Overview

Contemporary debates on “mansplaining” foreground the authority enjoyed by male speech, and highlight the way it projects listening as the responsibility of the dominated, and speech as the privilege of the dominant. What mansplaining denies systematically is the right of women to speak and be heard as much as men. This book excavates numerous instances of the authority of female speech from Indian goddess traditions and relates them to the contemporary gender debates, especially to the issues of mansplaining and womansplaining. These traditions present a paradigm of female speech that compels its male audience to reframe the configurations of “masculinity.” This tradition of authoritative female speech forms a continuum, even though there are many points of disjuncture as well as conjuncture between the Vedic, Upanishadic, puranic, and tantric figurations of the Goddess as an authoritative speaker. The book underlines the Goddess’s role as the spiritual mentor of her devotee, exemplified in the Devi Gitas, and re-situates the female gurus in Hinduism within the traditions that find in Devi’s speech ultimate spiritual authority. Moreover, it explores whether the figure of Devi as Womansplainer can encourage a more dialogic structure of gender relations in today’s world where female voices are still often undervalued.

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9783030524579

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Reviews

“The author writes in a lucid and yet sophisticated style and while the book is a must-read for scholars of Religious Studies (especially Hindu Studies) and Gender Studies, it will also benefit students/scholars of Women Studies, Comparative Religion and Postcolonial Studies. I would further insist that the book can be enjoyed even by ‘lay’ readers since it is a repository of beautiful mythological stories.” (Madhurima Nayak, Journal of Dharma Studies, April 12, 2022)

The author writes in a lucid and yet sophisticated style and while the book is a must-read for scholars of Religious Studies (especially Hindu Studies) and Gender Studies, it will also benefit students/scholars of Women Studies, Comparative Religion and Postcolonial Studies. I would further insist that the book can be enjoyed even by 'lay' readers since it is a repository of beautiful mythological stories. (Madhurima Nayak, Journal of Dharma Studies, April 12, 2022)

Author Information

Anway Mukhopadhyay is Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India. 

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