Gender Sensitisation, Women Empowerment and Distance Education: History, Society and Culture

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From the much discussed idea of women as subjects of 'double colonisation' through debates and legislations on women's rights, psycho-socio-economic spectrums, modes of representation and even current day activism to Gloria Steinem's proposition of looking upon women's struggle for equality as being 'the collective efforts of all who care about human rights' - this volume titled Gender Sensitisation, Women Empowerment and Distance Education: History, Society and Culture is an attempt to contain it all. Conceived as a post event publication after the rave attention received by the Workshop on 'Gender Sensitisation and Women Empowerment: Issues and Challenges' conducted by the Women's Harassment Prevention Cell (WHPC) of NSOU on February 27, 2013; this edited and peer reviewed volume compiles Papers and interactions from scholars across the board on a wide range of issues relating to the Gender question within the broadest contours of society. The editors hope that this will be just the beginnings of a long encore...

Kajal De is Professor of Mathematics and presently the Director, School of Sciences of Netaji Subhas Open University. After graduation with first class from Presidency College, Kolkata, she did her master's, M.Phil (ranked first) and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Calcutta. Her areas of research are Information Theory, Operations Research, Graph theory and some branches of Computer Science. She has authored a number of research papers in reputed peer- reviewed international journals. She served a long span of about fifteen years at Vidyasagar University before joining NSOU eight years back. She was the chairperson of Women Harassment Redressal Cell of Vidyasagar University, and is now the Chairperson of Women Harassment Prevention Cell (WHPC) of Netaji Subhas Open University.

Chandan Basu is at present Assistant Professor of History in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Netaji Subhas Open University. He did his Ph.D. in the Department of History, Jadavpur University on the development of left ideology and politics in West Bengal between 1947 and 1970. He is currently working on the social history of the left politics in West Bengal in post-colonial era. His past publications include The Making of the Left Ideology in West Bengal: Culture, Political Economy, Revolution, 1947-1970 (Delhi: 2009) apart from a number of papers published in different reputed referred journals. His forthcoming publication is Radical Ideology and 'Controlled Politics: CPI and the History of West Bengal, 1947-1964 (Kolkata: 2014). He is also a member of the Women Harassment Prevention Cell (WHPC).

Srideep Mukherjee is Assistant Professor of English in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Netaji Subhas Open University. His M.Phil dissertation from Rabindra Bharati University was on 'Reading Vijay Tendulkar: Gender and Violence', presently he is pursuing his Ph.D from DEOMEL, VBU on 'Representations of the Dalit in Select Indian Drama in English and in English Translations from Tagore to Karnad. His areas of interest include New Literatures, Postcolonial Theory, Culture Studies and Literary Theory.

The growing global awareness in the struggle for the development of libertarian philosophy of women is the basic thrust behind the present volume. It is a collective effort of addressing the women question. The essays of the present volume have been carefully selected to explore not only the different aspects of the recovery of an independent gendered self from the control of patriarchy; they attempt to integrate the question of women liberation with the notion of gender sensitization and transformative role of education, especially the open and distance mode of teaching-learning process. It is an undeniable fact that the women liberation movement gained a new momentum since the decades of 1970s, with the publication of 'Towards Equality'. It became clear after three decades of the nation's independence that majority of women had to live with the status of second class citizens, and were faced with formidable challenges in expressing their creativity and capability independently. Consequently, social scientists and policy-makers have come to take increasing cognizance of the heterogeneity of issues related both to the liberty of women and their gaining coequal status as citizens of an independent nation. The rapid integration of the Indian economy with the global capitalist forces in the decades of 1990s made the situation more complex. It is still not clear whether the women became comparatively more capable than the past after the opening of the economy, or if theirs' has been an even more staggered growth story coupled with newer complexities. Indeed much more orchestrated and interdisciplinary research is required to assess the differential impact of the liberalization of the Indian economy since the 1990's.