One in five of all women in the world live in India, yet our knowledge about them is misguided. Although we are aware that many leading American medical professionals and the CEO’s of several U.S. based mega-corporations are South Asian women, most of us believe the majority of women in India are victims of a social order that at worst threatens them or at least denies them basic civil liberties. Dr. Stephen Huyler will share with us a very different reality. Over fifty years, he has conducted personal interviews of more than one thousand Indian women drawn from a wide variety of social and economic factors across the nation. These women are adamant that they are not victims. They want to be known for their strengths and the many ways that they overcome adversity and assert their individuality. 

Through compelling photographs and stories, Dr. Huyler will unfold these other realities.

For over half a century, Dr. Stephen P. Huyler has conducted detailed field research canvasing India: north, south, east, and west. Few other scholars, Indian or foreign, have covered this breadth. An accomplished writer, photographer, and videographer, Huyler has recorded subcultures rarely seen by outsiders. A determined feminist, he has specialized in women’s art and identity. For decades, his books, films, and museum exhibitions have opened the eyes of western audiences. This Camden Conference lecture will be drawn from three of his books and recent unpublished interviews. When not in South Asia, Stephen and his wife Helene have been residents of Camden for forty years.