Urednice
Sanja Ćopić
Zorana Antonijević
FEMINIZAM, AKTIVIZAM, POLITIKE:
PROIZVODNJA ZNANJA NA
POLUPERIFERIJI
Zbornik radova u čast Marine Blagojević Hughson
Beograd, 2021.
FEMINIZAM, AKTIVIZAM, POLITIKE: PROIZVODNJA ZNANJA NA POLUPERIFERIJI
Zbornik radova u čast Marine Blagojević Hughson
Urednice
Dr Sanja Ćopić
Dr Zorana Antonijević
Uređivački odbor
Dr Ivana Stevanović, direktorka Instituta za kriminološka i sociološka istraživanja
Prof. dr Jeff Hearn, redovni profesor na Univerzitetu Orebro u Švedskoj
Prof. dr Nevena Petrušić, redovna profesorka na Pravnom fakutetu Univerziteta u Nišu
Dr Lilijana Čičkarić, naučna savetnica u Institutu društvenih nauka
Izdavač
Institut za kriminološka i sociološka istraživanja
Gračanička 18, Beograd
E-mail: krinstitut@gmail.com
Za izdavača
Dr Ivana Stevanović
Recenzentikinje
Prof. dr Dragica Vujadinović, redovna profesorka Pravnog fakulteta Univerziteta u
Beogradu
Prof. dr Slobodanka Konstantinović Vilić, redovna profesorka Pravnog fakulteta
Univerziteta u Nišu u penziji
Prof. dr Dubravka Valić Nedeljković, redovna profesorka Filozofskog fakulteta
Univerziteta u Novom Sadu u penziji
Kompjuterska obrada teksta
Slavica Miličić
Dizajn korica
Ana Batrićević
Autorka murala je street art umetnica TKV, a mural je nastao na inicijativu Centra E8 u
okviru MAN konferencije koja je održana 1. jula 2020. godine.
Forografija murala na koricama: Ana Batrićević
Fotografije korišćene u knjizi su iz porodične arhive Marine Blagojević Hughson
Štampa
Pekograf
Tiraž
300
Objavljivanje ove knjige finansiralo je Ministarstvo prosvete, nauke i tehnološkog
razvoja Republike Srbije
SADRŽAJ
ZAHVALNICE .................................................................................................................................... 9
VODILA JE SVOJ ŽIVOT USPEŠNO, POZITIVNO I SLOBODNO .................................... 13
Filipa BLAGOJEVIĆ
MARINA BLAGOJEVIĆ HUGHSON: PREDVODNICA ........................................................ 15
Zorana ANTONIJEVIĆ, Sanja ĆOPIĆ
O TEORIJI POLUPERIFERIJALNOSTI, POLUPERIFERIJA
I PROIZVODNJA ZNANJA
INDIVIDUAL TRANSNATIONAL RESEARCHERS AND TRANSNATIONAL
SOCIETIES: THE TRANSNATIONALISATION OF INDIVIDUALS,
AND THE INDIVIDUALISATION OF THE TRANSNATIONAL...................................... 33
Jeff HEARN
SUTRA JE BILO JUČE: OSVRT NA KNJIGU I REFLEKSIJE
NA TEORIJU MARINE BLAGOJEVIĆ O TRANSFORMACIJI
PATRIJARHATA U TRANSFORMACIJI DRUŠTVA SRBIJE ............................................. 57
Marija BABOVIĆ
FEMINISM AND THE SEMIPERIPHERY: MARINA HUGHSON'S
TOOLS FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION................................................................................. 67
Sonja AVLIJAŠ
LOCIRANOST ZNANJA:
NOVIJE KRITIKE SLEPIH MRLJA DRUŠTVENE TEORIJE.............................................. 89
Ivana SPASIĆ
KULTURNA POTROŠNJA I PROIZVODNJA KROZ PRIZMU
POLUPERIFERIJALNOSTI ....................................................................................................... 119
Milica RESANOVIĆ
ROD, RODNE TEORIJE I URODNJAVANJE ZNANJA
RODNA DEMOGRAFIJA U SRBIJI: ZASLUGA
MARINE BLAGOJEVIĆ HJUSON............................................................................................. 141
Mirjana BOBIĆ
5
PREPREKE I PODSTICAJI ZA RAZVOJ SOCIOLOGIJE RODA ...................................... 165
Ana PAJVANČIĆ–CIZELJ
RELACIONA AUTONOMIJA: KA FEMINISTIČKOM KONCEPTU
LIČNE AUTONOMIJE ................................................................................................................. 181
Olivera PAVIĆEVIĆ
STAVOVI PREMA RODNOJ PODELI ULOGA U SRBIJI 1989-2018. ......................... 195
Jelena PEŠIĆ, Dragan STANOJEVIĆ
PORODIČNE PRAKSE, PROFESIONALNI RAD
I BRAČNA SATISFAKCIJA ŽENA ........................................................................................... 225
Slađana DRAGIŠIĆ LABAŠ
MIZOGINIJA U DISKURSU KNJIŽEVNE KRITIKE, ZASTUPLJENE
U ŠKOLSKOM PROGRAMU POVODOM PESME „BANOVIĆ STRAHINJA“ ............. 245
Biljana MILOVANOVIĆ ŽIVAK
KA RODNOJ RAVNOPRAVNOSTI - INSTITUCIJE,
AKTIVIZAM I POLITIKE
INSTITUCIONALNI MEHANIZMI RODNE RAVNOPRAVNOSTI:
20 GODINA ISKUSTAVA U SRBIJI ........................................................................................ 269
Marijana PAJVANČIĆ
MEHANIZMI ZA RODNU RAVNOPRAVNOST I KONCEPT LOKALNOG
VLASNIŠTVA NA POLUPERIFERIJI: SLUČAJ SRBIJE .................................................... 287
Zorica MRŠEVIĆ, Svetlana JANKOVIĆ
U SVRHU JAVNOG DOBRA: DOPRINOS MARINE BLAGOJEVIĆ HUGHSON
RODNOJ RAVNOPRAVNOSTI U BOSNI I HERCEGOVINI ........................................... 307
Jelena MILINOVIĆ
GENDERING THE COLD WAR: SONIA BAKISH (1923-2010), ZHENATA DNES
AND THE LEFT FEMINISM IN BULGARIA (1960s-1970s)........................................ 323
Krassimira DASKALOVA
EXACERBATING PRECARITY:
GENDER AND THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN INDIA ................................................... 349
Karen GABRIEL
6
KA POZITIVNOJ ISTORIJI: POMIRENJE, NENASILJE I BEZBEDNOST
FEMINISTKINJE I INSTRUMENTALIZACIJA STRADANJA ŽENA
U RATOVIMA U BIVŠOJ JUGOSLAVIJI................................................................................. 369
Vesna NIKOLIĆ-RISTANOVIĆ
EMPOWERING KNOWLEDGE? BOSNIAN PEACE ACTIVISTS
ON STUDY VISITS IN SWEDEN ............................................................................................. 393
Sanela BAJRAMOVIĆ
REFLEKSIJE NA NASILJE PREMA ŽENAMA U RADOVIMA
MARINE BLAGOJEVIĆ HJUSON............................................................................................. 413
Nevena PETRUŠIĆ
ŽENE I BEZBEDNOST: INTEGRATIVNI PRISTUP OTPORNOSTI ............................ 431
Aleksandra BULATOVIĆ
KRITIČKE STUDIJE MASKULINITETA
MUŠKARCI U SRBIJI, PROMENE, OTPORI I IZAZOVI:
ZNAČAJ KRITIČKIH STUDIJA MASKULINITETA............................................................ 445
Lilijana ČIČKARIĆ
MORE (OR LESS) THAN A GAME? CONSIDERING THE IMPLICATIONS OF
‘TRANSNATIONAL MASCULINITY’ FOR THE PLAYING AND ORGANIZING
OF CONTEMPORARY ELITE SPORT ................................................................................... 453
John HUGHSON
THE UNIVERSITY AS A MASCULINE HEGEMONY:
NOTES FROM INDIA ................................................................................................................. 471
Prem KUMAR VIJAYAN
TEORIJA ARIJEVSKOG MÄNNERBUNDA ........................................................................... 487
Dragana JEREMIĆ MOLNAR, Aleksandar MOLNAR
MARININA INTELEKTUALNA KUHINJA: RAZGOVORI I SEĆANJA
COFFEE AT HOME WITH MARINA: MORNING INSIGHTS,
AFTERNOON REFLECTIONS ................................................................................................. 513
John HUGHSON
FEMINIZAM, PRIJATELJSTVO I NEMOGUĆI PODUHVATI ......................................... 527
Biljana DOJČINOVIĆ
7
TRI KAHVE RAZGOVORUŠE S MARINOM BLAGOJEVIĆ-HUGHSON ..................... 537
Zilka SPAHIĆ ŠILJAK
POKUŠAJ RAZUMEVANJA MEĐUZAVISNOSTI NAUKЕ, UMETNOSTI I
KREATIVNOSTI MARINE BLAGOJEVIĆ HUGHSON:
ISEČCI REČI, SLIKA I SEĆANJA ............................................................................................. 547
Svetlana TOMIĆ
MARINA HJUSON (HUGHSON): BILA JE NEKO .............................................................. 561
Branislava KNEŽIĆ
SEĆANJE NA MARINU .............................................................................................................. 563
Tanja ĐURIĆ KUZMANOVIĆ
IN REMEMBRANCE OF MARINA BLAGOJEVIĆ HUGHSON........................................ 571
Nina LYKKE
MARINA O MARINI: INTERVJU, GOVORI, KOLUMNE
O ZNANJU, FEMINIZMU I AKTIVIZMU: MOJA ŽIVOTNA PRIČA ............................. 577
Marina BLAGOJEVIĆ HJUSON
GOVOR DR MARINE BLAGOJEVIĆ HUGHSON NA DODELI NAGRADE
„ANĐELKA MILIĆ“ 2016. GODINE....................................................................................... 593
GOVOR DR MARINE BLAGOJEVIĆ HUGHSON NA DODELI NAGRADE
„ANĐELKA MILIĆ“ 2017. GODINE....................................................................................... 597
FEMINIZAM U SRBIJI: SVETLOST NA KRAJU TUNELA ............................................... 599
Marina BLAGOJEVIĆ HJUSON – „Politika“ 26.07.2017.
