India’s Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) was founded in 1972 by Ela Bhatt, a groundbreaking woman lawyer, the SEWA organises and provides credit, health insurance, pensions and other essential safety net services to hundreds of thousands of self-employed Indian women. There is a nice article in the New York Times/International Herald Tribune about it, well worth reading.
I only wish they had chosen a less sexist headline than: A hand that lift’s India’s downtrodden women. They aren’t ‘downtrodden women’, they are workers; and SEWA isn’t a charity, it’s a trade union. The NYT would never say the Teamsters were ‘lifting America’s downtrodden men’ because that would be patronising. They should show the same respect to women.
May 5th, 2010
1 Comment at "SEWA—Feminist Action in India"
SEWA is an excellent organisation, and I’m glad to see their work being highlighted. But I agree, what a patronising (and misleading) title. The phrase ‘India’s downtrodden women’ smacks of sexism and orientalism.
I’m disappointed to see that sort of language from the NYT, but not surprised that it’s out there. Even in circles that ought very much to know better, I find the discourse around women and development issues is very much of the ‘pity the helpless victims’ type. This is especially unfortunate when refering to programmes like SEWA that are in fact mostly owned by the very women they serve. To portray their work as hand-outs is to trivialise the very real gains they’ve made and disrespect the women who have worked to help themselves and each other in the face of tough odds.
Thanks for bringing this up.
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