This thesis outlines dominant ideologies and practices that affect women's authority in the urban social milieu of north India. Theories that consider the causes of social stratification by gender as well as social movement patterns are useful for understanding the durability of gender roles. The utility of these theories for understanding the patterns of social organization in India is discussed. Additionally, I report on interviews I conducted with police, non-governmental organization founders and individuals who are involved in and affected by women's issues, in order to outline potential variations in existing practices. In urban India, traditional and contemporary social practices meld into a proscribed, often volatile cultural setting in which women's roles are stringently defined. In the city of New Delhi, reports of "bride burnings" or murders attributed to family conflicts over dowry have surfaced during the last decades of the 2O century, and resulting protest movements have sparked governmental and grass-roots level reforms. Extreme cases of violence against women are indicative of troublesome cultural ideologies, including the social and economic devaluation of women. Urbanization has intensified financial negotiations in marriage alliances, and a woman's social worth is increasingly measured according to her market value. A Women's Movement comprised of various interest groups has contributed to the dialog on the social climate of north India, and feminist advocates have sought to redefine women's roles. Within the hierarchical structure of the Hindu culture, concepts of kinship and community take precedence over personal agendas, and social action is thus driven by family values as well as movement ideologies. State policies designed to address social ills such as domestic violence are ineffectual because they do not address the extant causes of abuse or constraints against women. Independent organizations and activist groups have recognized the need to work within traditional norms in order to advance women's movement objectives, despite the restrictions inherent within patriarchy. These tactics risk accomplishing little social change, and may at times perpetuate practices that limit women's activity. / Graduation date: 2000

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In the past decade, a night shift labor force has gained momentum in the global economy. The hyper-growth of the transnational call center industry in India provides a quintessential example. The night shift requirement of the transnational call industry also intersects with the spatial and temporal construction of gender. Research conducted in 2006 in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Ahmedabad indicates that the nightscape is primarily a male domain (with the exception of prostitutes, bar dancers, and call girls) and women’s entry into this domain generates a range of diverse responses from call centers, their employees, the employees’ families, the media, and the Indian public. This research illustrates that there is no linear outcome to how working the night shift at a call center affects women’s lives. Even though the global nature of the work combined with the relatively high salary is viewed as a liberating force in the lives of workers, in actuality women simultaneously experience opening and constriction for working in the industry. Through the collection of interviews, focus group data, and participant observation gathered during 10 months of fieldwork in India, I examine female night shift workers’ physical, temporal, social, and economic mobility to illustrate how global night shift labor is intersecting with the lives of women in ironic and unsettling ways. Call center employment certainly changes the temporal mobility of some women because it provides them with a legitimate reason to leave the house at night, whereas before this was considered unacceptable. Concerns about promiscuity and “bad character” related to working at night are deflected by linking employment to skill acquisition, high wages, and a contribution to the household. Women’s safety--a code word for their reputation--is preserved by segregating them, via private transport, from the other women of the night. Women consequently become more physically and economically mobile, but through the use of what I term mobility-morality narratives, households continue to maintain regimes of surveillance and control over when and how women come and go. Similarly their social mobility is limited by obligations to support family members and conform to gendered notions of a woman’s place. / text

This thesis examines the varied and contradictory ideas about rural women and their needs that are produced and circulate within development discourses and projects. It pays particular attention to the multiple actors involved in the production of such ideas and the relations of power that determine which ideas gain authority. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh, India, it looks at women's participation in three different development projects: a women's savings and credit group, a broad-based development NGO, and the women's village organizations (mahila mandals ). These case studies demonstrate how development organizations engage with local gender meanings, often working to reinforce or even exploit inequalities, rather than challenge them. As women are targeted by such projects, they creatively receive, shape, and negotiate the ideas and representations that they encounter about themselves. These encounters limit, and sometimes foster, women's potential for new political identities and agency.

Stereotype threat is a psychosocial dilemma experienced by members of a negatively stereotyped group in situations where they fear they may confirm the stereotype. This study examined the phenomenon in India, thereby extending previous research to another culture. In addition, with participation by students preparing to be professionals, the results are applicable to organizational settings. Ninety graduate students from a professional training institute viewed common Indian advertisements under three conditions: gender stereotypic (women depicted as homemakers), counter stereotypic (women represented as professionally employed individuals) and neutral (no reference to any gender identity). It was hypothesized that females in the stereotypic condition would be susceptible to stereotype threat effect and thus opt for problem solver over leadership role on a subsequent task, while females in the counter stereotypic condition were expected to choose leadership roles. ANOVA was employed to test for differences across the three conditions. The study also hypothesized mediation of the stereotype threat performance deficits by self-efficacy, evaluation apprehension, anxiety, role conflict, stereotype activation, father's and mother's education levels. Hierarchical multiple regression procedures as recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986) were conducted for mediational analysis. Data analysis provided partial support for the two hypotheses. In support of the stereotype threat theory, condition emerged as a significant variable influencing selection of role choice. In line with previous research, no evidence for mediation by any of the variables studied as potential mediators was found. However role conflict and evaluation apprehension may have functioned as suppressor variables that enhanced the variance in the condition-role choice relationship. The results of the study and their implications, in context of the Indian scenario, are discussed. Certain limitations are identified and suggestions made for future research.

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