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Mortality data from much of the developing world show that the health advantage of urban over rural areas is being eroded. The single most important factor is the very high mortality of the slum populations, mostly rural-urban migrants in the large cities. This has been shown to be true of Dhaka, Bangladesh, where much of the mortality differential between the poor and other residents can be explained by higher mortality in the slums among young children, especially infants. This paper reports on a collaborative project, Access to Health and Reproductive Health Services in the Dhaka Slums, which confirmed this situation in a 1999 survey and employed an in-depth approach in 2000 to investigate the circumstances of child deaths. It is shown that these deaths mostly occur among illiterate rural-urban migrants who have brought pre-Islamic folk beliefs about illness and its treatment with them. This and cost in most cases preclude modern medical treatment. These disadvantages are reinforced by treatment decisions being made in a purdah society almost entirely by women, especially old women, with husbands and other male relatives often being beyond contact. Suggestions are advanced for improving the situation.

No, of course not. I mean the pre-election period when no new policy announcements can be made, and civil servants cannot provide support to ministers working on the election campaign. However, during this election there have been grumblings that the government is taking purdah too far. In a letter to the cabinet secretary, Jeremy Heywood, the Science Media Centre and other organisations such as the Royal Statistical Society and the Royal Institution said that scientific researchers have felt unable to comment on certain news …

At the King’s Fund’s annual conference on leadership and management last week, NHS England’s chief executive, Simon Stevens, found an innovative way to deal with the challenge of discussing the next steps for the health service within the restrictions of pre-election purdah. Stevens began by saying sorry. “I apologise that your conference has fallen during one of our annual major political events in this country, with general elections, …

1. Introduction Sean McLoughlin Part I: Cities 2. Writing 'Bradistan' Across the Domains of Social Reality Sean McLoughlin 3. Representing British Bangladeshis in London's East End: The Global City, Text, Performance and Authenticity John Eade 4. Writing British Asian Manchester: Vernacular Cosmopolitanism on the 'Curry Mile' Virinder S. Kalra 5. Discrepant Representations of Multi-Asian Leicester: Institutional Discourse and Everyday Life in the Model Multicultural City Sean McLoughlin 6. Between the City Lines: Towards a Spatial Historiography of British Asian Birmingham Richard Gale Part II: Themes 7. South Asian histories in Britain: Nation, locality and marginality William Gould and Irna Qureshi 8. Writing Religion in British Asian Diasporas Sean McLoughlin and John Zavos 9. Writing British Asian Women: From purdah and the 'problematic private sphere' to new forms of public engagement and cultural production Emma Tomalin 10. From Writing to Embodied Vernacular Cosmopolitanisms: The British Asian City and Cultural Production Ananya Jahanara Kabir

In Bangladesh traditionally women's mobility is restricted. Even if they go out, observance of purdah (the Muslim custom of veiling and segregating women) is common among the Muslims. This situation has prevented them from discussing their reproductive needs to health personnel and the peer groups. Observance of purdah and mobility are associated with the several measures of socio-economic status including husband and wife's occupation and education. Over the last two decades there has been remarkable social change in the use of purdah. With the introduction of micro-credit programmes in the rural areas many poor women do not strictly observe purdah nowadays as found a decade ago. Their mobility has increased outside home and an attitude towards modern views including use of contraception has increased. They now take part in household decision making process. As a result of their independent earnings their status in the family as well in the society has increased and they are now empowered. The results suggest women who are members of the credit group are more likely to be contraceptive users than the women who are not participating in the credit programme. In weekly meetings of the credit programmes several social developmental discussions such as to have a small family size and its benefit, reproductive health issues, children's education and marriages; women's rights and privileges are highlighted. These all contributed to a change at the individual level and consequently in the society. Thus, observance of purdah, mobility and attitude towards modern views and exposures have changed and this change have indirectly contributed to reproductive behavior of women.

Asma'u Fodiyo is a major figure in African history. Born in 1793 at Degel, she was the daughter of Shehu an Fodiyo, who let his approval of her be known. Her scholarship and organizational skills were put to use by her brother, Caliph Muhammad Bello, who realized that some of the next generation would be born to slave mothers captured in the jihad. Many of these mothers were followers of a spirit cult and had but a hazy knowledge of Islam. Asma'u was put at the helm of women's education and wrote easy-to-learn poetry to teach her students how to be good Muslims. From her home she identified women leaders in rural areas and devised a way of banding women together so they could travel in safety to meet her, receive instruction, learn her songs and take them home to put to use in the community. She died in 1863 and was buried close to her father.

