Back Inside The Lakshman Rekha: Impact of Covid-19 Lockdown on Middle-Class Working Women In Delhi-NCR

Abstract

Space plays a key role in the dynamic process of creating and regulating identities and roles, particularly those of gender. In the binary between public and private, the private (or the domestic space) is often relegated to the margins of discourse. When the world is grappling with a pandemic and confined to private space, there is an even more urgent need to assess the impact on men and women separately, the lack of which conceals the prevalent gender inequality. Drawing on the theoretical tools of space and labour in association with women, this research article focuses on the gendered impact of the pandemic by looking at the predicament of middle-class working women in Delhi-NCR and the possible reinstatement of the ‘Lakshman Rekha’ in their lives. The project, by focussing on women, engages with the intermeshing of personal and professional spaces, the social and economic impact on middle-class working women, and how the pandemic has laid bare the already flawed system of our society.