II Sem MA Sociology-Gender Studies

GENDER STUDIES
II SEMESTER
2019 Admission
MA SOCIOLOGY
(SOC2 C08)
UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT
School of Distance Education
Calicut University- P.O, Malappuram- 673635, Kerala
190358
UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT
Study Material
II Semester
MA SOCIOLOGY
2019 Admission (SOC2 C08)
GENDER STUDIES
Prepaired by:
Smt. Barsheena Mumthas. P,
Assistant Professor on Contract,
Department of Sociology,
University of Calicut.
Scrutinized by:
Dr. Leela P.U.,
Assistant Professor,
Department of Sociology,
St. Teresa’s College,
Ernakulam.
Gender Studies 2
CONTENTS
MODULE 1: GENDER AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT
MODULE 2: PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
MODULE 3: GENDER DYNAMICS IN INDIA
MODULE 4: GENDER AND KERALA SOCIETY
Gender Studies 3
Gender Studies 4
MODULE 1
GENDER AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT
1.1 Gender Studies: Genesis Of Women’s studies/gender studies

1.2 Basic Concepts - Sex/Gender, Gender identity, Gender Stereotypes, Gender
discrimination, Gendered division of labour, Heteronormativity, LGBTIQ
1.3 Different waves of Feminism, Feminist Perspectives - Liberal, radical, Marxist,
Socialist, Eco-feminism
1.1Gender Studies
Genesis of Gender Studies
Gender Studies is an academic area of study that critically examines how gender
shapes our identities, our social interactions and our world. Through exposure to
interdisciplinary perspectives, students develop a framework for thinking about power
relations and the ways that those relations are shaped and challenged by intersecting
constructions of gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, age and nationality. Gender Studies
examines everyday experiences, social and political institutions, literary and
philosophical contributions, and past and present ideas and world events. The discipline
provides students with tools to engage with and critically analyze.
Gender Studies is an inter-disciplinary area of study which engages critically with
gender realities, gender norms, gender relations and gender identities from intersectional
perspectives. To study gender intersectionality means to focus on the ways in which
gender interrelates with other social categorizations such as ethnicity, class, sexuality
identity, nationality, age, disability etc.
Teachers and students of Gender Studies are diverse, but share a belief that
women and men, girls and boys, are much more than just gendered stereotypes and
cultural “dopes” who simply perform a pre-given gender/sex, defined by a
heteronormative two-gender-model. In Gender Studies, we analyze how gender/sex
interacts with other social distinctions such as ethnicity, class, sexuality identity,
nationality, age, disability etc. We explore how gender, power and norms are intertwined
and cannot be understood independently of social and cultural contexts. We scrutinize
how various kinds of social injustice, for example, class- and ethnicity-based injustices,
often haves strong gendered dimensions. A key focus of Gender Studies is the question:
Gender Studies 5
how to foster change, make space for diversity and for new kinds of social, cultural and
ecological sustainability and equality. Gender Studies educates agents for change.
History of Gender Studies
Even though Gender Studies is a relatively a new phenomenon in higher education,
it is today well established as an interdisciplinary field of study which draws on
knowledge from humanities, social sciences, medicine, and natural science. The basis for
the academic field of Gender Studies was in many countries laid in the 1970s, when
women in Academia protested against the ways in which academic knowledge
production made women invisible and ignored gendered power relations in society.
Interdisciplinary study environments started to mushroom, among others in many
European countries and in North America, where. So-called Women’s Studies Centers
were set up, gathering critical teachers and students who wanted to study gender
relations, and women, in particular. A common denominator for the development was
strong links to women’s movements, activism, feminist ideas and practices. The research
agenda was emancipatory, and the aim was to gather well founded scholarly arguments
to further the political work for change in society, science and culture.
Since the start in the 1970s, gender research has been inspired by and embedded
in many different and sometimes partly overlapping scholarly traditions, such as
empiricism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, post structuralism, critical studies of men and
masculinities, critical race theory, critical studies of whiteness, intersectionality
(Intersectionality is a term that was coined by American professor Kimberlé Crenshaw
in 1989. The concept already existed but she put a name to it. The textbook definition
states: The view that women experience oppression in varying configurations and in
varying degrees of intensity). And postcolonial theory, queer studies, lesbian, gay, bi and
Trans studies (so-called LGBT studies), critical studies of sexualities, body theory,
sexual difference feminisms, black feminisms, ecological feminisms, animal studies,
feminist techno science studies, materialist feminisms. The field of study has grown and
expanded rapidly on a worldwide basis, and given rise to a diversity of specific national
and regional developments.
Feminist criticism and women’s studies
It was feminist criticism of gender inequality in the 1970s that provided the
impetus for gender studies. In Academe, moreover, it was initially a critical response to
the lack of knowledge and interest that was shown in half of humanity. Women’s studies,
as the subject came to be called, started to complement the knowledge base of various
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disciplines. It was considered necessary to add knowledge about women’s lives and
conditions in order to ensure that the knowledge base was not biased and that ignorance
about the situation of women did not lead to injustice. It was considered necessary to
study the situation and fill knowledge gaps.
However, it proved difficult to mainstream the results of women’s studies. They
challenged and changed the overall disciplinary structure and in time disciplinary
criticism grew stronger.They challenged and changed the overall disciplinary structure
and in time disciplinary criticism grew stronger. The new insights were used to scrutinize
academic traditions. Studies were made of the potential gender blindness of various
disciplines, but more subtle questions were also raised about the influence of endocentric
issues on all research. Established concepts and theories were reappraised. Attention was
drawn to the discrimination of women researchers and women pioneers in various
disciplines such studies, which may be characterized as complementary research, cannot
be said to be state of the art today. The progress made varies in different disciplines and
the task is by no means finished. Complementary research is almost always a necessary
first step towards developing gender studies in a new field, and criticism of gender
blindness in individual disciplines is still an important task. The main subject of women’s
studies was the past and present position of women in society, i.e. not only the situation
of women, but also their social relationships, including relationships between men and
women. These studies also raised issues that could not be addressed either by the
established disciplines or in the framework of women’s studies. It also became clear that
it was not possible to understand the complex nature of social relationships solely by
means of studies of women’s material circumstances, social affiliation, actions or failure
to act etc. Historically and culturally determined conceptions of sex, or gender, proved
to be important for people’s understanding of other people and the organization of social
relationships.
Gender Studies and Gender Theory
Gender researchers study how people think, interpret, perceive, symbolize, feel,
write, paint, dance, fantasize, wish, experience, define – in other words “construct” –
what we normally call sex and what this word means and what it meant in the past.
However, the epistemological dimension of gender studies does not deny the
material, biological aspects. Ideas about the body, for example biological descriptions of
Gender Studies 7
the human body, have cultural and social consequences too. Biology is relevant to
gender, not as an integral component but as a subject of research
Gender is about sexuality and the labor market, processes and structures, science
criticism and gender equality, culture and social organization, what exists and what might
exist. It is about power and resources and figures of speech, body and soul, individuals
and groups; about whether, and if so how, one gender is superior to the other and how
such a situation has arisen and been reproduced.
Gender is a specific object of study, but the issues could be formulated with
reference to most of the things people do. It is therefore a wide-ranging and complex
discipline. All gender researchers cannot know everything about gender, and many of
them are not interested in gender studies outside their own subject. Others regard gender
theory as a discipline in its own right that finds inspiration in other disciplines.
The purpose of interdisciplinary gender studies is to understand gender from as
many different viewpoints as possible. The knowledge obtained from interdisciplinary
gender studies can also be used to improve understanding of problems in other
disciplines. It is difficult to draw a precise line between interdisciplinary gender studies
and gender theory with an interdisciplinary focus. There is also intensive communication
and extensive collaboration between the two approaches. Despite the dynamic
development of interdisciplinary research, gender studies in Sweden are carried on
mainly in existing disciplines and have in the last few decades significantly helped to
develop and broaden subject-specific knowledge and theory in some of them.
Feminism and Gender Studies

There would have been no gender studies without feminism as a driving force.
But whereas gender studies is a field of knowledge and study, feminism is both a political
movement and a field of knowledge and study, the latter being called feminist research
or feminist theory. In gender studies the terms gender studies and feminist research are
sometimes used synonymously for the discipline. Other researchers in the field
distinguish between gender studies and feminist research.
Difference between Gender and Women Studies
In 1970s, women’s studies programs were established in UK universities, the
concept of “women’s studies” was narrow concerned with female identity ignoring
broader issues of impact, intersect, sexism etc.,. The discipline then underwent the partial
transition to “gender studies”, aided by the widespread influence of the work in study of
Gender Studies 8
sexuality focused on “lesbian and gay studies” towards “queer”. Rigorous debate
centered on the ways in which identity politics balanced with analysis of different types
of oppression intersects with each other. The lines between women’s studies, gender
studies and sexuality studies are very thin and all three have many methodological and
theoretical differences.
The Gender studies is the new subject to academics across the world because the
world and elements of the culture are tend to achieve the realistic approach towards the
exploration of ills in society. The basic motive behind the exploration of ill is to confront
the challenges in human life. The subject is not ancient one and oppositely it is new to
the society. The society that is showing some endorsements towards the reality approach
so that gender differentiation can come forward as truth.
Gender studies is the paradigm shift in academics and this shift is being obtained
through the consistent behavior of women in women struggle against freedom.
Realistically speaking, the subject matter debate is not end till date because of different
viewpoints of the society about the gender studies at the same platform. It is known fact
that the women studies is always considered the major elements related with the women
only. Those elements that are highly considerable in the way and should be done with
the immediate improvement in the timeline at women’s perspective. The women issue is
the one of the main elements among those that considered the women at first place in
society and should be molded in the sense that may endorse the way of society towards
the women.
The women issues may be same as the society said and may be highly integrated.
The women issues may be same as the urban women said during her daily life and may
be same as the women issues buzzed up by the rural’ living life. The main element in
which the women can think, ponder and initiates the discourse analysis is being
understandable and discussed in the women studies in this society. The women issues are
not a static form in which the women can thinks and responds in the static form, it is the
flexible paradigm that show that how the women confronts the challenges in her life. The
challenges that issues of friendship, challenges of vulnerability in the society and the
challenges that is confronted by the women against the power distribution in the same
society.
The challenges are itself creating various issues in the women’s life and women
can think that people of society are still unaware the methods that show that how these
issues can be resolved. The women researchers and the women responded are the two
Gender Studies 9
ways to think about the issues of the same community in which the both exist with almost
the same mindset but in the different way. Ironically, the women study endorsed the same
mindset at different levels so that the community shows some integration at large scale.
The women researchers are doing well under the way that is highly considerable but
constitutes less power than the women responded in introspective way. The community
sets a mindset that the women issues are the core purpose of both platforms so that the
issues could meet the pragmatic strategies at vast range. The power is unequally divide
between the power responded and power researchers in the manner that is very useful in
the manner. The women issues can’t meet the solutions in any case because the society
acts differently. The Gender studies is entirely a different concept and the conceptual
framework of gender needs the ways in which the respondent behaves with the
researchers but in both men and women’ perspective.
The gender’ studies are always considered the issues at front desk in which the
both male and female are considerable for the discourse analysis. The women studies
considered the women history and Gender studies considered the men’ role in the women
history. The women studies initiate the analysis at women’ literature and gender studies
draws attention towards the role of men in articulation and even creating it.
Multi-disciplinary nature of Gender Studies

The gender studies as the name gives taste of the thematic meaning in meaningful
manner to ponder that how the studies of gender in this consistent widening population
endorse the way that is highly centralized with the studies of both sexes currently in this
universe. When the gender studies decided to do the relative measures with the
immediate study as the research paradigm in which the studies in this manner is very
descriptive it arises as the tool to make assumptions and expectation. This analysis
provides the way through the further research is being carried out with the effective
decision making.The assumption that are providing the glaring way to make assumption
about the gender at first level and influence of sex difference at other. The gender studies
can not only consider the cultural difference in further way but also two other aspects
that are exactly deals with the things in this manner. The social ideas that show that how
the community is going to do the justification is another way to think about the course
material in detail. The ideas of political mindset with the ideas of social mindset endorsed
the way in which the clear difference is being considered at first level and the difference
is about the men and women.
Gender Studies 10
The same material of gender studies shows that how the studies incorporated the
ways in which the scholars thinks and the thinkers reacts. The both elements of society;
masculinity and femininity are always dealing with the ways in which the society is the
only way to show that every aspect in society behaves with these elements by considering
the differences that are always there and being there forever. The both elements that are
integrated with the way that social constructed platform is the way to get the real
maximum in the beautiful way. After the social constructed element, the other aspect is
the historical touch with the manner that are highly sensitive in the history and show the
struggle of later said in above text.
Particularly, the gender studies is the multidisciplinary nature in the course
because the studies always considered the and even encourage the students who always
a perfect match with different courses. The first course that is natural science and the
students of natural science can accept and even do better while studying the gender
studies. The other students who may done the health care degree before the study but can
do better with the same gender study. The Students who may got excellence even in
education and business may show that the same interest in the gender studies. In the end,
one can say that knowledge of almost every field can do the indirect support so that
excellence could be achieved even in the sender studies.
Gender Studies is the multidisciplinary study of how assumptions and
expectations about gender and biological sex influence cultural, social, and political ideas
about women and men.Gender Studies take experts from several fields as the nature of
Gender Studies was such that many disciplines fit into it. The second reason is that there
is no one who had training in this field. The interdisciplinary nature of Women’ Studies
is yet to establish because the traditional wisdom of our academicians seldom allows
them to apply their knowledge in other fields. Gender Studies curriculum of various
institutions show that there is no uniformity among one another. Usually the curriculum
will among one another. Usually the curriculum will be set in the line of the expertise
available in the institution. For example, the Gender Studies curriculum framed by an
English literature expert differ from that framed by a social scientist. Both will not be
related to each other as the contents and approaches vary from one another. All these are
rationalized in terms of its multidisciplinary character. The above described
characteristics of Gender Studies is also due to the nebulous stage of Gender Studies in
the academic field. Gender Studies is yet to be evolved and experiments are going on
using theoretical and methodological contributions of other discipline. Gender Studies
Gender Studies 11
continue to be like this till the time it as its own theory and method. The scope of Gender
Studies is large as Gender Studies is necessary to understand fifty percent of our society.
Neglected portion of our society is brought to limelight through Gender Studies. As
Gender Studies is emerging as separate discipline it has an international orientation.
Though Gender Studies Gender culture can be built by linking the results of the
researches of Gender issues with the existing societal culture. Gender Studies become
complete only if each Gender experiences are put together as their experiences are unique
due to the cultural differences. Gender Studies give a lot of descriptive data on various
aspects and religion. The tribal women, rural women, women of different classes are all
studied and each group’s problems and prospects are to be highlighted. For the historians
Gender studies are important as History totally neglected women and Gender role in
building the nation is yet to be known. Gender Studies is a key subject for Sociologists
as many evils of the societies can be tackled only after getting a holistic view of the
society and only after understanding Gender views on these problems.
For Economists and Political Scientists Gender Studies are relevant to study
productive and consumer patterns and to know the political participation, awareness and
leadership of women. The dilemma between the importance of the economic
independence vis-a-vis political and educational progress and economic progress is still
going on and Gender Studies experts are yet to give a solution. The popular belief is that
economic freedom is the prelude of all the other freedom where as social scientists are
of the opinion that economic freedom is different from the freedom of our culture. The
culture in which the women are nurtured is the biggest enemy for freedom and Gender
Studies look into the possible ways as means to come out this and also to make strategies
to overcome this for woman. The scope of Gender Studies is enormous as all the societal
issues are either Gender issue or related to that. In this context it is to be pointed out that
Gender Studies cannot have concrete theories as pure sciences because of the nature of
society. Just like any other social science theory, Gender Studies will be abstract which
should be applied in all regions and sectors of society and modify them periodically. The
theoretical jargons can be taken as basis of analysis by the theory cannot be used, but
most of the theories are contextual in character and abstract in nature.
The methodological experiments in Gender Studies are another area in which
Gender studies have to do a lot of research. The traditional methodology may not be
much used for Gender Studies and therefore new tools and techniques should be evolved
to infer the correct results Gender Studies gave a large scope for various disciplines as it
is an interdisciplinary subject. The findings of Gender Studies researches can be applied
both for scientific researches and action programs.
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1.2 Basic Concepts

A. Sex/Gender
Sex: It refers to a person's biological and physiological characteristics.
Gender: It refers to the cultural and social distinctions between women and men. These
include the attributes, statuses, roles, responsibilities, opportunities and privileges
accorded to women and men - as well as their access to and control over resources and
benefits. All these distinctions can change according to time, place and the development
climate.
Sex roles: therefore, differ from gender roles in as much as they refer to biological
functions that are limited to one particular sex. For example, pregnancy is a female sex
role because only women can bear children.
Gender roles: are roles classified by sex, in which the classification is social and not
biological. Child-rearing may be classified as a female role, but it is a female gender role
rather than a female sex role, as child-rearing can be done by men or women.
SEX vs. GENDER
SEX GENDER
Biological characteristics (including genetics, Socially constructed set of roles and

anatomy and physiology) that generally define responsibilities associated with being girl and
Humans as female or male. Note that these boy or women and men, and in some cultures
biological characteristics are not mutually at other gender.
exclusive; however, there are individuals who
possess both male and female characteristics.
Born with Not born with.
Natural Learned.
Universal, A historical, no variation from Gender roles vary greatly in different societies,
culture to culture or time to time. cultures and historical periods as well as they
depend also on socio-economic factors, age,
education, ethnicity and religion.
Gender Studies 13
Cannot be changed, except with the medical Although deeply rooted, gender roles can be
treatment. changed over time, since social values and
norms are not static.
Example: Only women can give birth. Only Example: The expectation of men to be
women can breastfeed. economic providers of the family and for
women to be caregivers is a gender norm in
many cultural contexts.However,women prove
able to do traditionally male jobs as well as
men (e.g. men and women can do housework;
men and women can be leaders and managers).
PRACTICAL POINT: At birth, the difference between boys and girls is their sex; as they grow
up, society gives them the different roles, attributes, opportunities, privileges and rights that in
the end create the social differences between men and women.
B. Gender identity
Gender identity is an individual's self-conception as a man or woman or as a boy
or girl or as some combination of man/boy and woman/girl or as someone fluctuating
between man/boy and woman/girl or as someone outside those categories altogether. It
is distinguished from actual biological sex.
Gender identity is our internal experience and naming of our gender. There are many
different gender identities, including male, female, transgender, gender neutral, non-
binary, agender, pan-gender, gender-queer, two-spirit, third gender, and all, none or a
combination of these. All societies have a set of gender categories that can serve as the
basis of a person’s self –identity in relation to other members of society. Gender identity
is not the same as one’s gender role, which concerns the set of behaviors and attitudes
generally considered appropriate for a particular sex. The term gender identity was
originally coined by Robert. J.Stoller in 1964.The term gender identity and core identity
were first used with their current meaning-One’s personal experience of one’s own
gender-sometimes in the 1960s.To this day they are usually used in that sense ,though a
few scholars additionally use the term to refer to the sexual orientation and sexual identity
categories gay, lesbian and bisexual.
Gender Studies 14
HISTORY
CONCEPTUAL ORIGINS
In 1950, Sigmund Freud presented his theory of psychosexual development in Three
essays on the theory of sexuality .Freud believed gender identity developed during the
phallic stage of development .According to him during this stage ,young boys develops
an Oedipus complex, where they have an unconscious sexual desire for their mother and
jealousy or hatred for their father. In 1913 Carl Jung proposed the Electra complex as an
analogous phenomenon in girls. This proposal however was rejected by Freud.
During the 1950s and 60s, psychologists began studying gender development in young
children, partially in an effort to understand the origins of homosexuality. In 1958, the
Gender identity Research project was established at the UCLA Medical center for the
study of intersexual and Transsexual.
Psychoanalyst Robert. J.Stoller generalized many of the findings of the project in his
book Sex and Gender: on the Development of Masculinity and femininity. He is also
credited with introducing the term gender identity to the international psychoanalytic
congress in Stockholm, Sweden in 1963.
AGE OF FORMATION OF GENDER IDENTITY
 John Money suggested children might have awareness of, and attach some
significance to gender as early as 18 months to two years.
 Lawrence Kohlberg argues that gender identity does not form until age three.
 Martin and Ruble conceptualize this process of development as three stages