KULTURA ZABORAVLJANJA ILI ZABRANJENO ZNANJE? .......................................... 601
Marina BLAGOJEVIĆ HJUSON - „Politika” 18.10.2017.
BIOGRAFIJE AUTORKI I AUTORA
8
THE UNIVERSITY AS A MASCULINE HEGEMONY:
NOTES FROM INDIA
Prem KUMAR VIJAYAN
O
ne of the central arguments of my recent book, Gender and Hindu Nationalism:
Understanding Masculine Hegemony, is that all hegemonic formations are also
gendered hegemonies, or masculine hegemonies. This paper attempts to elaborate
this formulation in the context of the university, both as an idea and as a real-world
space. Universities are – at least theoretically – supposed to be gender-neutral and
heterogenised spaces that ostensibly encourage questioning, tolerate dissent and
support the co-existence of diverse, even contradictory perspectives. The paper argues
that, contrary to such expectations, universities are structured and operationalised as
strongly gendered sites, implicitly and explicitly upholding the hegemonic
perspectives and dispositions that prevail outside them. It also argues that at least
one reason for this is the relation of knowledge to power; another is the relation of
knowledge to money – and consequently, the attendant implications of these for the
institutionalisation of knowledge in the disciplinary and organisational structures of
universities, and in its financial arrangements. A further significant factor in the
production and dissemination of knowledge in universities is the role of such
institutions in the containment and regulation of knowledge. The paper tries to
explicate these questions by referring to the structures and dynamics of specific
universities in India. Finally, the paper seeks to use the analytical framework of
'masculine hegemony' to unravel the mechanisms by which such gendered
hegemonies are perpetuated even within spaces like the university, and argues that
sites of knowledge transmission like universities serve ultimately to perpetuate the
masculine hegemonies that they are molded by.
Keywords: Masculine hegemony, university higher education, knowledge
production, India.
In some ways, this article is an extension of conversations I had with prof.
Marina Blagojević Hughson, when we were both visiting scholars at the Centre for
Gender Excellence (GEXcel) at Linköping University, Sweden. I was on a doctoral
fellowship, and Marina was a senior fellow, but she never allowed any sense of
hierarchy to interfere in our relations. I remember her as being a bright presence,
not given to speaking too much, but speaking firmly, decisively and thoughtfully,
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Prem Kumar Vijayan: The University as a Masculine Hegemony: Notes from India
whenever she did – and with acerbic wit, when the occasion required it. Among the
various points of discussion, I remember in particular her preoccupation with the
conditions under which knowledge is produced in institutions of higher learning,
and specifically, the gender politics inherent to those conditions. This article, while
addressing some of those issues, approaches them from a different direction than
Marina’s own work; nevertheless, I doubt it would be what it is without those
conversations with her. I write this, therefore, in her memory.
In most places around the world, and especially in nation-states that selfidentify as ‘liberal democracies’, universities are understood as, and supposed to
be, open, gender-neutral and demographically varied spaces. Further, they are
supposed to encourage questioning, tolerate dissent and support the co-existence
of diverse, even contradictory perspectives. Yet, over the last decade or so, there
has been an increasing sense, internationally, that universities around the world
are becoming closed, intolerant spaces (Jolley, 2015). This article focuses on this
apparent ‘transformation’, as it has been (perceived to be) occurring in India – i.e.,
why the university was perceived to be open, tolerant, etc., in the first instance;
what happened to change that perception; and the current situation, in India. It
uses the Indian case to analyse this perception of transformation, historically as
well in terms of its contemporary dynamics – its reasons and implications. It
argues (perhaps counter-intuitively) that, contrary to popular assumptions,
university spaces, structures, and their functioning, are inherently, i.e., in their
organisational apparatus itself, designed to facilitate closure. It outlines some of the
ways in which this facilitation happens (or can be made to), and how this has
emerged historically, as part of the evolution of the institution of the university. It
then proposes some possible reasons for the apparent invisibility of this inherent
orientation of the university towards closure, and for the concomitant perception
that it is an open, democratic space. It also examines the apparent ‘transformation’,
from its putative ‘openness’ to ‘becoming’ a blatantly restrictive, even repressive,
space, as well as some implications of that ‘transformation’, in the context of India.
