Paper short abstract:

This paper attempts to problematize the university as a shared space that has historically been producing uncommon chronicle of gender, and of other categorical inequalities, in India. How notions of popular culture with respect to gender institutionalized is discussed to dismantle the inequality.

Paper long abstract:

Common Space and Uncommon Chronicles; Exploring the Accounts Of Gender On Indian University Campus

Abstract

This paper proposed to examine how gender plays a key role in shaping the experiences of women

students on the university campus and stresses its’ social dynamics as a shared space. University has

been potential in shattering the glass-ceilings based on gender that actively challenged the patriarchal

notions and praxis. Hence, women became vocal and asserted their rights and identity that has been

silenced for ages globally. Theoretically, feminist studies have discussed the nature of androcentric

educational spaces and post-modern feminist theory incorporated the intersectional experiences of

women based on race, class, caste, religion, region, and so forth. However, the encounters of Indian

women students in South Asia need to be traversed deeper as the university space has its own codes of

conduct and expected gender conformity owing to their socio-cultural context. This presents the

whole dialogue of gender through a different lens. Therefore, probing questions such as how inclusive

are the inclusive universities as shown in the front line? How gender is being framed with the

different mechanisms of the university set up is significant. Grounded on these questions the study

presents an in-depth overview of the women students in Indian universities from the feminist’

perspective. Much of its analytical concepts and theoretical frameworks have been developed based

on empirical/ethnographic data collected from women students of a Central University located in

South India.

Keywords: University Education, Gender, Codes of Conduct, Feminism, Indian Women Students.