Shashi Deshpande’s That Long Silence: A Reading In The Light of Indian Feminist Theory

Abstract

The feminist thought and the feminist movements in the west have had some influence on the women’s movement in developing countries like India. Yet feminism as it exists today in India has gone beyond its western counterpart. Although feminism as an organized movement made its appearance in India late in the 1970’s, it existed in spirit long before even the western feministic movement had begun. In the Indian context, several feminists have realized that the subject of women’s emancipation in India should not be reduced to the contradictions between man and women. The woman, in order to liberate herself and advance, needs to empower herself to confront different institutional structures and cultural practices related to patriarchal domination and control.