Shadab Bano is an Associate Professor at Aligarh Muslim University, India. Her doctoral thesis (2003) is on medieval Indian slavery, where she examined the gender dimensions of slavery and enslavement. Her recent thrust area is on women’s history and gender relations in medieval India, women and Muslim ‘reform’ in colonial India, and education and women’s rights in contemporary India. She has written on themes of marriage and concubinage, purdah in royal and aristocratic households, prostitutes and performers, eunuchs, women’s work and property, etc. Her articles are in Studies in History, Indian Journal of Gender Studies, and Economic and Political Weekly. She received two Best Paper awards in the Indian History Congress. She has also written in reputed journals on institutional patriarchy and negotiation for rights in higher education. Further, she has been active in the campaign for women’s safety in Aligarh.She has been elected to the executive committee of Indian Association for Women’s Studies and is presently serving as the joint secretary of IAWS and coordinator of IAWS Northern Regional Committee.