ABSTRACT

In India, as in various parts of “the Third World, ” the struggle for women’s emancipation was expediently connected to an anti-colonial, nationalist struggle. After Independence was won, militant women found themselves, typically, back in “normal” subordinate roles and came to recognize the dangers of conflating national liberation with women’s liberation. The Independence movement that Gandhi led conforms to this familiar pattern of mobilizing and then subordinating women. But whereas other liberation struggles invited women to fight alongside men, Gandhi enjoined Indian men and women to engage in acts of passive resistance which feminized the usually masculinist struggle against the colo­ nizer. Who more than women, used to maneuvering patiently through patriar­ chal authority, could offer better models of passive resistance?