ABSTRACT
I now turn to Leslie’s critique of Mary Daly’s representation of sat±. Daly, a leading and controversial feminist, has mounted a formidable attack on received patriarchal structures. In her chapter “The Indian suttee” in Gyn/ Ecology, Daly sees Hindu women as victims of their religion and patriarchy (1984: 113-33). Although Leslie is in agreement with Daly’s main thesis that the act of sat±, whether voluntary or forced, “is an act of violence against women,” she challenges Daly’s view of the woman who becomes a sat±. Leslie remarks: “It is precisely this idea of the sat± as the apparent agent of her own destruction that I believe we need to confront” (1992: 180).
