GENDER HIERARCHY AND BENGALI WOMEN: LOOKING THROUGH THE MIRAGE OF MORALITY

Since the colonial period and even after the ushering of the neo-liberal phase, one of the core elements intrinsically related to the gender issue is the element of hierarchical proposition in the relations between genders. Women's morality and respectability vis-à-vis society in general and family in particular is a sensitive though much discussed and debated aspect of that hierarchy in gender relations. This paper, however, tends to identify, chart and conceptualize the continuous process of negotiation, renegotiation and redefinition between hierarchy and morality, its changing features and nature etc. During colonial period (since the last decades of the nineteenth century and early decades of the twentieth century) the contours of morality for women was well defined by male hierarchy which mainly emphasized on the clear line of demarcation between the public-private discourse for women, the transgression of which was considered immoral, shameful and, interestingly, masculine. In this paper the concept of morality in relation to gender hierarchy will be viewed from three different time frames in conjunction with the idea of social change: the colonial period, early post- independent period and the post-liberalization phase. This paper will try to examine whether the Bengali women have been able to transgress the line of morality set by the male dominated ‘bhadralok' society and, if yes, whether they are still considered to be moral. Here the effects of liberalization process and their effects on Bengali women will be studied to try and find out whether their maneuvering space has really expanded or not. This paper will look into some of the writings by the Bengali female writers as case studies and try and get a sense as to whether the boundaries of expression by women are contracting or expanding and what can be the repercussions in either of the cases.