Rights, Education, and Dalit Women’s Empowerment: Jotiba Phule and B.R. Ambedkar’s fashioning of feminist technologies in Colonial Western India

In her paper based on a chapter of her forthcoming book Double Discrimination: Being a Dalit and a Woman in the Education system of India, Dr. Shailaja Paik discusses the complicated and intersecting processes of education, caste, community, gender, and sexuality. She centers on Phule and Ambedkar’s role as feminists, who were pioneers in the struggle for women’s education, rights, and status, both within the community and wider society.

Shailaja Paik is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Cincinatti. She received her PhD in History from Warwick University, in the United Kingdom and has published articles in journals such as the Journal of Women’s History, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Economic and Political Weekly and the Indian Journal of Gender Studies. Her research interests encompass modern South Asia, Dalit Studies, Women, Gender and Feminism, Social and Political movements, Oral history, and Caste and Race. Based on her dissertation research, Shailaja is currently preparing a book manuscript which uses the lens of education to examine the social and cultural history of Dalit women in Maharashtra (Western India), from 1930 to1990.