Women's Studies and Development Panjab University

Overview

Key facts:

• Women's Studies and Development at Panjab University seeks to interrogate the entire system of socio-economic- political and cultural subordination of women as well as influence, reshape and recast dominant ideologies. It visualizes itself as a catalyst to transform an unjust, inegalitarian society into one where gender justice and equality would be the norm. The Women's Studies and Development programme is offered at the Panjab University.
• The Department has been conceived as "an instrument of social engineering" in bringing about both academic and social development. It seeks to bring to the University the new scholarship that has emerged from the inquiries into the causes and consequences of inequality and oppression of women and is to serve as a nucleus and a source of ideas, information and inspiration. The aim is to create and maintain a teaching/learning environment for feminist and gender studies, and provide an impetus for sustaining a research community that contributes to the development of women's and gender scholarship within the two-thirds world/Indian context. The trine objectives are to create awareness, to intellectually equip students and to empower all.
• Teaching, Training, Research, Extension, Dissemination, and Advocacy are the core activities. It serves as a resource and nodal Centre for the region and true to its mandate, has developed as a strong academic Centre of teaching and learning, generating new thinking and knowledge on feminist theory and initiating courses in women's studies.