Category Archives: Indian Journal of Gender Studies

Workplace Bullying: The Problem That (Still) Has No Name

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Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Volume 30, Issue 3, Page 360-373, October 2023.
The article examines how workplace bullying of women employees tends to be unacknowledged and ignored because of the gap between statutory provisions and the selective policies and practices of individual organisations. The study on which this article is based found that there are disjunctures between state laws and organisational policies and that there is poor implementation of statutes that provide protection to women against bullying and harassment. It should therefore be mandatory for organisations to follow state laws. Further, to fully protect women employees at their workplaces it is necessary to explicitly follow rules for the prevention and redressal of bullying and harassment even of a non-sexual nature.

Hijab Protests and Beyond: The State of Women’s Rights in Iran

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Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Volume 30, Issue 3, Page 350-359, October 2023.
This essay examines the protests and movements of Iranian women, focusing on the main themes and issues that have emerged over the past few years. It discusses current protests with women at the vanguard, the progress and setbacks in their feminist struggles, and the present status of women’s rights and the Iranian women’s movement. In addition, it examines the Iranian government’s and society’s responses to the protests and movements by Iranian women, leading to an appreciation of their historical context, enduring inequalities, and future prospects.

Population Control and Eugenics: Dhanvanthi Rama Rau and Margaret Sanger in the Making of India’s Family Planning Programme, 1930s–1960s

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Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Volume 30, Issue 3, Page 330-349, October 2023.
This article explores the contribution of two pioneering women, Dhanvanthi Rama Rau and Margaret Sanger in shaping the official Family Planning Programme (FPP) of India. Rau, popularly known as the ‘Mother of India’s Family Planning’, was at the forefront of the debates on birth control. From the early twentieth century, Rau was in correspondence with Margaret Sanger—eugenist and the messiah of medicalised birth control from the United States of America (USA). Based on archival collections from various libraries in India and the USA, this article attempts to explore the concerns of Rau and Sanger in raising questions about population control and family planning in India. The concern of improving the health of mothers and children was, for them, a scaffolding on which to build the agenda of population control. As their advocacy of contraception was shaped by eugenic and neo-Malthusian ideas, they were successful in institutionalising a programme of family planning that called for an immediate reduction in the birth rate. This was to be achieved through gendered population control policies and practices.