mat the English language contains many loanwords of South Asian origin is hardly a well-kept secret. R. E. Hawkins, in Common Indian Words in English (1984), a publication compiled as a supplement to the Indian edition of the Little OxfordDictionary, and which mines the OED, Yule and Burnell's Hobson-Jobson (1886, 1903), and Whitworth's Anglo-Indian Dictionary (1885) for material, contains some two thousand lexical entries, not all of which, however, if the truth be told, can be thought of as "common" English words (e.g., husbulhookum 'official order, passport' or tindal 'boatswain'). The Indian words in English are of diverse etymology, comprising words from Old1 (dharma, avatar, yoga), Middle (Theravada), and New IndoAryan (NIA) (shampoo, mongoose, thug), Dravidian (catamaran, pariah, cheroot), and Tibeto-Burman (polo, lama). In many cases South Asian languages have been the conduits through which words ultimately of non-South Asian pedigree (particularly of Turkic [Urdu, begum (?)], Persian [khaki, purdah] or Arabic [sahib] origin) have made their way into English. Conversely, some words ultimately of South Asian origin have been borrowed into English via non-South Asian intermediaries (mandarin [fr. Sanskrit mantrin/mantri 'minister of state, advisor' via 1In this paper the designation "Old Indo-Aryan" is used interchangeably with "Sanskrit," the most well-known exemplar of the Old Indo-Aryan stage of development of Indo-Aryan as a whole.

Susan Bissell explores the complex issues around child rights and child employment, on the basis of her two years of research in Dhaka. While not writing in defence of child labour, she argues that child labour elimination must be redressed within the wider context of women's and children's rights. To do otherwise could further violate the human rights of women and children, and confound real attempts to find sustainable solutions. Development (2001) 44, 75–80. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1110241

It appears that Muslim feminists the world over are struggling against both Islamic patriarchy and authoritarian governments that are unwilling or unable to grant women social equality. Yet, Malaysia, a developing country in Southeast Asia, seems to be an exception. There, Islam is a patchwork of the most liberal as well as radical strands of Islam, a collage that is represented in cities by Muslim women in full purdah mingling with others in body‐conscious dresses and jeans. This contrast is reflected in the struggle between a small group of feminists called Sisters in Islam and resurgent ulamas over issues of marriage, domesticity, and public life. Feminist groups seek not only to express a female voice in Islam but also to renegotiate a wide range of issues pertaining to Islamic kinship codes, male‐female relations, and citizenship. This paper will argue that local feminism is shaped by the wider structure of state power as the national elite seeks to position itself in relation to global capital.

Based on a qualitative survey of female office workers conducted in Lahore in 1996-97, this article examines the increasing market integration of women, particularly from the lower middle classes, into secretarial and technical occupations in the office sector in urban Pakistan. The study shows that gender images and gender relations inherent in the social order of Pakistani society—particularly the absence of socially sanctioned modes of communication between the sexes, a strong sexualisation of gender relations outside the kinship system, and the incessant harassment of women in the public sphere—surface inside the offices. Female office workers use many strategies, derived from their own life world, to maneuver in the office sector, to appropriate public (male) space, and to accommodate the purdah system to the office environment. By “creating social distance”, “developing socially obligatory relationships”, “integrating male colleagues into a fictive kinship system”, and “creating women’s spaces” they are able to establish themselves in a traditional male field of employment, namely, the office sector.

Ek hi saf me khare ho gae sab Mahmud-o Ayaaz Na koi banda raha aur na koi banda nawaaz.' Mahmood and Ayaz stood together in the same flank The ruler and the ruled forgot the difference in their rank. Banda O sahib-o Muhtaj-o ghani ek hue, Teri sarkar me pahunche to sabhi ek hue. The rich and poor, lord and slave, all were leveled down, All became brethren in love, with thy grace crowned. Can all Muslims be referred to as a monolithic bloc? Although all the women who can be classified as ‘Muslim’ adhere to Islam and its customs, is it an adequate basis for referring to them as a collective entity, or placing them within an undifferentiated category? Are there no differences of caste, social class or region among them? Is it not true that in culturally, socially and economically progressive regions, the status of Muslim women is better than in the regions that have experienced no such development historically? Is it not time for researchers to explore how these differences affect these women's status—within the same or different regions of India? The answer to these questions lies in comprehending the significance of social stratification amongst the Muslims. The first question that comes to mind is, ‘Who is the Indian Muslim/Musalman?’ The definition provided in colonial deliberations and census reports is: ‘One who eats cow, who hates pork, who believes in one God and does not believe in idol worship; whose men keep beards and wear skull-sized caps, and whose women wear a burqa .’ The general perceptions that form Muslim identity state that Muslim women are veiled, as opposed to the unveiled Hindu women, as Muslims always do the opposite of what Hindus do.

