UGC NET Women Studies study plan

Define and contrast at least fifteen core concepts (patriarchy, sex/gender distinction, intersectionality, standpoint theory, performativity, agency, empowerment, gendered division of labour) in a personal glossary with one concrete example each.

Map the major theoretical traditions - liberal, radical, socialist/Marxist, psychoanalytic, postmodern/poststructural, Black and Dalit feminist thought - onto a timeline showing origin period, key concepts and main internal critiques.

Explain in writing how the sex/gender binary has been contested, citing at least three distinct lines of argument from different theoretical schools.

Trace two live debates (equality versus difference; essentialism versus constructionism) and summarise the strongest objection to each side in your own words.

Self-test on Domain 1 with 40 recall questions and log every miss with the concept it exposed.

Sequence the first-wave, second-wave and third-wave international feminist movements by decade, naming at least two campaigns and two thinkers per wave.

Compare suffrage, temperance, anti-slavery and labour organising as overlapping strands rather than a single narrative.

Build a parallel timeline of Indian women's movements covering social reform, nationalist mobilisation, the post-1970s autonomous wave, and the 1980s anti-dowry and anti-rape agitations.

Identify at least five Indian women's organisations or campaigns and state each one's founding context, core demand and mode of action.

Write a 300-word comparative note on how class, caste and religion shaped movement priorities differently in India and in Western contexts.

Summarise the constitutional guarantees relevant to women - equality before law, non-discrimination, equality of opportunity, equal pay, and the directive principles bearing on maternity and welfare - and explain how fundamental rights and directive principles differ in enforceability.

Explain the role of Articles 14, 15, 15(3), 16, 21, 39(d), 42 and 51A in gender jurisprudence, noting which are enforceable and which are interpretive.

Analyse at least six statutes or legal regimes (rape law reform, domestic violence, sexual harassment at the workplace, dowry prohibition, maternity benefit, maintenance) covering what changed, in which year, and after what mobilisation.

Distinguish formal equality from substantive equality and apply both to one statute of your choice.

Outline the structure of the criminal justice response to violence against women, including the roles of police, magistrate, legal services authority and victim compensation schemes.

Define the principal measures of women's work - labour force participation rate, worker population ratio, unpaid care work, informal and home-based work - and state how each is calculated and what it excludes.

Explain why official statistics undercount women's economic activity, referencing definitional, survey-design and social-norm reasons.

Compare at least four explanations for falling or stagnant female labour force participation in India, including education, income effects, care burden, sectoral shift and measurement.

Analyse the gendered division of paid and unpaid labour, the care economy, occupational segregation, wage gaps and the informal sector using concrete evidence.

Evaluate at least three policy responses - MGNREGA-type employment guarantees, crèche and maternity provisions, skilling and self-help group models - for their gendered design and outcomes.

Explain the difference between sex and gender in health, and apply a gender lens to at least three health outcomes (reproductive health, mental health, nutrition).

Analyse reproductive rights, abortion law and access, sterilisation policy and population control as questions of bodily autonomy rather than demography alone.

Map the legal and institutional response to violence - domestic violence, sexual assault, harassment, dowry-related violence, trafficking - and identify the gaps between law on the books and enforcement.

Apply intersectionality to show how caste, class, disability, sexuality, migration status and religion compound vulnerability to violence and exclusion.

Explain the concept of consent and its legal and social contestation, and distinguish it from coercion, choice under constraint and agency.

Identify at least three mechanisms of social exclusion operating inside feminist and development institutions themselves.

Trace the gendered history of schooling in India - access, enrolment, retention, curriculum, single-sex versus co-education - and explain the gap between enrolment parity and substantive equality.

Analyse how curricula, textbooks and assessment reproduce gender norms, using at least two concrete mechanisms.

Explain feminist critiques of knowledge production - objectivity, situated knowledge, the invisibility of women in canonical disciplines - and connect them to the research methods domain.

Apply representation theory to at least three media forms (news, advertising, cinema, social media) and identify recurring tropes and their counter-narratives.

Analyse a literary text or film through a feminist lens, distinguishing description of representation from evaluation of its politics.

Explain the shift from women in development to gender and development, and contrast welfare, equity, anti-poverty, efficiency and empowerment approaches.

Evaluate gender mainstreaming, gender budgeting and quota-based political representation for design, implementation and outcomes.

Analyse the gendered dimensions of climate change, land and forest rights, water and energy access, and displacement, using at least two Indian or global cases.

Distinguish feminist empiricism, standpoint epistemology and postmodern epistemology, and state the methodological implication of each.

Design a small study - research question, sampling strategy, instrument, ethical protocol covering consent, confidentiality and risk - that reflects feminist field-method commitments.

Identify at least four ethical dilemmas specific to researching gendered violence and propose a mitigation for each.

Re-test every domain with timed sectional practice and record accuracy per domain to prioritise the final revision days.

Revisit the five weakest concepts across the whole syllabus and rewrite each explanation from memory without notes.

Rehearse linking concepts across domains - for example, connecting unpaid care work to labour force participation statistics and to constitutional equality guarantees - in at least five written cross-links.

Consolidate all eight deliverables into one indexed revision file with a one-line summary per entry.

Simulate a full-length timed paper under exam conditions and review every error by cause: content gap, misreading, or time pressure.