Ever since universities were first set up, specifically in Europe1, they have been
cloistered, separated from the social mainstream. This was only partly a matter of
physical and residential separation. That is, for various reasons, the members of
the university were often allowed to, if not required to, stay on the campus – thus
necessitating an even starker separation of physical space. As, if not more
There is an active debate on where the university as an institution was first established, with some
evidence that such institutions existed in India (Siddiqui, 2012) and elsewhere (Verger, 2003) well
before the first university was founded in Europe in 1088 in Bologna (Tucker, 2021) Although the
argument here could apply to the history of universities anywhere in the world, I am focusing on the
European model because it is the most prevalent one today, certainly in India.
1
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Prem Kumar Vijayan: The University as a Masculine Hegemony: Notes from India
importantly, it was about the deliberate cultivation of a mentality of separation, a
mental apartness amounting to aloofness. Arguably, this arose from the perception
– both, self-perception and perception by others – as the producers, disseminators
and reproducers of knowledge, including knowledge of the possible applications of
that knowledge. This (self-)perception was, and continues to be, reinforced
through the cultivation of a culture of apparent openness, the espousal of debate
and dissent, ostensibly in the spirit of the unhindered pursuit and production of
knowledge. Indeed, the aloofness from the social mainstream is paradoxically seen
as a precondition for the culture of openness – i.e., the pressures that can create
closures and silences in the social mainstream are perceived to be kept out by
adopting the mentality of separation, even if not always through actual physical
distance. The social mainstream in turn, tends to respect the university’s insistence
on separation partly because of the implicit understanding that it too, will
eventually benefit from the pursuit of knowledge undertaken in the universities;
and partly because the university also serves as a quarantining space, where
possible and/or potentially anti-social elements, organisations, activities,
experiments and ideas can be safely dealt with and ‘schooled’ – a point I return to
later.
An additional implication of this mentality of separation is that it allows, even
encourages the perception that the intellectual pursuits of the university must be
insulated from the distractions of the non-intellectual pursuits of the social
mainstream. Arguably, this need to insulate the production, dissemination and
reproduction of knowledge stems from the perception that ‘knowledge itself is
power’, in the famous words of the sixteenth century English philosopher Francis
Bacon. What ‘power’ refers to in practice is the ability to use and apply information
to achieve a sense of control in and over the world of the social mainstream
(Schieman, Plickert, 2008). The coexistence of these two cultures – of separation
from the mainstream, and of openness within the university space – is not
unrelated to Snow’s idea of the ‘two cultures’ of ‘science’ versus the ‘arts’ (Snow,
1959), in the sense that the arts and social sciences are arguably closer in their
concerns to the everyday world outside the university.2 This implies that the very
separation that Snow remarks on is at least partly a consequence of the separation
of the space of the university from the social mainstream, whether that separation
is an actual, physical one, or an ideological one – a mentality. Furthermore, the
separation from the social mainstream ensures that acquiring the ability to use and
2 It is worth noting that even by the 1950s, the idea of the social sciences as a disciplinary field separate
from the humanities had still not gained enough traction for Snow to refer to it as distinct - although, in
the revised version of 1964, Snow did express regret that he hadn’t taken into account this emergent
field as a “third culture”.
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Prem Kumar Vijayan: The University as a Masculine Hegemony: Notes from India
apply information (as noted above) is not easy, insofar as it requires (at least a
temporary) separation from the social mainstream; at the same time, once the
separation is undertaken – i.e., once the student is enrolled in the university, or the
teacher/researcher is employed by it – unreserved access to knowledge is
promised (albeit a promise not always delivered on). Thus, even as knowledge
dissemination within the university space is perceived and possibly encouraged to
be more democratic, the first step in the possibility of closure of the university – its
transformation into an explicitly undemocratic space – is already evident in its
separation from the mainstream itself.
Significantly, the cultivation of these cultures of aloofness and separation is
likely to be more in what are self-identified as ‘democratic’ societies, i.e., where
state authority is always perceived to be subject to challenge and accountability by
the people. Further, a survey of such self-identified ‘democratic’ societies would
probably show that, the more intense the self-identification as ‘democratic’, the
more pervasive the perception of their university spaces as ‘open’, ‘tolerant’, etc.
This is what leads to Judith Butler, for instance, arguing that ‘the struggle for
academic freedom is the struggle for democracy’ (Butler, 2018).3 That is, for such
societies, a crucial aspect of appearing ‘democratic’ is to appear to allow
themselves – and especially their state apparatuses – to be studied and critiqued,
as objects of knowledge, in their universities. It is also likely to be seen, conversely,
that the more explicitly authoritarian a state, the more controlled the production,
dissemination and reproduction of knowledge in its universities. In other words,
the pursuit of knowledge in such societies is subject to licensing by the state. But
whether in ‘democratic’ societies or ‘non-democratic’ ones, even if physical
separation does not always avail in every case, the cultivation of the mentality of
separation is certainly found in universities everywhere.