The Indian Muslim faced several problems because according to the British perception, all Muslims of the world formed a monolithic category; they assumed that Indian Muslims were no different from the Muslims they had come into contact with in Europe or other Islamic countries. The connection of Indian Muslims with those in other Islamic countries can be better understood in Edward Said's concept of Orientalism: Yet at certain moments of that general European history of interest in the East, particular part of the Orient like Egypt, Syria, and Arabia can not be discussed without also studying Europe's involvement in the more distant parts, of which Persia and India are the most important; a notable case in point is the connection between Egypt and India so far as eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain was concerned. The British needed to provide a moral basis to their rule, and therefore projected Indian society as uncivilised and backward. Muslims, as part of that society, were placed in the same category. According to the British, their purpose was to introduce rationality in what they assumed was the irrationality inherent in Islam. This chapter explores British remarks about and observations on Indian Muslim women, and argue how and why the British projected them in a derogatory manner in their discursive writings. The revolt of 1857 alarmed the British, making them review ways to control Indian society, and future policies to be adopted towards Muslims. This incident also served as a lesson in maintaining a distance from Indians where administration was concerned. As a result, recruitment became restricted to the upper-class service gentry of European origin. British men began arriving in large numbers with their families, followed by many unmarried women, who came for missionary work (and sometimes in search of appropriate husbands). The sudden influx of Europeans made it even more vital for the British to establish a racial hierarchy and condemn Indians as morally and racially inferior.

To assume the position of nawab consort in Bhopal at the end of the nineteenth century in anything but a purely passive role was in many ways courting disaster. Sayyid Siddiq Hasan Khan al-Qannauji al-Bukhari (1832–90), married to Shah Jahan, the third ruling begam1 of the central Indian state, was seen through the influence he exerted over his wife to be subverting the existing political order of Bhopal in which women literally reigned supreme under the benign umbrella of the British Raj. Siddiq Hasan’s steady, calculated assumption of power appeared to challenge both parties to the harmonious relationship which had been built up over generations between a ruling dynasty and the imperial power. To the royal family of Bhopal he was an evil force causing a deep schism among its members concerning the birthright of the family of Dost Mohammed Khan, its founder, to rule the state. To the British he was a scheming, immoral adventurer who, having succeeded at total emotional domination of the begam, attempted to control all aspects of the government of Bhopal by forcing his wife to adopt purdah while using the state’s finances and machinery to propagate his anti-British “Wahhabi” campaign. Condemned by both British officials and the local dynasty, the nawab consort was subjected to a relentless witch hunt until hounded out of the Bhopal court.

Pessimistic scenarios for Afghanistan’s future rest particularly on the prospects for ongoing incessant war in the country because of a long list of such things as Pashtun cultural characteristics; neo-environmental determinism with a harsh physical environment leading to environmental and developmental problems; charismatic or “mad” mullahs who encourage bad behaviors; strong ethnic patchworks leading to ethnic cleansing, and the like; repeated foreign invasions; Afghan xenophobia; endemic corruption; land-ownership disputes; Islamicist desire for endless jihad; decades of war, destroyed educational systems, reduced capacity, widespread illiteracy, drug culture, and the purdah culture wherein valuable women are excluded from normal and useful problem solving. In addition are the paranoia, insecurity, and inability of nearby Pakistan to gain the upper hand over the ISI-driven and protected Taliban insurgency enjoying largely unmolested safe haven there, coupled with similar but not as extreme difficulties with fanatically religious Iran as well: the existing environmental basket case of Afghanistan only contributes further fuel to the pessimism. None of these problems is sufficient by itself to keep Afghanistan down, but in aggregate, they seem to have been enough to spoil the country up to now.

This paper aims to further discussions on access to "foreign" worlds, limits in knowledge production, and the role of gender relations in field research. What follows is an engagement with arguments developed by Hanna Papanek and Carroll Pastner in this journal some decades ago. They both drew on fieldwork experiences in Pakistan to argue that foreign women fieldworkers can (sometimes) take advantage of ambiguities in the social structures of Purdah societies, that is, societies characterized by "sexual segregation and the seclusion of women" (Pastner 1982:262), to flexibly position themselves and to be able to interact with both men and women. This paper rethinks their arguments and evaluates the current situation on the basis of fieldwork experience as a foreign woman in Pakistan in the late 2000s. It argues that possibilities for foreign women to get physical access to men's worlds, although still available, remain limited and in some ways have become more restricted (including access to women's worlds) due to political developments in recent decades. The paper also argues that, irrespective of the feasibility of physical access to other gender's worlds, it is necessary to reflect on subjectivities through which access to "foreign" worlds is mediated and knowledge is produced.

Problems associated with the menopause and oestrogen deficiency have not provided a major social or medical problem until relatively recent times, as it has only been in this century that the average life span of women has reached beyond the mean age of menopause (Fig. 1), which in the Western world is now around 51 years. Previously, for those women who did survive, Richardson ~ reports that the menopause was 'a negative event of no importance in the life of the community. So, when a woman's usefulness was seen to be ended, she ceased to be a woman'. It is, therefore, not without good reason that the phrase 'the change of life' has been applied by women to the time of transition from normal premenopausal ovarian function to that of ovarian failure in the post menopause. During this transition, called the climacteric, the last period (menopause) will have different implications for women depending on their culture and tradition. For example, in societies where menstruation is considered to be polluting, and for Muslim women who would be in 'Purdah' , the release from such inferior status allows them to assume an important and rewarding role within the family and society. In contrast, the modern Western societal values and attitudes are more likely to emphasize the negative aspects, such as loss of femininity and sexual attractiveness. This time may also coincide with domestic changes, such as children leaving home, parents becoming aged and infirm, and husband at a stressful peak of his career, all o f which may influence the way a woman adjusts to the climacteric and menopause. Ageing, in itself, is accompanied by various inevitable physical changes, and together with all these other aspects it can be difficult

