Women and science: A critical venture into “Ladyland” in Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s “Sultana’s Dream”

Abstract

19th century Bengal witnessed a significant churning of new ideas which were equated with progress and modernity. Science was quite dominant in the scenario. Quite naturally, it was the coloniser's tool to assert their supremacy. Gradually the English educated Bengali elites took rigorous efforts to indigenise science. Still, some voices were excluded from this new domain of learning. This paper intends to read Rokeyas's story, “Sultana's Dream” to question the forced marginalization of women with a rigid presumption that science could only remain as a male prerogative.