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Flight from the WombMothers and Daughters in Indian Chick Lit

Flight from the WombMothers and Daughters in Indian Chick Lit Although chick lit, epitomized by novels such as Bridget Jones’s Diary, has been analyzed by feminist critics as an example of postfeminist culture, the transnational spread of the genre has resulted in transformations that invite fresh consideration. In the Indian context, chick lit emerged in the aftermath of economic liberalization, contributing to the configuration of a new feminine subjectivity—“the single woman in the city.” This article argues that the discourse of singleness in Indian chick lit is deployed not so much to solve the problem of singleness through marriage but to resolve the tension between the demands of “Indian tradition” on middle-class young women and their desire for a selfhood inflected by neoliberal discourses of autonomy. This dichotomy is symbolized in the novels in the tension between mothers and daughters and plays out primarily across the domains of choice of spouse, food, and dress. While tradition and modernity are conceptualized as binaries, the single women in these novels seem to be wrestling with a way of articulating a selfhood without having to pick a side. In their refusal to conform to ideas of Indian selfhood wherein individualism is circumscribed by autonomy, the “single woman” presents, if not ideally represents, the idea of synthesis. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png positions: asia critique Duke University Press

Flight from the WombMothers and Daughters in Indian Chick Lit

Carvalho, Charmaine
positions: asia critique , Volume 27 (4) – Nov 1, 2019
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Copyright
Copyright 2019 by Duke University Press
eISSN
1527-8271
DOI
10.1215/10679847-7726955
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Abstract

Although chick lit, epitomized by novels such as Bridget Jones’s Diary, has been analyzed by feminist critics as an example of postfeminist culture, the transnational spread of the genre has resulted in transformations that invite fresh consideration. In the Indian context, chick lit emerged in the aftermath of economic liberalization, contributing to the configuration of a new feminine subjectivity—“the single woman in the city.” This article argues that the discourse of singleness in Indian chick lit is deployed not so much to solve the problem of singleness through marriage but to resolve the tension between the demands of “Indian tradition” on middle-class young women and their desire for a selfhood inflected by neoliberal discourses of autonomy. This dichotomy is symbolized in the novels in the tension between mothers and daughters and plays out primarily across the domains of choice of spouse, food, and dress. While tradition and modernity are conceptualized as binaries, the single women in these novels seem to be wrestling with a way of articulating a selfhood without having to pick a side. In their refusal to conform to ideas of Indian selfhood wherein individualism is circumscribed by autonomy, the “single woman” presents, if not ideally represents, the idea of synthesis.