1) As toddlers and preschoolers, children learn about defined
Characteristics, which are socialized aspect of gender.
2) Around the ages of 5-7 years, identity is consolidated and becomes rigid.
3) After this peak of rigidity fluidity returns and socially defined gender
roles relax.
 Barbara Newman breaks it down into four parts as

1) Understanding the concept of gender
2) Learning gender role standards and stereotypes
3) Identifying with parents
4) Forming gender preference
Gender Studies 15
FACTORS INFLUENCING THE FORMATION OF GENDER IDENTITY

Many factors have been suggested as influencing the development of gender identity.
Both biological and environmental factors are responsible for the development of gender
identity. In particular, the extent to which it is determined by socialization versus innate
factors is an ongoing debate in psychology, known as “nature versus culture”. Biological
factors that influences gender identity include pre- and post natal hormone levels. It also
includes gene regulations too. Social factors which influences gender identity includes
idea regarding gender roles conveyed by family, mass media and other influential people
in a Childs life.
C. Gender Stereotypes
Gender stereotypes evolve based on a culture’s belief systems regarding the attitudes,
behaviors, and other characteristics that seem to differentiate the two sexes. Gender
stereotypes are the strong beliefs that people have about the features and characteristics
of males and females. The content of stereotype varies over societies and over time.
These expectations are sometimes related to the roles that the sexes fulfill in the society
.Aspects of stereotypes are being learned by children at younger ages. It develops quickly
during preschool years and reach at high level at kindergarten. Later it broaden to include
sports, school subjects, and personality traits. With age, children become increasingly
knowledgeable about gender stereotypes and yet the rigidity of their stereotypes declines
as they increasingly recognize the cultural relativity of these norms .Some evidence
suggests that boys hold more rigid gender stereotypes than girls and are held to more
rigid ideals than girls. In adolescence, flexibility in stereotypes fluctuates in response to
two opposing forces—increasing cognitive flexibility tends to increase adolescents'
flexibility in applying stereotypes whereas increasing pressure to conform to stereotypes
in preparation for sexual roles and adult status increases adherence to stereotypes (Ruble
and Martin 1998).
Children use gender stereotypes to make inferences about others at a young age. When
making judgments of other people, children and adults will apply their gender stereotypic
expectations to them. Even more than adults, children will rely on a person's sex to make
judgments and they are less likely to consider other relevant information about the person
than adults are (see Ruble and Martin 1998).
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D.Gender Discrimination
Discrimination on the basis of his/her gender in academia or extracurricular activities,
academic Gender discrimination is unequal or disadvantageous treatment of an
individual or group of individuals based on gender. The person is treated only on the
basis of sex or gender rather than their skill ir ability. Sexual harassment is a form of
illegal gender discrimination. Gender discrimination can be treating an individual
differently based uponprograms, discipline, class assignments given in a classroom, class
enrollment, physical education, grading, and/or athletics.
Gender Discrimination in India

The most deep-rooted forms of gender inequality had been built into the structure of
traditional Indian Society. Through gender inequality exists a large measure in the society
under different dimensions for long time, its importance has grown in the recent times
only. In the traditional society the inequality between males and females existed to a
large extent. Women were looked down socially, economically and politically. Women
became scape goats of many traditions and customs. She was brutally killed in the name
of Sathi. The practice of child marriage, Kanyasulkam, Prostitution was taken it granted
by society and women has no voice what so ever for centuries together. Women’s role
was restricted to domestic life especially kitchen work and bearing and rearing of
children. She has no place in economic and political activities. Girl children were
discriminated in terms of basic necessities of life such as food, clothing and shelter.
Woman is the last person in the family to eat. She is the person who does all types of
menial jobs. There is no respect for her work. Most of the women’s work outside the
domestic front is restricted to agricultural labour activity (in agriculture) and unorganized
activities in urban sector. The Census did not consider their work while counting the
number of economically active persons in the country for quite a long time.
The Government of India has taken several measures and also making endeavor to hoist
the status of women in the society in order to promote equality of men and women. The
different plans, programs, and policies have laid emphasis on women empowerment and
raising the economic, educational, health and political participation of women to match
with that of men. The draft national policy on empowerment of women envisages 1) to
setup councils at the national and State levels to review the implementation of the
recommendations of the national and State Commissions for women. 2) The center and
State to draw up time bound action plans to translate this –policy into concrete action in
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consultation with the Central and State Commissions for women. (3) Every ministry at
the Center and the State is obliged ensure equal flow of benefits in physical and financial
terms to Article 15 of the constitution prohibits any discrimination on grounds of sex.
The directive principles of State policy also urge that the State shall direct this policy
towards securing an adequate means of livelihood for women and ensuring equal pay for
equal work for both men and women. Since seventy’s the objectives of raising the status
of women and also been included in different five years plans. In the sixth five-year plan
emphasis was laid on raising the employment status of women. The seventh plan
emphasized the need for human resource development in women. The eighth plan aims
at enabling women to function as equal partners and implement social legislation for
women effectively. The ninth plan has identified empowerment of women as an
objective. The tenth plan also emphasis on women development by Constitutional
safeguards like Property Rights, Hindu Succession Act etc.
The formulation of the National Commission for Women (N.C.M.) and the idea of setting
of a national council for empowerment of women are encouraging steps in this direction.
Also, different state governments are also implementing several development measures
for women’s health in general and re-productive health in particular. The lack of sex
education among adult girls and re-productive health education among the married
women are also cause of many preventable diseases. Empowering women regarding the
own re-productive health care and effecting accountability of men towards women’s re-
productive health are important for promoting women health status in the society.
Now with the efforts of national and international organizations several laws were passed
and some laws were changed. But still women continue to suffer from many social and
economic and political disadvantages, since the attitudes did not change as fast as the
change in laws. Gender issues are ideologically motivated and need a change in mindset
in terms of attitudes and behavior of both men and women of all dimensions.
The women discrimination can be visualized on various angles. In a male dominated
society like ours one has to accept that women are at the receiving end. The sex ratio is
unfavorable to women and it has declined overtime. The expectation of life is low for
women in India up to the recent times. The opportunities and access to decision-making
institutions are not equal to both men and women. There is clear division of labour among
men and women, designating certain tasks exclusively to each and another. Mostly
activities, which have low market value, are attached to women. Women mostly spend
their time in household maintenance. There were also gender differences access and
Gender Studies 18
control over resources, which were important elements to consider in development,

programs especially where interventions may change the value of resource and reduce
women’s access.
The following are the major areas of discrimination:
1. Gender Ratio
2. Maternal Mortality Rate
3. Age at Marriage
4. Early Child Bearing and Other Social Factors
● Feticide
● Abortion
● Female Infanticide
● Infant Mortality
● Child Mortality
● Son preference
● Family Planning Acceptance
● Undercounting of women
● Social inequalities
● Literacy
The sex ratio is very low in India (1070 males per 1000 females) as compared to many
developing countries and most of the advanced countries. The high maternal mortality,
infant mortality, child mortality feticide, infanticide, abortion, low age of marriage social
stigma associated with marriage and son preference are responsible for low sex ratio in
India. Also, under counting of women associated with many social factors is one of the
main reasons for low sex ratio in the country. But Kerala scenario is different (1084
females/1000 males).
The Social factors, such as, illiteracy, ignorance, the economic factors such as low wage,
unemployment under employment and political factors such as, low participation of
women in the elections and other elected bodies are also equally responsible for gender
inequality in the country. So, there is every need to bring about changes in social,
economic, and political structure in order to reduce gender inequality . The term
empowerment of women is an important popular concept among political spectrum.
Empowerment through the expansion of the civil, political and social rights of citizenship
is a laborious and unexciting process. Empowerment is only effective answer to
oppression, exploitation, injustice, and other melodies of society. The idea of
Gender Studies 19
empowerment contains exciting possibilities. It is a wide term with no specific meaning.

The term is very vogue and is more a context driven rather than theory driven. It is about
social transformation. It is about the people rather than politicians. It is about power,
although the concept of power contained in it is generally left unspecified. Empowerment
is both a means to an end and an end in itself. The focus on empowerment has given a
new emphasis to the building of economic and social capabilities among individuals,
classes and communities. It is theories of social change in particular, a change from a
hierarchical to and egalitarian type of society. It is based on democratic society, which is
based on recognition of equal rights to all individuals in its place. Empowerment appears
to be an alternative path for dismantling the old structure and putting new one in this
place. Empowerment is to change the society through re-arrangement of the power. So,
there is a need for empowerment through civic, political and social rights of citizens.
Gender empowerment measure is a measure for women development. It measures gender
inequality in a society. India ranks 112 out of 153countries in the world (Global Gender-
gap Repor-2020), as far as gender empowerment is concerned. The measure indicates
whether women are able to actively participate in economic and political life. It measures
the gender inequality in basic capabilities of women. It focuses on gender inequality in
the key areas of social economic political scenario. The lack of access to land, to credit,
better employment opportunities, handicaps women’s ability to free from poverty.
Poverty is more among women as compared to men. When women are disproportionately
poor, they are dis-empowered and bounded by strains of productive work, the birth of
children and other household and community responsibilities.
E. Gendered Division of Labour

The division of labour can be said as organization of work into specialized roles, which
means the division of work process into a number of parts, each part undertaken by a
separate person or group of persons (Mitchell 1968). The Division of Labour or work
process may be based on age, sex, class, race etc. and it exists in almost all societies. The
most basic division of labour appears to be founded on sex or gender (Haralambos 1980).
The gender division of labour means the organization/allocation of work between men
and women. It can be said as a social perception about what is ‘natural’ for a particular
sex to do as an occupation. The division of labour as it operates in the contemporary
society gives women a subordinate position in the family and society. It expresses,
embodies, and perpetuates female subordination.
Gender Studies 20
There are different perspectives about the origin of male favored gender division of
labour in the society. Traditionalists argue that gender division of labour as natural, God-
given, complementary and theologically even essential for the continuance of human
race. For them it is originated due to thebiological differences between male and female
and its roots are in the pre historic cultures. Women’s biological weakness is said to have
been at the base of the social institutionalization of harder jobs for men and simpler
household chores for women. But the heterogeneity of the sexual division of labour
across time and space, cultures, regions and classes within the same society proves the
case for biological determinism (Vina Mazumdar and Kunmud Sharma). Another view
is that the subordination of women by men is the basis on which early civilization has
formed and that the sexual division of labor has maintained a reciprocal state of
dependency between the sexes. Marxist argument is that women’s subordination and
division of labour by sex originated in lines with the emergence of social differentiation
and patriarchy caused by the historical changes in the modes of production and related
economic structure. Yet another argument is that economic development and increase in
trade and the subsequent functional specialization and reorganization of production
relations led to new patterns of dependence that have affected groups in general and
gender relations specifically. Ann Oakley observes that the gender roles based on the
division of labour is culturally rather than biologically determined. She argues that work
allocation for women shall not be based on the biological characteristics of women.
One common observation from all the perspectives is that sexual division of labour is
women biased and it manifests the subordination and stereotyping women in the family
as well as labour market. This sexual division of labour and the dichotomy in terms of
hard and soft jobs has led to the subsequent devaluation of women’s work and it has
maintained the myth that women do not and cannot engage in work that requires physical
labour. This myth negates the actual life experience of majority of women who do back-
breaking jobs besides routine domestic chores and productive labour in the fields or
factories, activities such as collection of water and fuel carrying heavy head loads over
long distances. Thus, the institutionalized hierarchy in the relations between men and
women leads to asymmetry in gendered roles and expectations and gendered division of
labour in the family and the labour market. Due to this women’s tasks of household and
child care are seen as extensions of their physiology and women’s work is conceptualized
as domestic and private and personal work and goes unrecognized and unpaid.
Gender Studies 21
The conventional perception on sexual division of labour based on distinction between

that of female and male sex is that of home making and bread winning. This is based on
the presumption that the primary role of women is home making and this is what women
used to do from time immemorial. And the role attributed to men is to meet the survival
needs of the rest of the family. Easter Boserup’s (1970) pioneering analysis of women’s
agricultural roles and the impact of economic development on gender roles challenged
this centuries-old perception. According to her the development of human society from
subsistence economies to high tech societies was a gradual change from family
production to specialized production using better technologies and scientific methods and
increasingly elaborate economic and social infrastructure. Along with this transition the
role of women also changed toform a comparatively better position as agricultural
producers with presumably higher status to more and more subordinated level where they
were depicted mainly as consumers and non-workers depended on men for their
subsistence. There were other studies which argued that the women in the primitive
society had a very active economic role. They were not only food gatherers but also were
the first managers of negligible surplus (Kosambi 1970), although this role was later
transferred to the patriarch or the tribal chief. According to Kosambi women were the
first agriculturists, they the first pottery maker sand textile producers. Earlier societies
based on subsistence economies were more or less egalitarian with both women and men
toiled for subsistence.
The gender equation started changing with the family production and the tribal ownership
of land transformed into a system of peasant production and private ownership of land
with the use of animals for cultivation and transport (Boserup 1970). The changes in the
production accompanied by the changes in the position of women, pushing them into a
secondary status. The society became more stratified in terms of several criteria which
included gender too. Type of work also stratified with manual work getting low status.
The male group became the owner of land and usurped the use of new and more efficient
equipment. Men are taught to operate animal driven equipment while women continue
to prepare the land with hand tools. Such discrimination continued with the technological
advancements and the use of mechanized equipment. While men ride tractors, women
continued to do the tedious job of weeding and transplanting in the agricultural fields.
The modernization in agriculture reduced the work burden of men. Women continue to
perform traditional hand operations unless their family’s income is sufficient. (Ahmed
1985).
Gender Studies 22
With the development of capitalist enterprises based on wage labour, the family
production transformed into family enterprise and then to large-scale enterprises. In the
changed scenario with more and more capital accumulation, families could spare
women’s labour. For well-to-do families the role of women became a status symbol. In
such a situation female chastity and mother role were exalted and women were secluded
in their homes. Women from less poor and well-to-do families were unavailable for work
in the labour market due to reasons like cultural prejudices against female work
participation, unwillingness to do double work, and their desire to take good care of their
children (Boserup 1970). In spite of the cultural objections to female participation in the
labour market, women from the poor families are forced by economic necessity to work
in the family or large-scale enterprises. Thus the women labour participation in
managerial and better jobs disappeared and women labour concentrated in low paid jobs
(Ibid).With the shift of education from family to educational institutions, and spread of
education in the society both males and females received chances to get formal education.
But with the preference for men to take up jobs and responsibility of earning for the
livelihood of the family, they got more support from the family and society for
specialized and technical education, which gained them, better paid jobs. Thus,
modernization and development, generally speaking, by all means consolidated the
secondary status of women in the society.
In Indian society division of labour based on sex is very explicit. Ideologically males are
viewed as producers who provide the material needs of women and children; and women
are treated as consumers whose place is in the household and perform socially defined
roles of cooking of food and caring of children. The division of work is socially defined
rather than arbitrary. Women are expected to perform household dominated activities,
which are supplementary and supportive to men folk (Jha 1998).In the present day
society, it is found that the normative framework altered in practice and women are
involved in a variety of activities complementary to the productive activities even within
the household. In fact, women’s engagement in the productive and income generating
tasks is not distinct and isolated from those of cooking of food, caring of children etc.
nor such engagement on the part of women frees them from their obligation of normal
household obligations.
Thus, researches prove that gender differentials or asymmetries in sexual division of
labour instead of decreasing tend to widen with increasing modernization and economic
development of the society. Now let us examine the facets of sexual division of labour
in the contemporary economy of modern specialized production.
Gender Studies 23
F. Heteronormativity:
Heteronormativity is a concept used by sociologists and other social scientists to describe
the way that sex and gender are used to hierarchically organize people in our society.
Actually, heteronormativity is the belief that heterosexuality, or a romantic and sexual
attraction of the opposite sex, is the only normal sexual orientation. Other sexual
identifies are considered un natural and are sometimes legally prohibited.
Heteronormativity enforces not only strict norms about sexuality but also reinforce strict
gender roles within society. For example, the idea that women should stay home with
children while men work, indicate that men and women have specific jobs to do in our
society.
ISSUES ON HETERONORMATIVITY
 Not only does heteronormativity assume that a ‘normal’ marriage is between a

man and a woman, it also holds the beliefs that individual should fall into certain
categories in life due to their genitalia. Gender discrimination forms here.
 Heteronormativity leads to serious consequences for those who are not

