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News From National Committees: BANGLADESH
We in Dhaka, Bangladesh, have been trying to keep our branch
active with various kinds of interesting events, informal and more formal.
We meet at a member's residence once a month and in the past have had informal
discussions with scholars who had come to do research in Bangladesh on some
aspect of gender. This included Dr Malathi De Alwis from Sri Lanka and Ms
Haimanti Ray from the USA. We also got together a group of the first batch
of students in the newly opened dept of Women's Studies (where I taught a
course on Feminism and the Women's Movement) to present a paper on the
course they had done. A lot of it was new information for many of us. The
male students who participated (feminists in the making!) were asking us if
they could become members of our group here? These sessions are usually followed
by a delicious snacks brought by the members - all this is so reminiscent
of the days of our foremothers who founded the first groups and
associations!
On Nov 5 Dr Avril Powell of SOAS, University of London, gave a lecture in
Dhaka on Ameer Ali and the status of women in Islam, under the joint aegis of
the Asiatic Society and IFRWH Bangladesh chapter . On Dec 11 Dr Uma
Chakravarti, honorary lecturer Delhi University, will be giving a talk at a
program organised by us , titled "Rescripting the past: Assessing Two
Decades of Feminist Contribution to History". We decided that with our
limited woman power and resources, we would aim for a learned lecture by an
eminent women's history practitioner once or twice a year and approach
the respective embassies to sponsor a guest, a member providing local hospitality.
Other than this we would get together informally and discuss our individual
work.
-compiled by Sonia Amin