This separation of space is true of many, if not all, universities in India; and the
cultivation of the sense of separation is certainly ubiquitously true. According to
the Report of the University Education Commission, 1948-1949 (1962 [1950]), also
known as the Radhakrishnan Commission Report (RCR), which is one of the
earliest state policy documents on higher education (hereafter, HE),
“Higher education is, undoubtedly, an obligation of the State but State aid
is not to be confused with State control over academic policies and practices.
Intellectual progress demands the maintenance of the spirit of free inquiry.
3See
also the UNESCO’s ‘About Freedom of Information’ webpage at
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/freedom-ofexpression/freedom-of-information/about/ for the importance given to information and
knowledge in the constitution of democracies; and Blessinger and de Wit (Blessinger, de Wit,
2018) for the relation between academic freedom and democracy.
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Prem Kumar Vijayan: The University as a Masculine Hegemony: Notes from India
The pursuit and practice of truth regardless of consequences has been the
ambition of universities.” (RCR, 1962: 47).
In other words, HE in general and universities in particular are seen to require
complete freedom from the same state control that is otherwise exercised over the
social mainstream. That is, universities should not be interfered with, not just by
the social mainstream, but by the state itself, in their ‘maintenance of the spirit of
free inquiry’ and ‘the pursuit and practice of truth’ – i.e., the pursuit of knowledge.
Compare this with more recent reports like this one:
“Improvement of access along with equity and excellence, the adoption
of state-specific strategies, enhancing the relevance of higher education
through curriculum reforms, vocationalisation, information technology,
quality of research, networking and distance education are some of the
main policy initiatives of the higher education sector.” (Department of
Higher Education, 2011: 3).
Or this one:
“Instilling knowledge of India and its varied social, cultural, and
technological needs, its inimitable artistic, language, and knowledge
traditions, and its strong ethics in India’s young people is considered
critical for purposes of national pride, self-confidence, self-knowledge,
cooperation, and integration.” (Ministry of Human Resource Development,
2020: 4).
In both cases, HE is conceived of as narrow specialisations that in turn are
focused on relevance and applicability, on the one hand, and as a quasipropagandist medium through which to inculcate nationalism – a far way from the
lofty freedoms conceived of for HE in the earlier, RCR report. We can observe here
an instance of the point made earlier, viz., ‘the more explicitly authoritarian a state,
the more controlled the production, dissemination and reproduction of knowledge
in its universities. In other words, the pursuit of knowledge in such societies is
subject to licensing by the state.’ The question here is, how did this
‘transformation’, from the more ‘democratic’ RCR to the far less ‘democratic’ NEP,
happen, over the roughly six decades from 1960 to the present?
To address this question, we need to look at the massive transformations that
take place in the Indian socio-polity during this period, that consequently affect the
meanings and orientations of HE in general, and the perception of the function of
universities in particular. The state-centric vision of the RCR is a clear reflection of
the state-centric, command economy of the Nehruvian state of the 1950s and
1960s. It placed the onus for driving education at every level on the state, so that
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Prem Kumar Vijayan: The University as a Masculine Hegemony: Notes from India
private participation in HE in particular was seen as either elitist, or commercially
oriented, or both. The next major attempt to revisit the state’s conception of HE is
in The Report of the Education Commission, 1964-66 (1970), popularly known as
the Kothari Commission Report (KoCR). Here, we see the beginnings of a change in
the conception of HE:
“The most important and urgent reform needed in education is to
transform it, to endeavor to relate it to the life, needs and aspirations of
the people and thereby make it the powerful instrument of social,
economic and cultural transformation necessary for the realization of the
national goals. For this purpose, education should be developed so as to
increase productivity, achieve social and national integration, accelerate
the process of modernization and cultivate social, moral and spiritual
values.” (Ministry of Education, 1970: 33).
Already here we see the beginnings of a more instrumental, utilitarian vision of
HE. Without being simplistic, one may yet see this as part of a larger socio-political
response to the waning of the Nehruvian model of governance in the 1960s,
especially in the political instability that followed the death of the then prime
minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. A brief sketch of those developments would be as
follows: the period immediately after Nehru’s death, and a little later, when his
daughter Indira Gandhi was establishing herself politically, saw a surge of violence
of different kinds. These included linguistic-communal violence, religiouscommunal violence, caste-based violence, ethnic insurgencies (especially in
Kashmir and the north-eastern states) as well as the left-wing extremist violence
that came to be known as Naxalism4 (Vijayan, 2020). The change in orientation in
the KoCR is evidently in response to these fissiparous tendencies, and keeping the
integrity of the nation in focus.
These developments had somewhat contradictory consequences: on the one
hand, they led to an increasing emphasis on the need for state control and
supervision of HE, ‘for the realization of the national goals’. However, this period
(i.e., from the 1970s to the 1990s) also sees the state coming under pressure on
various fronts, including a war with Pakistan in 1972; crop failures leading to the
weakening of the economy; political turmoil leading to the declaration of
Emergency in 1975; the gradual growth of Hindu chauvinism and communalism
threatening its professed secular orientation; and so on. Thus, on the other hand,
we find this state, given its thinly spread resources, increasingly looking for
alternative strategies to develop the HE sector. Not surprisingly, it did not take long
for private players to step up to meet the increasing demand for education left
4After the village in West Bengal, Naxalbari, where it originated and then spread across eastern India.
