writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

2. Conceptualizing a biographical book based on women: The straight questions involved here
are –
Whether it is worth writing on women’s lives?
Are they (the people) interested in knowing about it?
If, yes, how deep one could dig into their lives?
What all one could expose and in how much detail?
How to balance between being truthful and being politically correct?
What if truth turns out to be bitter and ugly?
How and how much to sugar‐coat the material so that you do not hurt sensitivities involved?
And, finding answers to these questions are not easy. The lives of women are full of social
sanctions. Every second thing concerning them is a taboo. The moment they are conceived, they are
aborted. For example, 25 million women have gone missing from a country like India. (Anderson
2012). In some Asian societies, the families place a premium on boy’s education; girl’s education is
still considered a wasteful expenditure for a major section of society in India. In one survey, 23
percent of Indian school‐age girls dropped out of school when they reached puberty as their
menstruation is a taboo. ( George 2012). The taboos around menstruation in fact, plague a third of
the world’s population (Mollins 2013). As they grow up, they are ‘given away’ in marriage
(Kanyadaan or donation of the girl) causing their displa ement and high mobility. Numerous
incidences of domestic violence, marital rape, dowry deaths go unreported and are suppressed by
their own families including women who over the years have been conditioned to suffer in silence.
Will they reveal all this? Will they agree to get it published? Would they‐ the people , like to read it
and not place sanctions against you and your work– are some of the moot questions, one has to face
while conceptualizing a book on women’s lives
3. Selecting appropriate research methodology –‘Gender’ often intersects with race, ethnicity
and culture (Collins 2000) . Hence there is a need for using ’culturally appropriate research
methodology (Sosulski 2010). Since the subjects like ‘Gender’ happen to be so complex that it could
not be reduced to a few variables and since in one woman’s life, there could be layers of lives waiting
to be explored, it is the ‘qualitative methodology which makes sense.
4. Levels of analysis and writing – One could cover any one or multiple levels of analysis
depending on the time, resource and other constraints.
Source: Bernard and Ryan (201 , p. 129).
5. Research process – Surely, it is a gendered world out there. Unfortunately, it is not just men
but women too who have gender bias. In a country like India where the family ties still remain very
strong, the senior ladies of the household like mother in law make all major decisions about the
daughter in law. In such a scenario, getting material and interviewing young ladies of the house
becomes a major challenge. What and to what extent will ‘she’ reveal, what will be published,
whether it will be published et al , all become a major decision of the family who decides it on behalf
of the protagonist and thus a very difficult exercise . Further, in the first instance, most of the
women protagonists appear to be an open book promising full cooperation and support. But the
moment one starts digging deeper and asks difficult questions, they start playing hide and seek.
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