In a classic essay M. G. Smith (1957) analysed praise-singing in northern Nigeria as an institution that regulates social behaviour, by validating status, wielding sanctions, and generally maintaining social norms. Hausa praisesinging is a low-status occupation, whether carried out by men or by women. For men it is particularly so, given the gendered nature of status relations. In this article I focus on Hausa praise-singing in one of Accra's zongos (stranger quarters), and more specifically on the role of the male praisesinger. The topic of praise-singing brings together issues of micro-politics and Islam with zongo dwellers in Accra and the construction of the separate worlds of men and women. I situate the zongo praise-singer by exploring zongo culture, especially male-female relations, occasions for praisesinging, and the importance of patronage in this status-conscious society. Interwoven throughout is a contrast with praise-singing in northern Nigeria. I consider how gender relations change and get reformulated while continuing to be salient. I suggest that the role of praise-singer males who perform in Accra, like that of females who sing in Kano, Nigeria, carries gender-neutral status which enables the performers to mediate between the sexes. THE PRAISE-SINGER In northern Nigeria, the Hausa live in a group of states that are organised centrally; each contains a hierarchy of offices competed for by important men, an electorally based chieftainship, and a set of occupational titles. `Occupational classification is the most important factor in the evaluation of social status' (Besmer, 1983: 31). Many crafts and trades operate alongside agriculture, differentiated according to whether they are hereditary (gargajiya) or freely chosen (shigege). The former carry greater status and prestige than the latter, indicating low occupational mobility and expressing `the general preference for social continuity and for stability in the status order' (Smith, 1959: 248). Occupational groups are also ranked in order of status, with officials, mallams, and well-to-do merchants at the top (Smith, 1959). The segregation of Muslim Hausa men from women is epitomised by the institution of purdah, or kulle; housing is appropriately designed to protect adult women from the gaze of unrelated men (Pellow, 1988). Men and women share neither social nor physical space, and most women's activities--work or leisure--are carried out within the women's quarters (Callaway, 1987; Pittin, 1984). Market trading, so popular among coast West African women, is confined to the compounds, with young children acting as runners, carrying the products to sell to women secluded in other compounds (Schildkrout, 1983). Not only are men and women kept separate--they are also ranked, in keeping with the pervasiveness of hierarchy in Islam and in the Hausa social system. The lowest social category includes praise-singers (marokil marokiya) who engage in praise-singing (roko, `eulogy'), a Hausa craft (Besmer, 1983; Smith, 1957).(1) Praise-singing, a traditional form of oratory, is actually proclaiming another's name to honour him/her. Traditionally, each Hausa has at least one personal praise song (take), which relates genealogy and life accomplishments. The praise-singer recites the praised person's genealogy, recounting his/her feats, fame, prosperity, and influence. Roko is an expression of status, for which one needs an audience and publicity. And, while it is also a craft, `its product is an incorporeal good incapable of further exchange, an article of immediate consumption' (Smith, 1957: 27). It has a primarily social function, informally regulating the distribution of praise or shame. The praise songs are a kind of cultural capital, through which an individual articulates and defines social status.(2) In other words, they impose social control and reflect honour on formal agencies of social control. …

A study was conducted in 1993 to determine the roles of Nigerian women in promoting sustainable agricultural production. Seventeen states selected from different agro-ecological zones of the country were involved. The results showed that over 90% of the women were involved in farming even in the traditionally Muslim states where purdah is still practiced. About 64% of this number were involved in only crop production, 48% in both crop and livestock production and only about 4% in just livestock production. Most of the women were involved in processing and marketing. With little control over their labour, rural women worked in both family and personal farms. The results also indicated that women fanners were actively involved in all cultural farming operations, although to a lesser extent in land clearing (12%) and land preparation (18.6%) in family farms. They were highly involved in planting, weeding, fertilizing, and totally responsible for processing, with little or no appropriate labour-savin...

This study examines female school enrollment during 1920-47 in the Punjab, India, prepartition. Data were obtained from reports, such as the Progress of Education in the Punjab. This period includes an active social reform movement. Punjabi Hindu men changed their attitudes toward purdah and seclusion and the education of women. Educated wives were in demand. Educational institutions were initially religiously affiliated. Schools for girls were set up by British missionaries and American Presbyterians in the late 1800s. The most active missionary societies were the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission and its precursor, the Indian Female Normal School and Instruction Society. Education was expanded by private organizations. The 1916-17 Report on Education in the Punjab indicates substantial public support for girls' education. The demand for education was strongest initially in urban areas. Government secondary schools for girls were set up in each district of the Punjab by 1931-32. By 1936-37 there was one girl school for every 46.3 sq. miles. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s the government established high or middle schools in smaller towns. Almost all large cities had colleges for women. Demand for girls' education rose at the same time as constraints neutralized the attitude changes. Constraints included a lack of trained women teachers, shortages of resources, poor infrastructural facilities, irrelevant curricula, and prejudice against women becoming teachers. Two measures encouraged the advancement of education. The growth of middle and high schools did not keep pace with the growth of primary schools. Female enrollments increased from 62,571 to 237,446 during 1921-45. Primary and middle coeducational school enrollment of girls declined during the 1940s. Muslim and Sikh enrollments increased. High-caste Hindu enrollments declined, but still represented half of all girls in colleges and universities.

