%0 Journal Article
%T The First WomenĄŻs Studies Research Centre: A History of WomenĄŻs Studies and Its Progenitors
%A Maithreyi Krishnaraj
%J Indian Journal of Gender Studies
%@ 0973-0672
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/0971521518763472
%X The beginning of WomenĄŻs Studies has a special history in India. It owes its origin not only to some stalwarts but also to the historical times in which its birth took place. Its location in the SNDT WomenĄŻs University in Mumbai was at the initiative of Dr Neera Desai, a Professor of Sociology at that university. Her own work on womenĄŻs issues in her MasterĄŻs thesis and her involvement in the womenĄŻs movement gave her the background for envisaging that a womenĄŻs university should engage with analysis of womenĄŻs condition and not just teach women other academic disciplines. It was with this motive, that the Research Centre for WomenĄŻs Studies was set up in 1974, a year before the publication of the report Towards Equality of the Government of India. The university - originally begun at the initiative of the educationist Shri Dhondo Kheshav Karve received a handsome grant from the industrialist Shri Damodar Thackersey and got named after his mother Shrimathi Nathibai Damodar Thackersey hereafter SNDT WomenĄŻs University. The Centre with the involvement of able and farsighted administrators at this university spearheaded the development of this Centre, which became the torch bearer for raising womenĄŻs issues
%K WomenĄŻs university
%K research on women
%K womenĄŻs studies in India
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0971521518763472