{"id":34055,"date":"2016-09-26T18:38:21","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T22:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=34055"},"modified":"2016-09-26T18:38:21","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T22:38:21","slug":"recommended-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/recommended-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Recommended Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, the New York Times published a fascinating story by Ellen Barry on young rural women in India who are recruited to move to Bangalore to work in factories. There, the women — some of them teenagers — make products for Westerners, including Marks & Spencer miniskirts. The work is relentless, the hours are long, and the pay is low; nevertheless, the experience is life-changing for the women who stick it out.\u00a0 The jobs liberate them from purdah<\/a>, lifelong financial dependence, and arranged marriages requiring endless subservience. Barry describes the customs of some remote villages when it comes to arranged marriage:<\/p>\n

“[The bride] must show her submission to the new family: She is not allowed to speak the names of her in-laws, because it is seen as too familiar, and in some places she is not allowed to use words that begin with the same letters as her in-laws\u2019 names, requiring the invention of a large parallel vocabulary. Each morning, before she is allowed to eat, the daughter-in-law must wash the feet of her husband\u2019s parents and then drink the water she has used to wash them.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Barry writes that female labor is as vital for India as a nation as it is for individual women. According to economists, she says, “… if female employment were brought on par with male employment in India, the nation’s gross domestic product would expand by as much as 27 percent.”<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO READ THE NEW YORK TIMES STORY.<\/a><\/p>\n

Here are other reading recommendations:<\/p>\n