Volume 5 : Issue 1 (2018)

NINETEENTH CENTURY WOMEN’S EDUCATION IN INDIA: THEIR VOICES STRUGGLES

Women’s education has been a widely discussed subject on which much has been written. Historians would agree on the point that the last decades of the nineteenth century had become a ground for the debate on women’s education which became one of the agendas of social reforms. Speeches were delivered and essays were written on the type of education appropriate for women. How much education should be given to them? All of these led towards the discourse of nationalism on the one hand. On the other hand, feminist historiography studies the lives of women in the nineteenth century who struggled a lot for getting education and articulating themselves in the public domain. The paper studies the lives of five females - Rashsunderi Debi, Haimabati Sen, Kashibai Kanitkar, Ramabai Ranade and Rakhmabai and tries to understand their struggles and their voices.

Women’s education, Nineteenth Century, Desire, Feminist Historiography

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