This is in today’s IE on the Gurjjar unrest; this is what some Gurjjar women said of Raje when she didn’t stop to meet them in their villages. What is the stand on this in feminist literature, I wonder. Do women politicians have double burdens when people expect them to bring what society thinks are female gender-specific attributes such as compassion and empathy to their public tasks? Are they supposed to miraculously combine what is considered of value in both men and women when they are in public posts? Is the feminist stand that it is appropriate to expect this of them or inappropriate? Just wondering…
Not only a double burden but they also have to contend with each other. I thought renuka chowdhury’s was hitting below the belt when she implied that a mother mayawati would have been more sensitive to the Aarushi case. The actual phrasing was ”
…. However, my reaction to the case comes as a mother…. I only wish that Mayawati would know what it is to feel like that,” “