heteronormative. It completely rejects homosexuality.
 It caused to the family rejection and discrimination. The LGBTQI youth often
run away from home because of the family conflict and then face overt
discrimination when seeking alternative housing, which is compounded by
institutionalized discrimination in federally funded programs.
 Due to heteronormative beliefs, LGBT (Lesbian. Gay, bisexual and Transgender)

youth also faces harassment and safety issues.
 Due to heteronormative norms, the LGBT individuals are discriminated from

employment sectors, educational and other social sectors, marriage, tax codes,
public discourses, adoption rights etc.
From these points, it can be can said that, Heteronormativity is oppressive, stigmatizing,
marginalizing of perceived deviant forms of sexuality and gender, and make self-
expression more challenging when that expression does not conform to the norm.
Heteronormative culture privileges to heterosexuality as normal and natural and fosters
a climate where LGBT individuals are discriminated from public sectors .The term came
into use as social theorists became interested in understanding how the enforcement of
Gender Studies 24
hetero sexuality disadvantaged members of society. And they specially focused on how
heteronormativity creates problems to the homosexual individuals in society. As social
scientist began to study gender, they realizedthat human sexuality might be more
complicated than this, leading to exploration of alternative sexual identities.
G. LGBTQI
LGBT or GLBT, is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.
In use since the 1990s, the term is an adaptation of the initialism LGB, which began to
replace the term gay in reference to the broader LGBT community beginning in the mid-
to-late 1980s.The initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an
umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.A six-band rainbow flag representing
LGBT people. It may refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual or non-cisgender, instead
of exclusively to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.To recognize this
inclusion, a popular variant, LGBTQ, adds the letter Q for those who identify as queer
or are questioning their sexual identity. Those who add intersex people to LGBT groups
or organizing may use the extended initialism LGBTI.These two initialism are sometimes
combined to form the terms LGBTIQ or LGBT+ to encompass spectrums of sexuality
and gender.Other, less common variants also exist, with some being rather extreme in
length, resulting in an initialism over twice as long. These expansions have prompted
criticisms has the suggestion that the term or its expansions necessarily imply a
community.
Definitions:
LGBTQIA+
LESBIAN: Usually refers to a woman who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation
toward women. Some non-binary people also identify with this term.
GAY: Used in some cultural settings to represent men who are attracted to men in a
romantic, erotic and/or emotional sense. Not all men who engage in same-gender sexual
behavior identify as gay, and as such this label should be used with caution.
BISEXUAL or BI: A person who experiences sexual, romantic, physical, and/or spiritual
attraction to more than one gender, not necessarily at the same time, in the same way, or
to the same degree.
Gender Studies 25
TRANSGENDER: A person whose sense of personal identity or gender does not

correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth, or does not conform to gender
stereotypes. Sexual orientation varies and is not dependent on gender identity.
QUEER: a multi-faceted word that is used in different ways and means different things
to different people. 1) Attraction to people of many genders. 2) Don’t conform to cultural
norms around gender and/or sexuality. 3) A general term referring to all non-heterosexual
people. Some within the community, however, may feel the word has been hatefully used
against them for too long and are reluctant to embrace it.
QUESTIONING: An individual who is unsure of and/or exploring their gender identity

and/or sexual orientation.
INTERSEX: An umbrella term that describes people born with any of 30 different
variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or
genitals.
ASEXUAL: A person who experiences little or no sexual attraction to others and/or a
lack of interest in sexual relationships/behavior. They may or may not experience
emotional, physical, or romantic attraction. Asexuality differs from celibacy in that it is
a sexual orientation, not a choice. People who are asexual may call themselves ace.
AROMANTIC: A person who experiences little or no romantic attraction to others and/or

has a lack of interest in romantic relationships/behavior.
PANSEXUAL: A person who experiences sexual, romantic, physical, and/or spiritual

attraction for members of all gender identities/expressions.
NON-BINARY or ENBY: A person whose gender identity does not fall within the binary
genders of man or woman.
GENDERFLUID: A person who does not identify with the gender binary and move
within genders and gender stereotypes.
GENDERQUEER: A person who does not identify or express their gender within the
gender binary. Those who identify as genderqueer may identify as neither men nor
women, may see themselves as outside of or in between the gender binary, or may simply
feel restricted by gender labels.
Gender Studies 26
AGENDER: a person with no (or very little) connection to gender, no personal alignment
with the concepts of either man or woman, and/or someone who sees themselves as
existing without gender.
STUD: A term originating within communities of color to describe a masculine

identifying person who was assigned female at birth. Here is a study looking at the
sexuality and gender construction of people who use ‘stud’ to describe their identity.
MĀHŪ:(‘in the middle’) in Kanaka Maoli (Hawaiian) and Maohi (Tahitian) cultures are
third gender persons with traditional spiritual and social roles within the culture. Here
are two videos to help you learn more about the Māhū culture.
MUXE: Derived from the Spanish word for woman (mujer), muxes generally represent
Mexican people who are assigned male at birth and identify as different genders. The
iterations among the muxe community and their self-identifications vary – some identify
as male but are female-expressing, while others identify as female and are more closely
associated with Western culture’s understanding of transgender. Others defy gender
entirely. But, in Mexican culture, the term “third gender” is often tacked to the muxe
community. This video and article can help you learn more about muxe culture and
identity.
HETEROSEXISM: Prejudice against individuals and groups who display non-

heterosexual behaviors or identities, combined with the majority power to impose such
prejudice. Usually used to the advantage of the group in power. Any attitude, action, or
practice backed by an institutional power that subordinates people because of their sexual
orientation.
CISGENDER: A person whose sense of personal identity or gender does correspond to

the sex they were assigned at birth.
LGBTQI ALLY: Someone who confronts heterosexism, anti- LGBTQIA biases,

heterosexual and cisgender privilege in themselves and others; believes that
heterosexism, homophobia, biphobia, and trans-phobia are social justice issues.
Gender Studies 27
1.3 Different Waves of Feminism

Feminist theory is an outgrowth of the general movement to empower women worldwide.
Feminism can be defined as a recognition and critique of male supremacy combined with
effort to change it. Simply saying: Feminist fights for the equality of women and argue
that women should share equally in society’s opportunities and scare resources.
Feminist history can be divided into three waves:
● The first wave, occurring in the 19th and early 20th century, was mainly
concerned with women’s right to vote.
● The second wave, at its height in the 1960s and 1970s, refers to the women’s
liberation movement for equal legal and social rights.
● The third wave, beginning in the 1990s, refers to a continuation of, and a reaction
to, second-wave feminism.
First-wave feminism promoted equal contract and property rights for women, opposing
ownership of married women by their husbands. By the late 19th century, feminist
activism was primarily focused on the right to vote. American first-wave feminism ended
with passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1919, granting women
voting rights.
Second-wave feminism of the 1960s-1980s focused on issues of equality and
discrimination. The second-wave slogan, “The Personal is Political,” identified women’s
cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked and encouraged women to
understand how their personal lives reflected sexist power structures. Betty Friedan was
a key player in second-wave feminism. In 1963, her book The Feminine Mystique
criticized the idea that women could find fulfillment only through childrearing and
homemaking. According to Friedan’s New York Times obituary, her book “ignited the
contemporary women’s movement in 1963 and as a result permanently transformed the
social fabric of the United States and countries around the world” and “is widely regarded
as one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.” Friedan hypothesizes
that women are victims of false beliefs requiring them to find identity in their lives
through husbands and children. This causes women to lose their own identities in that of
their family.
Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, responding to perceived failures of the
second wave and to the backlash against second-wave initiatives. This ideology seeks to
challenge the definitions of femininity that grew out of the ideas of the second-wave,
Gender Studies 28
arguing that the second-wave over-emphasized experiences of upper middle-class white

women. The third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating how race,
ethnicity, class, religion, gender, and nationality are all significant factors when
discussing feminism. It examines issues related to women’s lives on an international
basis.
Types of feminism
1. Liberal Feminism
The Liberal feminism is equally concerned with equal rights for both men and women,
for which women need to be empowered and should have an equal role in society and
have an equal role in politics as well as at work. They hold the view that human beings
are rational and must use their rationality to reason that human beings have innate rights
to seek fulfilment in pursuing their interests, provided that they also respect the rights of
others as much as they assert their own rights. The liberal feminist thought was first
expressed in the 18th century Europe by the leading feminist thinker Olympe de Gourges
and followed by Mary Wollstonecraft from Britain.
The French Philosopher Simone de Beauvoir also belongs to the Liberal feminist school
of thought. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the Liberal feminists have argued
that as a result of different process of socialization and discriminatory social and cultural
practices women were afforded fewer opportunities than men to realize their full
potential as human beings. As a result of which, women had been confined to home to
pursue domestic services of their husband and children and had little opportunity to
exercise their intellectual faculties or develop skills other than those deemed necessary
for the performance of domestic duties.
The goal of Liberal feminism is to ensure complete gender equality between men and
women without any changing the socialization of boys and girls in the society. As the
Liberals believe that men and women are equal and focus on gender equality at work as
well as in politics, promoting policies to insure parity in Parliament or in the Board of
Directors. They would like the inclusion of women as the subjects of study such as
women as political leaders, as women soldiers, or other women operating outside the
traditional roles.
The Liberal feminist also make a seemingly contradictory assumptions; that women
should not be excluded from positions of power and yet should not forcibly include them
as it would not lead to any change in the nature of international system. They are content
to advocate reformist measures to address discrimination against women rather than
demand revolutionary social and political changes.
Gender Studies 29
2. Marxist and Socialist Feminism

The Marxist feminist rejects the reformism of liberal feminism but also criticize schools
of thought which emphasize on the general oppression of women by men. They see
oppression of women as a social group to be the product of the political, social and
economic structures associated with capitalism, and not as a result of bias or ignorance
or the intentional action of individuals. In other words, the oppression and discrimination
of women is a result of the class system. The origin of Marxist feminism is seen in the
work of Frederick Engel’s work. The origins of the Family, Private Property and the State
written in 1884, where he claimed that women’s oppression originated in the introduction
of private property. The introduction of private ownership was by the male members
inaugurated a class system which led to a conventional split between the ‘public’ and the
‘private’ domain. The advent of industrialization and capitalism saw production being
transferred from home to the work place and work place was equated with the public
domain, which was devoid or excluded from women who were seen as members of the
‘private’ domain. Production came to be seen as constitutive of the world of freedom as
it was in the ‘public’ realm along with what was deemed as valuable; while women came
to be regarded as the private property of men and at a later stage denigrated as second-
class citizens.
The coming of industrialization was a far cry from the pre-industrial era where women’s
work consist in providing the everyday necessities of life and was considered as
important as men’s work; even though the society was patriarchal. The Marxist feminist
stressed the role played by women in providing capitalism with a valuable ‘reserve army’
of labour which may be exploited at times of labour shortages or used to keep male labour
cheap. In all of these ways’ women help to maintain and reproduce an exploitative
economic and social order. That is why they contest the view that women’s equality can
be achieved by campaigning for formal rights in a world which is necessarily
hierarchical, exploitative and unequal.
According to Marxist feminist, socio-economic and sexual inequality are inextricably
linked and therefore it would be impossible for women to gain equality in class society.
That is why they advocate that women’s liberation must be a part of a wider struggle
against an exploitative capitalist system.
The Socialist feminism has observed that the oppression of women had occurred from
the pre-capitalist societies and has continued to the socialist societies. However,
theydiffered from the Marxist feminism as they introduced a second central material
Gender Studies 30
cause for the unequal treatment of women. That is the patriarchal system of male
dominance and capitalism is the primary oppressor.The focus of world politics for the
socialist/ Marxist feminist is on the same patterns by which the world capitalist system
and the patriarchal system of power has lead women to be systematically disadvantaged
compared to men.
3. Radical Feminism
Radical Feminism focused on the need to develop a ‘women-cantered’ analysis as a
means to challenge all male-defined structures and values. They are critical of both the
liberal and Marxist feminism as they see both as offering a model of women’s liberation
which is based on male values, thus encouraging them to aspire for what are essentially
patriarchal values. This is because the radical feminist sees the root of women’s
oppression not as a by-product of capitalism but rather in the social system of patriarchy.
The concept of patriarchy ensures male domination over women as it literally means ‘the
rule of fathers’. It is this system that has legitimizes the concept of male power which
has its dominance in all aspect of lives. That is why it seeks to actively promote a counter
culture which valorizes female identified roles and values instead of seeking to emulate
men.
The radical feminists were the first to articulate what is now generally regarded as the
central insight of feminist thought: the personal is political. It offers the perspective that
what is needed is not only women’s liberation to achieve formal equality, access to public
space and means of production but also involves a thorough transformation in the most
private and intimate spheres of human relationships.
4. Ecofeminism
Women’s position in society exposes the set of environmental incivilities. Reason being
is, for many years’ women are seen as carers for children, domestic and low paid workers.
Therefore, according to Buckingham (2004), women share the same experience produced
on the wide scale environment. Women have a particular relationship with nature because
of virtue of biology. Therefore, the rise of ecofeminism is to demonstrate a way of
thinking despite there being little written about feminist environmental thinking.
Nevertheless, Buckingham (2004) explains the topic on gender has become widely
embedded at an international level. According to United Nation Women (2016), with
response to climate change, the rise on water levels and destruction on the environment,
women are mostly affected around the world. They further state that during pregnancy
Gender Studies 31
their health is at risk. However, their voices are the least heard in environmental planning
and have less access to land and productive resources. For many years, structures put in
place fail to recognize that women play a crucial role in ensuring that the fragile
ecosystem is protected and that resources can be managed in an efficient and sustainable
way. Nevertheless, women’s contributions are often taken for granted and undervalued.
Ecofeminism, also referred to as ecological feminism is branch of feminism that
examines the connections between women and nature. Its name was coined by French
feminist Francoise d’ Eaubonne in 1974, this concept was developed further by Ynesta
King in 1976, it was hailed as the 3rd wave of feminism. First and second wave of
feminism dealt with women right and women sexuality. But third wave feminism looking
out to the relationship between nature and women.
Ecofeminism is both an activist and academic movement that explores the
interconnections between nature and women and the human and nonhuman world. It
sees the critical connections between the domination of nature and exploitation of
women. Specifically, this philosophy emphasizes the ways both nature and women are
treated by patriarchal society. They say that environmental destruction and social
injustice (racism, poverty, and sexism) have a common cause and that is patriarchal
society. According to Francoise d’ Eaubonne eco feminism relates to the oppression and
domination of marginalized groups (women, people of colour, children, poor) to the
oppression and domination of nature.
It is a diverse movement because it represents different strands within feminism.

According to Shepherd (2015), there are three different strands to look at namely liberal,
radical and socialist Eco feminists. She further explains that liberal ecofeminism are
those who challenge law and regulation that concerns women and the environment.
Radical ecofeminism focuses more on the patriarchal foundations for current
environment degradation. Lastly, social ecofeminism state that they also recognize the
patriarchal foundations bringing illness to the environment. However, they also focus on
economic inequalities caused by the patriarchal system and the exploitation of both the
environment and women (Shepherd, 2015: 64). It is then highly important to note that
ecofeminism focusses on the relationship between women and nature that are connected
to the domination of nature and of women. They also bring emphasis on the role of
women in solving ecological problems.
Gender Studies 32
When it comes to the topic of ecofeminism, there are different perspectives that argue
about the legacies of it. Historically, women have been most of the time excluded from
the public sphere through institutions created against them. Their relationship to nature
and culture has been constructed in such a way that women are subordinate to men
(Shepherd, 2015:65). Because of their closeness to nature, they were automatically
excluded from participating in politics, economics or any kind of social participation.
Another argument going against women is that they have essential characteristics and
therefore, puts them in a marginalized category because they act in a certain way that
will constrain development (Shepherd, 2015: 65). Ecofeminism has noted as the most
controversial issue because systems created disregards other identities that defines
women such as culture, age and sex. This also assumes that all men differ from women
in terms of caring for nature. These sets of ideas that women ought to be subordinate to
men has entrenched and misinformed many within environmental policies across the
world.
Though ecofeminism is a broad category referring to a plurality of theoretical positions
including liberal, radical, psychoanalytic, socialist, and post structural approaches most
ecofeminists would agree on several core assumptions:
 There are significant connections between the oppression of women and the
oppression of nature.
 We need to understand linkages between the oppressions of women and nature in

order to understand the oppression of women and the oppression of nature.
 Feminist theory and practice must consider ecological/environmental

perspectives.
 Ecology and environmental ethics must include feminist perspectives.

Some Eco feminists focus on historical or conceptual explanations for the oppression of
women and nature, such as the rationalist tradition of classical Greek philosophy that
spawned the human/nature dualism (Val Pumwood), or the shift to a mechanistic
worldview that accompanied the scientific revolution, sanctioning both unchecked
industrial expansion and the subordination of women (Carolyn Merchant).Eco feminists
have also explored linguistic interconnections between the oppressions of women and
nature, examining the sexist-naturist language that represents women, nonhuman
animals, and the land as inferior to men/male-identified culture minimalizing women and
Gender Studies 33
feminizing nature authorizes their inferior status and justifies their domination and
exploitation (Carol Adams).
Spiritual Eco feminists argue for earth-based, embodied feminist spiritualties that
acknowledge the divine as immanent in the world and emphasize Eco-
communion,finding grace in nature (Charlene Spretnak, Starhawk). The Goddess, or
Gaia, represents the divine female, symbolic of the changing phases of life, as well as
women’s power to create and nurture, or to destroy (Carol Christ).Vandana Shiva, Maria
Mies, and others also examine empirical evidence linking women, children, and people
of color with various health and risk factors linked to environmental degradation as a
result of pesticides and other pollutants, or big-agro practices like the factory farming of
animals. Shiva in particular argues in favor of the feminine as an ecological/conservation
principle, in contrast to the Western agricultural development strategies that she terms
male development.In sync with Shivas criticisms of Western models of development,
ecofeminist/post structural philosophers of science critique Western views of knowledge
production notions that knowledge is objective, that knowers are
rational/detached/objective observers, and that nonhuman nature constitutes a passive
object of study. Sandra Harding emphasizes the social position of the knower as essential
for evaluating knowledge claims, and Donna Haraways notion of situated knowledge
formulatesthe study of nature as an exchange between active subjects, or a form of
conversation.
References
● Warren, Karen. (2002, September). Karen Warren’s Ecofeminism. Ethics & the
Environment, 7: 12.
● Merchant, Carolyn (2005). Ecofeminism, pp. 193-221. In Radical Ecology.
Routledge. Adams, Carol (2007).
● Ecofeminism and the Sacred, p. 1-8. Continuum. Spretnak, Charlene. (1990).
● Ecofeminism: Our Roots and Flowering p. 3-14.
● In Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Feminism. Sierra Club Books.
Warren, Karen J. (2000).
● Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It
Matters. Lanham, Maryland: Roman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Merchant,
Carolyn. (2005).
● Radical Ecology, p. 169-173. Routledge. Lamar, Stephanie. (1991).
Gender Studies 34
● Ecofeminist Theory and Grassroots Politics. Hypatia, 6 (1): 28–45.

