 1971. Over that period the ratio fell:
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Answer: option B
The Committee on the Status of Women in India found that the sex ratio had fallen from 972 women per 1,000 men in 1901 to 930 in 1971.
It read the steady decline as evidence of women's worsening survival and status, which made the finding the report's best-remembered statistic.
So the ratio fell from 972 to 930, option B.
In 1917 a deputation of Indian women met Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, to ask for the vote. The deputation was led by:
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Answer: option B
When Montagu toured India in 1917 to consult on reforms, a women's deputation led by Sarojini Naidu asked that women be given the franchise on the same terms as men.
The demand was backed by the newly formed Women's Indian Association and opened the organised campaign for women's suffrage in India.
So the 1917 deputation to Montagu was led by Sarojini Naidu, option B.
The 1986 essay 'Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis', which treated gender as a primary way of signifying relationships of power, was written by:
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Answer: option D
Joan Wallach Scott's essay appeared in the American Historical Review in 1986 and argued that gender is a constitutive element of social relationships and a primary way of signifying power.
The essay is a landmark in the move from Women's Studies to Gender Studies, because it made gender relational rather than a synonym for women.
So the 1986 essay was written by Joan Scott, option D.
Which of the following statements about the National Commission for Women (NCW) are correct? I. It was set up under the National Commission for Women Act, 1990. II. Its recommendations are binding on the Central Government. III. While investigating a complaint, it has the powers of a civil court trying a suit. IV. At least one of its members must be from the Scheduled Castes and at least one from the Scheduled Tribes. Choose the correct answer from the options.
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Answer: option B
The NCW was created by the National Commission for Women Act, 1990 and constituted in 1992 (I); it has civil-court powers while investigating (III), and of its five members at least one must be from the SCs and one from the STs (IV).
Its recommendations to the government are advisory, not binding, so II is wrong.
So the correct statements about the NCW are I, III and IV only, option B.
Arrange the following in chronological order: I. Supreme Court judgment in the Shah Bano case II. Founding of the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) III. Supreme Court judgment in Shayara Bano setting aside instant triple talaq IV. Roop Kanwar's death by sati at Deorala V. Passage of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment reserving one-third of panchayat seats for women Choose the correct answer from the options.
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Answer: option D
SEWA was founded in 1972, the Shah Bano judgment came in 1985 and Roop Kanwar's sati at Deorala took place in 1987.
The 73rd Amendment was passed in 1992 and the Shayara Bano judgment came in 2017, giving II, I, IV, V, III.
So the order from the founding of SEWA to Shayara Bano is II, I, IV, V, III, option D.
Answer above — every one shows its working.