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Prem Kumar Vijayan: The University as a Masculine Hegemony: Notes from India
unfulfilled by the state. ‘Indian authorities have traditionally not held favourable
views of private higher education, but fiscal exhaustion and mounting demand
caused the Indian government to allow private HEIs [Higher Education
Institutions] to operate in India in the 1980s. Since then the private sector has
grown drastically’ (Trines, 2018). However,
“The bulk of students (nearly two-thirds) are enrolled in arts and science,
with another 18 percent in commerce/management.… This is of some
importance because most “private investment” in higher education is
concentrated in engineering, medicine and management and consequently
does little for the majority of students.” (Kapur, Mehta, 2004: 4).
This specialisation of private investment is of particular significance because
it is also a deeply gendered specialisation.
Data from the Government of India indicate a pattern of skewed gendering in
HE. According to this, women’s enrolment in HE began to grow decisively from the
1980s, and quite rapidly from the 1990s (UGC, 2018) to reach almost 50% by 2019
(Ministry of Human Resource Development, 2019). However, the bulk of this
enrolment was in the humanities, and in state-run HEIs; even today, the percentage
of female students in private HEIs, and especially those focused on ‘professional’5
courses like medicine, engineering and management, remains substantially less
than the percentage of male students. The following table shows us the sex-based
distribution in the major disciplines of HE:
5The
word ‘professional’ is in quote marks throughout this article, to indicate that the dichotomy
between professional and non-professional is not really a tenable one, from the perspective of the
white-collar job market, which is where most graduates in these fields seek employment.
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Prem Kumar Vijayan: The University as a Masculine Hegemony: Notes from India
Table 1: Females per 100 male students in major disciplines at the undergraduate
and postgraduate levels
Programme
2014-15
BA – Bachelor of Arts
118
BCA – Bachelor of Computer Applications
64
BBA – Bachelor of Business Administration
75
BCom – Bachelor of Commerce
86
BEd – Bachelor of Education
188
BPharm – Bachelor of Pharmacy
85
BSc Nursing – Bachelor of Science in Nursing 462
BSc – Bachelor of Science
93
BTech – Bachelor of Technology
39
LLB – Bachelor of Law
44
MBBS – Bachelor of Medicine & Surgery
95
MA – Master of Arts
154
MBA – Master of Business Administration
58
MCom – Master of Commerce
145
MSc – Master of Science
147
MTech – Master of Technology
64
(Ministry of Human Resource Development, 2019: 40)
2015-16
118
65
76
90
197
85
445
93
38
44
97
165
61
148
157
64
2016-17
121
75
66
93
203
83
384
94
39
47
99
169
62
158
167
67
2017-18
124
73
67
96
200
82
379
100
38
47
101
173
70
168
171
55
2018-19
126
70
67
99
207
79
358
106
40
49
106
180
75
179
174
54
Furthermore, in the words of the Ministry of Human Resource Development
itself, the
“Share of female students is lowest for Institutes of National Importance
(23.93%) followed by Deemed Universities Government (33.56%) [both of
which have substantial private presence] and State Private Universities
(34.36%), whereas the share of female students for Institutes under State
Legislative Act is 61.3%. Share of female students in State Public Universities
is 50.09% and in Central Universities it is 47.37%.” (Ministry of Human
Resource Development, 2019: 24).
Several reasons have been advanced for this: ‘expenditure on higher education
increases with household income; is higher if the student is a male, is pursuing
postgraduate education compared to vocational education and if the institution
attending is private (aided/unaided) over government institutions.’ (Duraisamy, P.,
Duraisamy, M., 2016: 154) This gender bias seems to be a continuation of the
skewed sex ratio in India; the overall sex-ratio of India steadily favours males, at
approximately 900 females to 1000 males, and is projected to continue to do so in
the near future (National Commission on Population, 2019: 39). In this sense, the
gender bias in HE is also an exacerbation of the gender bias that leads to the
perpetuation of the biased sex-ratio.
What the above data shows clearly is that (a) just as HE seems to be heading
towards greater gender equitability, we find the state gradually beginning to
withdraw from certain crucial areas of the HE sector, namely the ‘professional’
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Prem Kumar Vijayan: The University as a Masculine Hegemony: Notes from India
courses; and (b) even as the space of the university remains separated (physically
and/or ideologically) – and in this sense, closed – from the social mainstream, its
structures and institutions reflect the same patterns of gendering and genderbiases as the social mainstream it seeks to keep out. To elaborate these points, and
taking the first point first:
“One estimate of the kind of returns expected by the private sector from
investment in HE in India is stated thus: 'the overall market for higher
education is projected to be worth USD 115 billion in the next ten years'6 –
or, in Indian terms, at current conversion rates, approximately INR 708,906
crores, or approximately 70,000 crores7 per year – which is, roughly, an
annual profit of about INR 20,000 crores.” (Vijayan, 2016: 67).
