Covering India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal, Rethinking New Womanhood effectively introduces a ¿new¿ wave of gender research from South Asia that resonates with feminist debates around the world. The volume conceptualises ¿new womanhood¿ as a complex, heterogeneous and intersectional identity. By deconstructing classification systems and highlighting women¿s everyday ongoing negotiations with boundaries of social categories, the book reconfigures the concept of ¿new woman¿ as a symbolic identity denoting ¿modern¿ femininity at the intersection of gender, class, culture, sexuality and religion in South Asia. The collection maps new sites and expressions on women and gender studies around nationhood, women¿s rights, transnational feminist solidarity, ¿new girlhoods ¿, aesthetic and sexualised labour, respectability and ¿modernity¿, LGBT discourses, domestic violence and ¿new¿ feminisms.The volume will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including gender studies, sociology, education, media and cultural studies, literature, anthropology, history, development studies, postcolonial studies and South Asian studies.

Includes contributions on literature, TV plays and advertisements, matters of dress and conduct and education

1. Introduction; Nazia Hussein; Part 1: 'New Woman': the real and the imagined.- 1. 'New Woman' as a Flashpoint within the Nation: The Border as Method in Tales of Modernity; Nandita Ghosh.- 2. Understanding the 'New Woman' in the Intersectional Grid of Caste, Class, Gender and Religion through the Works of Women Writers in India; Sanchayita Paul Chakrobarty.- 3. The New Heroine: Gender Representations in Contemporary Pakistani Dramas; Virginie Dutoya.- 4. Mis(s)guided by Popular Feminisms: TV commercials in India and the 'New Woman'; Deepali Yadav.- Part2: New Woman': the consumer, student and worker.- 5. Re-imagining the Traditional Buying Roles: Exploring the 'New Women' in Delhi.- 6. Enacting 'New girlhoods': Muslim girls' education in Assam; Saba Hussain.- 7. Bangladeshi New Women's Smart Dressing: Conforming, Negotiating and Resisting Organizational and Middle Class Respectable Aesthetic Standards; Nazia Hussein.