Minturn, Leigh Sita's Daughters: Coming out of Purdah: The Rajput Women of Khalapur Revisited. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. xiii + 371 pp. including bibliography, appendices, glossaries, and index. $45.00 cloth Harlan, Lindsey. Religion and Rajput Women: The Ethic of Protection in Contemporary Narratives. Berkeley: University of California Press. xiv + 260 pp. including appendices, glossary, bibliography, and index. $40.00 cloth.

This study examines gender issues in formal informal and semi-formal employment in Dhaka Bangladesh. Data were obtained from a 1992 household survey conducted among seven randomly selected primary sampling units (PSUs) out of 28 PSUs in metropolitan Dhaka City. Household income is measured taking into account formal educational level of the household head and monthly per capita household expenditure on market goods and services such as food clothing education health care housing and other items. Market skill level is measured by years of formal schooling. A background review of the literature focuses on the role of purdah or seclusion in delineating gender-specific economic activities. Findings indicate that 46% of women were engaged in nonmarket household production. About 20% of women and 25% of men attended school at economically active ages. 25% of women and almost 66% of men received wages for market work. An increase in income was associated with a larger proportion of men and women attending school but women were a lower proportion. The proportion of paid market workers and the female labor force participation rate (LFPR) was highest in the poorest households. In the poorest households almost all women had very low skill levels. Among wealthy households only 14% of women had very low skill levels. Levels of schooling appeared unrelated to market production up to the college level. Results confirm that the supply effects of gender roles and human capital influenced the size of female LFPR. Women were engaged in employment with low returns because women were largely poor and had few or no market skills. Findings suggest that female LFPR was not solely the domain of patriarchal systems and purdah norms but an economic strategy in response to income needs. Policy should be aimed at making the existing market more sensitive to womens needs and equity.

Trends in poverty, working through changing roles of women in income generation, have been advanced as one explanation of changing fertility in Bangladesh. This paper examines women's work patterns in two rural villages in northern Bangladesh and finds little evidence of increasing workforce participation, despite high contraceptive use rates. Observation of women's work patterns suggests that purdah, the practice of female seclusion, influences and conditions women's decisions regarding roles they assume, and remains a dominant influence in women's lives, showing little evidence of responsiveness to poverty.

Pakistan is a male-dominated society and women's status relative to men is worse than that in most other countries. Women have primary responsibility for the health of infants and small children and this is considered to be the women's work. Women are usually secluded from men and have to observe purdah (wearing a veil to cover their face from men). They rarely have a choice of whom they marry, how many children they have, and whether they work. This patriarchal structure greatly limits the possibilities for women to be active outside the home. Two indicators of low female status in Pakistan are limited participation of women in economic activities outside the home and a high percentage of illiterate women (Sathar et al., 1988).

The Zenana Women comprises some historical events as well as some incidents from contemporary life, with their shares of joy and sorrow. The author feels that having lived in purdah for a long time, women have grown accustomed to the secluded life. This chapter describes the personal experiences of a few women, explaining their secluded life. It mentions that the cloistering of upper-class women, practiced in the whole of India, is not only to segregate them from the men but also from the women. Unmarried girls are not allowed to walk into the presence of any women except for close relatives and maids. Married women also keep out of the sight of female magicians, jugglers and other itinerant professional performers and entertainers. She who can keep most secluded and remains hiding in the corner of the house like an owl is the more honourable. Keywords:secluded life; Zenana Women

The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) is a nongovernmental organization involved with multisectoral programs and income generation schemes for rural poor women. The program objective is the search for effective income generation activities to be owned operated and managed by BRACs landless members. The evaluation was conducted among five restaurants in the Restaurant Program which was initiated in 1991. Entrepreneurs started with a loan of Taka 6500 and sold tea snacks and meals. 273 such establishments were started by January 1993. In practice selection of entrepreneurs was different from the designated formal selection process. Preference was given to women whose husbands or brothers already had some involvement in the marketplace. The women tended to handle the cooking washing cleaning and maybe some shopping and serving but men controlled handling of cash and keeping accounts. Restaurants make modest profits in general but a detailed accounting of employee wages and meals for owner-operators indicated lower profits. Loans were being repaid. The analysis shows that womens position did not change women were just as or more dependent on men and womens respect in the community did not increase. The restaurants were run in ways reinforcing the traditional purdah and definition of space. The goal should be womens independence access to markets and acquisition of business skills. The recommendations are made for strictly following the selection criteria providing training before starting the business operating of the business in a building separate from family assuring a uniform system of accounting maintaining BRAC files on individual women and testing whether a fixed amount of loan would stimulate business capability.

