Feminist Psychologies: Identities, Relations, and Well-Being in India

This book aims to be a comprehensive resource that will apprise readers of the complex dynamics of the psychological interiors of women and others in the sex and gender spectrum, as they grapple with sociopolitical and cultural constraints. Going beyond the ambit of mainstream psychology, this volume draws from interdisciplinary fields of women’s/gender studies to highlight power imbalances, their intersectional nature, and the ways in which they shape the psychology of gender relations. The book illuminates three focal themes of identities, well-being, and relations, which illustrate the psychological, contextualised in the backdrop of social, political, and cultural developments in contemporary India. The first theme explores the building of identities in the changing dynamics of work-family interfaces, non-normative sexualities, and genders and the intersections of caste, gender, and social hierarchies. The second theme focuses on the gendering of mental health, including the intervention of feminist counselling. The third theme highlights conceptualisations and practices of masculinities and the role of agency, empowerment, and collective action in the pathways to equitable gender relations and social transformation. This book will be of interest to students, teachers, researchers of psychology, and of women’s/gender studies. It will also be useful for anyone who is interested to learn about recent psychological scholarship in India, informed and imbued with a feminist perspective on women as well as other genders.

U. Vindhya, PhD is a former Professor of Psychology, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad campus. Her research concerns are located in the interface of psychology and feminism, focusing on gender-based violence; women’s mental health; trafficking; and the psychology of women’s political activism. Her publications include the co-edited Handbook of International Perspectives on Feminisms: Psychology, Women, Culture and Rights (Springer) which won the 2012 Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology (USA). She has been a recipient of the Fulbright Visiting Lecturer Fellowship, USA; South Asian Visiting Scholarship, Oxford University; and was Visiting Faculty, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and Eotvos Lorand University, Hungary. She was a past President of National Academy of Psychology (India).