Print Culture and the Modern World

(i) Rashsundari Debi, a young married girl in a very orthodox household, learnt to read in the secrecy of her kitchen. Later, she wrote her autobiography Amar Jiban which was published in 1876. It was the first full- length autobiography published in the Bengali language. .
(ii) From the 1860s, many Bengali women writers like Kailashbashini Debi wrote books highlighting the experiences of women- about how women were imprisoned at home, kept in ignorance, forced to do hard domestic labour and treated unjustly by the menfolk, they generally, served.
(iii) In the 1880s, in present-day Maharashtra, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with passionate anger about the miserable lives of the upper-caste Hindu women, especially the widows. The poor status of women was also expressed by the Tamil writers.
(iv) In the early 20th century, the journals written by women became very popular in which women’s education, widowhood, widow remarriage, etc., were discussed. Some of them offered fashion lessons for women too.