Introduction

Summary

As far back as I can remember, the characterization of girls and women in my society was a source of constant ambivalence and thus always fascinated me. The Sikh household into which I was born was part of a Punjabi society that brought together diverse traditions in which the status of women was as dubious as it was crucial. I saw them exalted, and I saw them downgraded. Over the years those feelings developed into a search for an explanation of this paradox. I came to the United States to finish my secondary education at an all-girls' high school in Virginia and then went on to study religion, philosophy, and literature at a liberal arts college for women. And yet, I returned every summer to my own home in India and saw once again the paradox of a society in which one woman could be exalted to the prime-ministership and another murdered with impunity for her dowry. Graduate school catalyzed my queries and perplexities. But it was the sessions on Women and Religion at the American Academy of Religion in 1984 that marked a turning point in my life. To hear and be in the midst of women like Mary Daly, Rosemary Ruether, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Carol Christ, Judith Plaskow, Naomi Goldenberg – this for me was a moment of enlightenment and empowerment. I wished to turn to my own literature and discover its import from my female point of view.