Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Gender and the Law in South Asia Law: A Vehicle for Emancipation or a Victim of Identity Politics?

Gender and the Law in South Asia Law: A Vehicle for Emancipation or a Victim of Identity Politics? Ambika Satkunanathan* Gender and the Law in South Asia Law: A Vehicle for Emancipation or a Victim of Identity Politics? I. Introduction In South Asia, the law has been used by women’s movements to combat discrimina- tion against women, promote their rights, and improve their status based on belief in the emancipatory nature of the law. In this region in particular, campaigns and movements for change through law reform have, to a great extent, focused on issues that have been traditionally relegated to the private sphere, such as violence against women and family law. Whereas other issues such as equal pay, property rights, and caste and class discrimination have attracted diff erent levels of eff ort and engagement in diff erent countries in the region. After relying on legal reform to bring about social change for more than two decades, advocates, activists, and scholars are reexamining the potential of the law to bring about substantive change and its ability to challenge dominant norms on which the law is founded; norms which are patriarchal and con- tain inherent class, caste, and religious biases. W hile we must acknowledge the usefulness of the rights discourse and law reform, we have to http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png European Yearbook of Minority Issues Online Brill

Gender and the Law in South Asia Law: A Vehicle for Emancipation or a Victim of Identity Politics?

Download PDF
13 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/gender-and-the-law-in-south-asia-law-a-vehicle-for-emancipation-or-a-b8X10B0yyb
Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
eISSN
2211-6117
DOI
10.1163/22116117-90001678
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Ambika Satkunanathan* Gender and the Law in South Asia Law: A Vehicle for Emancipation or a Victim of Identity Politics? I. Introduction In South Asia, the law has been used by women’s movements to combat discrimina- tion against women, promote their rights, and improve their status based on belief in the emancipatory nature of the law. In this region in particular, campaigns and movements for change through law reform have, to a great extent, focused on issues that have been traditionally relegated to the private sphere, such as violence against women and family law. Whereas other issues such as equal pay, property rights, and caste and class discrimination have attracted diff erent levels of eff ort and engagement in diff erent countries in the region. After relying on legal reform to bring about social change for more than two decades, advocates, activists, and scholars are reexamining the potential of the law to bring about substantive change and its ability to challenge dominant norms on which the law is founded; norms which are patriarchal and con- tain inherent class, caste, and religious biases. W hile we must acknowledge the usefulness of the rights discourse and law reform, we have to

Journal

European Yearbook of Minority Issues Online – Brill

Published: Feb 9, 2011

There are no references for this article.