Listen to the Heron's Words: Reimagining Gender and Kinship in North India

by Gloria Goodwin Raheja, Ann Grodzins Gold

In many South Asian oral traditions, herons are viewed as duplicitous and conniving. These traditions tend also to view women as fragmented identities, dangerously split between virtue and virtuosity, between loyalties to their own families and those of their husbands. In women's songs, however, symbolic herons speak, telling of alternative moral perspectives shaped by women. The heron's words―and women's expressive genres more generally―criticize pervasive North Indian ideologies of gender and kinship that place women in subordinate positions. By inviting readers to "listen to the heron's words," the authors convey this shift in moral perspective and suggest that these spoken truths are compelling and consequential for the women in North India.

The songs and narratives bear witness to a provocative cultural dissonance embedded in women's speech. This book reveals the power of these critical commentaries and the fluid and permeable boundaries between spoken words and the lives of ordinary village women.

Genres: India, Nonfiction

290 pages, Paperback

First published April 29, 1994

Reviews

[Kathryn]

We only read exerpts. Tended to be vibrant and enriching given the subject matter.
COURSE: GENEDER AND RELIGION IN CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

[Ke]

This book affected me personally because it made me aware how unique are the Chinese gender and kinship practices. I imagine that this book may be a bit boring to a male reader.

[Tammi Owens]

TRUE