SEMINAR

​ ​TOPIC ON
"WOMEN HISTORY OF INDIA "
SUBJECT- WHY WOMEN'S HISTORY
GUIDED BY- ASST. PROF. SANKARSAN MALLIK
PRESENTED BY-ABINASH PRADHAN
PART-2 (2020-2021)
ROLL NO-HT0120

​P.G DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, BERHAMPUR UNIVERSITY

​BHANJA BIHAR,GANJAM
 ​INTRODUCTION
Women is the Important and Indissoluble part of society, both
are two side of a coin. The men and women are both equal Important
for formation and development of society. In our Indian society gives
more importance to men and their contribution because our society is
a men importance society. So the women history necessary for bring
equality in history and explain the contribution of women. Women
history mainly focus on work and contribution of women it have
written the fact of women's sacrifice dedication or work for society And
his family and how they were doing work for men and giving time to all
thing. the woman history is only thing that change invisible woman to
visible women. This paper is a small beginning on our part to clarify and
crystallized our own idea for what we mean by women's history. our
history writing has unfortunately relegated women to the background.
though most of the text books do have a chapter on women, often at
the end entitled position of women in the vedic, later Vedic, medieval
or modern period, This is in no way does justice to the role of women in
history. The writing of history has concentrated mainly on male
dominated activities like politics, war or diplomacy where women are
silent spectators. the Generally Accepted principle of patriarchal
society is that men work in the public domain and women are to be
restricted to the private, Domestic sphere, since it is the public domain
that is considered important women become more passive participants
in the historical process. There cannot be any doubt that is social
science which ignores and hence distorts The role of women is a
social science which can only give the picture of society as a whole.
Women also have a different experience with respect to consciousness,
depending on whether their work, their expression, their activity is
male-defined or woman- oriented. Women, like men, are indoctrinated
in a male-defined value system and conduct their lives accordingly.
Thus, colonial and early nineteenth-century female reformers directed
their activities into channels which were merely an extension of their
domestic concerns and traditional roles. They taught school, cared for
the poor, the sick, the aged. As their consciousness developed, they
turned their attention toward the needs of women. Becoming
woman-oriented, they began to "uplift" prostitutes, organize women for
abolition or temperance and sought to upgrade female education, but
only in order to equip women better for their traditional roles. The first
level at which historians, trained in traditional history, approach
women's history is by writing the history of "women worthies" or
"compensatory history."1 Who are the women missing from history?
Who are the women of achievement and what did they achieve? The
resulting history of "notable women" does not tell us much about those
activities in which most women engaged, nor does it tell us about the
significance of women's activities to society as a whole. The history of
notable women is the history of exceptional, even deviant women, and
does not describe the experience and history of the mass of women.
This insight is a refinement of an aware- ness of class differences in
history: Women of different classes have different histori- cal
experiences. To comprehend the full complexity of society at a given
stage of its development, it is essential to take account of such
differences. Some recent literature has dealt with marriage and divorce,
with educational oppor- tunities, and with the economic struggles of
working women. Much of recent work has been concerned with the
image of women and "woman's sphere," with the educational ideals of
society, the values to which women are indoctrinated, and with gender
role acculturation as seen in historical perspective. A separate field of
study has examined the ideals, values, and prescriptions concerning
sexuality, especially female sexuality. Ron Walters and Ben
Barker-Benfield has tended to confirm traditional stereotypes
concerning Victorian sexuality, the double standard, and the
subordinate position of women. Much of this material is based on the
study of such readily available sources as sermons, educational tracts,
women's magazines, and medical textbooks. The pitfall in such
interpretation, as Carl Degler has pointed out in his recent perceptive
article, is the tendency to confuse prescriptive literature with actual
behavior. In fact, what we are learning from most of these monographs
is not what women did, felt, or exper- ienced, but what men in the past
thought women should do. Charles Rosenberg, Carroll
Smith-Rosenberg, and Carl Degler have shown how to approach the
