The Island (Colombo)
6 November 2002 Features

Women's space?
by Cat's Eye

1.What prompts the formation of spaces that are designated women-only in any society?

2.What sorts of power structures can exist within and outside of these spaces?

3.Does one's symbolic distance from a position of influence necessitate a place of refuge or is there something inherent about women that lends itself to bonding?

Looking at spaces that are designated women-only across cultural  boundaries might, at one level, seem like a simple task. The notion  of female bonding, through common experiences such as childbirth,  domestic labour, friendships, or many other possible relationships  amongst women, is not an uncommon one worldwide. A varied landscape  of motivations prompts women to share common spaces with each other,  and these can range from voluntary affiliations to forced isolation.  What is in a space that exists outside the mainstream, and what sorts  of potential opportunities can it represent? This article will  explore two women's spaces and their respective capacity to transform  women's spaces when they are located in the larger society. The  women's college is an American phenomenon that dates back to a  relatively recent inception in the mid-1800s. Women's literature is  another kind of space that can represent a sort of refuge for women.  By examining these spaces as part of larger societal systems of power  that can either encourage or discourage them, we can come closer to  an approximation of their significance in women's lives. Whether it  assumes the form of a place of refuge, a utopia, or a prison, the  women-only space can become a telling symbol when it is considered in  concert with nationalism and the power of a state. In that vein, this  article will explore some of the possibilities for freedoms and  oppressions that are built into women's spaces.

In the US, women-only spaces have become rarities in the modern age.  Several remaining women's colleges, some of the few vestiges of this  tradition, were established in the mid-1800s. Initially limited to  white women, these institutions catered to the elite upper class that  wished to produce educated, refined women who would marry rich men  and therefore proliferate their privileged social stratum. As it  evolved, the women's college opened its doors to women of color and  became more focused upon sending females into careers in any number  of fields. Women's colleges in the US now boast their successes in  graduating women who climb the financial ladder and shatter glass  ceilings that society has built to restrict women. In the 1960s and  '70s, women's colleges became bastions of feminist thought during the  height of the Women's Movement. Many students and graduates sought to  pursue social activism and joined NGOs and other projects involved in  various social causes. Some of the first battered women's shelters to  exist in the US were established as a result of women's collective  organizing at certain women's colleges. As wonderful and liberating  as this tradition in women's education sounds, it is almost  nonexistent today in the US, as most women's colleges have succumbed  to the pressure to become co-educational and have accepted male  applicants.

What conditions might be causing the demise of the women's college,  and of women-only spaces in general in the US? Even the women's  colleges that do still exist seem to have once more evolved in the  face of larger societal trends. In the past, the educational focus of  many women's colleges weighed heavily in the direction of the  humanities and a liberal arts-based education. The few institutions  that remain have begun increasingly to shepherd students towards  concentration upon economics and other subjects that are thought to  improve the student's chances of getting a high-powered, high-paying  job upon graduation. Many women's colleges have been forced to accept  male applicants because they are committed to providing a liberal  arts education that does not necessary lead to top-salaried jobs.  These schools see their financial resources dwindling in the face of  some other prestigious schools, and they are forced to increase the  size of their student body.

Will the evolution of the women's college render it indistinguishable  from its mainstream co-educational peers? Is it sufficient to  describe the women's college as yet another cog in the American  consumer capitalist machine, devoid of meaning as a women's space?  No. Though patriarchal power structures may have initiated them, and  may still, to an arguable degree, propel them, women's colleges will  always be radical in the sense that they offer large numbers of women  the opportunity to live and think and learn together. Women do not  neccessarily present ideas that are different from those of their  male counterparts, but a distance away from male institutions can  allow a safe space for women to cultivate different identities that  might be stifled in public venues where they do not mirror  essentialist molds. It is dangerous to generalize that women's  colleges might represent spaces of greater cultural and ethnic  appreciation across boundaries, but ideally a shared women's space  would not subscribe to cultural delineations and prejudices that have  largely been generated and circulated by traditionally male  institutions. At best, a women's college would be a place where a  great diversity of opinions and worldviews could be shared without  threats of violence or strife.

Women's institutions should be working towards this ideal and away  from the types of hierarchical structures that have served to  marginalize them. Women's spaces constructed in this manner are sites  of resistance when we situate them within the larger societal  context. Women's colleges continue to exist as challenges to the  dominant paradigm, but they need to evolve continually in order to  realize that ideal.

Women's literature is another powerful avenue through which to resist  and subvert the common, expected ways in which society frames all  issues having to do with women. Women's spaces, one might argue, need  not necessarily exist under purely physical conditions. Female  writers create a space in which the depth and complexity of women's  lives and their interactions with others can be represented honestly  and fairly. Burdened by historical accounts, news media, politicians,  films, and other public forums that seek to essentialize and simplify  women's lives, many female writers have responded by forging a  platform from which they can speak their familiar experiences in  their own words, through literature. Urdu writer Ismat Chughtai is a  strong example of the importance of women's literature. Grappling  with conservatism in the Muslim communities in India and Pakistan,  Chughtai began writing at a time when women were not considered  acceptable as fiction writers (1940s). She dispensed with the  typically misrepresentative models of women in literature and crafted  often radical and always richly detailed portraits of women's spaces  in Indian Muslim homes. Chughtai very successfully molded spaces in  which women can speak outside the lines of history, which have  traditionally denied them any voice. Through her artful use of  humour, truth, and anger, Chughtai earns her keep as a sympathetic  sculptor of women's space in literature. Perhaps Chughtai's most  controversial and well-known piece of short fiction is 'Lihaaf', or 'The Quilt'. 'Lihaaf' is a tale told from the perspective of a young  girl that skillfully employs euphemism and satire to portray a living  situation between two women that Chughtai's audience would have  considered taboo. Through the childish ignorance of the narrator, the  reader is offered a well-crafted and distinct view of an isolated  matriarchal living situation within the confines of a patriarchal  household. Subtle power dynamics are drawn between the female  characters. By using the detached, unknowing observations of a child  to explore issues that are considered taboo, Chughtai offers herself  as a writer more freedom to illustrate the reality of the situation.  In addition, the child's reactions to the relationship before her are  not solely her own; she also enacts the conservative values of her  Muslim community as she judges the women involved. 'Lihaaf' is a  simple story whose meaning is complicated and layered by the manner  in which it is told. Through the microcosm of the matriarchal space,  it situates some of the depth of female opinions and experience in a  larger context.

Women's spaces are steadily becoming obsolete in modern society.  Women are sold the notion that their progress is measured by the  degree to which they can compete successfully in business and other  realms traditionally constituted as male spaces. A woman's freedom is  to be measured in the rupees or dollars she can earn or the upward  mobility she achieves. Do not misunderstand these statements as a  call for women to necessarily return to the realm that has been  constituted as traditionally female, the home. On the contrary, it is  time for women to fight for their own space wherever they are, to  learn from a history that has denied them, to resist the urge to  become quietly subsumed into male power structures. Instead, let them  carve out spaces, the room to define themselves rather than to be  falsely defined, in whatever it is that they do. Whether it be in  public or private discourses, whether the space be geographical,  literary, or even mental, it is pivotal that women maintain their own  developing ideas, questions, and criticisms on the events of the  larger society. It is important that this articulation be made by  women themselves, because otherwise the cycles of oppression will  repeat themselves and women's experiences will remain  misrepresentations at the margins of history.

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