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Showing posts from August, 1998

Pune Revisited: Enron, Bombs and Rural Women

Sushma Joshi August 15, 1998, The Kathmandu Post, republished in the Nepal Digest As the lights of Bombay flashes by the windows of the taxi, the man behind me inquires: What conference are you attending? I try to conceptualize an answer that will be comprehensible to him. I am going to the Eight National Conference of Women's Studies in Pune, I say. I see him struggling with this new concept: a young woman involved in the workforce in a way that he cannot envision. A young South Asian woman travelling alone to attend a conference. And what does this conference discuss, he asks politely. You talk about women's status? Empowerment? Well, it's a little bit more complex than that, I answer. We are going to be talking about issues of livelihood, ecology, representations, Structural Adjustment Policies, the New Liberal Economic Policy. "Oh, you mean Enron." He says, his friendly demeanour changing to hostility. "Those feminists stopped the Enron project