Rita Banerji
Rita Banerji | |
---|---|
Born | 1967 feminist, activist |
Citizenship | India |
Subject | Feminism, Gendercide, Women's rights |
Literary movement | Women's rights, Human rights, |
Website | |
www |
Rita Banerji (1967) is an author, photographer and gender activist from India. Her non-fiction book Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies was published in 2008. She is the founder of the 50 Million Missing online campaign to raise awareness of female gendercide in India.
Early career
Banerji started her career as an environmentalist specializing in
Transition to Writing and Gender Activism
At the age of 30 Banerji returned to India and began to write on issues of gender equality and women's rights in India. [2] Her writings and photos have been published in a range of journals and magazines in different countries. In 2009 she received the Apex Award of Excellence for Magazine and Journal Writing.
Sex and Power
Banerji's non-fiction book Sex and Power:Defining History, Shaping Societies was first published in India in 2008. The book was the result of a five-year social and historical study of sex and sexuality in India. In the book Banerji examines why current day India is squeamish about sex, despite a historical openness about the subject shown by worship of
The 50 Million Missing Campaign
In December 2006 Banerji started 50 Million Missing, an online advocacy campaign to raise awareness of female gendercide in India. The campaign was launched on
Views on India’s female gendercide
Banerji has argued against the view that education and economic development are the solution to India's female gendercide.[8] She states that an analysis of census data indicates that the gender ratio is most imbalanced in the top 20% of the population of India by wealth and education and that the ratio is closest to the natural norm in the bottom 20% of the same scale. She asserts that increased access to education, health care, jobs and higher earnings lead to more sex-selective abortion drawing a direct correlation between the number of educational degrees a woman has and the likelihood that she will eliminate unborn daughters. Banerji also claims that high-income professional women are also victims of dowry violence and murder in India.[9] Their education and wealth is no protection, because they are unable to fight off the family and cultural pressures on them to remain in the marriage, regardless of the violence they are subjected to. Banerji contends that it is not economics or education, but rather a cultural misogyny that is the prime factor in India's female gendercide. She says this is most evident in how culture specific crimes like dowry murders and ‘honour' killings hound expatriate Indian women too, and sex-selected abortion is so prevalent, that the Indian communities in certain western countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Norway too have sex ratios that are abnormally skewed against females.[10] Banerji asserts that gendercide needs to be recognised as a gender based hate crime against women, what Diana Russell has termed as ‘Femicide,’ and be dealt with in the same manner as other hate crimes based on race, religion or ethnicity.[11] . She explains that this lethal hatred of females is rooted in India’s history, religions and traditions, which over the centuries have created a socially permissive environment for extreme and deadly violence against females. She calls this "the acculturation of female homicide." She says,"terms [like] dowry death, femicide are each a method of female homicide that was [or still is] widely practised, widely accepted, and culturally-specific to India... When a practice acquires a name in a society, it becomes acceptable at the subconscious level of that community's collective thinking. Its premise becomes sacrosanct, and the lines between crime and culture, and what is permissible and reprehensible, become blurred. It is this deep, historically-rooted acculturation of female homicide that is sustaining female genocide in India.[12] ”
A Call for a Feminist Revolution in India
According to Banerji, India has not experienced a
Interviews
Women on Women's Rights: With Rita Banerji Women's Web, 26 September 2012
Alam Bains. Interview with Rita Banerji: Award-winning Author, Photographer, Gender Activist. Youth Ki Awaaz, 9 January 2012.
50 Million Missing Campaign. Heart to Heart Talks, 7 December 2011
Anjum Choudhry Nayyar. Author of Sex and Power, Rita Banerji Talks Marriage, Divorce and Raising Strong Daughters. Masalamommas: An Online Magazine for Today's Moms with a South Asian Connection, 31 October 2011
Colin Todhunter. Delink Wealth and Weddings. Deccan Herald. May 2011.
Soraya Nulliah. Interview with Rita Banerji – Part I. My He(Art) Full Blog. 8 March 2011.
Soraya Nulliah. Interview with Rita Banerji – Part II My He(Art) Full Blog. 13 April 2011
India's Silent Gender Cleansing. The Asia Mag! 3 April 2009.
Power at Play. The Indian Express, 18 March 2009.
Ciara Leeming. Author Q and A: Rita Banerji. The Big Issue in the North, 20–26 July 2009.
Fifty Million Missing Women: Rita Banerji Fights Female Genocide. Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly, 29 August 2008.
Anasuya Basu. Sex Through the Ages. The Telegraph, 15 March 2009.
Colin Todhunter. Where Have They All Gone? The Deccan Herald, 11 October 2008
References
- ^ Tooney, Nancy M. (July 1995). "AWIS Educational Foundation Awards". AWIS Magazine. 24 (4): 16. Archived from the original on 18 May 2015. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
- ^ "Published works". Rita Banerji. 15 January 2010. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
- ^ Husson Isozaki, Anna. "Review of Sex and Power". Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context. Australian National University. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
- ^ a b Sengupta, Anandita. "How we came to genocide". Tehelka. Anant Media Pvt. Ltd. Archived from the original on 18 May 2015. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
- ^ Todhunter, Colin. "Where have they all gone?". Deccan Herald. The Printers (Mysore) Private Ltd. Archived from the original on 8 October 2014. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
- ^ Banerji, Rita. "Why We Slept Through A Genocide-Part II". It's A Girl! Movie Blog. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
- ^ Ciara Leeming (20–26 July 2009). "Author Q&A: Rita Banerji". The Big Issue in the North. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
- ^ Rita Banerji (12 June 2011). "Why Education and Economics are not the Solution to India's Female Genocide". The Gender Bytes Blog. Retrieved 1 June 2012.
- ^ Rita Banerji (22 February 2012). "Facebook Game 'Angry Brides' Trivializes Grave Human Rights Violations". The Women’s International Perspective (WIP). Retrieved 1 June 2012.
- ^ Rita Banerji (19 May 2011). "Indian Girls "Missing" Worldwide". Pickled Politics. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011. Retrieved 1 June 2012.
- ^ Rita Banerji (7 February 2012). "Girl Infants face pre-mediated murder under Femicide". Women’s News Network (WNN). Retrieved 1 June 2012.
- ^ Rita Banerji (October 2009). "Female Genocide in India and The 50 Million Missing Campaign". Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 22. Retrieved 1 June 2012.
- ^ Rita Banerji (January 2010). "The Pink Panties Campaign and the Indian Women's Sexual Revolution". Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 23. Retrieved 1 June 2012.
- ^ Rita Banerji (2012). "Why Kali Won't Rage: A Critique of Indian Feminism". Gender Forum, Issue 38. Retrieved 30 June 2012.
- ^ Rita Banerji (2 September 2011). "Slutwalk to Femicide: Making the Connection". The Women’s International Perspective (WIP). Retrieved 1 June 2012.