Engendering Political Science in the Classroom

Date01 June 2015
Published date01 June 2015
DOI10.1177/2321023015575223
Subject MatterTeaching-Learning Politics in India
Teaching-Learning
Engendering Political Science
in the Classroom
Shefali Jha1
Abstract
The discipline of political science is concerned with differentials of power between groups. One of the
starkest power differentials in society exists between men and women. Women are overwhelmingly
represented in the category of unpaid workers, and noticeably absent in the category of property own-
ership, to give just one example. Is it enough for political science to add gender as one component to its
other categories of caste and class, for instance, when it analyzes how power is structured in society?
This article is a call for moving beyond this to examine the gendered nature of the concepts—of citizen-
ship, productive work, social contract and the public and private—of political science.
Keywords
engendering political science, power differentials, gendered political concepts, citizenship, the public and
private
This year, in the annual Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum, India was ranked at a low
114th position out of 136 countries. In India, disparity between men and women in estimated earned
income is high with women earning $1,980 compared to $8,087 earned by men. Not only does India
have one of the lowest percentages of firms with female participation in ownership; women in India
daily spend an average of five more hours on unpaid work than men—the highest difference in the coun-
tries surveyed. With respect to women’s health and survival, India was reported to have shown the least
improvement of the countries studied,2 and of course, since December 2012, India has become infamous
for extreme cases of, and widespread, sexual violence against women. Such stark inequalities make the
study of gender relations a test case for political science, a discipline the object of which is to explain and
analyze differences in power. Surely it would be difficult for political scientists now to exclude the case
of gender as one example of how power impacts a specific social group.
1 Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
2 ‘Gender Gap Continues to Widen in India’, Indian Express, Delhi, 29 October 2014, p. 17.
Corresponding author:
Shefali Jha, Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110 067,
India.
E-mail: shefalimh@yahoo.com.
Studies in Indian Politics
3(1) 124–127
© 2015 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2321023015575223
http://inp.sagepub.com

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