Resurgence of Women’s Movements in the 70s: Issues and Actions

The late 1970s and 1980s was marked by a resurgence of women’s struggle and emergence of new women’s groups and organisations. After their participation in nation’s independence struggle women again withdrew from public life and the debate on women’s issues also faded out from the public arena.

However, many women activists, who were working with political parties, trade unions, peasant and workers movements, realised that they were hesitant to take up issues which concerned women exclusively. The issues women raised were the retrenchment of women from textile mills and other industries due to technological changes and replacing them by men who received training on new machines, lack of maternity benefit to women workers, lack of provision of children at work place, wage discrimination between men and women, inadequate education and training facilities for women workers and discrimination at work places. This led to the emergence of separate women’s organisations in various parts of the country, which seriously attempted to organise poor women for a positive change.