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Gender and the Contestations of the Public

This module discusses the gendered contestations over the public, both intheoretical and in historical terms. It primarily focuses upon the distinction of the publicand the private which is mobilised in the ordering of gender. The last part of the moduleis a longish activity linked to the emerging work on urban space and gender, where thequestions of the public and the private seem to be played out in complex forms.We can identify the significant role played by notion of the public along with itsbinary opposite private, if we consider this as an everyday issue – one that organises theeveryday. Let us consider this: We live at a time when a number of middle class womenare out of their houses to work or to study or just hanging out. As far as women fromlower classes and lower castes are concerned, they have been occupying the spacesoutsides the domestic for a long time. Even then it is evident that there is a difference inthe way men and women

occupy the space of the public

. To begin with, this module,following from the discussions of gender in earlier modules, will suggest that there isnothing ‘natural’ about this difference. It is not that there is something innate in menthat allow them to occupy the public more comfortably than women. Surely, theincidents of violence that women face in the public are well documented. But we need tonote that when we are discussing the difference in the way women occupy the public, itis not just violence that is at issue as we know for a fact that violence on women happensin the private sphere too. At one level, there is an experiential tangibility to thisdifference and on the other it remains something elusive as far as language is concerned.It is also important to note that the experiences of both men and women in the public arenot uniform among them, nor is it historically constant. The module is an attempt tothink of the ways in which one can understand this difference. It is possible that we mayarrive at tentative reasons for the absence of a language to talk about this difference inthe course of this discussion.When we talk about the contests over the public, the first question to ask is of thenotion of the

public

itself. How do we understand this concept? In attempting tounderstand the concept of the public, we need to keep in mind an important issue. This

is the fact that the idea of a public, often but not exclusively in opposition to the

private

is used by us in everyday speech.

Activity 1:

The students should use their various language competencies to list out the word(s) usedin their own languages (i.e. other than English) to denote the idea of the public.b.The students could think of objects, ideas, institutions that they think form the public inour contexts. What are the spaces of the private, then?

It can be argued that the notion of the public is used mainly in two different ways.1.When we discusses institutions as public spaces.2.When we discuss how individuals organise their lives in terms of the public andthe private.Let us discuss these ideas one by one before we discuss the relationship between thepublic and notions of gender.

The spatial understanding of the public

List out the institutions that were identified as the public in the exercise

.This idea of the public is derived from the history of modern Europe where in the late18

century or so, it has been argued, developed a domain that negotiated between thesphere of the private and the emerging democratic (or sometimes other forms) states.The German theorist Jurgen Habermas calls it the ‘bourgeoisie public sphere’. In hisformulation it was the possibility of modern forms of associations like the debatingclubs, literary forums, and coffee clubs and so on where the public sphere emerged. Heargues that it was the development of print culture, especially the rise of magazines thatwas instrumental in the development of the public sphere. The magazine cultureallowed for individuals to directly respond to state policies and to intervene in thefunctioning of the emerging polity. Unlike an earlier period where the monarch ruledhis subjects in a unidirectional manner, the development of the public sphere allowedfor an active ‘public’ participation in matters of governance. This argument, presentedhere in a simplified manner, has been a matter of debate for a while now. Even whilethis is the case, there are ways in which our understanding of the public sphere oftengoes to this formulation. Like Habermas, we imagine the public sphere to be a domain

where the entry is guaranteed to all, irrespective of his class, caste gender or otheridentities. Do note that we have underlined the word ‘guaranteed’ in the above sentence.This is because the idea is not that people of all classes and both the genders wereactually participants of the deliberations of the public sphere in the context that isanalysed by Habermas. The idea is that universal participation is a guarantee, an idealnot necessarily one that is realised. It was indeed the case that working class populationsand women were excluded from the ‘bourgeoisie public sphere’.What is the use of the arguments put forth by Habermas for the discussion of ourcontext? For one we need to recognise that most understanding of the public sphere inIndia (as wit other contexts) still work with this premise. Thus for example, thediscussion of politics in Kerala will take the role played by libraries and reading roomsin producing a political public. Examples like that of the beedi workers in North Keralawhere one of the workers in a group is compensated by the others for readingnewspapers aloud for their benefit is pointed out. We still think of the streets, coffeehouses, libraries, educational institutions, commercial establishments as the publicsphere. According to a number of scholars of cinema in India, cinema halls wereimportant spaces of the emerging public sphere from the early 20

century where casteidentities ceased to be definitive markers of difference. But as we know, like in the caseof the Habermasian public sphere, the cinema theatres did introduce a differentiation onthe basis of class.During a riot situation, the media reports often talk about the destruction of

public

property. Here public property, as opposed to private property, is understood as thoseinstitutions and objects that are of common ownership, over which all citizens have aclaim. Another instance where this idea of the public emerges is when one talks aboutsomeone as a ‘public’ person as opposed to others.

Activity 2:Make lists of public spaces, things we name as public property and public persons. Think of corresponding institutions, objects people who cannot be thought of as within an idea of the public.

A point to be noted here is that when we discuss the public, it is assumed withinthe frame of the nation, the exemplar member of the public is imagined to be a citizen,

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Gender and the Contestations of the Public

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Category:	School Work > Essays & Theses
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Upload Date:	03/26/2009
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