‘Forgotten by Feminists’?:Women Leaders of the Indian Men’s Rights Movement Negotiate Gender and Justice

Abstract

As women’s organisations have mobilised the Indian state since the 1980’s to institute a slate of laws on intimate violence, men’s rights groups (MRAs) have formed in counterpoint to challenge definitions of dowry, violence and economic restitution. Organised against women’s legal rights in marriage and prominent feminist spokespersons, the groups ironically feature several women MRA leaders, heading auxiliaries such as the Forgotten Women’s Association and the All India Mothers-in-law Association. As women leaders who are explicitly anti-feminist, while seeing themselves as working for women’s rights, they occupy a contradictory space. Drawing on my ethnographic work with Indian MRAs, this article will present some of the ways in which such female leaders critique legal reforms and suggest alternate registers of fair outcome, while also identifying and resisting misogyny within their own organisations.