Nation and Its Gender

Malavika Kasturi Gender and Nation by N Yuval-Davis; Sage Publications, London, 1997;
'FEMINIST nationalism' has increasingly occupied a central place in gender debates, for, as Lois West argues, women are, ''...struggling to reconceptualise their relationships to states, nations and social movements as activists central to the debate, not as passive recipients'' [West 1997:xiii]. The relocation of ethnicity, nationhood and citizenship within this focus has resulted in highlighting important and marginalised aspects of these issues. The publication of Kumari Jayawardena's path- breaking text in 1986, which argued that feminism, far from being imported into the 'third world' from the west, developed in tandem with national liberation movements in different parts of the globe, including south Asia, established significant connections between these larger questions and the history of colonialism [Jaya- wardena 1986]. Brought out as part of a series on theory, culture and society, Yuval- Davis' analysis seeks; to engage with these issues, to understand the linkages between 'nationalist projects' and women's oppression.