Practice of Assertive Careerism: Identifying the Life world of ‘Modern’ Indian Woman

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science

© 2018 by SSRG - IJHSS Journal

Volume 5 Issue 3

Year of Publication : 2018

Authors : Bharti Sehta

10.14445/23942703/IJHSS-V5I3P101

How to Cite?

Bharti Sehta, "Practice of Assertive Careerism: Identifying the Life world of ‘Modern’ Indian Woman," SSRG International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, vol. 5,  no. 3, pp. 1-3, 2018. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.14445/23942703/IJHSS-V5I3P101

Abstract:

How is everyday life-world1 of Modern Indian Women? Let’s understand it through life world of a girl newly settled in New Delhi. Chitra, twenty-five year’s old - middle class girl, from a city of Bihar has come to study in New Delhi. She has chosen a professional course which assures her employment. Living in Delhi, her everyday activity has changed. In hometown, she was a homely girl, wearing three piece salwar-kurta- chunni (Indian traditional dress). She was submissive in attitude who used to indulge in household activities too. Now, she wants to become a modern woman. The symbol of modern identity for Chitra are - modern outfits, western low waist jeans with short tops, high heels, high eyebrows and chemically masked face. Basically, there is a change in her culture2 manifested in her dressing sense, body language and life style as such. She is having only one dream in life that is her own career/job/employment. To achieve her dream, she is ready to use every means. Body is her capital - physical maintenance and figure consciousness occupy in her all thinking, making achievement of career as ‘the value’ of life that gives her success, security and happiness. That is what gives her identity in life. She realises always that there is no meaning of her education if she is not pursuing ‘career’ anyhow.

Keywords:

Lifeworld, Modern women, Feminism, Culture.

References:

1] The sociological work of Alfred Schutz provides a rich and meticulously developed conceptual vocabulary with which to discuss what he called ‘the everyday life-world’. Schutz defines that ‘the region of reality in which man can engage himself and which he can change while he operates in it by means of his animate organism’. Schutz, Alfred, and Luckmann, Thomas (1973) The structures of the life-world,.Evanston, IL: North-Western University Press, p.3. 
[2] Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. However, the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses: Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture, an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning, the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization, or group. 
[3] Elizabeth V. Spelman nessential Woman, I87,I 988. 
[4] Debor ah L. Rhode Feminism and the State, Harvard Law Review 1994 Vol. 107, No. 6, pp. 1181-1208. 
[5] Ibid. 
[6] Gandhi Mahatma on education, http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-gand.htm, Link: Gandhi On Education: excellent collection of quotes from the National Council for Teacher Education. 
[7] Ong A., Colonialism and Modernity: Feminists Representation of Women In Non Western Societies, Inscriptions,3/4, 1988, p.83.