Victoria Sicilia

Bio: I am in my fourth year of my PhD and live in Toronto. For my thesis, I hope to look at the aspirations and duties for university-going women in the Malabar region across multiple generations (daughters and mothers). I am interested in identifying differences and similarities, and perhaps generational patterns. Indeed in a state which has both high levels of patriarchal norms and familial gendered pressures, alongside high levels of education and health, women find themselves subject to a ‘double burden’ – educated whilst restricted by socially constructed norms of motherhood and familial structures permeating her daily space. This space is the area I hope to explore, by examining the generational transition of this process between mother and daughter. Specifically, I am interested in those values which seem to alter from one generation to another, as well as those which have worked to inspire and grow young girls in their finishing university years. This transitional period of finishing university is essential to my work, as it provides a snapshot of life decisions that young women are faced with in the state; a comparative analysis of this snapshot with those decisions made by young girls’ mothers, I believe can provide a telling representation of the gender ideals which have both restricted and empowered women within the state.

Research Interests: Women's studies, women's rights, post-colonial feminism, anti-racist critical theory, history, gender studies