Construction of Sexuality and Gender under Modernity by Prof. Nivedita Menon

Описание: Historiologus hosted a thought provoking and wonderful lecture, “CONSTRUCTION OF
SEXUALITY AND GENDER
UNDER MODERNITY”, By Prof. Nivedita Menon. Prof. Menon was a critically-engaging speaker in a lecture on gender, caste, sexuality and social reform in colonial and early modern India. The session discussed how reform movements are being retold as an emancipation and a project of progress, and remain firmly entrenched in bourgeois patriarchal modernity.

Prof. Nivedita Menon is a prominent feminist scholar and political theorist whose publications have taken a sober contribution to the discussion on gender, nationalism, democracy and sexuality in South Asia. Her work continues probing the interplay of laws, power and social norms always unleashing the triumphant stories concerning reform and modernity.

The two historic places were the focus of the lecture, which were the abolition of the devadasi system and the breaking of matriliny in Kerala. Prof. Menon demonstrated how such reforms were intended to punish non-normative sexualities and kinships systems, and how they were being made out to be morally and even emancipatory, when in the real sense they are strengthening the caste and class hierarchies. She indicated with the help of feminist historiography that upper-caste devadasis became domesticated with the help of reform, as far as sacred prostitution continued to occur among lower-caste and outcaste communities.

One of the key themes was that of masculinity. Prof. Menon followed the anxieties of reformist discussions based on the fear of emasculation (of men) when they criticized matriliny and sambandham. Such practices were becoming more implicated as being immoral, unnatural or even similar to prostitution, so it was a green light to destroy them in favor of their monogamous, patrilineal marriage. Another aspect of legal reforms that were examined in the lecture was how women rights reforms that appeared to further broaden women rights actually created new opportunities where fathers and husbands could assert control over property, income and sexuality.

The session prompted us to rethink social reform in terms of normalization rather than in terms of neutral progress and in terms of the critical analysis of the politics of law, morality and modernity. The lecture was completed with the interactive discussion/Q&A and questions.