Cross-Cultural Sisters? Eleanor Rathbone and the Indian Feminist Movement in the 1930s

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This article examines the private correspondence between Eleanor Rathbone, a leading early twentieth century British feminist and Indian feminists within the historical context of pre-Independence India. Rathbone was the first British feminist to take cognizance of the need to listen to Indian women’s own voices on the question of their reform. The letters that she exchanged with contemporary Indian feminists bear testimony to her attempts to break away from imperial feminism’s traditional assumptions about the silence of Indian women and to have a dialogue with them over the question of their enfranchisement. The paper also examines the limits of this dialogic process by looking at the problematic aspects of Rathbone’s interest in the question of the Indian women’s franchise and how these often clashed with the Indian feminists’ own ideological commitments. This dialogue has been placed within its complex historical moment in order to enable a more nuanced understanding of gender and its relations within the Empire.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Introduction
• "Voiceless, hopeless and helpless" : Stereotype of Indian Women in English Feminist Writing
• "An Old Suffragist" : Eleanor Rathbones's Early History and her interest in the Indian Women’ßs Movement
• "Not Voiceless" : The Indian Feminist Movements and the Franchise Issue
• "Common Cause" : The Dialogue through Letters between Rathbone and the Indian Feminists
• "In a Subject Country like ours No" : The Resistant Voices of Indian Feminists
• Exploiting internal factions: Rathbone and Subbarayan
• The "Vexed Question of Special Electorates" and the Indian Feminists' United Response
• A Failed Dialogue : The Separate Interests of the Indian Feminists and Rathbone
• Conclusion

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