Journal

positions: asia critique – Duke University Press

Published: Nov 1, 2019

References

  • Introduction
    Arnold, David; Blackburn, Stuart H. Arnold, David; Blackburn, Stuart H.
  • Representing Nationalism: Ideology of Motherhood in Colonial Bengal
    Bagshi, Jashodhara
  • Gender Trouble in the New Hindi Novel: The Ambiguous Writings on Womanhood in K. B. Vaid’s Lila and Mridula Garg’s ‘Kathgulab’
    Castaing, Anne
  • Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasi? Orientalism, Nationalism, and a Script for the Past
    Chakravarti, Uma Sangari, Kumkum; Vaid, Sudesh
  • The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question
    Chatterjee, Partha
  • Gender and Advertisements: The Rhetoric of Globalisation
    Chaudhuri, Maitrayee
  • Eating, Serving, and Self-Realisation: Food and Modern Identities in Contemporary Indian Women’s Writing
    Daya, Shari
  • Power and Pleasure around the Stove: The Construction of Gendered Identity in Middle-Class South Indian Hindu Households in Urban Malaysia
    Devasahayam, Theresa W.
  • Doing It Our Way: Love and Marriage in Kolkata Middle-Class Families
    Donner, Subramanian
  • Information Technology Professionals and the New-Rich Middle Class in Chennai (Madras)
    Fuller, C. J.; Narasimhan, Haripriya
  • Culture and Subjectivity in Neoliberal and Postfeminist Times
    Gill, Rosalind
  • Global Identities: Theorizing Transnational Studies of Sexuality
    Grewal, Inderpal; Kaplan, Caren
  • In the Idiom of Loss: Ideology of Motherhood in Television Serials—Mahabharata and Ramayana
    Krishnan, Prabha
  • The New Indian Woman: Who Is She, and What Is ‘New’ about Her?
    Lau, Lisa Eee Jia
  • Postcolonial Literature in a Neocolonial World: Modern Arabic Culture and the End of Modernity
    Makdisi, Saree
  • Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India
    Mani, Lata
  • The Identity of Educated Women in India: Confluence or Divergence?
    Maslak, Mary Ann; Singhal, Gayatri
  • Introduction: Self in South Asia
    Mookherjee, Nayanika
  • Marvelous Me: The Beauty Industry and the Construction of the ‘Modern’ Indian Woman
    Munshi, Shoma Munshi, Shoma
  • Novelists of the 1950s and 1960s
    Narayan, Shyamala A.; Mee, Jon Mehrotra, Arvind Krishna
  • Sex and the Global City: Chick Lit with a Difference
    Ommundsen, Wenche
  • Drugs and the Single Woman: Pharmacy, Fashion, Desire, and Destitution in India
    Pinto, Sarah
  • ‘Feminism? That’s So Seventies’: Girls and Young Women Discuss Femininity and Feminism in America’s Next Top Model
    Press, Andrea L. Gill, Rosalind; Scharff, Christina
  • Examining the ‘Global’ Indian Middle Class: Gender and Culture in the Silicon Valley/Bangalore Circuit
    Radhakrishnan, Smitha
  • Virgin Mother, Beloved Other
    Ramaswamy, Sumathi Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder
  • The Nationalization of the Global: Geographies of Beauty in Femina
    Reddy, Vanita
  • The Social Context of Marital Happiness in Urban Indian Couples: Interplay of Intimacy and Conflict
    Sandhya, Shaifali
  • Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis
    Scott, Joan W.
  • Tracing Savitri’s Pedigree: Victorian Racism and the Image of Women in Indo-Anglian Literature
    Tharu, Susie
  • Matchmaking 2.0: The Representation of Women and Female Agency in the Indian Online Matrimonial Market
    Titzmann, Fritzi-Marie
  • Fashionably Indebted: Conspicuous Consumption, Fashion, and Romance in Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic Trilogy
    Van Slooten, Jessica Ferriss, Suzanne; Young, Mallory
  • Introduction
    Arnold, David; Blackburn, Stuart H. Arnold, David; Blackburn, Stuart H.
  • Representing Nationalism: Ideology of Motherhood in Colonial Bengal
    Bagshi, Jashodhara
  • Gender Trouble in the New Hindi Novel: The Ambiguous Writings on Womanhood in K. B. Vaid’s Lila and Mridula Garg’s ‘Kathgulab’
    Castaing, Anne
  • Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasi? Orientalism, Nationalism, and a Script for the Past
    Chakravarti, Uma Sangari, Kumkum; Vaid, Sudesh
  • The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question
    Chatterjee, Partha
  • Gender and Advertisements: The Rhetoric of Globalisation
    Chaudhuri, Maitrayee
  • Eating, Serving, and Self-Realisation: Food and Modern Identities in Contemporary Indian Women’s Writing
    Daya, Shari
  • Power and Pleasure around the Stove: The Construction of Gendered Identity in Middle-Class South Indian Hindu Households in Urban Malaysia
    Devasahayam, Theresa W.
  • Doing It Our Way: Love and Marriage in Kolkata Middle-Class Families
    Donner, Subramanian
  • Information Technology Professionals and the New-Rich Middle Class in Chennai (Madras)
    Fuller, C. J.; Narasimhan, Haripriya
  • Culture and Subjectivity in Neoliberal and Postfeminist Times
    Gill, Rosalind
  • Global Identities: Theorizing Transnational Studies of Sexuality
    Grewal, Inderpal; Kaplan, Caren
  • In the Idiom of Loss: Ideology of Motherhood in Television Serials—Mahabharata and Ramayana
    Krishnan, Prabha
  • The New Indian Woman: Who Is She, and What Is ‘New’ about Her?
    Lau, Lisa Eee Jia
  • Postcolonial Literature in a Neocolonial World: Modern Arabic Culture and the End of Modernity
    Makdisi, Saree
  • Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India
    Mani, Lata
  • The Identity of Educated Women in India: Confluence or Divergence?
    Maslak, Mary Ann; Singhal, Gayatri
  • Introduction: Self in South Asia
    Mookherjee, Nayanika
  • Marvelous Me: The Beauty Industry and the Construction of the ‘Modern’ Indian Woman
    Munshi, Shoma Munshi, Shoma
  • Novelists of the 1950s and 1960s
    Narayan, Shyamala A.; Mee, Jon Mehrotra, Arvind Krishna
  • Sex and the Global City: Chick Lit with a Difference
    Ommundsen, Wenche
  • Drugs and the Single Woman: Pharmacy, Fashion, Desire, and Destitution in India
    Pinto, Sarah
  • ‘Feminism? That’s So Seventies’: Girls and Young Women Discuss Femininity and Feminism in America’s Next Top Model
    Press, Andrea L. Gill, Rosalind; Scharff, Christina
  • Examining the ‘Global’ Indian Middle Class: Gender and Culture in the Silicon Valley/Bangalore Circuit
    Radhakrishnan, Smitha
  • Virgin Mother, Beloved Other
    Ramaswamy, Sumathi Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder
  • The Nationalization of the Global: Geographies of Beauty in Femina
    Reddy, Vanita
  • The Social Context of Marital Happiness in Urban Indian Couples: Interplay of Intimacy and Conflict
    Sandhya, Shaifali
  • Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis
    Scott, Joan W.
  • Tracing Savitri’s Pedigree: Victorian Racism and the Image of Women in Indo-Anglian Literature
    Tharu, Susie
  • Matchmaking 2.0: The Representation of Women and Female Agency in the Indian Online Matrimonial Market
    Titzmann, Fritzi-Marie
  • Fashionably Indebted: Conspicuous Consumption, Fashion, and Romance in Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic Trilogy
    Van Slooten, Jessica Ferriss, Suzanne; Young, Mallory