| "When the women see solutions to their problems because of
their collective efforts, their collective self-confidence grows. When they fail,
they do not lose heart, but search for another way to deal with the problem. In
fact, they grow stronger." However, despite the successes brought about
through their collective efforts, self-employed women encounter enormous obstacles
to their economic and social progress. Bhatt affirms her faith that "having
once reached out to each other—across caste, class, and religions—they will once
again come together—even stronger—as workers, as sisters, and as the democratic
leaders of a new India."
In summarizing the lectures in this program, Martha Chen points to the common experiences shared by women
in medieval England, contemporary Ghana, Kenya, Peru, and India, and concludes that the
women featured by the panelists have "an eerily familiar set of woes at all these points of time and space...that is very striking, indeed."
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