This article on families in Bangladesh is a abridged version of an article published in UNESCOs "The Changing Family in Asia" in 1992. The author concludes that further research is needed at the micro-level multiregionally on changing life styles on the impact of increased nucleation on the social structure on the impact on family life from womens greater involvement in agricultural and manual labor pursuits and on the disintegration of families due to migration. A descriptive summary is given of the basic social organization of families including the "gusthi" (all male patrilineal descendants of a great-grandfather) and the "samaj" (people grouped on the basis of kinship and territory and with a socio-political identity). Families follow the patterns of joint extended and nuclear. Joint families include three or more generations living together. Extended families are a group of nuclear families and related individuals from several generations living together. In 1972 the number of nuclear families was reported to be about 51-58% in villages. Population growth in Bangladesh did not result in an increased number of households only in increased household size. Higher average size of households predominated in Buddhist households followed by Muslim and Hindu households. Household size has been gradually increasing in Chittagong Khulna and Rajshahi while fertility has been declining. This pattern is attributed to a decrease in single member households a decrease in mortality and more extended families. Bangladesh had an excess male population during 1901-74. The sex ratio in rural areas has not changed over the decades before 1974. Mean age at marriage is increasing in urban and rural areas but at a faster rate in urban areas. 48% of total population are women and 90% live in rural areas. Male dominance continues to be reinforced by the kinship system. The practice of purdah keeps women isolated from society. The causes of family changes are not well researched in Bangladesh.

Candidiasis and Trichomoniasis are the commonest Reproductive Tract Infections (RTIs) amongst women in purdah in the capital city of Jos- Nigeria. Majority of these women (>68%) have primary education as the highest educational qualification and majority of them (>92%) are full time house wives. The study has also revealed that there is a high level (57%) delay in seeking for reproductive health needs , which were only remedied due to persistence of symptoms. This gives us the inference as to the myriad of sequalae that might have resulted in cases of asymptomatic RTIs. The most reproductive health needs of women in purdah are inadequate facilities in clinics/hospitals. This factor as well as other factors such as poor education, unilateral decision making by some men in purdah in matters of reproductive needs, misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the Qu’ran have immensely contributed to the increasing cases of RTIs among these women. These problems can be reduced to the minimum by educating both the men and the women in purdah with the best medium being the radio/television programs. KEY WORDS: Purdah, Reproductive Health, Infection, Women.

In Britain Budget Day has its own special ritual. Even the apolitical take an interest, in the way that those with no love for horse racing often have a flutter on the Epsom Derby, when the chancellor of the Exchequer stands on the doorstep of 11 Downing Street on a spring afternoon holding the red box containing his speech aloft for the cameras, kisses his wife (if he has one), then sets off for the Palace of Westminster to present an account of the nation’s finances and its economic prospects. Once upon a time, the pageantry involved the second lord of the Treasury taking a stroll in St James’s Park to feed the ducks, although this is now seen as too much of a security risk. It was also the case in more innocent times that chancellors jealously guarded their budget secrets, retreating with their civil servants into what was known as ‘purdah’ for weeks before the big day, before revealing all to a crowded House of Commons. Indeed, one of the subjects of this chapter lost his job for telling a journalist what was in his speech minutes before announcing his measures at the despatch box.

Scholarship has theorized the foundational male-centeredness of the Beat Generation literary movement and its notorious obliviousness to women’s literary production and legitimacy as writing subjects, but approaches to Beat transnationalism nevertheless continue to underestimate gender as a basis of the movement’s construction and a relevant category for its analysis,1 even when works inexorably foreground it. Just so, no text elucidates Beat transnationalism and its gendered specificity, and the condition of women Beats’ literary purdah, as comprehensively as does Brenda Frazer’s 1969 Troia: Mexican Memoirs. A lost classic of Beat experimental writing, out of print until its 2007 reissue by Dalkey Archive Press, Troia recounts the 1961 travails of Bonnie and Ray Bremser, a minor Beat poet, on the lam in Mexico with their baby Rachel, fugitives of New Jersey prison authorities pursuing Ray for parole violation. The Mexican sojourn this flight entailed, which is the manifest subject of Troia, is narrated in the daily two-page letters Bonnie wrote to Ray from March to November 1963,2 during his second incarceration when she was living back in New York (Grace and Johnson 113). Frazer, then called Bonnie Bremser, retrospectively details her life of open prostitution on the road in Mexico and the couple’s desperate relinquishment of Rachel there. Recounting her often shocking and emotionally wrung-out Mexican experiences, Frazer’s letters to Ray—answering his request to titillate him and standing in lieu of sexual intimacy during their separation (77)—providentially provided the neophyte writer an indispensable literary apprenticeship (Grace and Johnson 113) that resulted in a benchmark of Beat writing: a transnational female road tale rivaling Jack Kerouac in visionary mind and hipster “kicks.”3

