Gendered Embodiments: Mapping the Body-Politic of the Raped Woman and the Nation in Bangladesh
Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: There has been much academic work outlining the complex links between women and the nation. Women provide legitimacy to the political projects of the nation in particular social and historical contexts. This article focuses on the gendered symbolization of the nation through the rhetoric of the ‘motherland’ and the manipulation of this rhetoric in the context of national struggle in Bangladesh. I show the ways in which the visual representation of this ‘motherland’ as fertile countryside, and its idealization primarily through rural landscapes has enabled a crystallization of essentialist gender roles for women. This article is particularly interested in how these images had to be reconciled with the subjectivities of women raped during the Bangladesh Liberation War ( Muktijuddho) and the role of the aestheticizing sensibilities of Bangladesh's middle class in that process.
Source: Feminist Review
Author: Nayanika Mookherjee
Institutions: British Academy, Lancaster University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4240477369