The Exceptional Woman Behind The Bombay Sorosis Club, India’s First Literary Society for Women
“The world was made for women also” – motto of The Bombay Sorosis Club
It was in the year 1889 that Emma Brainerd-Ryder, doctor and reformer, placed an ad in an Indian newspaper in Bombay, now Mumbai, inviting intellectual women from all over the country, irrespective of their class and nationalities, to join a movement and form an all-female organisation. That’s how 47 exceptional women congregated at the Alexandra Girls’ School at Bombay Fort, out of which 30 women became a part of Bombay Sorosis, India’s first all-woman literary society.
Emma Brainerd-Ryder was born in Vermont. She attained her teaching degree from Oread Institute for Women in Worcester. The1800s was a regressive and retrograde era as women in New York were not allowed to practice as physicians. But Emma expressed her desire to continue her studies in the field of medicine and enrolled herself in the New York Medical College for Women which had just been established in 1863, a few years before she joined. There she attained a degree in ophthalmology and oral surgery and moved to Austria where she practiced for a few years. According to a preserved document, she also served as a doctor in the Russian Army, but was called back by an American minister at St. Petersburg because he thought the mission was not suited and was too ‘dangerous for a woman’.
The year 1870 saw the rise of women’s rights movements across America, specifically in New York. Women were taking charge and fighting against patriarchal structures to gain education rights, voting rights, and even the freedom to choose what to wear. That is when Brainerd-Ryder stepped into the shoes of an activist, leaving her life of scrubs behind, and joined these movements to advocate for the rights of women. One of the first of these movements was in the form of the New York Sorosis Club, founded by Jane Cunningham Croly. Her work in this field, and her thoughts and ideas, influenced Brainerd-Ryder to sail to India with fellow feminist and scholar, Pandita Ramabai, and establish The Bombay Sorosis Club.
Sorosis is Greek for the nectar extracted from the ovaries of a flower. Standing true to its name, the Bombay Sorosis Club aimed to extract the untapped and suppressed potential of women – their nectar, so to speak. Brainerd-Ryder was deeply disturbed by the misogynistic practices that were prevalent in Indian society in the late 1800s, the most prominent of them being child marriage. She empathised with women who were denied education and married at a tender age. She founded The Bombay Sorosis Club as a means to help these women in distress, and inspire them to stand for what they believed in so they could create a brighter, better world for themselves. She faced immense criticism and backlash from the Indian society that wanted to maintain the status quo but nothing stopped her from her achieving her vision.
She also went on to establish the Women’s Technical Education Association which was a technical school for girls. Apart from teaching them life skills and accounting, the school also taught these young women how to be self-reliant and independent. She went door to door to convince parents to send their girls to the school but, more often than not, the only response she got was a door shut in her face. It was only when she agreed to pay the girls for attending the school that there was a change in the parents’ attitude.
Emma Brainerd-Ryder moved to Sri Lanka in 1892 but left a burgeoning legacy in Bombay that went on to become a fierce unit of more than 200 women, and grew into the 20th century with more women joining in. They united and revolted against age-old regressive notions that gripped Indian society in the name of culture. Brainerd-Ryder published a book titled The Little Wives of India in which she narrated her experiences, the reforms she helped incite, and most importantly, the lives she impacted by establishing The Bombay Sorosis club.
In the words of Jane Cunningham Croly:
“We women must learn what is true and best for both men and women and then we must be steadfast in doing things we believe to be right and suffer death than to do the wrong thing.”
(Edited by Varsha Roysam)
