Women as a victim of the patriarchal culture Shashi Deshpande point of View

Abstract

The field of reading and writing was the domain of the male for a long time. It was absolutely unthinkable for a woman even
to think of education. Ancient Vedic age bears the women – characters like Ghosha, Apala, Vishwabara, Gargi, and Maitreyi established their identities in different fields through their educational expertise. After the Vedic age the status of women began to diminish. Then followed a long history many ups and downs in the field of women’s reading and writ significantly marked for the development of women’s education. Some women started to write using male pseudonyms3 so that the readers would not throw them away because they were written by a woman. So, gender politics was there fro and focused to a great extent unlike it is done in the 21st century. Still women from the very outset were trying to create a space of their own.