● https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1527-2001.1991.tb00207.x Stoddart, Mark;
Tindall, D. B. (2011).
● Ecofeminism, Hegemonic Masculinity, And Environmental Movement
Participation In British Columbia, Canada, 1998-2007
● "Women Always Clean Up The Mess". Sociological Spectrum, 31 (3):
342–368.
● https://doi.org/10.1080%2F02732173.2011.557065
● Shiva, Vandana. (1988). staying alive: women, ecology and development.
London: Zed Books.
● Shiva, Vandana. (1990). Development as a New Project of Western Patriarchy,
p. 189-200.
● Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Feminism. Sierra Club Books.
Gender Studies 35
MODULE 2
PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
2.1 Nancy Julia Chodorow, Ann Oakley, Simone de Beauvoir

2.2 Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva
2.3 Queer theory, Queer politics
2.4 Theories of masculinity: SherryB.Ottner, R.W. Connell
2.1Nancy Julia Chodorow, Ann Oakley, Simone de Beauvoir
A. Nancy Julia Chodorow

Nancy Chodorow is an internationally acclaimed sociologist, feminist, theorist, and
practicing psychoanalyst. She was born in New York City, on January 20, 1944, the
daughter of Marvin and Leah (Thritz) Chodorow. She graduated from Radcliffe College
in 1966 and earned her PhD in sociology from Brandeis University in 1975. Chodorow
is regarded as a founding scholar of second-wave feminist theory based on her
groundbreaking book "The Reproduction of Mothering "([1978] 1999), an account that
challenged normative views about gender: how individuals come to see themselves as
masculine or feminine. That work won the Jessie Bernard Award for Sociologists for
Women in Society (1979) and was named one of the "Ten Most Influential Books of the
Past Twenty-Five Years" in the social sciences. It has been translated into seven
languages. While first making her mark in the field of gender studies, Chodorow's
enduring contribution to social theory is her focus on the inextricable links between self
and society. The scope of her work is wide-ranging, from her "grand" theory about the
social and cultural reproduction of gender identity, difference, and inequalities (1978) to
her clinically informed account of psychological gender (a sense that one is male or
female) and critique of postmodernism-post structuralism (1999) to her rethinking of
what constitutes sexuality in psychoanalytic thought (1994,2000) to her most recent
reconsideration of the psychology of biological and bodily experiences, such as fertility
and aging (2003). Chodorow was trained in the fields of anthropology and sociology and
later trained as a clinical psychoanalyst at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute.
Her melding of these disciplines is unique and controversial within the social sciences.
With her trenchant critique of theories of gender socialization, arguing that boys and girls
Gender Studies 36
do not learn to take on masculine or feminine traits by imitating others or because they
are forced to do so, but because these gender traits become deeply and personally
meaningful to them. Chodorow uses an object relations psychoanalytic perspective to
frame her theory of gender. She argues that intra-psychic relational family dynamics
(specifically early maternal-child relationships of attachment and separation) result in
distinct gendered identities and personalities. According to this view, both girls and boys
begin life experiencing a feeling of one-ness or identification with their maternal
caregiver. Over the course of their development, however, boys and girls experience
themselves differently in relation to their mothers. Equally important, women experience
their mothering of boy children differently from their mothering of girl children, this
acknowledgment of maternal subjectivity is a key element of Chodorow's theorizing,
especially in light of the prevailing idealizations of motherhood that denied other parts
of women's lives and identities in favor of children's (insatiable) needs. This axiomatic
feature of Chodorow's work that women bring distinctive desires, meanings, and motives
to their experiences of mothering and sense of themselves in relation to their children set
the stage for a feminist rethinking of mother and child development that she had
developed further.
Chodorow identifies certain patterns in the relational dynamic between mother and
child as central to understanding gender identity development. Whereas girls establish
their sense of self in connection with their female caregivers, boys establish their sense
of self through separation.Girls' sense of self and identity is continuous with this early
feminine identification, while boys must secure their masculine identity by rejecting or
repressing what is feminine in themselves as well as by denigrating it in women.
Another facet of Chodorow's work has featured the role of relational family dynamics
and early gender identifications in shaping adult sexual lives. Joining other
psychoanalysts, Chodorow (1994, 2000, 2003) extends Freud's legacy, particularly his
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905) to argue that sexuality is far more
complicated and comprises more than one's choice of sexual object. She argues that like
gender identity, sexual identity is highly individual, conflict ridden, and constructed as a
"compromise formation" between what is culturally and psychologically posed in binary
terms ("heterosexuality vs. homosexuality"; "masculinity vs. femininity"; "activity vs.
passivity”).
Gender Studies 37
Psychoanalytical and feminism

Psychoanalysis is a set of concepts and theories, and their related applications,
which help us to understand the workings of our conscious and unconscious mind with a
view to comprehend why individuals follow certain patterns of behavior, and exhibit
peculiar personality traits. These theories also help throw light on our hidden desires,
fears and other emotions, some of which, when unduly repressed or frustrated, may
manifest themselves in the form of mental disturbances and illnesses (neuroses and
psychoses)..
Many feminist theorists who have studied and been influenced by
psychoanalytical theories have also discovered significant gaps in these theories,
especially in regard to the representations of women’s psychosexual development. Sexist
assumptions about women’s lives and minds, and misunderstandings about women’s
psychological development in the context of patriarchal societal norms and structures
have led to various wrong misrepresentations which can actually be harmful for women,
if these are accepted unquestioningly., feminist theorists have attempted, in different
ways, to consider both the relevance of psychoanalytical concepts to women’s lives, as
well as critiqued the apparent pitfalls and distortions of certain theoretical perspectives,
so that their application and dissemination do not adversely impact women. Since
Sigmund Freud is credited with the origins of psychoanalysis, and feminist theorists have
responded and reacted to his theories in so many rich and diverse ways.
Chodorow: development of gender identity and gendered personalities-

differentiation and separation
When they are born both girls and boys experience an oneness or symbiosis with
the mother. As an infant sucking at the mother’s breast, being held and cuddled by her,
and simply doing what babies do, the child cannot distinguish between mother and self.
To the infant it is as if the two are physically and psychologically one. However as both
boys and girls begin to separate from their mothers and establish selves, their experience
of the pre-oedipal phase changes because mothers mother girls and boys very differently.
Though mothering a girl child, a mother re-experience herself both as mothered child
and as her mother. She feels like her daughter and encourages closeness and connection
with her daughter. This pre oedipal mother -daughter relationship continues to include
many of the early mother -child issues, boundary confusion, dependence, and
individuation. From this relationship with mother, girl establish their gender identity.
Gender Studies 38
Gender identity is not difficult for girls to establish as it is built on their sense of oneness
with their mothers. From the beginning girls are attached, dependent and connected to
their mothers and the mother confirms girl is like her. Later this relationship may become
difficult, ambivalent, boundary confused as girl tries to separate from her mother, but it
is this relationship that establish a girl’s gender identity. Though her connection or what
psychoanalysis would call her identification with her mother, the daughter establishes a
deep, unconscious, fixed sense about herself as a girl. She comes to feel deeply that she
is a girl/women. From their relationship with their mother’s girls also develop
personalities that are boundary, permeable, connected, relational and dependent.
Like the girls, boys experience a symbiosis or feeling of oneness with the
mother at birth.However, boys have a more difficult time establishing gender identity.
Boys must shift their identificatory love from their mother. As boys develop, mothers
encourage separation of sons and convey to boys that they are different from her. It is not
that mothers love sons any less than they love daughters, but that they experience the
mothering of boy children differently and treat sons differently from the way they do
daughters. Those difference according to Chodorow, are subtle difference of nuances,
tone, quality. That is, boys cannot identify with their mothers in order to establish their
sense of themselves as boys, as masculine. However, because there is no father parenting
in the same way that the mother is, no real, concrete, available masculine person for him
to identify with, he forms a masculine gender identity based on being not mother, not
feminine, not woman. A boy must repudiate all that is feminine. His masculine identity
is based on being not a girl /woman and is filled in with cultural stories about symbols of
masculinity, for example superheroes. Another outcome of this developmental route is
that masculine identity is a fragile identity. Because masculine identity is based on being
not mother, not feminine, men constantly seek to reconstruct and reconfirm their
masculinity through repudiating that which is feminine.
The development of sexual object choice/ sexual identity

While boys have a more difficult time establishing their gender identity,
according to Chodorow, the establishment of sexual identity of boys is easier
developmentally. Because all children are originally 'Matrisexual' that is erotically
connected to their mothers, boys maintain this connection throughout their development,
much in the same way that girls maintain their identification with their mothers. Thus in
the course of oedipal development boys eventually shift their object choice from mother
specifically to women in general and become adults with heterosexual sexual identities.
Gender Studies 39
How heterosexual sexual identity is developed for the girl is more complex in
Chodorow's theory. Chodorow argues that as girls develop, their bounds with their
mothers become fraught with ambivalence, boundary confusion, an unclear sense of what
is me and not me.These feeling cause tension and anxiety and eventually cause the girl
to shift her erotic ties to the father as means of helping her to separate from her mother
and easing the tension of the mother-daughter relationship.
What chodorow does not explain is exactly what changes so dramatically at this
point that a girl can no longer bear this relationship with her mother without shifting
some of her ties, and specifically her sexual ties, to the father.
Reproduction of mothering
In the ‘Reproduction of Mothering’ (1978), Nancy Chodorow argues that
exclusive female mothering leads to gender oppression. In her view women's mothering
is pivotal for understanding gender development and division since it is a global feature
of the sexual division of labor. Chodorow argues that, in mothering, women become
primarily preoccupied with emotional and relational issues: women turn their energies to
the care of their children and families.
According to Chodorow, Freud's model of gender development in which the
mother hovers in the background is unconvincing at best and plainly defective at
worst.Mothers paradoxically, are accorded little recognition in shaping the psychology
of the self in Freud's writing. Chodorow believes that women’s roles as nurturing mothers
are socially determined in patriarchal societies. Because women are expected to be the
primary caretakers of children, they learn to hone these relational and nurturing skills
more than their male counterparts. While the child develops an intimate bond with the
mother, the father presents a remote and distant figure. She questions Freud’s assumption
about the infant shifting his/her attention away from the mother and towards the father
after the oedipal stage, as the assumption seems to be based on biological terms.
Identification with parents

Chodorow draws attention to the possibility that the son’s identification with the
father may be a positional identification rather than an emotional one. Because feminine
attributes are defined in more negative ways in patriarchal societies, the boy may repress
these attributes within him and reject those, like his mother, who represent or embody
them. The superior attributes of masculinity associated with the father are then taken up
Gender Studies 40
by him for identification. In the case of the little girl, her identification with the mother
is not positional, but rather personal, as it is “continuous with her early childhood
identifications and attachments. The girl does not give up her attachment for the mother
but adds love for the father to this relationship, in an attainment of heterosexuality.
Chodorow argues that the oedipal stage is significant in its development of the different
‘relational potential’ that girls and boys acquire at this time. Because of the added
relational dimensions of female sexual development, Chodorow says that there is a
greater complexity in the latter. Crucial differences between women and men are thus
explained by Chodorow on the basis of women’s closer connection to their roles as
nurturers and as mothers, roles which are socially determined.
Importance of equal parenting

In the ‘Reproduction of Mothering’, Chodorow argued that males become
dominant due to inadequacies in the mothering that they received, and in the turning from
mother to father as an object of identification. In Chodorow’s estimation, if the shadowy
father could become more visible and more participatory in family life, the emotional
attitudes inherent in both sexes would disappear. Chodorow feels that because women
have maintained a close identification with their mothers, their inner lives are far richer
than those of men, and they do not need the other sex with the same intensity that men
crave women. Chodorow argues that men fall in love more romantically than women
because the affective side of their natures has been repressed. This appears to be the basis
for male aggression against females.
References
 Introduction to contemporary social theory: Anthony Elliott, Charles Lemert

 Key sociological thinkers: Rob stones
 Gender, Relation and difference in psychoanalytic perspective :Nancy
Chodorow-Feminist social thought
 Family structure and feminine personality :Nancy Chodorow
 The dissolution of the oedipus complex: Sigmund Freud-The ego and id and other
works
 Encyclopedia of social theory: George Ritzer
 Interpretation of dreams :Sigmund Freud
 Feminism and psychoanalysis : Anu Aneja
 Psycho sexual development, Freudian concept :Tony Philip
 https://www.apadivisions.org › chod…
Gender Studies 41
B. Ann Oakley
Ann Rosamund Oakley (née Titmuss; born 17 January 1944) is a British sociologist,
feminist, and writer. She is professor and founder-director of the Social Science Research
Unit at the UCL Institute of Education of the University College London, and in 2005
partially retired from full-time academic work to concentrate on her writing, especially
on new novels.
Cultural division of labour

Oakley in her 'Housewife'(1974) presents the 'cultural division of labour'. She
considered Culture as the determinant of gender roles. Oakley’s position is summarized
in the following quotation, 'Not only is the division of labour by sex not universal but
there is no reason why it should be. Human cultures are diverse and endlessly variable.
They owe their creation to human inventiveness rather than invincible biological forces'.
In her work she attacks George peter Murdock and Talcott Parsons'
interpretations on sexual division of labour and sex roles. Oakley first takes George Peter
Murdock to task arguing that the sexual division of labour is not universal nor are certain
tasks always performed by men, others by women. She maintains that Murdock’s
interpretation of his data is biased because he looks at other cultures through both
Western and male eyes. In particular, she claims that he pre-judges the role of women in
terms of the Western house wife – mother role. Oakley finds plenty of evidence from
Murdock’s own data to attack the assumption that biology largely determines the sexual
division of labour. There are fourteen societies in Murdock’s sample in which lumbering
is done either exclusively by women or shared by both sexes, thirty-six societies in which
women are solely responsible for land clearance and thirty-eight in which cooking is a
shared activity. Oakley examines a number of societies in which a number of societies in
which biology appears to have little or no influence on women’s role. The Mbuti
Pygmies, a hunting and gathering society, who live in the Congo rain forests, have no
specific rules for the division of labour by sex. Men and women hunt together. The roles
of father and mother are not sharply differentiated, both sexes sharing responsibility for
the care of children. Amongst the Australian Aborigines of Tasmania, women were
responsible for seal hunting, fishing, and catching opossums (tree – dwelling mammals).
Turning to present – day societies, Oakley notes that women form an important part of
many armed forces, particularly those of China, Russia, Cuba and Israel. In India some
12% of labourers on building sites arewomen and in some Asian and Latin American
Gender Studies 42
countries, a quarter of the labour force in mines is female. Oakley claims that the above
examples show clearly that there are not exclusively female roles and that biological
characteristics do not bar women from particular jobs. She regards as a myth supposed
'biologically based incapacity of women to carry out heavy and demanding work'.
Oakley also attacks the arguments of Parson and Bowlby by pointing to the
Kibbutz to show that systems other than the family and the female mother role can
effectively socialize the young. The Kibbutz system of childrearing will be examined in
detail in the following section. Using the example of Alor, an island in Indonesia, Oakley
shows how in this and other small – scale horticultural societies, women are not tied to
their offspring, and this does not appear to have any harmful effects on the children. In
traditional Alorese society, women were largely responsible for the cultivation and
collection of vegetable produce. This involved them spending considerable time away
from the village. Within a fortnight of the birth of their child, women returned to the
fields leaving the infant in the care of a sibling, the father or a grandparent. Turning to
Western society, Oakley dismisses Bowlby's claim that an 'intimate and continuous'
relationship between mother and child is essential for the child’s well – being. She notes
that a large body of research shows that the employment of the mother has no detrimental
effects on the child’s development. Some studies indicate that the children of working
mothers are less likely to be delinquent than those of mothers who stay at home. In fact,
Oakley claims that 'working mothers enjoy their children more and are less irritable with
them than full – time mothers'.
Oakley is particularly scathing in her attack on parson's view of the family and
the role of the 'expressive' female within it. She accuses him of basing his analysis on the
beliefs and values of his own culture and in particular on the myths of male superiority
and of the sanctity of marriage and the family. Oakley argues that the expressive
housewife – mother role is not necessary for the functioning of the family unit. It merely
exists for the convenience of men. She claims that parson’s explanation of gender roles
is simply a validating myth for the 'domestic oppression of women’. Oakley also draws
the following conclusions:
 Gender roles are culturally rather than biologically determined. Evidence
from a number of different societies shows that there are no asks (apart
from child bearing) which are performed exclusively by females.
 Biological characteristics do not bar women from particular occupations.
Gender Studies 43
 The mother role is a cultural construction.Evidence from several societies