This essay argues that female participation in agriculture and limited seclusion in Maradi (Niger) today do not stem from the absence of agricultural slavery in the pre-colonial period but rather result from the resistance of the Katsinawa élite to the Islamic reforms of the Sokoto Caliphate and from the absence of rimji (plantation) slavery in the region. The abolition of slavery did not mark a watershed in the rise of seclusion, as M. G. Smith argues was the case in Nigeria, but rather triggered a series of reformulations of marriage and female hierarchy. Semi-legitimate and legitimate polygynous marriages permitted men and women of the wealthier classes to retain the labor of former female slaves as ‘concubines’ and later enabled them to use junior wives to perform the duties once carried out by slaves. Women countered the ambiguities of such marriages by asserting their worth through wedding ritual and later by adopting the veiling of élite women. As economic and cultural ties with northern Nigeria grew during the colonial and post-colonial periods, and as goods and services reduced some of the labor demands upon urban women, seclusion gained in popularity. By acquiescing to the dependency implicit in purdah women could protect themselves from the labor demands of others and could sometimes free themselves up to earn independent incomes of their own. Thus the recent adoption of seclusion in Maradi has not arisen out of a unilateral decision on the part of newly freed women to adopt seclusion as a sign of status, as Smith claimed for Northern Nigeria, but resulted instead from of a series of redefinitions, contestations and negotiations of marriage in which both men and women have been active.

Nana Asma'u (1793-1865), a daughter of the Sokoto jihad, wrote prolifically and with considerable impact within the Islamic community of Usman dan Fodio. This community was to change radically the religious and social formation of Hausaland. The jihad at the beginning of the nineteenth century imprinted Islam upon mainstream Hausa culture and brought it in from the margins. Asma'u was an eyewitness to the genesis and development of the movement, and her poetry in Fulfulde, Arabic and Hausa provides a vivid insight into the thoughts and debates that occupied its leadership. Within the corpus of her literature some of the most beautiful moments of self-expression are to be found in the elegies and it is on this genre that I wish to focus. I intend to consider the poetic agenda the elegies suggest as representative of her work as a whole, and then to concentrate upon the ideology they contain and create about women. It is tempting to enter the work through the fascinating and rich history that surrounds its production, but I feel it is more appropriate to begin from the specific qualities of her language and style. Choosing as starting point the elegy Alhinin Mutuwa included in Aisha Ahmed's anthology (Ahmed 1981: 17), we can describe her literary style in Hausa. The language is simple and direct with a high occurrence of Sakkwatanci dialect words and forms; Ahmed observes that Arabic loanwords are less frequent in Asma'u's work than in that of other jihadic writers. In conjunction with her choice of subject matter and the references the poems contain to their purpose and intended audience, these characteristics point to the two major dynamics that inform her writing. First her didactic intention: the simplicity of the language and indeed the decision to write in Hausa at all rather than the more prestigious literary or religious language, Arabic, give her poems an educational bias. This is apparent in the directives that make up the body of many of her poems. Wa'azu addresses a specifically female audience and gives them advice on how to live as good Muslims, including details of the permissible reasons for leaving the compound when in purdah; indeed, in closing the piece, Asma'u says 'this poem of admonition' has come to an end. Asma'u is by no means unique in this respect; Robinson (1982: 251) comments upon Hausa and Fulfulde texts written in Arabic script: Even where the volume of literature is small, they have pointed to the critical

Summary Socio-economic differentials in fertility are examined by using data collected from a daily registration system covering over 100,000 persons in rural Bangladesh during the period 1968 to 1970. The findings indicate that fertility was generally higher among women in the higher than in the lower socio-economic groups. Several factors associated with high socio-economic status and their relation with the intermediate variables are discussed as providing the linkages with high fertility. These include, health status, breastfeeding, the enforcement of 'purdah' and migration.

This paper shows that women in Rajpur, a Punjabi village in Pakistan, participate substantially in activities that are productive and are geared directly or indirectly towards producing utilities of some kind. These utilities are both income-generating and/or expenditure-saving. Women are extensively involved in many agricultural and livestock-tending operations, in addition to their involvement in other productive domains such as poultry-tending, processing of dairy products, and handicrafts. Whereas men are working in the city to earn extra cash, women too, are working in pursuit of the same goal. However, women's involvement in these activities remains relatively unrecognised within larger cultural pictures and has not resulted in elevating their status within society. Despite women's productive activities, they are largely projected as domestic and private beings and their roles as home-makers, mothers, and nurturers of children have come to be culturally emphasised to the exclusion of all others. The institutions of purdah and segregation of sexes which confine women and their activities to the private domains and permit men access to the public domains act as effective cultural devices in creating blinders to women's productive roles. This paper contends that the existing dominant cultural images of women and the invisibility of their productive dimensions reflect social values rather than social reality.

