Feminism in Indian Literary Milieu: With Special Reference to Major Indian Women Writers

Feminism means allowing the same privileges to females as those experienced by men. Feminism does not particularly talk of equal rights and privileges of females, but it is more about sympathy, regard and understanding of the male alternatives. Across the world females are deprived of their social and economic rights. The twentieth century has experienced a growing attention among females regarding their desires, sex, self-definition, the existence and destiny. Female's initiatives to seek their freedom and self-identity started a revolution all over the world which was known as by experts and critics as ‘Feminism’. The contemporary writers are still attempting to provide freedom to the woman's world from the devastating socio-cultural restrictions and oppressive misconceptions of their specific countries. In post-Independence India, where knowledge of females had already started, the new women also had started to appear. Education had inculcated a sense of personality amongst females and had turned on an interest in their individual privileges. It was then that the feminist trend in Indian literature had appeared on the horizon and women came into conflict with the double standards of social law through ages and the conventional moral code. To change the traditional image of women constructed by the traditional community it is necessary to prevent the addiction of interpreting woman as an substance whose characteristics is determined naturally and whose only identification is to produce individual varieties. Although the feminists and feminist authors have been successful in accomplishing the legal rights for females, yet much has to be done at the social level.