Feminine Individuality
When we talk about individuality general statements about developing individuality may not address the specific problems and constraints faced by women. Acquiring individuality has a lot to do with freedom and capacity for independent initiative which are out of the reach of women folk in many conservative countries.
Therefore the basic requirements for women to develop individuality are the right to education and the right to employment and income. In many Muslim countries women are discouraged from attending schools and this is very much true of countries like Afghanistan where fundamentalist parties like Taliban have negative attitudes towards female education. In many Western countries and many developing countries in Asia and Africa educated women seeking employment and obtaining their own personal income has become the norm. They have also made inroads into politics which has been traditionally a male bastion and we have Golda Meir of Israel, Margaret Thatcher of U.K. and Sheik Hasina of Bangladesh as proof of this claim.
Changing social trends are also giving women the freedom to develop their individuality. Before 1970 many a daughter-in-law in India lived under the domination of the Mother-in-law and hardly had any freedom to act independently. She obeyed the instructions of the mother-in-law to the letter and so where is the question of developing any individuality. If at all she had any individuality she had to suppress it totally so as to be in the good books of the senior lady. But now joint families are breaking up and nuclear families have increased in numbers and so married women have a lot more freedom of choice now and they can have their own outlook upon life and choose among many options before them regarding jobs, children education, family expenses and interior decoration etc.
So socially speaking the right climate has been provided for women to develop their individuality by giving them the right to education, job, income and liberation from the domination of the mother-in-law. Beyond this point it is up to women to come forward to consider weaning themselves from their traditional roles as wives and mothers if they are to develop any meaningful individuality. Many women become wives and mothers simply to conform with the expectations of the family and society around them and not really because that is what they want. Girls who see another woman they know is not really happy with her marriage develop an aversion to married life fearing the same unhappiness will visit them if they get married also. But they are not bold enough to assert their choice in this matter and declare their intention to be free of marriage bonds. So a good number of them simply submit to their parental pressure and become married women and find the same unhappiness descending on them also. So in such a situation a woman who feels marriage won’t suit her will be considered an individual if she puts her foot down and resists parental pressure and manages to remain unmarried as long as she wishes.
Many women are also quite happy to submit to the authority of the husband and let him decide what is good for them. According to the divine mother this joy of submission is a weakness from the point of view of individuality and must be given up by women if they are to stand on their own legs. Child bearing is also a powerful physical urge with many women and even many women with higher spiritual aspirations put them aside for the joy of bearing children. This submission to the physical urge has to be conquered if women are to gain any worthwhile individuality.
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Individuality
wish still to be on this project and reiterate my points on the connection of individuality with socio-cultural context hence the diffrences that may influnce the uniquenes based on creativity and maintenance of specifities through the years as well as the different individuality of female in relation to male individuality which comes from the view towards the future that all women have in focusing towards future generations. This focus on future generations bases womens individuality.
Eleonora Barbieri Masini
Feminine Individuality
I appreciate people's views about women. But note too that there is a voluminous, complex and nuanced literature on gender and gender relations, including the inflections of gender in different social and cultural settings. It is important to acknowledge this, when we offer commentary on such issues ... and what is important, everywhere (including US, see comment below) is that notwithstanding this understanding of the way in which gender has served to control and exclude, still women everywhere are excluded from much decision making, access topower and opportunity. But many more people are social excluded, on the basis of multiple inequalities and oppressive structures (class, poverty, age, religion, ethnicity etc).
Lenore
Mona Lisa Smile and Female Individuality
A very insightful article from Ashok Natarajan.
In fact, we see a microcosm of the inner debate women have been going though in the West in the last half century to express their individuality in the US film 'Mona Lisa Smile'. That transition is captured very succinnctly in this profound analysis, in which the author states at the outset:
"The film realistically depicts the process of social development, described in Theory of Social Development, with regard to the transition of American women from social character to social individuality. It brings into clear focus the role of the pioneering individual in breaking new grounds, the organized opposition and resistance of the conservative orthodoxy, which view the progress as a retrograde step, the factors leading to a change in attitude, and early stages of imitation as the new behavior acquires greater social approval."