The Polarization Of Women In Literature

History of mankind have always been governed by male dominated society. Be it in ethos of mythological history or in the ethnographic books of Charles Darwin ' On the origin of species ' , man has been exalted as primary worker holding the central importance in the working of the world. This lead to polarization of society into two worlds of primary - secondary, superior - inferior, man - woman. The polarization thus divided the roles and work of the two world 's and ensured to follow the them respectively. The one world ruled , the other suffered and eventually got accustomed to it.

The primary , superior world was tagged to man and the woman was tagged as the secondary inferior object of world which marked the borderline of gender discrimination.

Our dharamshastras too contain anti womenism which continued to shape popular belief about the nature and role of women in the society. The janabais, Mirabais in our literature are viewed as victims who dared to speak out and their writings are of feminist consciousness. Janabai describes the double injustice of being a woman and a sudra whereas Mirabais rebelled against restrictions to became a devotee of

Indu experiences herself as shadow of the female self and that to be of negative object. Women like Indu can neither express themselves nor take decisions for themselves. They can neither love or hate but have to be content with “the gift of silence” that institution of marriage has given them. The soft , humble and docile Indu drastically got transformed as a bold , challenging , conscious and rebellious woman. She resigns her job, thus challenging the male authority , hierarchy. Her self discovery is the frightening vision of the feminine struggle for ‘selfhood’ for achiving harmony and satiety. She surmounts her emotional upheaval and decides to lead a meaningful life with her husband. The home she had earlier discarded becomes the place of refuge , of solace and consolation. Indu , a journalist in Roots And Shadows finds her job very routine and unsatisfactory. The editor wants her to write what is acceptable to the public but not what she desires to write. She is unhappy with her career as it forces her to be false to herself. And , Jayanat, her husband, advises her to compromise. But she finds it difficult to compromise and decides to resign her job. Jayant firmly disapproves of any such move and Indu helplessly continues in the same job, even after her dislike of