Research on marriage in developing countries has been somewhat narrow in scope because of both conceptual and data limitations. While the feminist literature recognizes marriage as a key institutional site for the production and reproduction of gender hierarchies, little is known about the processes through which this relationship operates. This article uses data from the newly collected India Human Development Survey 2005 for 27,365 ever-married women aged 25–49 to explore ways in which different dimensions of gender in Indian society shape the decisions regarding age at marriage. We explore the impact of three dimensions of gender: (1) economic factors, such as availability of wage employment, dowry expectations, and wedding expenses; (2) indicators of familial empowerment, such as women’s role in household decision making and access to and control over resources; and (3) markers of gender performance, such as observance of purdah and male-female separation in the household. Results from hierarchical linear models confirm the importance of markers of gender performance but fail to demonstrate a large role for economic factors and familial empowerment.

This article uses the notion of ‘gaze’ as a tool in attempting to probe how the Muslim female is discursively constructed through the act of a particular gaze on her veiled body. The hijab (headscarf) and purdah (face covering) as forms of veiling are not publicly contested symbols in South Africa. However, local Muslim women who practice veiling are seen by other non-veiling females as embodying a practice that is a visible signifier of a particular religious ‘worldview on body’. This signification lends itself to be ‘seen’ within particular gazes which are in turn embedded in their own sets of observational exigencies and gaze politics. The paper reveals that in the South African context, the gaze of the ‘non wearer’ sees veiling as performatively oppressing women and rendering them unapproachable. The women who practise veiling, however, possess alternative understandings, as the interviews reveal. The paper uses ethnographic interviews and conversations, and illustrates through the narratives of both local Muslim women who practice veiling, as well as the non-Muslim female ‘gazers’, that the polyvalent material object of the veil is rendered visible through a particular way of gazing. Finally the paper suggests a possible alternative and de-contextualised way of a potentially transformative gaze that may allow for a degree of mutual ‘seeing’, and greater complicit rapprochement of seer and seen.

More than one student of India, confronted by the variety of its regional languages and cultures, has compared the subcontinent, in this respect, to the whole of Europe. (Bhatt 1980: 43) A description can give but a generalized picture of a type of social conduct which is ever changing and it is necessary to understand the variety and mode of the changes which are found in each … region … to understand well the implications of a social structure. (Karve 1965: 378) Woven through the discussion so far has been the argument that there are marked geographic variations in the incidence and strength of factors which affect women's ability to claim and control land. Here I will seek to systematically examine these variations, drawing upon a number of crossregional tables and maps that I have constructed. This is meant to provide a broad regional gradation of the degree of difficulty women are likely to face in realizing their inheritance claims in arable land and in exercising control over its management. In addition, the cross-regional presentation is meant to serve two purposes: one, to make the general point that there is a marked diversity in women's situation across South Asia, and so to contradict the excessive generalizations about the status of South Asian women that proliferate in the literature; and two, to share with other scholars my ethnographic information base which they could draw upon and perhaps use to answer questions not addressed in this book.

To my brother belong the storied palaces; But, alas, for me, the foreign land … O my father. If I take my inheritance, my brothers will forget they have a sister. If I give it to them, they will remember me and take care of me if I need them. Women of most South Asian communities today have considerable legal rights to inherit landed property. But to what degree can they exercise their rights in practice? What factors constrain them from doing so fully? These questions are addressed here primarily in relation to traditionally patrilineal communities, with a brief contrasting look at traditionally matrilineal and bilateral ones. Although regional differences are highlighted at various points in the discussion below, a more systematic examination of the crossregional variations is deferred to chapter 8. The gap between law and practice in traditionally patrilineal communities Ethnographic information, although it is extremely fragmentary, consistently indicates that women in traditionally patrilineal communities of South Asia rarely realize the rights that contemporary laws have promised them. Custom still dominates practice. Hence the vast majority of women do not inherit landed property as daughters, most don't do so even as widows, and few women inherit in other capacities. To the extent women inherit, it is usually under very restricted conditions.

Islamic canonical law, the sharia, regulates human conduct in every aspect from the sublime to the trivial, demanding close attention of the devout Muslim to the ubiquitous doctrines of their faith. In New Zealand, the issue of gender equality, or inequality, does not appear to be a huge problem in the Muslim community. In the eyes of tradition-minded Muslims, Islamic feminism is not only a contradictio in se, it is also a sign of a pernicious Western ideological influence that addles the mind of some women. New Zealand Muslims of South Asian extraction use the term purdah for gender separation. On the whole and with notable exceptions, Western conceptions of cultural and religious freedom and human rights related legislation make it difficult for authorities to ban the hijab. The burqa case gives a glimpse of the multi-facetted problems the pursuit of multiculturalism can open up.Keywords: burqa case of 2004; hijab; Islamic canonical law sharia; Islamic gender separation; multiculturalism; New Zealand Muslim community; purdah

In India, as in the West, sexuality has been a major political issue for feminists as well as a source of divisions among them. Given the enormous efforts that have historically been made to control female sexuality — from chastity belts in Europe to purdah in India -it is not difficult to see why sexuality should be such a central feminist concern. This introduction briefly outlines some of the key issues and debates, as well as identifying points of convergence and difference between Western and Indian feminist views of marriage and sexuality.