How to be a good woman: the playway method
Katyal, A.; Chanda, I.
Indian Journal of Gender Studies 5(2): 165-183
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0971-5215 PMID: 12348889 DOI: 10.1177/097152159800500201Document Number: 279868
This analysis considers the "history of [mothers'] voices" embodied in traditional Bengali "chhada" (nursery rhymes, cradle songs, and lullabies). The analysis is confined to the chhadas whose content socializes female children to accept their gender roles in the patriarchal culture and recognizes that the seemingly innocent nature of the material increases and masks its power. The introduction reinforces the accuracy of the assumption that these chhadas were composed by women for use as maternal texts and applies Pierre Bourdieu's analysis of the process of indoctrination from infancy to the use of chhadas to generate "second nature" attitudes and resulting behaviors in daughters. The next section of the analysis synthesizes common themes and motifs from over 500 popular chhadas that prepare girls to accept the sorrows of separation upon marriage, warn them about the necessity of pleasing mothers-in-law, and acknowledge norms of female beauty (pale skin and sharp features). This section also notes that chhadas used to coax children to eat are overwhelmingly addressed to sons. An attempt to subvert the power structure is found in chhadas that ridicule or insult sons-in-law. The third section of the paper identifies the process by which the chhada has functioned as a patriarchal tool and addresses the paradox arising from the impulse to retain the valuable communicative and bonding aspect of the medium. After referring to Anne Kaplan's insight that motherhood is a patriarchal construct, the analysis call for identification of ways women negotiated the patriarchy and acknowledges that the use of chhadas is diminishing in the age of television.