Mohana BASU, Polba Mahavidyalaya, India
Mobility may be defined as the physical movement that people undertake over geographical space to fulfil their various requirement of life. It plays a significant role to a considerable extent in empowering women as for accessing any service like education, health care, for earning living one needs to go out of their homes. Often the outdoor free movement of women is governed by the judgmental views of the society as it is seen that families often take decisions related to the female members based on the views of the community members. In the rural areas people attach more value to the opinion of the society members with decisions related to women of the family. In the rural areas, the families of the women often place a lot of importance on the role of the society mainly the community members in the context of mobility of women as they feel that free movement of women may pose a threat to the honour code of the women. Hence, the aim of this paper is to understand the perception of the community members of the rural areas of Asansol Durgapur Planning Area, on the context of women’s mobility. Qualitative data has been collected mainly through primary survey by conducting in-depth interviews and questionnaire-based survey. Results reveal that in the rural areas woman face restrictions on their outdoor movements mainly due to their safety and security concerns and also based on the judgmental views of the society families often impose restrictions on their outdoor movement. The restrictions are more rigid on the adolescent girls than on the married women and the old women. Old women mainly face restrictions due to their health concerns. For married women, they are unable to undertake outdoor activities more often as they suffer the most from time-poverty as they are bound to do all the household related works. Relevant suggestions have been forwarded keeping in mind the governmental rules and regulations for improving the status of women’s mobility in the study area.
Mots clés : Mobility|Geographical Space|Community Members|Society|Adolescent Girls
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