Postcolonial Feminist Theory: The Case of India

Abstract

Feminism is a theory which emerged in the West as a result of the gender inequality women exposed and the inequal rights when compared to men. First, women struggled for their political rights and then their expectations changed and the perception of feminism has changed over the years. As the Western feminism has only protected the White women and ignored the differences among women. Third world countries, which were the colony of the Western countries for years, tried to reconstruct their own culture and their localness, interpreted feminism in a different way. The standardized woman which is accepted by the West ignores the ‘other women’ and degrades the problems of them only into the gender inequality. Postcolonial feminism emerged as a reaction to the standard feminist ideas. It desired to be a voice for the other women who are not Western and different from others. In this regard, India is the country where feminism has been interpreted in a different way. India is a country where the postcolonial feminist ideas were born. The aim of this article is to analyze the feminism and status of women in the Indian society in the context of postcolonial feminism by using the literature review method.