Bearing in mind that the private sector is mainly interested in investing in
‘professional’ courses, which, as we have already noted, are dominated by males,
women’s access to HE is set to suffer in both qualitative and quantitative terms.
Further, unlike the state, which (ostensibly at least) invests in HE for the greater
development of the nation and its populace as a whole, the private sector invests in
HE (or anywhere else, for that matter) almost solely for profit, or for benefits
accruing from fulfilling certain stipulated requirements of corporate social
responsibility (CSR). This effectively means that the entire populace outside of the
middle-class, as well as on its lower margins, are more or less excluded from access
to HE.
This brings us to the elaboration of the second point: this kind of class-based
exclusion (whether it is intentional or not is not immediately relevant) already has
the gender- and sex-biases noted above coded into it. This produces two scenarios,
both of which are detrimental to gender equitability: one, that even if some of the
excluded populace do manage to gain access to privatised HEIs – say, through
scholarships, or affirmative action programmes in admission – the existing sexand gender-biases will ensure that the vast majority of women from the excluded
populace will continue to remain excluded from privatised HEIs, or pushed into
non-‘professional’ courses run by state funded HEIs. An additional implication here
is that, even within the middle-classes that do have access to privatised HEIs,
priority and preference will be given to male children gaining education in
‘professional’ courses, leaving female children to pursue degrees in non‘professional’ courses with fewer career options and possibilities of employment.
6See
the India Brand Equity Foundation's document, 'Education Sector in India', p. 16. Significantly,
this was the only document that this author could find that explicitly stated an estimate of the expected
returns on investment in HE – suggesting an unwillingness that is perhaps a tacit awareness of the
possible political fallout of reconceptualising HE as a marketable product, rather than as a public good.
71 crore = 10,000,000.
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Prem Kumar Vijayan: The University as a Masculine Hegemony: Notes from India
The second implication is that, these economic programmes for HE will effectively
exacerbate and further perpetuate the exclusionary gender and class dynamics
already at work in the larger socius, both, in the mainstream as well as – perhaps
even more so – in its margins. This is because HE, instead of serving as an
instrument of, and a means to, correcting the gender- and sex-biases in the larger
socius, especially against women, serves to replicate them, and even intensify those
biases by validating them with the suggestion that ‘knowledge’ itself is gendered.
Here then, we see the overlaps and intersections between two sets of relations:
on the one hand, the relations of knowledge to money, and on the other, the
relations of knowledge to power. The tendencies to coax and/or coerce female
students to enrol in non-‘professional’ courses, and especially in the humanities
and social sciences; to dissuade them from enrolling, and/or actively hinder their
attempts to enrol, in the sciences, and especially in the ‘professional’ courses; to
encourage them to consider their education as assets only for the marriage market
– these and other related tendencies in the enrolment of students in HE, are
indicators of the extent to which the relations of knowledge to power are deeply
gendered. However, the rot goes deeper than just the level of enrolment, in the HE
system: a special issue of the journal Gender, Work & Organization titled ‘Gender,
knowledge production and knowledge work’ (Cullen et al., 2019), is – as the title
makes clear – dedicated to the exploration of the working of gender in the work of
knowledge and knowledge production. The editors, Pauline Cullen, Myra Marx
Ferree and Mieke Verloo, in their introduction, note that gendering in HE is not just
at the level of fields of knowledge, or student admissions, but at the level of
employment, career determinations and indeed, the cooptation of feminism itself,
into the process of gendering the institutions of HE:
“knowledge about gender and gender equality circulates in public
debates that promote a business case for greater gender equality at the
expense of more transformative feminist knowledge about intersectional
inequalities” (Cullen et al., 2019: 766).
That is, “knowledge work itself has a role in the maintenance of gender
relations, structures, practices and inequalities” (Cullen et al., 2019: 766) Here we
see that gender-awareness and -studies, rather than becoming a means to ensure
equitability, themselves become counters in the power relations that shape HE.
Cullen, et al also remark on another crucial form of sex- and gender-discrimination
in HE, viz., the difficulties faced by ‘academic mothers’ in balancing issues like
maternity leave and child-care, with academic performance and productivity
(Cullen et al., 2019: 767).