indicates that children do not require a close, intimate and continuous
relationship with a female mother figure.
References:
● Haralambos, Michael: Sociology-Themes and perspectives.
● Oakley Ann: House Wife.1974
● Oakley Ann: The Sociology of House work. 1974
C. Simon De Bouvier
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir was a French writer,
intellectual, existentialist philosopher, and political activist, feminist and social theorist.
Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, she had a significant influence on
both feminist existentialism and feminist theory.
The second sex, first published in 1949 in French. Beauvoir first explain the
concept of sex-gender distinction. That means the distinction between biological sex and
the social historical construction of gender and its stereotype. Beauvoir explaining from
autobiographical experience and from availableevidence at the time that the things
associated with women hood (being passive, concerned with appearance, childlike and
need of protection, wanting to care for others) are imposed upon women by society rather
than being innate characteristics they are born with. ‘Nature’ or ‘nurture’. Gender theory
alerts us to the diversity of possible gendered identities and roles available, whilst
emphasizing the limited patterns of masculinity and femininity which we are pushed to
repeat and repeat until they feel ‘natural’. Biological findings on neuroplasticity reveal
that the likely underlying brain processes are neural pathways which are strengthened by
such repetitions. So, we could say that gendered identity is a process of narrowing down
from the possibilities which are available at birth.
There are, of course, some biological limits on what is possible from the start,
which differ from person to person, but de Beauvoir emphasizes the social limits which
constrain these. Her focus here is on freedom, the fact of humanity that her partner, Jean-
Paul Sartre, emphasized in his work. Sartre highlighted the importance in life of
becoming aware of the meanings which are imposed upon us by others (societal
assumptions about what people like us should be like, or family expectations about what
we are going to do) and breaking free of these. De Beauvoir pointed out that such
Gender Studies 44
breaking through of ‘the ceiling which is stretched over their heads’ is easier for some
than for others. Embracing one’s freedom may be virtually impossible for those who are
enslaved, and may be easier for some than others even in times and places where
everyone is regarded as ‘free’.
“One is not born, but rather one becomes, a woman”, perhaps the most famous
quote from de Beauvoir’s writing on gender, The Second Sex, is this one. Here she is
arguing, from autobiographical experience and from the available evidence at the time,
that the things associated with women hood (such as being passive, concerned with
appearance, childlike and in need of protection, and wanting to care for others) are
imposed upon women by society rather than being innate characteristics they are born
with. Current understandings of gender view it – like so much of human behavior – as a
complex bio psychosocial interweaving rather than something that can be simplistically
put down to ‘nature’ or ‘nurture’. Gender theory alerts us to the diversity of possible
gendered identities and roles available, whilst emphasizing the limited patterns of
masculinity and femininity which we are pushed to repeat and repeat until they feel
‘natural’. Biological findings on neuroplasticity reveal that the likely underlying brain
processes are neural pathways which are strengthened by such repetitions. So we could
say that gendered identity is a process of narrowing down from the possibilities which
are available at birth.
There are, of course, some biological limits on what is possible from the start,
which differ from person to person, but de Beauvoir emphasizes the social limits which
constrain these. Her focus here is on freedom, the fact of humanity that her partner, Jean-
Paul Sartre, emphasized in his work. Sartre highlighted the importance in life of
becoming aware of the meanings which are imposed upon us by others (societal
assumptions about what people like us should be like, or family expectations about what
we are going to do) and breaking free of these. De Beauvoir pointed out that such
breaking through of ‘the ceiling which is stretched over their heads’ is easier for some
than for others. Embracing one’s freedom may be virtually impossible for those who are
enslaved, and may be easier for some than others even in times and places where
everyone is regarded as ‘free’.
The lie to which the adolescent girl is condemned is that she must pretend to be
an object, and a fascinating one, when she senses herself as an uncertain, dissociated
being, well aware of her blemishes.
Gender Studies 45
De Beauvoir argues that, at the stage in life when boys are encouraged to become ‘little
men’ and to become independent and to ‘dominate nature’ with their bodies. Girls are
taught, through playing with dolls, through being complimented and critiqued on their
appearance, and through being warned about various dangers of life, to be passive, that
their body is something to beautify, and that the world is something to be scared of.
Focusing on this aspect of ‘being an object’ in particular, it is seen that women are still
regarded very much in terms of their appearance, although these days they are
encouraged to beautify themselves for their own pleasure and ‘fun’ rather than explicitly
for the pleasure of others. However, it is often difficult to disentangle the pleasure derived
from feeling one looks good from the pleasure derived because someone else thinks you
look good. Appearance is a key focus of women’s magazines, and the ideals of feminine
beauty are so narrow that many are excluded from it, and even minor deviations from it
are remarkable.
The other focus in women’s magazines, and in movies and TV shows aimed at
women, are relationships with men. De Beauvoir comments that ‘a great many adolescent
girls when asked about their plans for the future, reply . . . “I want to get married”. But
no young man considers marriage as his fundamental project’. Miranda on Sex and The
City echoed this concern several decades later when she stormed out of a café
complaining that all that her (very successful) friends talked about was men, but it is
revealed later in the episode that she was only upset because she wasn’t really over her
ex-boyfriend.
The less she exercises her freedom to understand, to grasp and discover the world about
her, the less resources will she find within herself, the less will she dare to affirm herself
as a subject.
De Beauvoir argues that, in such ways, women are encouraged into ‘being for others’
rather than ‘being for themselves’. Many women struggle to tune into their own desires
and needs due to seeing pleasure as something to be gained from pleasing others, and put
themselves through unhappiness or pain feeling that this is what they are supposed to do.
Of course we can question the benefits of both the ‘for others’ and ‘for themselves’ sides
of the binary. It is problematic to feel that our only identity is in the role that we have in
other people’s lives (as many women find when they lose such roles), and troubling to
have to constantly monitor their body and self to ensure that they are pleasing to others.
On the other hand, as de Beauvoir pointed out, there are benefits to such a position: not
having to feel responsible for your actions because you don’t believe that you have power
Gender Studies 46
to affect the world, and real pleasure when you are approved of or desired. Being ‘for
themselves’ (as men are encouraged to be) involves the weight of responsibility which
comes from being called upon to make autonomous choices and to be self-sufficient and
protective of others, when we may well actually feel scared, incapable and vulnerable
ourselves. Also, as de Beauvoir suggested, mutual relationships are very difficult indeed
if one person needs to be constantly affirmed as a beautiful object, or one person is
constantly denying the other the freedom and responsibility that they have themselves.
De Beauvoir further (and perhaps controversially) highlights the role of women

in limiting other women. She points out what a threat it can be for a mother to see a
daughter breaking through and embracing their freedom and resisting the roles being
thrust upon them in ways they were unable to do themselves. Perhaps we can relate this
to the women-produced magazines that still welcome women in to a self-scrutinizing,
appearance and relationship obsessed world; as well as the tendency to point to the lack
of freedom of women in ‘other’ places as a way of obscuring our own situation.
References
● Evans, Ruth (ed.), 1998, Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex”: New
Interdisciplinary Essays, Manchester and New York: Manchester University
Press.
● Fallaize, Elizabeth (ed.), 1998, Simone de Beauvoir: A Critical Reader, London
and New York: Rutledge.(ed.), 1999, Special Issue: The Philosophy of Simone
de Beauvoir, of Hypatia, 14(4).
● 2006, The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Critical Essays, Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press.
● Stoller, Silvia (ed.), 2014, Simone de Beauvoir’s Philosophy of Age, Gender,
Ethics, Time, Boston, MA: de Gruyter.
● Sullivan, Shannon (ed.), 2000, The Work of Simone de Beauvoir, special issue
of Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 14(2).
Postmodernist feminism
The approach of postmodern feminism has incorporated two theoretical traditions, i.e.
the postmodern and post-structuralist theory, as it moves beyond the polarities of liberal
feminism and radical feminism. It has critiqued the values of Enlightenment because it
Gender Studies 47
has championed the values of progress and human freedom yet it was accompanied by
the widespread oppression of people in the name of ‘advance of civilization’ of ‘progress’
and of ‘freedom’. Its main concern is to expose the hidden presupposition and assumption
that underlie attempts to theorize or tell ‘one true story’ about human conditions, as they
critiqued all-encompassing visions of human freedom and encompassing visions of
human freedom and emancipations grounded in ‘universal truth’. The focus of the
postmodern feminism is to produce and reproduce a series of ‘others’ which has been
marginalized or silenced when the truth is asserted. The postmodern thinkers have argued
that power is so deeply implicated in theorizing that one might view the whole process
as a form of domination whereby theorist comprehends and appropriate the objects of
knowledge. The ‘otherness’ is not just an oppressed or inferior position but a way of
being, thinking and speaking that allows for an openness, plurality, diversity and
difference.
Feminism in its many forms has been born out of ‘experiences of marginality’ and as
such it is attuned to the issues of exclusion and invisibility. It exposes the cultural
arrogance and cultural bias of ‘universalist’ theories. The postmodern feminism sees
gender not so much in terms of identity or social structures but rather in terms of
discourse. They agree on the fact that gender inequality cannot be understood as ‘natural’
or ‘universal’ and therefore it is outside history. However, gender is seen as a process in
which the ‘body’ becomes objectified in discourse which takes for granted the reality of
sexual difference and inequality. The idea that the ‘body’ is produced by power and is
cultural rather than ‘natural’ avoids then problems inherent in advancing essentialist
accounts of gender-that is accounts which suggests that gender is directly related to
biological sex.
Charlotte Hooper’s book Manly States (2001) is an example of post-modern
textual analysis in which she wrote that international relations cannot be understood
unless we understand the implications of the fact that it is conducted mostly by men. As
international relation shape men as much as men shape international relation. An analysis
of masculinity can be decoded in the daily newspaper regardless of the intentions of its
publishers or authors and that is how gender politics pervades our understanding of world
politics.
Gender Studies 48
2.2 Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva
A. Judith Butler
Judith Pamela Butler is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has
influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminist, queer, and
literary theory.
In 1993, they began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, where they have
served, beginning in 1998, as the Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of
Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory. They are also the Hannah
Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School. Butler is best known for their books
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) and Bodies That
Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993), in which they challenge conventional
notions of gender and develop their theory of gender performativity. This theory has had
a major influence on feminist and queer scholarship. Their works are often studied in
film studies courses emphasizing gender studies and performativity in discourse.
Gender identity and performativity

Judith Butler in her book Gender Trouble (1990) formulated a postmodernist
notion of gender, in line with the deconstructive idea and contradictory to the traditional
notion’, that genders are fixed categories. Butler defined gender as a social role
performed/enacted by the individuals, and validated and accepted by society. According
to Butler, the meaning of gender depends on the cultural framework within which it is
performed, and hence it defies fixities and universalities, because gender is a continuous
performance, acquiring new meaning with each repeated performances or citations
depending on the context in which it occurs. Refusing fixities, Butler sees gender as
provisional, shifting, contingent and performed. This view also rejects essentialisms and
stable identities and meanings.
Judith Butler and Performativity

A central concept of the theory is that gender is constructed through your own
repetitive performance of gender. This is related to the idea that discourse creates subject
positions for yourself to occupy—linguistic structures construct the self. The structure or
discourse of gender for Butler, however, is bodily and nonverbal. Butler’s theory does
not accept stable and coherent gender identity. To say that gender is performativity is to
argue that gender is “real only to the extent that it is performed” (Gender Trouble).
Gender Studies 49
 There is no self-preceding or outside a gendered self: Butler writes, “ ... if gender

is constructed, it is not necessarily constructed by an ‘I’ or a ‘we’ who stands before
that construction in any spatial or temporal sense of ‘before.’ Indeed, it is unclear
that there can be an ‘I’ or a “we” who had not been submitted, subjected to gender,
where gendering is, among other things, the differentiating relations by which
speaking subjects come into being . . . the ‘I’ neither precedes nor follows the process
of this gendering, but emerges only within the matrix of gender relations
themselves” (Bodies that Matter).
 Performativity of gender is a stylized repetition of acts, an imitation or miming of
the dominant conventions of gender: Butler argues that “the act that one does, the
act that one performs is, in a sense, an act that’s been going on before one arrived
on the scene” (Gender Trouble). “Gender is an impersonation . . . becoming
gendered involves impersonating an ideal that nobody actually inhabits” she says.
 Biological sex is also a social construction—gender subsumes sex: “According to
this view, then, the social construction of the natural presupposes the cancellation of
the natural by the social. Insofar as it relies on this construal, the sex/gender
distinction founders . . . if gender is the social significance that sex assumes within
a given culture . . . then what, if anything, is left of ‘sex’ once it has assumed its
social character as gender? . . . If gender consists of the social meanings that sex
assumes, then sex does not accrue social meanings as additive properties, but rather
is replaced by the social meanings it takes on; sex is relinquished in the course of
that assumption, and gender emerges, not as a term in a continued relationship of
opposition to sex, but as the term which absorbs and displaces “sex” (Bodies that
Matter). Butler also writes “I think for a woman to identify as a woman is a culturally
enforced effect. I don’t think that it’s a given that on the basis of a given anatomy,
an identification will follow. I think that ‘coherent identification’ has to be
cultivated, policed, and enforced; and that the violation of that has to be punished,
usually through shame”.
 What is at stake in gender roles is the ideology of heterosexuality: “To claim that
all gender is like drag, or is drag, is to suggest that ‘imitation’ is at the heart of the
heterosexual project and its gender binarism, that drag is not a secondary imitation
that presupposes a prior and original gender, but that hegemonic heterosexuality is
itself a constant and repeated effort to imitate its own idealizations. That it must
repeat this imitation, that it sets up pathologizing practices and normalizing sciences
Gender Studies 50
in order to produce and consecrate its own claim on originality and propriety,
suggests that heterosexual performativity is beset by an anxiety that it can never
fully overcome….that its effort to become its own idealizations can never be finally
or fully achieved, and that it is constantly haunted by that domain of sexual
possibility that must be excluded for heterosexual zed gender to produce itself”
(Bodies that Matter).
 Performativity of Gender (drag) can be subversive: “Drag is subversive to the
extent that it reflects on the imitative structure by which hegemonic gender is itself
produced and disputes heterosexuality’s claim on naturalness and originality”
(Bodies that Matter).
 But subversion through performance isn’t automatic or easy: Indeed, Butler
complains that people have misread her book Gender Trouble. “The bad reading
goes something like this: I can get up in the morning, look in my closet, and decide
which gender I want to be today. I can take out a piece of clothing and change my
gender, stylize it, and then that evening I can change it again and be something
radically other, so that what you get is something like the commodification of
gender, and the understanding of taking on a gender as a kind of consumerism. . . .
[treating] gender deliberately, as if it’s an object out there, when my whole point
was that the very formation of subjects, the very formation of persons, presupposes
gender in a certain way—that gender is not to be chosen and that ‘performativity’ is
not radical choice and it’s not voluntarism . . . Performativity has to do with
repetition, very often the repetition of oppressive and painful gender norms . . . This
is not freedom, but a question of how to work the trap that one is inevitably in”.
Butler also writes that “it seems to me that there is no easy way to know whether
something is subversive. Subversiveness is not something that can be gauged or
calculated . . . I do think that for a copy to be subversive of heterosexual hegemony
it has to both mime and displace its conventions.
In short, According to Butler's theory, gender is essentially a performative repetition of
acts associated with male or female. Currently, the actions appropriate for men and
women have been transmitted to produce a social atmosphere that both maintains and
legitimizes a seemingly natural gender binary.
She argues that being born male or female does not determine behavior. Instead, people
learn to behave in particular ways to fit into society.
Gender Studies 51
References
● Chambers, Samuel A. and Terrell Carver. ''Judith Butler and Political Theory:
Troubling Politics.
● Butler, Judith P. Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity.
● Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex'
● Allen, Emily and Dino Felluga. "General Introduction to Theories of Gender &
Sex." Introductory Guide to Critical Theory.
B. Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician,
psychoanalyst, feminist, and, most recently, novelist, who has lived in France since the
mid-1960s. She is now a professor emeritus at the University Paris Diderot. The author
of more than 30 books, including Powers of Horror, Tales of Love, Black Sun:
Depression and Melancholia, Proust and the Sense of Time, and the trilogy Female
Genius, she has been awarded Commander of the Legion of Honor, Commander of the
Order of Merit, the Holmberg. International Memorial Prize, the Hannah Arendt Prize,
and the Vision 97 Foundation Prize, awarded by the Havel Foundation.
She is the key proponent of feminism and she had a remarkable influence on
feminism and feminist literary studies in the world. Most of the French feminist works
are based on the Freud and Laccan psycho-analytical theories. The French feminism
emerged in the 1970's -1990's or during the second wave. Julia Kristeva's works are
mostly based on psychoanalytical or post structuralist. Kristava believes that it is harmful
to posit collective identity about individual identity.
Powers of horror: an essay on Abjection

Powers of horror: an essay on Abjection was published in 1980 in this work
Khristava quoted the term" abjection". Here objection literally means something Decade
or state of misery. Kristava argues that abjection is not a subject object, it is a conscious
thing of an individual. It's an impure object that is coming from our inside for from our
body, menstruation blood etc.
The work is about the subject of ejection in which Kristava draws on the theories
of Sigmund Freud and Lacan to examine horror, marginalization, Castration, oedipal
complex etc. She used abjection to refer to the human reaction to a threatened breakdown
in meaning caused by the laws of the distinction between self and other. On the level of
our individual psycho sexual development the abject marks the moment when we
separated ourselves from the mother, when mother, when we recognize a boundary
Gender Studies 52
between me and other or between me and (m) other. Kristava explains the Oedipal
Triangle of the concept of Celine in this work. She considered each side of the triangle
as child mother and father and they share a common relationship. In imaginary States
there is an intimate relationship with mother and child then after in mirror stage child
realize that father is equal to language or symbol the considered mother as other hair
mother become hateful and undesirable one. The child recognizes that father becomes
the power for the authority. The child fears that it will cause the loss of his sexual identity
when they are more attached to the mother. The child turned to a separate identity from
Mother. Kristava argues that the abject exerts a tremendous psychological impact on
individuals and indeed on societies as whole. Religion has a big role in it. Religion creates
a buffer between one's mind and the object and further represses them. Kristava traces
the influence of the abject particularly in the subjects as related to mother lust, in the
development of Judaism and Christianity. The abject for Kristeva is, therefore, closely
tied both to religion and to art, which she sees as two ways of purifying the abject: "The
various means of purifying the abject the various catharses make up the history of
religions, and end up with that catharsis par excellence called art, both on the far and near
side of religion". She concludes her essay by noting that the usefulness of studying the
abject can be found in its immense political and religious influence over the centuries.
Although Kristeva does not refer to her own writing as feminist, many feminists
turn to her work in order to expand and develop various discussions and debates in
feminist theory and criticism. Three elements of Kristeva's thought have been particularly
important for feminist theory in Anglo-American contexts:
1. Her attempt to bring the body back into discourses in the human sciences.
2. Her focus on the significance of the maternal and premedical in the constitution of
subjectivity; and
3. Her notion of abjection as an explanation for oppression and discrimination.
Kristeva’s intellectual and philosophical innovation is evident in her work in semiotics,
poetic language, and feminism and in commentaries inspired by psychoanalysis on
society and politics.
References:
● Oliver Kelley: Julia Kristeva's Feminist Revolutions
● Anna Jean Smith: Reading Julia Kristeva: Estrangement and the Female
Intellectual.
Gender Studies 53
2.2Queer theory and queer politics
A. Queer Theory
Historically, the term queer has been used to silence, suppress, and shame practices,
identities, and values located outside of perceived social boundaries (Butler, 1993). To
be referred to as queer meant a person was a symbol of perversion, disdain, sickness, and
absurdity. Queer then becomes defined against what is considered normal in social
practices, identities, and values. The goal here is to establish social regulation so that
people govern themselves (and each other) according to what is right/wrong, good/bad,
and so forth. The recent reclamation of the term queer represents a resistance movement,
largely led by academics and activists, to transform the oppressive nature of the term into
a positive, political, and preferable depiction of the self, especially for differently
gendered individuals (Pinar, 2005).
Many queer theorists refused to talk about any theory as they believed that it’s
difficult to theorize ‘being queer’. Queer theory has been criticized for being inaccessible
and for containing difficult words. In fact, one of the pioneer queer theorists, Niki Sulivan
said that, ‘it is a discipline which is difficult to be disciplined.’ Queer theory is a
theoretical approach that goes beyond queer studies to question the categories and
assumptions on which current academic and popular understandings are based. One of
the main tenets of queer theory is that their understanding of sex and sexuality, sexual
identity and pretty much everything about life is contextual- that is all their understanding
is a lived experience in different ways over time and across cultures. Queering is the
process of reversing and destabilizing heterosexuality as a norm (Nayar 2010).
Queer theory finds its roots in post structuralism and in deconstructionism. Queer
theory is also closely tied to the multicultural theory in sociology and is integral to the
rise of postmodern social theory. Hence in order to understand the rise and development
of the queer theory, one need to refer to the work of Foucault, Derrida, Lacan and Butler
who engaged in the deep understanding and theorizing of queer theory. Michel Foucault
is one of the most important founder of queer theory and his main idea which he discussed
at length in ‘archaeology of knowledge (1966)’ and ‘genealogy of power (1969)’ brings
out the queer ethos in a major way as in line to the queer theory, he is interested in
understanding, exploring and analyzing the action and not interested in defining the
origin. Foucault is important as his work in many ways attended to the discussion of
Gender Studies 54
sexuality and homosexuality in academia which remained absent in the mainstream

