Dayabati Roy
Dayabati Roy is a former faculty member of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology in the University of Helsinki, Finland. She was an ICSSR Fellow in the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. She worked as a Post Doctoral Fellow in the department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She taught sociology at the University and Burdwan and the Jadavpur University before joining the University of Helsinki, Finland in 2018. Dayabati Roy has published books by the Cambridge University Press and the Routledge and several research articles in peer-reviewed journals.
Address: Kolkata
Address: Kolkata
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Papers by Dayabati Roy
Access, Attainment and Empowerment?
Dayabati Roy
Abstract: How do gender relations transform as a consequence of implementation of fifty percent reservation for women in all tiers of Panchayats in rural areas of contemporary West Bengal? Do the implementations of new enactments and policies advance the cause of
women’s empowerment and subsequently deliver gender justices in the rural hinterlands? Drawing upon the ethnographic findings originated from the field visits to the 18 villages of 18 districts in West Bengal, this research reveals that though the recent policy reforms regarding the women ‘empowerment’ have opened up newer political spaces for the women
in rural areas, the women find a little opportunity to utilize these spaces in favour of their lives and livelihoods due to some intrinsic cultural and structural constraints in the social system. As consequences of policy actions, this essay states, the gender inequality prevalent in rural societies takes new shapes and set new challenges before the policy makers as well as the empowerment protagonists. Following the line of Majumdar’s arguments (2011), this research explains why ‘the policy talks on gender equality’ and women’s employment has to “extend beyond” the question of women’s access to local governance. This essay emphasizes rather on women’s attainment in governance, and proposes a public pledge for greater action to bring consistently the issues of gender justice to the table.
Access, Attainment and Empowerment?
Dayabati Roy
Abstract: How do gender relations transform as a consequence of implementation of fifty percent reservation for women in all tiers of Panchayats in rural areas of contemporary West Bengal? Do the implementations of new enactments and policies advance the cause of
women’s empowerment and subsequently deliver gender justices in the rural hinterlands? Drawing upon the ethnographic findings originated from the field visits to the 18 villages of 18 districts in West Bengal, this research reveals that though the recent policy reforms regarding the women ‘empowerment’ have opened up newer political spaces for the women
in rural areas, the women find a little opportunity to utilize these spaces in favour of their lives and livelihoods due to some intrinsic cultural and structural constraints in the social system. As consequences of policy actions, this essay states, the gender inequality prevalent in rural societies takes new shapes and set new challenges before the policy makers as well as the empowerment protagonists. Following the line of Majumdar’s arguments (2011), this research explains why ‘the policy talks on gender equality’ and women’s employment has to “extend beyond” the question of women’s access to local governance. This essay emphasizes rather on women’s attainment in governance, and proposes a public pledge for greater action to bring consistently the issues of gender justice to the table.
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