same ma- terial and interpret it from the new perspective of women's
history.3 They have sharply distinguished between prescription and
behavior, between myth and reality.The questions asked about the past
of women may demand interdisciplinary ap- proaches. They also may
demand broadly conceived group research projects that end up giving
functional answers; answers that deal not with slices of a given time or
society or period, but which instead deal with a functioning organism, a
functioning whole, the society in which both men and women live.
WHY IS NECESSARY WOMEN HISTORY?
Interest in women's history is of their recent origin. Our own
interest is generated out of a deep concern about women and their
problem in the present day.Given the current of the social interest, the
question may will be asked "why women's history", if as historians and
we are hopeful working towards recreation of a total picture, moving
away from a hitherto male and Elite perspective, then our submission
is that unless the history of women is studied and researched then we
are a afraid the picture shall continue to be a partial one.
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN HISTORY
The Women history writing started in 1960 on whole world. A.S
Altekar is the first historian, who have written women history. "position
of women in Hindu civilization" is the first women history book of India,
this book written by Anant Sadasiv Altekar ( A.S Altekar). Women's
history is the study of the role that women have played in history and
the methods required to do so Women are usually excluded and, when
mentioned, are usually portrayed in sex-stereotypical roles such as
wives, mothers, daughters, and mistresses.
POSITION OF WOMEN IN INDIAN SOCIETY
Women is the indissoluble part of indian civilization but many
social system and superstition less the right and freedom of women, In
prehistory period the people when they were Nomadic all women and
men were equal. Both gone to Haunting and collecting the food, but
then they were living one place permanently in sedentary, when the
women lived in home or cave or the men gone to out for collecting
food, in the prehistory period the women invention basket for storing
food, Then the women experiment new food like root, leaf or fruit of
different types tree for eating. Then the women experiment new food
like root, leaf or fruit of different types tree for eating. In rig vedic
period the womens were part and member of all types of social,
political, religious meeting and also part of War. In rig vedic period
bridegroom were saying to bride, " I pray to you accept me for our
good future and we shall friend till death ". Rig vedic period was golden
period for women. Then later vedic period many cruel rule and system
created, those had destroyed the freedom of women. Widows system,
child marriage, parda system sati system came to our society. Then in
modern india this cruel system lessed but the women didn't get their
freedom and right properly, and didn't get value of own contributions.
So the women necessitated, it was great change of indian women in
historical contributions.
WOMEN WRITER OF WOMEN HISTORY
women writer and historians changed the value of women in history
and given the place, those place they have deserve. Uma chakrabarti,
Bina manjudar, Rekha pande, Lata mani, Kameswari jhandyala, Devika
bhattacharya, Urbasi butania, Maitri krishna raj and tanika sarakar all
are the most important historians, who visible to women history. Divine
Sounds from the Heart-Singing Unfettered in their Own Voices: The
Bhakti Movement and its Women Saints, Devdasis in South India a
Journey from Sacred to a Profane Spaces, GENDER AND STRUCTURAL
VIOLENCE, Women and Society in India, Women and Science, The
Debate on Sati in Colonial India are some important women history
book of indian author.

CONCLUSION
For the recent past one can rely on the oral history to try and
understand the experience of women. this experiences may differ
based on particular, time place or class. cannot Denny that there is a
need to go beyond the Forms of Public Protected to look into the
intricate of daily life to look into what has been dismissed as women's
gossip and to identify both the strength and constraints of women's
live. The next stage may be to explore the possibility that what we call
women's history may actually be the study of a separate women's
culture. Such a culture would include not only the separate
occupations, status, experiences, and rituals of women but also their
consciousness, which internalizes patriarchal assumptions. In some
cases, it would include the tensions created in that culture between the
prescribed patriarchal assumptions and women's efforts to attain
autonomy and emancipation.
REFERENCE
Https://www.​researchgate.net ( Author -Rekha pande )
Https://www.​Blogs.stockton.edu
Https://www.​sudhoganga, inflibnet.ac.in
Https://www.​Eprints..lse.ac.uk
Https://www.​stsci.edu
Https://www.​Jstor.org