sociological discussion for a very long period of time. Queer theory gained momentum
due to the fact that it promised to be inclusive and vaster as against the ‘lesbian and the
gay studies’ which in many ways remained limited and confined to a few identities and
not include other. It is indeed very hard to define any particular characteristics of queer
theory as most of the queer theorists did not believe in particularity. Arleen Stein and
Plummer (1996) discussed some of the important ‘hallmarks’ of queer theory. First,
Queer theory visualize sexual power to be located in different forms of social life and
this power in central to the conceptualization of one’s sexuality. Second, Queer theory
attempt to displace sex, gender and sexuality. Third, the believer of queer theory
celebrates a transgressive, deconstructive, anti-establishment and anti-assimilations
politics. Fourth, there is a consensus in reading and interpreting text as ‘queer readings’
which essentially remained heterosexual or not sexual at all. Further Seidman (1994),
states that queer theory is much more complex than this as the queer identity is multiple,
unstable and always shifting. Hence, he believes that in this way queer theory cannot be
limited to mere homosexual theory and should be analysed within the broader framework
of social theory and a more general postmodern theory.
Queer theory includes both queer readings of texts and the theorization of
'queerness' itself. Italian feminist and film theorist Teresa de Lauretis coined the term
"queer theory" for a conference she organized at the University of California, Santa Cruz
in 1990 and a special issue of Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies she
edited based on that conference. Finally, Queer theory attempts at debunking of stable
(and correlated) sexes, genders, and sexualities develops out of the specifically lesbian
and gay reworking of the post-structuralist figuring of identity as a constellation of
multiple and unstable positions. It examines the constitutive discourses of homosexuality
developed in the last century in order to place "queer" in its historical context, and
surveys contemporary arguments both for and against this latest terminology. The other
proponents of queer theories are Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judit Butler, Adrienne rich,
Diana fuss,etc. Queer theory’s origin was hard to clearly define, since it came from
multiple critical and cultural contexts, including feminism, post structuralism theory,
radical movements of people of color, the gay and lesbian movements, aids activism, and
many sexual sub cultural practices. It became an area study in 1991. Queer is an umbrella
term for those not only deemed sexuality deviant, but also those who feel marginalized
as a result of Stanford social practices. Queer is a word that describes sexual and
Gender Studies 55
cisgender. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people may all identify with the word
queer. “You might be gay, I might be trans- but we are both queer, and that brings us
together”. Queer theory aims to explore the diverse sexual identities, communities and
politics. It aims to differentiate between the insider and the outsider, that is the queer
theory aims to categories a set of sexual identities, demarcates them and enables
contestation amongst a set of sexual identities which will form the inner world of queer
community excluding the rest. Queer theory is well aware of the fact that it can only
negotiate its limit of being associated with heterosexual identities. It can neither be
completely detached from it nor can it be attached to heterosexual identities but they can
only work towards maintaining the boundaries, regulate and contest them. On the other
hand, Queer feminism is a movement which challenges racism, imperialism,
homophobia and Transphobia. They stand is opposition to patriarchy.
Thus, queer theory focuses on two aspects such as:
● Challenges to the idea of gender failed to explain by feminist theorists About
socially constructed nature of sexual acts and identities
● It aims to express stable definitions of male and female sexuality, to include not
only gay and lesbian but also transgendered subjects and to explore topics such
as cross dressing gender ambiguity and trans sexuality.
In short Queer theory may be considered as a conceptual framework that “conveys a
double emphasis—on the conceptual and speculative work involved in discourse
production and on the necessary critical work of deconstructing our own discourses and
their constructed silence” (de Lauretis, 1991, p. iv). Queer theory problematizes fixed
and stable identity-categories, including male/female, masculine/feminine, and
lesbian/gay/straight distinctions, and re-thinks notions of plurality, intersectionality, and
fluidity in discourse production. Queer theory posits these categories of “lesbian and gay”
or the use of “heterosexual/homosexual” as binary to display heterodominance are social
constructions and that they are, as such, artificial. Queer theory attempts to break down
the continual use of categories and labels that stereotype and harm those who are in
marginalized positions, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people
(de Lauretis, 1991). Queer theory “re-presents” a more fluid concept of gender and
sexuality to enhance understanding of human diversity (de Lauretis, 1991). Noting how
most indigenous cultures do not have a historical practice of naming and categorizing
sexual identities is one example where we question how we have to come to adhere to
the use of sexual identity in Western contexts (e.g., Wekker, 2006).
Gender Studies 56
In an alternate view, Pinar (1998) argued queer theory brings sexuality and desire to
the fore and engages with a queer pedagogy that examines our positional ties,
representations, relations, and needs in relation to a “re-structured self” (p. 9). Pinar
(1998) wrote that the introduction of queer theory into educational contexts works to
“challenge the reproduction of sameness, of difference, of patriarchy. In different ways
we work to teach the same(sexed) as the exemplification, the solidification and
mobilization of difference” (p. 10). For Pinar (1998), to integrate queerness into the
learning experience means to end silence of sexual identities, knowledge, and values that
have long been oppressed in society.
Queer theory introduces the concept of heteronormativity, which is a powerful discourse
that structures human relations according to heterosexuality.
Heteronormativity interferes in individual psyches and social institutions,
practices, and knowledge systems as a means to position heterosexuality as the dominant
sexuality. For example, heteronormative discourses embedded in training systems lead
one to believe that identities (e.g., clients, participants), ideas (e.g., curricula, policy),
and relationships (e.g., notions of “family”) are exclusively heterosexual, which,
concomitantly, silences sexual and gender-difference. Another hallmark of queer theory
is Butler’s (1999) notion of performativity. Through enlisting gender as the basis for her
points, Butler put forth (a) the notion of “performativity” as it relates to the expression
of identity and (b) a radical critique of category-generating terms that manage identity.
First, Butler drew attention to social practices and rules involved with being and
becoming (an individual). Through these social practices and rules, difficulties arise for
subjects trying to develop a sense of agency, resistance, and subjectivity around their
gender identity. These rules decenter and dismiss individual autonomy and demand that
they be adhered to (Butler, 1999). Butler argued gender identity then becomes
“Performative,” whereby individuals “perform” their gender according to these social
rules and practices. Encounters with performativity in this sense suggest that gender
identity-categories are fluid and not fixed. Butler and others “trouble” the hegemonic
nature of these social rules and practices by exposing them and interrogating the ways in
which they construct and bind gender. For example, Connell and Messerschmidt (2005)
suggested the notion of “hegemonic masculinity,” which asserts that male masculinity is
constructed as dominant through social, institutional, and influential rules and that
femininity and subordinated masculinity are inferior. It is clear through this work that
Gender Studies 57
when people disturb such binding practices around (gender) identity, they then open up
political possibilities that break from the constraints of social regulation (Butler,
1999).
In sum, the notions of heteronormativity and performativity as hallmarks of queer
theory may be useful in interrogating power structures and “the way that things are done”
in the workplace. Recently, queer theory has been critiqued as being too Western in
scope, and, as a result, has evolved to include aspects of transnationalism in light of
globalized societies (e.g., Gopinath, 2005). This critique has been useful in illustrating
how queer theory can be employed as an analytic strategy to destabilize and deconstruct
discourse (Kirsch, 2007), such as exploring how intersecting notions of “race,”
citizenship, gender, class, and sexuality are constructed differently in various settings.
References
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304541334_Queer_Theory
 Jane pilcher & Imelda whelehan - 50 key concepts in gender studies
 David glover and cora Kaplan - Genders
 https://www.britanica.com
 epgp.inflibnet.ac.in
 https://www.sjsu.edu
B. Queer politics
Queer, in sexual politics, description of sexuality that rejects normative definitions
of appropriate feminine and masculine sexual behaviour. More contemporary meanings
of queer have been picked up and used by activists and academics to mark movements
within sexual identity politics and theoretical frameworks for understanding gender and
sexuality. The term to denote sexual identity within a particular community. Labeling
people whose sexual identities fall outside of heterosexuality may create solidarity
among people based on commonality, which may in turn encourage them to identify with
one another and create a community in which they find support and organize to initiate a
political movement. Queer communities may have political agendas; they may fight to
be accepted by heterosexist mainstream society or resist assimilation into the
heteronormative culture. From around the end of the 1980s the term was picked up by
many activists and academics as a tool for political engagement. Initially “queer” was
politicized in the context of the AIDS crisis but soon afterwards, the term was used to
address political, social and cultural marginalization of sexual minorities. “Queer” has
Gender Studies 58
ever since remained one of the most significant concepts in contemporary sexual
minority politics. Now, “queer” became a powerful political signifier and many of the
scholars investigated on the political messages that the term carried. Some of the studies
focus on multiple uses of “queer”, rising from various forms of direct political activism
to numerous academic publications. The term often functioned as a type of alternative
identity, a basis of community, an incitement for political action and even a philosophical
category.Studies show that Queer was mobilized politically through multiplicity of
routes.
In the book "Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory" edited by
Michael Warner (1993, Warnerstates: “queer” gets a critical edge by defining itself
against the normal rather than the heterosexual, and normal includes normal business in
the academy” (Warner 1993, xxvi). This is a very important statement because it aims to
design the direction of the political impulse that follows from “queer”. Warner sees
“queer” as a critical concept but not in opposition to heterosexuality. It is not a name for
sexual minority groups but for those who reject dominant forms of sexuality. In this
context, “queer” refers to other rules of social interactions and other norms that define
proper agency in contemporary Western societies. It is an inclusive definition because
possibly even certain heterosexuals who have at some level non-normative lives, can find
use for the concept “queer” as a tool to describe their difference in opposition to the
norms that limit them. Moreover, Warner is probably the first to openly raise the issue of
resisting the politics of academia and to develop new forms of academic thinking, writing
and teaching in the name of “queer”. “Queer” is not only about sexual politics but also
about norms in daily life and norms that govern academia. Warner proposes the use of
the term “queer” in an academic context in order to destabilize theoretical presumptions
about theorizing sexuality and develop new models of thinking about it. The negative or
anti-social aspect of “queer” is highlighted by Warner. He writes: “Organizing a
movement around queerness also allows it to draw on dissatisfaction with the regime of
the normal in general. In the early days of its academic use, “queer” was picked up by
several scholars who ascribed to it various political connotations. The term “queer” did
not have a clear political reference and it was uncertain in which methodological and
theoretical framework it would function. A good example of this uncertainty is Sue-Ellen
Case’s essay “Towards a Butch-Femme Aesthetic” from 1988, where the author does not
use “queer” consistently, and instead the term is used as an interesting but accidental
concept.
Gender Studies 59
2.4 Theories of Masculinities

A. Sherry B Ortner
Sherry Ortner is an anthropologist who specializes in social and cultural theory,
feminist theory, and the cultural, political, and historical dimensions of ethnography. An
early formulator of the notion of the cultural construction of gender, she pioneered an
investigation of this process in a comparative perspective.
Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?
In “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture,” Sherry Ortner offers us an
explanation to why women have been universally considered to be second-rate to
men(universal devaluation of women) throughout history, by arguing that women’s
subordinate status is a result of the human mindset that human culture is superior to
nature, that culture is man’s way of subduing nature.Ortner theorizes that women’s body
and psychology are perceived as symbolically identifiable with nature, while men are
more associated with culture, thus resulting in the women being considered inferior to
men. Ortner argues that women are largely identified with nature because they are the
ones who give birth, and thus create new life. Women must devote a greater portion of
their time and body than procreation than men, as they have more body parts and
functions, such as breasts and menstruation that solely exist for the purpose of having
children. They are seen as being more connected to children. Therefore, society often
confines women to a domestic familial role, freeing up the men to pursue more “cultural”
endeavors like art or religion. Children themselves are viewed as primitive humans, not
yet civilized by the effects of culture. As women are the ones who raise children,
transforming them into sophisticated adults, Ortner contends that women are thus seen
as only an intermediary between nature and culture. Psychologically, women are more
emotional and sentimental than men, making men more inclined to more abstract,
“cultures” thought, while women’s thoughts tend to be more connected to other people.
In short Ortner arguements could be summarized as:
● Culture has high value than nature. Culture means by which man controls and
regulate nature.
● Women are universally defined as closer to nature because their bodies and
physiological function are more concerned with ‘the natural process rounding the
reproduction of the species.
Gender Studies 60
● Men are more objective and less emotional. Men thought process are defined as
more abstract and objective than women. Since culture seen as superior than
nature, women’s psyche is devaluated and men come out on top.
Criticism
Ortner fails to show conclusively that in all societies culture is evaluated more highly
than nature. Although many societies have rituals which attempts to control nature it is
not clear that nature is necessarily devalued in comparison to culture. Indeed it be argued
that the very existence of such ritual points to the superior power of nature. If Ortner’s
view is correct, the subordination of women owes nothing to biology as such, but rather
to cultural evaluation of their biological make-up. A change in this evaluation will
remove the basic female subordination. Ortner’s argument does have one important
virtue. It provides universal explanation for universal phenomena, the second-class status
of women.
References
● Haralambos, Michael: Sociology-Themes and perspectives.
● Ortner, Sherry B. 1974. Is female to male as nature is to culture? In M. Z. Rosaldo
and L. Lamphere (Eds), Woman, culture, and society. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, pp. 68-87.
● Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture? Sherry B. Ortner Feminist StudiesVol.
1, No. 2 (autumn, 1972), pp. 5-31 (27 pages) Published By: Feminist Studies, Inc.
B.RW Conner
Raewyn Connell (formerly R. W. or Bob Connell) was born in Australia in 1944.
One of Australia’s most highly acclaimed sociologists, Connell has authored or
coauthored a number of books, including Ruling Class, Ruling Culture (1977), Class
Structure in Australian History (1980), Gender and Power (1987), The Men and the Boys
(2000), and Masculinities(1995), which has been translated into thirteen languages and
is among the most-cited research publications in the field. Connell’s most recent book,
Southern Theory (2007), discusses theorists unfamiliar in the European canon of social
science and explores the possibility of a genuinely global social science. Her ongoing
work explores the relation between masculinities and neoliberal globalization,
combining, in characteristic form, her concern for large-scale social structures with
recognition of personal experience and collective agency. Connell received her doctorate
Gender Studies 61
in sociology from the University of Sydney, where she currently holds a university chair.
She has also taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Macquarie University
in Sydney, and Flinders University in Adelaide and has held visiting posts at the
University of Toronto, Harvard University, and Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Connell’s
work is widely cited in social science and humanities publications internationally. Four
of her books have been listed among the ten most influential books in
Australian sociology. She is frequently invited to give keynote addresses at conferences
and seminars, and has done so at events in Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Senegal, and
Britain. Connell has received the American Sociological Association’s award for
distinguished contribution to the study of sex and gender, as well as the Australian
Sociological Association’s award for distinguished service to sociology.
Hegemonic Masculinity
Connell is concerned about the resiliency of gender roles, and the pattern of
practices that allows men’s dominance over women. However, rather than use object
relations theory to explain these practices, Connell expands on the work of the Italian
journalist, communist, and political activist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), who coined
the concept of “cultural hegemony.” ( Building on Marx’s notion that “the ruling ideas
are the ideas of the ruling class,” and fascinated by the extraordinary ideological power
of the Catholic Church in Italy, Gramsci used the term “cultural hegemony” to refer to
how the ruling class maintains its dominance not primarily through force or coercion, but
rather through the willing, “spontaneous” consent of the ruled. In a similar vein, Connell
uses the term “hegemonic masculinity” to refer to the pattern of practices that allows
men’s dominance over women to continue (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005:832).
Connell maintains that there are many kinds of masculinities but that there is always one
that is hegemonic to the rest and marginalizes others in a gender system. This does not
mean that hegemonic masculinity is either monolithic or static, but, rather, that it is the
kind of masculinity that is in a superior position. No matter what, each culture will prefer
one kind of masculinity over others. Significantly, however, Connell maintains that most
men do not live in the model of hegemonic masculinity, and that masculinity (as
femininity) has internal contradictions and historical ruptures, because what is
hegemonic is determined in a mobile relation. Above all, Connell is concerned with the
changing patterns of “hegemony”: the dominance of particular patterns of masculinity
over others. Connell’s conceptualization of “hegemonic masculinity” has the central
Gender Studies 62
advantage of locating male dominance not solely in the micro level and the interpersonal
dynamics of the family, but also in the macro level and the public sphere. “Hegemonic
masculinity” recognizes not only the gendered character of bureaucracies and workplaces
as well as educational institutions, including classroom dynamics and patterns of
bullying, but also the media, for instance the interplay of sports and war imagery, as well
as the virtual monopoly of men in certain forms of crime, including syndicated and white-
collar crimes. In theoretical terms,
Connell explicitly accounts for both the more “rational” dimensions of
dominance (institutionalized bureaucracies) and the “conational” dimensions (e.g., sports
and war imagery) As Connell and Messerschmidt (ibid.846) state, “Cultural consent,
discursive centrality, institutionalization and the marginalization or delegitimation of
alternatives are widely documented features of socially dominant masculinities. . . .
Hegemony works in part through the production of exemplars of masculinity (e.g.,
professional sports stars), symbols that have authority despite the fact that most men and
boys do not fully live up to them.” This brings us to a second vital concept in Connell’s
work: “patriarchal dividend.”
Patriarchal dividend
Connell uses this term to refer both to the honor and prestige and to the more
material dividends men accrue under patriarchy, the point being that this dividend is not
uniformly distributed among men, but is, nevertheless, universally distributed among
them. In other words, though men as a whole may gain from living in a patriarchal gender
order, not all gain in the same way or to the same degree. Patriarchal systems are
intertwined with a wide variety of other hierarchical relations (e.g., class, race, nation,
region, generation, sexual orientation); consequently, not all men receive the same share
of the patriarchal dividend. “Patriarchal dividend” and “hegemonic masculinity” might
be conceptualized as twin terms, the former highlighting the costs and benefits of the
gender order as played out at the level of the individual; the latter highlighting, as
indicated previously, dominant patterns of masculinity, at both the cultural and social
structural levels. As Connell (2000, p. 11) states, “Masculinities are defined collectively
in culture, and are sustained in institutions.” In other words, in terms of the question of
order, Connell’s work is thoroughly multidimensional. As a sociologist and historian,
Connell is most interested in “collective masculinities,” which she defines as “the
patterns of conduct our society defines as masculine” (ibid.). She emphasizes not only
Gender Studies 63
that there are different types of masculinities in different cultures and periods of history,
but also “multiple masculinities” in any particular place and time (ibid.). At the same
time, however, Connell goes to great lengths to explain “the active construction” of
masculinity at the level of the individual (ibid.). Connell asserts that “the hegemonic form
need not be the most common form of masculinity,” that masculinities are not fixed, and
that significant contradictions exist not only at the level of the collective, but at the level
of the individual, for instance, in contradictory desires (ibid.:11–13).In terms of the
question of action, as indicated previously, Connell explicitly accounts for both the more
“rational” and “non rational” dimensions of dominance at the level of the collective (for
instance, institutionalized bureaucracies, and sports and war imagery), as well as both the
conscious and the relatively unconscious costs and benefits that accrue from the
patriarchal dividend at the level of the individual (for instance, intricate maneuvering in
peer groups and competitive sports). Most importantly, Connell’s theoretical
multidimensionality is rooted not only in her comprehensive analysis of distinct sorts of
variables (e.g., the economy, the body, media), but also in her comprehensive analysis of
a single variable across space and time. Thus, in the essay you will read below, she
maintains that the disadvantages to men that accrue in the current gender order are “the
conditions of the advantages. For instance, men cannot be the beneficiaries of women’s
domestic labor and ‘emotion work’ without many of them losing intimate connections,
for instance, with young children” (Connell 2005:1809).
Reference
 RW Connel “Change Among the Gatekeepers: Men, Masculinities, and Gender
Equality in the Global Arena” (2005)
Gender Studies 64
MODULE 3
GENDER DYNAMICS IN INDIA
3.1 Social institutions and Gender reproduction- Caste, Class, Religion