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Prem Kumar Vijayan: The University as a Masculine Hegemony: Notes from India
The interconnections and overlaps between knowledge, finance and power,
especially in relation to gender, could not be clearer. As these overlaps and
intersections grow and intensify, one significant implication is that the processes of
the production and dissemination of gendered knowledge become increasingly
regulated and controlled by the availability of funding, especially under
privatisation, on the one hand; and by the extent to which mainstream discourses
of gender impinge on the dynamics of HE, on the other. Taking the first of these two
first: as the state pulls back from funding HE and as private players step into the
space left by the state, it is anticipated that the cost of HE is likely to rise
exorbitantly (Vijayan, 2016) This process of privatisation is currently strongly
being pushed through in India, following the guidelines laid by the new National
Education Policy (NEP) 2020 (Ministry of Human Resource Development, 2020) Of
particular concern here is the fact that ‘with the collaboration of these “players”,
governments can neither be held effectively accountable nor remain responsible
for the state of the education system.’ (Prasad, 2020: 6) In effect, ‘NEP 2020 greatly
increases the scope of private participation in education, ignores the country’s
pluralistic traditions, and furthers the neoliberal agenda of designing a profitoriented system that serves corporate interests.’ (Prasad, 2020: 4).8
This is almost certain to exacerbate existing class and caste divides in HE; more
significantly for us, and perhaps less obviously, it is also likely to intensify the
gender divides and inequalities in HE. A rather peculiar supply-demand equation is
created here: in conventional economic terms, the equation would be with the
education providers on the supply-side, and the education consumers on the
demand side of the equation. But with the ongoing and intensifying process of
privatisation, this equation will be reversed. The fees demanded by private players
in HE is likely to escalate dramatically, with the state becoming more and more
unwilling and unable to intercede and regulate this escalation. On the other side of
the equation, the student’s ability to supply the high fees will be decided by how
much his/her family is willing to sacrifice for his/her education; or their ability to
get a student loan; and/or their willingness to work their way through their HE.
This is where factors extraneous to the university come into play and determine
who in any given family gets to study and who does not. These factors also
determine what is studied by whom; who will teach and/or research what; as well
as who can hold the reins of administration and finance, in and of the university –
and under what circumstances and with what conditions imposed. As, if not more,
significantly, consider the fact that the proposed – the ongoing – processes of
privatisation will be unleashed in a political, social and economic context of already
It is worth noting that these extracts are from an article in an issue of Frontline devoted mainly
to discussing the NEP.
8
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Prem Kumar Vijayan: The University as a Masculine Hegemony: Notes from India
severe inequalities in well-being – i.e., in varying but always intense disparities of
caste, class, gender, access to nutrition, health, education, etc. It is clear then that
the process of privatisation of HE will serve not only to replicate and reproduce
these disparities and inequalities, but to exacerbate them, possibly exponentially.
Given the kinds of issues that female students and workers have to contend
with, and the consequent discrimination identified by Cullen and colleagues
(2019), it is not difficult to see how these factors will affect them the hardest and
most adversely, especially when – as noted above – they are intersected by issues
of class and caste, region and religion. It will not be surprising to see access to HE,
especially the higher rungs of HE, becoming increasingly available only to uppercaste, upper-class, Hindu men, and mainly from the northern, Hindi-speaking
states. It is precisely this tendency, albeit in other sectors of politics, society and the
economy as well, that I have elsewhere (Vijayan, 2020) discussed as the formation
and institution of a ‘masculine hegemony’. Analysing these hegemonic formations
as configured by the intersection of, and interplay between, multiple ‘modes of
dominance’, I tried to show how patriarchy as a masculine hegemony is
constituted, not as a static condition or state of things so much as a dynamic of
relations between these multiple modes. Here, in the specific case of the university
and HE, I have tried to show how the multiple and intersecting modes of
dominance that are supposed to be excluded from the space of the university, not
only actually seep into it but shape and determine its constitution and
constituencies. Far from becoming the home and heart of democracy, the
university, in its very organisational structure and functions, can be seen to serve
the interests of hegemonic groups that are putatively ‘outside’ it, but are, in fact,
served precisely by being located as putatively ‘outside’. This is because the space
of the university thus becomes a highly specified, controllable and controlled,
regulatable and regulated space, through which the processes of HE can be used to
replicate and reproduce the inequalities outside it.
By way of conclusion, one must pose the question, as Lenin (1969 [1902]) did,
‘What is to be done?’ I cannot presume to answer such an enormous question in
the space of a few lines (if at all). But certain directions in which to cast our gaze
can certainly be proffered. Firstly, it would not be amiss to recall and revisit the
original reasons for the separation of the university from other public spaces, and
attempt to revive them to some extent, and in a calibrated manner. It would be of
some significance, if the space of the university was reasserted as that where
discussion and dissent, analysis and autonomy, can be articulated and perhaps
even enacted, as truly democratic acts that can feed back into the social and
political spaces that they are separated from. That said, and secondly, the
separation itself should never be allowed to become either a dynamic through
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Prem Kumar Vijayan: The University as a Masculine Hegemony: Notes from India
which power is exercised on that larger socius, or an amputation from it, such that
the dynamics of the socius determine the nature and function of the knowledge
produced in the university. Third and finally, perhaps this can serve as the ideal
moment to revisit the idea of the university itself, and the conception of it as a
space that must remain untarnished by contact with the larger socius that it is a
part of. Such an idea serves to feed the dynamic of disconnection, and if it served a
useful purpose at one time, it seems it no longer does.
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