Resistance to Patriarchy through Female Bonding in Virani’s Aruna’s Story

Abstract

This research paper is an attempt to project the patriarchal domination of Indian society and its resistance through female bonding. Pinki Virani has selected the real-life story of a nurse Aruna Shanbaug in order to show how patriarchy treats women in society and how women's bonding and their collective resistance plays a great role to challenge the patriarchy and their domination. Moreover, through this non-fictional text, this research paper talks from Third World feminists’ perspectives and brings marginalized issue at the center. To accomplish the task, the researcher takes theoretical insight primarily from third world feminists’ texts such as Ketu H. Katrak’s Politics of the Female Body, Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory Practicing Solidarity, Miranda Davies’ Third World Second Sex. In this research paper, the researcher finds how women can resist patriarchy via different sources using their voices politically and how collective resistance of women helps to minimize the existing biases among men and women in society. The sudden unification and collective voice of nurses provide the possibility to change the present situation of third world women. Hence, by projecting the political significance of the collective effort of women to resist patriarchy, this research paper attempts to expand the alternatives of maintaining gender equality in a third world society. Keywords: Rape, Domination, Women Bonding, Collective Resistance