3.2 Gender and economy: property relations, gender wage-gap, unpaid labour and
glass ceilings
3.3 Representations of Gender: Objectification and stereotyping, Gendered
Violence
3.4 Issues of sexual minorities in India
3.1Social Institutions and Gender reproduction
Social institutions have their prototype gender treatment procedure which lay the
foundation of gender inequality. It is a settled fact that gender inequalities come at a cost.
Besides the consequences thatthe affected women experience as they are deprived of
their basic freedoms (Sen, 1999), gender inequalities affect the whole society. They can
lead to ill-health, low human capital, bad governance and lower economic growth (e.g.
World Bank, 2001; Klasen, 2002).Gender inequalities can be observed in outcomes like
education, health and economic and political participation, but they are rooted in gender
roles that evolve from institutions that shape everyday life and form role models that
people try to fulfil and satisfy. Thus, we have to referto these long-lasting norms, values
and codes of conduct as social institutions related togender inequality.
Gender reproduction through Caste and Class

Women in cast based caste society:
As far as unfolding the issue of identity of women in caste-based society is
concerned, it cannot be discussed without bringing in the concept of patriarchy.Patriarchy
is part of all identity construction. Gender, class and caste intersect with patriarchy.
In patriarchal system
● Men mostly enjoy more power.
● Women occupy a lower position in all identity groups and sub-groups.
● Women are symbols and represent the honor of their community.
● Their autonomy is controlled.
Gender Studies 65
● Due to dominance and universalism of patriarchal practices, women end up

negotiating with patriarchy.
The chastity of women is strongly related to caste status. Generally, the higher ranking
the caste, the more sexual control its women are expected to exhibit. Brahman brides
should be virgin, faithful to one husband, and celibate in widowhood. By contrast, a bride
may or may not be a virgin, extramarital affairs may be tolerated, and, if widowed or
divorced, the woman is encouraged to remarry. For the higher castes, such control of
female sexuality helps ensure purity of lineage-of crucial importance to maintenance of
high status. Women in upper caste societies live their lives largely within the familial
parameters. Their mobility is severely restricted and they are not permitted to go out for
work. Women play the key role in maintaining the sanctity and purity of the home. The
bodily purity of upper castes is believed to be linked to what is ingested. Leela Dube, a
renowned feminist anthropologist has argued that women play an important role in
maintaining caste boundaries through preparation of food and in maintaining its purity.
The job of safeguarding food, forestalling danger and in a broad sense, attending to the
rules which govern the relational idiom of food fall upon women. Women’s practices in
relation to food play acritical role in the hierarchical ordering of castes. The place of
women as active agents and instructors in the arena of food and rituals also implies that
women who command its gamut of rules gain special respect. Thus, women who espouse
the family tradition and conform to the patriarchal order of society are honored and
respected; else they are subjected to severe punishment. The rules the women are
expected to uphold and mostly designed to suit to the requirements of their male folks.
These rules are generally considered to be absolute and women are expected to adhere to
them blindly.
There is striking difference in the levels of purity/impurity between men and
women of high caste. Men of higher caste neither incur self-pollution of the kind their
women do nor do they have to perform polluting work for other castes. Their women, on
the contrary, are involved in pollution incurred through bodily processes, mainly
menstruation and childbirth. They are also responsible for doing some of the polluting
tasks within the family. There is a pervasive notion that women never attain the level of
purity of men of their own caste. It is well known that traditionally women of twice-born
castes have been equated with Caste and Gender, Shudras who could not be initiated into
the learning of the Vedas. Now, let us move to low caste women. The difference in the
levels of purity /impurity between men and women is much less among the lower castes
Gender Studies 66
than among the high castes. Low class women, apart from self-pollution, also deal with
other’s pollution through occupational activities such as midwifery, disposal of dirt, the
washing of dirty clothes, and many other services. But, their men too have to undertake
polluting crafts work and services for others. Among these castes, women’s substantial
contribution to the process of earning a livelihood along with sharing of impure tasks by
both men and women makes the genderdivision less unequal. However, it is worth
mentioning here that women’s contribution to occupational continuity is carried out
within patrilineal confines and under the imposition and control of caste. Thus, position
of women in upper caste society is considerably different from their counterpart in lower
castes. The higher the location in the caste hierarchy, the greater are the control on
women.
Women and purity of caste:
The purity of caste is contingent upon the purity of women. The central idea is
that purity of caste can be ensured by closely guarding women who constitute the pivot
for the entire structure. Women are repositories of family honor. The purity of women is
crucial in maintaining blood purity of the lineage and also position of the family within
the wider social hierarchy. The prestige of the family is in the hands of its daughters is a
common saying and often repeated to girls by the parents and to married women by them
in laws. The safeguarding of the caste structure is achieved through the highly controlled
movement of women or even through female isolation. The honor of caste and men is
protected and preserved through their women. Onset of puberty marks a highly dangerous
situation. In this context in order to guard the purity of caste, pre-pubertal marriages were
recommended for the upper caste. The need for monitoring women’s sexuality is quite
evident. The lower caste male whose sexuality is a threat to upper caste purity has to be
institutionally prevented from having sexual access to women of upper caste. Women
havetherefore to be constantly guarded.
There is an association between the chastity of women and caste status. Women
of upper caste were expected to exhibit more sexual control. A lot of value was attached
to the issue of virginity and loyalty. Women in upper caste households were socialized
in way that they adhered completely to social norms of society. Food constitutes a vital
element in the ritual idiom of purity and pollution. Foods are hierarchically categorized
in terms of specific characteristic they symbolize, inherent purity and impurity and
resistance to pollution. Both the exclusiveness of castes as bounded entities and inter-
caste relationships are articulated by idiom of food. Women have to be very cautious as
Gender Studies 67
far as preparation and distribution of food is concerned. The responsibility for who eats
what, where and when rests with women within the domestic sphere. Anthropologists
have often pointed out that women are more particular about commensal restrictions.
Upper caste women are required to observe strict rules of purity and pollution while
preparing food. They are required to abstain from food that arouses passion and desire.
Thus, women’s behavior with respect to food has great relevance to the hierarchical
ordering of caste. It must be noted that rules like imposition of seclusion and restrictions
on the freedom of movement of women, their withdrawal from productive activities
outside the home, severe restrictions on divorce and widow remarriage and the
concomitant expectation of a life of self-denial and austerity of widows are attempts to
ensure the purity of women and thereby the purity of caste.
Subordination of women in case-based societies:
Women of upper caste, in relation to their men occupy a lowly position. Women
in upper caste households are strictly bound by social norms. A girl’s parents or brothers
may withhold economic or physical support to her for not complying with their decision
especially related to spouse selection. Marriage, as an event and as an institution greatly
determines and restricts women’s position in these households. It is important to note
that while upper caste women lose in relation to their menfolk within a patriarchal
situation, they derive certain benefits from the system of which they are a part. Further,
these benefits are available to them only if they conform to the patriarchal codes of their
families and communities. Compliance brings them gain, both material and symbolic.
Deviance, on the other hand, expels them from the material resources of the family of
which they can partake only on the condition of ‘good behavior’. At this juncture, it is
worth repeating that women are regarded as upholding the tradition by conforming to
them. Men, on the other hand, uphold traditions by enforcing them, not upon themselves
but upon women. Thus, women even in the upper caste do not enjoy any independent
status. Their rights and duties are decided by their male counterparts and they’re expected
to silently execute them. M.N. Srinivasan speaks of the considerable empowerment of
high caste women through their meticulous observance of purity and pollution rules,
performance of periodical rituals, etc., which are considered necessary for the welfare of
household (1978).
Upper caste women, who are made to believe in the indissolubility of marriage,
for instance, are expected to change their life style drastically after they are widowed.
When a woman from upper caste enters into a relationship or falls in love with a man
Gender Studies 68
from lower caste, the couple is subjected to collective power of the upper castes who will
stop at nothing to punish the transgression. Many such couples have been subjected to
brutal killings. Women’s sexuality is under patriarchal and caste control and still requires
to be transferred from father to husband. Researches in India have shown that bodies of
lower caste women are seen as Caste and Gender collectively mute and capable of
bearing penetration and other modes of marking by upper caste hegemony without the
intervening discourse of desire because of the over determination of this violence as a
caste privilege. The upper caste men who wields the maximum amount of power is the
most privileged section of the society. Men of the upper caste have the freedom to keep
mistresses. The power and privilege of their family can serve to cover their indiscretion.
Men have institutionalized mechanism to escape the incurrence of pollution through
sexualintercourse with a low caste woman. This often takes the form of a purificatorybath
and the ritual explanation of the offence. Orthodox Brahmins in Karnataka and Tamil
Nadu, for instance, have a purificatory bath and don a new sacred thread after
establishing sexual contact with woman of lower caste. On the otherhand, if the woman
from these communities goes ‘astray’ and the matter becomespublic knowledge. The
woman is banished, declared dead to the family and a ‘mock’ shraada (funeral rites) is
performed for her (Dube 1978) Women of low caste constitute the most vulnerable
section of Indian society.
Lower caste women too have codes to uphold. Their marriages are too negotiated
by their male kinsmen. Women in low caste society generally go out to work and
contribute to family income. In this context it is imperative to mention that in the upper
caste manual labour is looked down upon and women are not allowed to go out and work.
Women of low caste are thus not confined to domestic domain. They lead a less restricted
life compared to the women of upper caste society. It is important to remember that the
very idea women of low caste go out for work does not hint to their better status but it is
an economic necessity. Lower caste women are victims of both caste discrimination and
gender discrimination. Lower caste women are sexually exploited by powerful upper
caste men owning land. It is not only difficult for low caste men to protect their women
against the lust and desire of their upper caste masters and super ordinates in the agrarian
hierarchy, but there is also a tacit acceptance of upper caste ‘seed’. In Uttar Pradesh, for
instance , it is said that just as a she goat may be milked at any time at one’s will, so can
a chamaar woman be enjoyed anytime at one’s discretion (Dube 1978).Thus the
significance of gender in understanding the caste system and the way caste invades on
Gender Studies 69
women’s life cannot be ignored. Indian society is strongly patriarchal. Women’s

compliance to structure of caste and class is not merely passive but can extend to
incitementof their menfolk to hold on to unchallenged social power that they have
wieldedinto contemporary times. Women in India are treated as inferior and lowly by
their male counterparts. Women are treated as subordinates and their sexuality is
controlled by men. In India caste system is an important institution. This feature makes
the Indian society highly stratified and hierarchical. Caste and gender are highly
correlated. Though women of upper caste face gender discrimination at every step of
their life and it is their men who control their destiny. Yet women of upper caste are
entitled to certain privileges. It is important to note that these privileges are granted to
them only when they conform to the patriarchal order of society. Women of the lower
caste are the most disadvantaged lot. They arevictim of both gender discrimination and
caste inequality.
References
 Dube, Leela. 1978. ‘Caste and Women’ in M. N. Srinivas, the Changing Position
of Indian Women. Bombay: Oxford University Press.
 Nakkerran, N. 2003. ‘Women’s Work, Status and Fertility. Land, Caste and
Gender in a South India Village’ Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 38 (7).
Pp.3931-3939
 Srinivas, M. N. 1978.Caste in Modern India and Other Essays. Bombay: Oxford
University Press.
 Chakravati, Uma. 2003. Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens. Stree
Calcutta.
Gender and religion
Gender and religion do not exist side by side but related to each other at same
level. Gender is deeply embedded throughout in all religion. All historical religion
shaped by patriarchal centric frame work. Sacred text/scriptures differentiate the role of
women and men in the society. Religious teachings and beliefs play an important role in
either promoting or discouraging gender equality. In many religious men and women are
ascribed ‘natural’ roles that Centre on the domestic role for women and the breadwinning
role for me. Religious values help to sustain the existing gender relation as they provide
the normative framework for the behavior of their members. Religious institutions play
particularly important role in defining family norms and regulating behaviors around
Gender Studies 70
gender. Religion affect greatly affect women education because of their beliefs and
norms which end up affecting gender relations. Most religion align with what’s known
as “benevolent sexism” which has three domains protective paternalism, which says men
should protect women complementary gender differentiation, which says that gender
roles are natural, conjugal intimacy, which says that romances are essential for conjugal
relations. Michael kimmel’s in his work “The Gendered society”. Says that religion is a
gendered institution. God is referred to as man, and women are suppressed and forced to
follow rules. Almost all religions are fatherly in origin, development, leadership,
authority, and power. God is commonly portrayed as a male. Refer to god with ‘He’,
heavenly father, He Jesus [Christianity]. Muhammed [Islam], and Buddha [Buddhism]
are all male. Hinduism there is recognition of and rituals. Gender inequality is cultural
manifestation of religion.
Gender and religion can be understood at three levels:
 Scriptures and ideology- interpretation and reinterpretation of scriptures on code
of conduct and behavior. It depends on the ideology of the interpreter
 Influence of local/ national and international political ideologies on religious
discourse.
 Lived experiences of individual and communities reflecting actual power, control
and opportunities.
All three interact and change with time to influence interaction between men and women.
Historical view
There is enough evidence to show that women were not always regarded as
inferior. Reference to a period of goddesses’ worship existed in Europe and other
countries back in 7000 BC. Religion was focused on agriculture and mode of livelihood,
feminine deities symbolized fertility and growth. No trace of fatherly figure in the
Paleolithic period. Depiction of female deities/ goddesses related to existing social order-
women enjoyed comparatively more power. With change in social order and men
assuming more power shift in religious depiction of men as God or God as men.
Gender-segregated religious practice

By way of symbolic and material practices religion can reinforces existing
gendered distributions of power or try to change them. Religious fundamentalists hold
ancient scripture to be infallible and stick to traditional gender roles. Women’s religious
practices are more private whereas men are public. Women priest are not allowed in the
Gender Studies 71
Roman Catholic Church. Imams must be women sit separately to men in Orthodox
Judaism.
Feminism and religion

Many feminists see religion as a patriarchal institution that reflects and enforces
male domination and legitimates female subordination. For example, all religious
organizations are mainly male dominated. Many religious exclude women from the
priesthood Catholicism. Places of worship can often segregate the sexes and thus
marginalize women. For example placing them behind screens whilst men occupy the
central spaces. Sacred texts largely feature the doing of male gods and are usually written
and interpreted by men.
Gender and Hinduism

