In The White Woman's Other Burden, Kumari Jayawardena re-evaluates the Western women who lived and worked in South Asia during the period of British rule. She tells the stories of many well-known women, including Katherine Mayo, Helena Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Madeleine Slade, and Mirra Richard and highlights the stories of dozens of women whose names have been forgotten today. In the course of this telling, Jayawardena raises the issues of race, class, and gender which are part of current debates among feminists throughout the world.

Introduction the Noble and the Ignoble; I: Saving the Sisters from the Sacred Cows; 1: The Imagined Sisterhood of Women; 2: Christianity and the "Westernized Oriental Gentlewoman"; 3: Going for the Jugular of Hindu Patriarchy; II: Mothering India; 4: Radical And Secular Reformers; 5: The Medicine Women; 6: Children of Children; III: "Consolation in an Alien Society"; 7: "The Light of Asia" or "Hooey from the Orient"?; 8: "Sandals in India and Shoes in the West"; 9: From London's West end to Jaffna; 10: "Blazing the Trail for Indian Women's Freedom"; 11: "O Free Indeed! O Gloriously Free"; IV: White Women in Search of Black Gods; 12: Western Holy Mothers as Soul Mates of Indian Gurus; 13: Irish Rebellion and "Muscular Hinduism"; 14: From Admiral's House to Gandhi's Ashram; 15: The "Jewish Mother" of Pondicherry; V: Comrades in Arms; 16: Women and Revolution; 17: Comrade or Evil Temptress?; 18: Red Flags in the Emerald Isle; col: Conclusion an Asian Feminist Gaze