"Identity and its Discontents: Women and the Nation."

The aim of this paper is to explore some contradictory implications of nationalist projects in post-colonial societies. It examines the extent to which elements of national identity and cultural difference are articulated as forms of control over women and which infringe upon their rights as enfranchised citizens. Despite the extensive literature on nationalism, there are relatively few systematic attempts to analyze women's integration into nationalist projects. The little there is conveys seemingly contradictory messages. Like Jayawardena, those who link the rise of feminist movements to anti-colonial and nationalist struggles note its coincidence with a move towards secularism and a broader concern with social reform. Nationalist aspirations for popular sovereignty stimulate an extension of citizenship rights, clearly benefitting women. Since the emergence of women as citizens is also predicated upon the transformation of institutions and customs that keep them bound to the particularistic traditions of their ethnic and religious communities, the modern state is assumed to intervene as a homogenizing agent which acts as a possible resource for more progressive gender politics. In contrast, others expose state interventions as a sham by drawing attention to the entirely instrumental agenda of nationalist policies that mobilize women when they are needed in the labour force or even at the front, only to return them to domesticity or to subordinate roles in the public sphere when the national emergency is over. The apparent convergence between the interests of men and the definition of national priorities leads some feminists to suggest that the state itself is a direct expression of men's interests.