Indian Journal of Gender Studies

This paper contextualises the ongoing debate in India on menstrual leave and the need to integrate physiological differences into workplace policies. The effort has been to analyse different physiological constitutions in the workforce, various menstruation experiences, and current inequitable workplace policies and legal provisions. Also provided is an explanation of menstruation from the perspectives of Ayurveda and allopathy, as well as a presentation of medico-legal opinions. The impact policies have on workforce participation is examined in addition to the basic arguments associated with the debate. They are supplemented by the responses of employers and employees in the organised and unorganised sectors in India. Based on this analysis, some measures are suggested for inclusion in leave policies in both the organised and the unorganised sectors in India with the aim of achieving gender equity and gender diversity; they may also be appropriate in other countries that have similar cultural contexts and labour laws.

The present article analyses feminist foreign policies adopted by Sweden, Canada, France and Mexico to explore how they incorporate the Women and Peace Hypothesis and its application in the present Russia–Ukraine conflict. Of the seven countries that have adopted feminist foreign policies so far, the study selects the above four countries based on their systematic development of the policies once adopted. The study uses qualitative content analysis of both primary and secondary sources. Among primary sources, the study uses foreign-policy documents. It also relies on secondary literature developed around feminist foreign policy and the Women and Peace Hypothesis. The study suggests that Sweden and Canada have strongly incorporated the Women and Peace Hypothesis into their policies. France and Mexico, along with the participation of women in the peace process, give more importance to other aspects of women’s empowerment, such as the promotion of gender equality. In the present scenario, none of these countries stresses on women’s participation in the negotiation to end the ongoing Russia–Ukraine conflict. This study encourages policymakers to involve women in the peace process for an inclusive, peaceful and prosperous world.

Stealthing is the surreptitious removal of a condom during sexual intercourse which affects the consent of the victim. Analysing the current academic debate around stealthing, this paper deliberates on the different methods utilised by scholars to prove the vitiation of consent to sexual intercourse after condom removal. Based on the pioneering work on this subject, the three primary criteria discussed are risk, literal fact and deception. The Indian courts’ understanding of consent could prove to be helpful to the global debate on the flaws in the three approaches. This paper concludes that such jurisprudence will significantly benefit from the current understanding of consent in India, especially in the case of ‘rape by deception’. Further research into the subject of non-consensual condom removal (NCCR) and consent itself is imperative.

Motherhood is a life-changing event. The experience of motherhood among middle-class married Indian women is explored in this qualitative study. The aim of this study was to understand ‘how’ motherhood is incorporated into identity within the context of competing discourses of patriarchy vis-à-vis modernism and feminism. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 urban women, and the data were analysed using thematic analysis. The following themes were identified: roles as contributing to identity, role conflict, social support and growth. From the Eriksonian perspective, motherhood is viewed as a period of psycho-social crises in which the original identity goes through a process of transformation to emerge anew. Implications of an integrated identity for the well-being of mothers are discussed.

Adikasu vendors are a distinct category of street vendors. Drawing on a qualitative study of women adikasu vendors in the Goubert Market area of Puducherry, this article explores questions pertaining to their identity, the nature of work and the meanings associated with their occupied sites. The authors show that the women adikasu vendors inhabit a liminal space between legality and illegality in a semi-formalised market structure. They are rendered illegitimate because they are not formally recognised by the municipal corporation, but they are simultaneously regulated because they are asked to pay a daily adikasu (or base fee) of ₹10 to the corporation for occupying a vending site in the market. The precarity of the women adikasu vendors is caused by the simultaneous certainty and uncertainty they face as they seek a living while maintaining the dignity of their work.

Neethi P and Anant Kamath. Urban Undesirables: City Transition and Street-Based Sex Work in Bangalore (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 211 pages, ₹895, $99.99. ISBN 978-1-009-18021.

Emily Dumler-Winckler. Modern Virtue: Mary Wollstonecraft and a Tradition of Dissent (Oxford University Press, 2022), 375 pages, GBR 47.99 (Hardbound). ISBN 978-0-19-763209-3.

Rana Safvi, Tears of the Begums: Stories of Survivors of the Uprising of 1857 (translated from the Urdu), (Hachette India, 2022), 244 pp. ₹499. ISBN: 978-9-3937-0114-5 (Paperback).

Asha Sahay Choudhry (Translated by Tanvi Srivastava), The War Diary of Asha-san: From Tokyo to Netaji’s Indian National Army (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2022), 224 pp., ₹599, ISBN: 978-93-19-5629-140-9 (Hardback).