The Sruti Hindu scriptures-the Upanishads see no difference in gender as the
eternal soul wears no gender. It speaks of one truth and preaches both the masculine and
feminine forms of absolute divinity. Divinity include manifestations of feminine deities
such as parvathi [the Divine mother of power]. Saraswathi [The Goddess of knowledge].
Lakshmi [the Goddess of wealth]. And many others. They also describe masculine forms
to carry feminine qualities .and imply that some masculine deities are in fact incarnations
of the feminine. The myths found in the RIGVEDA contains a number of important
female deities including Ushas and Vak.In Hindu social and ethical texts women often
seem to be hierarchically inferior to men.Dharmashasras, the Manusmrti, the laws of
manu , depicts women as being subservient to men: a girl is governed by her father, a
married women by her husband, a widow by her sons Women are prohibited from hearing
the vedas. From engaging in certain crucial rituals and from holding positions of religious
leaders. In the ancient period social life was regulated according to vedas. The vedas
stressed on women’s reproductive role-women created by brahma for continuation of
family lineage. Status of women depicted as inferior to men- who were regarded as
protector. Medival period women of upper cast and high class had access to education
and worked as administrator. The bhakthi movement led to social reform and change in
socio religious practices.in modern India Hindu social order is still patriarchal. Rigveda
Lord Indra himself has said, the mind of women cannot be disciplined; she has very
inteligece Atharva Veda 6.3.4 let a female child be born somewhere else: here let a male
child be born.
Gender Studies 72
Manusmruthi –Brahmin men were to engage in sin with devadasis any time they wanted.
Manusmruthi 9.2.3: men must make their women dependent day or night and keep under
their own control those who are attached to sensory objects. Her father guards her in
child. Her husband guards in her youth .and her son’s guard her in old age a women is
not fit for independence.
Islam
There are several forms of Islam. Muhammed recorded the word of god in to the
text that is called Qur’an [Koran]. Other text includes the Sunnah and Hassan which are
the saying and actions of Muhammed. Equality of men and women are part of the ethics,
spirituality and humanity of Islam. The Qur’an makes it clear that the sole basis for
superiority of any person over another is piety and righteousness, not gender, colour or
nationality. The Qur’an is the only book of world scripture in which women are
frequently referred to alongside men. And both are described as being friends and partner
s in faith. According to the laws of Islam a man and women have the right to choose their
partner and they should not be forced marriage. Men are the head of households and
religious and community leaders women are to be in subjection to their husband. Practice
polygamy. Women wear hijab [head of scarf], abaya [longdresses or coat] burqua [full
coverage garment from head to toe are not allowed to touch the Qur’an until after their
menstrual period is complete and the ritual performed. Sharia’s is a practice that punishes
women for behavior deemed immoral or immodest. The practices of Islam depends on
political ideology, some countries are more strict in terms of using religion to control
women.
Christianity
Several thousand years ago in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and also in India and
surrounding cultures. Female deities were the main object of reverence.by 4500 B.C. this
had changed to a patriarchal, stratified and war like culture. It was this patriarchal culture
from which Christianity emerged. Hence we have male deities of the lord Jehovah, god
the father and Jesus, the son. Later on in the 19th and 20 the centuries, it was the catholic
and protestant clergy who were in the front of the opposition to women ‘suffrage, saying
that female obedience was meant by god. And today men continue to dominate the
organizational structure of Christian religions. Jesus appointed only men as his twelve
apostles, and this is taken as a sign of women’s secondary status. Grounded in scriptures
from the old and new Testaments that delineate gender roles, duties, and relation. Men
Gender Studies 73
are the heads of households and religious community. The Old Testament recognized no
inheritance right to widows.Timothy where it says “let the women learn in silence with
all subjection .but I suffer not a women teach, authority over the man, but to be silence.
“In Ephesian Paul says- “wives, submit your selves to your husbands, as unto the Lord.
And further, the head of every man is Christ, and the head of every man is Chris, and the
head of the women is the man”. Man is the image and glory of god; but the women is the
glory of the man
Buddhism
Buddhism while accepting the biological and physical differences between the
two sexes, does consider men and women to be equally useful to the society. Buddhism
does not restrict either the educational opportunities of women or their religious freedom.
The Buddhist texts record of eminent saintly Bhikkunis, who were very learned and who
were experts in preaching the Dhamma. After the death of Buddha two branches
developed Hinayana school which was anti women. Women were considered as wicked,
blind and wretched whereas men were regarded as noble, loyal and generous. Mahayana
school believed in gender equality and emphasized different role of men and women.
Jainism
Jainism is one of the oldest religions in world. From the start this community
known as the four-fold sangha include women as two of its components: laywomen-
sravika, nun’s sadvis. digambaras and sevatambara two branches in Jainism.jain believes
that women cannot achieve libration without being reborn as men first.
Sikhism
Sikhism distinct from Hinduism or Islam.Women is not considered as hindrance
but Partner in serving god and seeking salvation. In Sikhism, girl is considered a princess
and hence given kaur need not take on the name of husband after marriage
Judaism
In Jewish texts the imagery of God is masculine. Women should be restricted in public
prayer, and study of the torah.it also depicts them as a distraction from the males’ study
of prayer.in some communities, married women have to wear hats. Thus it could be said
that Gender is central to most religious orders. In turn, religions have a significant impact
on gendered relations.
Gender Studies 74
For further reading:

 "The Role of Women in Religion Religion Essay." ukessays.com. 11 2018.
UKEssays. 01 2021 <https://www.ukessays.com/essays/religion/the-role-of-
women-in-religion-religion-essay.php?vref=1>.
 Gender and Religion, Sophie Bjork-James
3.2 Gender and economy
Gender has a major role in access to employment opportunities. There is

considerable difference in women’s and men’s access to and opportunities to extend
power over economic structures in their societies. In most parts of the world, women are
virtually absent from or poorly represented in in economic decision making. The actual
development of economic structures and policies has a direct impact on women’s and
men’s access to economic resources, their economic power and consequently the extent
of equality between them at individual and family levels as well as in society as a whole.
Women consist of almost 50% of total population and hence their contribution to national
wealth and welfare should be of great concern. The Constitution of India provides equal
rights and privileges for men and women and makes special provisions for women to
help them improve their status in society. According to the 1981 census, only 14% of the
total female population in country fall in the category of workers. The value of unpaid
work constitutes 25.39% of the total gross national products in developing countries.
Women’s participation in labour force is not only proportionately smaller than men but
also decline (from 34.44% in1911 down to 14% in 1981). In 2018 a study report shows
a little improvement in the participation of women in labor force 23.6%. Besides women
are confined only to certain jobs in all countries telephone operators, typists and clerks.
A negligible number of women is found in administrative jobs etc. Not only the women
but also other minorities who includes the homosexuals like lesbian’s gay, transgender
people and all others who came under the LGBTQ community are facing many economic
explorations. They also faces some challenges.
The level of economic equality and independence are the real indicators to
measure the status of women in any society. In a complex and highly stratified society
like ours, the status and position of women naturally differ from religion to religion. Class
to class, caste to caste. From one religion to the other and from one occupation to the
other. Consequently even women's own perception of their condition varies although the
Gender Studies 75
overall picture is one of domination and discrimination. The level of exploitation of

women can generally be measured by the level of oppression and exploitation of working
class in a society, the form content and intensity would be comparative by higher in the
case of women when compared to men and in a class of society. The level of exploitation
of women can generally be measured by the level of oppression and exploitation of
working class in society.
Economic inequality
This refers to the systematic differences exist in the access of men and women to
employment of various kinds, i.e., differential treatment in hours of work wages etc.
Inequality in the work place is present to some degree in very country. There are certain
barriers which prevent women from making their fullest contribution to economic life
and actions to renewed productivity fairly. Development processes appear to accentuate
this inequality by drawing more men in by eliminating previously available opportunities
for women and by not giving equal opportunity to women to enter the modem sector.
Wage gap is a major problem. Equal pay for equal work is universally accepted right for
every worker. But in many private companies equal pay is never given to workers under
minority categories.
Paid and unpaid work:

Women participate in household works as well as in all kinds of family
enterprises, be they farms, family household industry, shops and other commercial
enterprises. They are unpaid family workers, but they often get excluded or under
counted. But their work is equality essential for the smooth functioning of the economy,
whether it is at the community, firm/farm or at the household level. The world women
Conference at Nairobi has drawn attention to the productive nature of domestic work
done by women and demanded that proper valuation should be made on such work. If
the domestic work is paid, it is estimated that it would account for half of the national
income. Most of the contributions made by women to the farm sector also accounted as
they are not directly paid. The household activities done by females in rural areas are
quite differ it from those in urban areas. Firewood used for cooking are collected by the
females. Water is fetched from ponds and wells from distant places etc. Besides, the
activities like lending of farm animals, collecting and saving of farms 7 for use either as
fuel or as manure on the farms are being attended to by our women folk since ages. Thus,
they have provided much of the unpaid family labour in agriculture. Finally, we can
Gender Studies 76
conclude that, if the work carried out by an individual does not fetch any benefit, either
in a tangible or intangible form is termed as unpaid work (e.g.) household work carried
out by the housewives. On the contrary if the worker gets due benefit and recognition by
way of monetary advancement, for his/her work it is termed as paid work.
Visible and invisible work:

While women carry the primary responsibility of bearing and rearing children
this responsibility is considered secondarily to the role of male bread winners. In addition
poor women are invariably involved in economic activities. However, most of these
activities are related to family occupations like agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry,
weaving, constructions labour and cottage industries. The Women's personal
contribution gets merged with the family and becomes invisible. Even where she gets
wages which are generally low, she is at best seen as providing supplementary income to
the family. The reality however, is that women's income is used for the survival needs of
the family. Her domestic chores are arduous yet she gets no recognition for this work.
Although women have the dual role of reproduction and production, their contribution is
considered as Secondary, Marginal and Supplementary. Even when women have to do
vital preparatory work as in weaving, agriculture and pottery they arc at best called
helpers. This undervaluation is all pervasive. It manifests itself in disparities in wages
and other rewards of women labour, in access to and control over resources, in lack of
infrastructural support and above all in great disparity in work burdens. A good deal of
Women's work remains invisible. Its exact nature, scope intensity are either not measured
at all or partially and erratically measured. The valuation of Women's work is subject to
influences and forces which are different from those of men. Simple laws of supply and
demand are not uniformly applicable. Women workers form a special category. The kind
of work they do, where how under what terms all these are determined by women's
position in society. They have special responsibilities, not shared by others, they face
various kinds of cultural taboos, and their child bearing functions place them in a
different positions. A large part of women's work which consumes time and energy and
calls for great care and attention are visible to all but invisible in theaccounts. We can
say that the household works are invisible and those works for which are paid, is visible.
Productive and unproductive work:
According to anthropologists, women were the major producers of food, clothing,
crafts many different tools through most of the human history. In fact, this continues to
Gender Studies 77
be so in all these societies of the world where production is mainly for subsistence and
not for sale. In India too, growing food processing it spinning and weaving, basket
making preparing perfumes and many other materials for consumption were women’s
contribution.
Categories of women workers

There are two categories of women workers. These categories is according to the
degree of organization and nature of problems of their sectors of employment. Viz., the
unorganized and the organized sectors. The organized sector is characterized by modern
relations of production and is regulated by laws that seek to protect the security and
working condition of labour as well as by labour organizations that can engage in
collective bargaining. This includes the entire public sector of service and industry, as
well as that part of the private sector which is regulated. The unorganized sector, which
includes agriculture as well as various industries and services, is characterized by the
absence of all these protective measures and machinery now women were working in
various sectors including agriculture as well as in industrial works. But not completely
free from the economic discrimination. Though both wife and husband were working
outside the home, in majority of houses the economic decision were taken by men.
LGBT community and economy

People who came under the umbrella of LGBT community also faces many
challenges in economic sector as well as other sectors. Education has a greater role in
one’s ability to access employment. They face discrimination from educational
institutions. Many people are not willing to provide jobs for trangenders and the like
minorities, especially in the private sector. Like women’s they also facing gender
discrimination in economic field. Only rare people reach in the high posts such as in
administrative jobs. LGBTQ people are more likely than other people to face poverty,
food insecurity, and economic hardship:
 Poverty: LGBTQIA people are more vulnerable to conditions of poverty as

compared to heterosexual people. (Badgett, Durso, & Schneebaum, 2013;
Grantbet.,2011).
 Unemployment: LGBTQ people, especially transgender people, are at high risk for
unemployment. Forty-four percent of transgender people are unemployed or under-
employed.
Gender Studies 78
 Food insecurity: LGBTQ people are 6 times more likely than non-LGBTQ people
to not have enough money for food for themselves or their families at some point
in the last year.
 Child poverty: Children raised by same-sex couples are almost twice as likely to be
living in poverty. Twenty-three percent of children raised by male same-sex
couples are poor, as are 19 percent of children raised by female same-sex couples.
By comparison, the poverty rate is 12 percent for children being raised by married
opposite-sex couples. In addition to the above disparities, LGBTQ people are more
likely to face homelessness, which is discussed in more detail in the housing and
homelessness issue guide .The economic disadvantages faced by LGBTQ are in
part the result of discrimination. Thirty states do not provide explicit protections
from discrimination for LGBTQ people in employment, housing, and public
accommodations. The income gap between LGBTQ people and straight people is
greater in those states with weaker legal protections of LGBTQ rights. Now in
many countries including India, they were legally recognized. Many legal rights
were provided for equal economic access. Now a days many people under this
category are working at outside and achieve economic security in many societies,
especially in western societies. But in many places, they were still facing
discriminations.
 Legal measures: Constitution is the fundamental legal document in a democratic
society. Our Constitution provides fundamental rights to its citizens irrespective of
caste, class, religion sex etc. which ensured equal economic opportunity to all
citizens. It provides rights to equality, Article 16 - deals with equality of
opportunity in matter relating to occupation and employment. Article-19 provide
right to acquire, hold or dispose or inherit the property to women. Constitution also
provide rights against exploitation. Article 23 to 24 -prohibition of traffic in human
beings and forced “labour are implemented including the prohibition of child
labour. Under the Constitution all citizens have equal job opportunities and equal
economic rights. Right to property is also another vital rights which helps to acquire
economic empowerment of minorities. Many labour organizations and their works
helped to provide many facilities like maternal leave, toilet facilities etc...The Same
sex sexual activity was decriminalized in 2018. Discrimination based on gender
orientation and gender identity constitutionally prohibited. Gender identity
additionally protected under the Trans Gender Person’s Protection of Rights act,
2019. Limited cohabitation rights ,adoption by single LGBTQI people recognized.
Gender Studies 79
As a result of globalization of economy many opportunities were available for people.

In addressing the economic potential and independence of women and LGBT
community, Governments and other actors should promote an active and visible policy
of mainstreaming a gender perspective in all policies and so that before decision are
taken, an analysis is made of the effect on differentgender group including women and
men respectively.
Property relations
Property right define the theoretical and legal ownership of resources and how
they can be used. These resources can be both tangible and intangible and can be owned
by individuals, businesses, and governments. In many countries, including the United
States, individuals generally exercise private property rights or the rights of private
persons to accumulate, hold, delegate rent, or sell their property. In economics, property
rights form the basis for all market exchange, and the allocation of property rights in a
society affects the efficiency of resource use. Much like those of women of any other
country, property rights of Indian women have evolved out a continuing struggle between
the status quest and the progressive forces. And pretty much like the property rights of
women elsewhere, property rights of Indian women too are unequal and unfair: while
they have come a long way ahead in the last century, Indian women still continue to get
less rights in property than the men, both in terms of quality and quantity. What may be
slightly different about the property rights of Indian women is that, along with many
other personal rights, in the matter of property rights to the Indian women are highly
divided within themselves. Home to diverse religions, till date, India has failed to bring
in a uniform civil code. Therefore, every religious community continues to be governed
by its respective personal laws in several matters – property rights are one of them. In
fact, even within the different religious groups, there are sub-groups and local customs
and norms with their respective property rights. Thus Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains
are governed by one code of property rights codified only as recently as the year1956,
while Christians are governed by another Code and the Muslims have not codified their
property rights, neither the Shias nor the Sunnis. Also, the tribal women of various
religions and states continue to be governed for their property rights by the customs and
norms of their tribes. To complicate it further, under the Indian Constitution, both the
central and the state governments are competent to enact laws on matters of succession
and hence the states can, and some have, enacted their own variations of property laws
Gender Studies 80
within each personal law. There is therefore no single body of property rights of Indian
women. The property rights of the Indian woman get determined depending on which
religion and religious school she follows, if she is married or unmarried, which part of
the country she comes from, if she is a tribal or non-tribal and so on.
Women’s Property Rights in India: A Historical Overview

●Women’s Property Rights & Vedic Period: During Vedic period woman was
considered as a goddess and was adored. The only Disability from which she suffered is
that she didn’t have the right of inheritance. Vedic literature prescribed inheritance to the
unmarried daughter and to a brother-less married daughter. The widow was not given
any right of inheritance in her husband’s property but childless widow was entitled to
succeed to her husband estate.
● Women’s Property Rights & Medieval Period: The Indian woman's position in the
society deteriorated during the medieval period when Sati, child marriages and a ban on
widow remarriages became part of social life. The Muslim invaders brought the purdah
practice in the Indian society. Among the Rajputs of Rajasthan, the Jauhar was practiced.
Polygamy was widely practiced especially among Hindu Kshatriya rulers. Women had
no property rights during this period.
● Women’s Property Rights & Smriti Period: In the smriti period, the widow, the
daughter and the mother were expressly named as heirs. But they could succeed to the
property of a man only in the absence of male heirs.
● Property of women under Hindu Law: i) Stridhan ii) Non-stridhan
●Under Hindu, there were two school of thoughts/laws.1. Mitakshara, 2. Dayabhaga
●Mitakshara Law: Under this law, on birth, the son acquires a right and interest in the
family property. According to this school, a son, grandson and a great grandson constitute
a class of coparcenars, based on birth in the family. No female is a member of the
coparcenary in Mitakshara law. Under the Mitakshara system, joint family property
devolves by survivorship within the coparcenary. This means that with every birth or
death of a male in the family, the share of every other surviving male either gets
diminished or enlarged. If a coparcenary consists of a father and his two sons, each would
own one third of the property. If another son is born in the family, automatically the share
of each male is reduced to one fourth. Before the Hindu Law of Inheritance (Amendment)
Act 1929, the Bengal, Benares and Mithila sub schools of Mitakshara recognized only
Gender Studies 81
five female relations as being entitled to inherit namely - 1. Widow, 2.daughter, 3.mother
4.paternal grandmother, and 5.paternal great-grand mother
●Dayabhaga Law: Neither sons nor daughters become coparceners at birth nor do they
have rights in the family property during their father's life time. However, on his death,
they inherit as tenants-in-common. It is a notable feature of the Dayabhaga School that
the daughters also get equal shares along with their brothers and they can’t compel the
father to partition the property in his lifetime and the latter is free to give or sell the
property without their consent. If one of the male heirs dies, his heirs, including females
such as his wife and daughter would become members of the joint property, not in their
own right, but representing him.
Women’s Rights to property

In theory, in the ancient times, the woman could hold property but in practice, in
comparison to men's holding, her right to dispose of the property was qualified, the latter
considered by the patriarchal set up as necessary, lest she became too-independent and
neglect her marital duties and the management of household affairs. This was the
situation prior to 1937 when there was no codified law.
●The Hindu Women's Right to Property Act, 1937 was the outcome of discontent
expressed by a sizeable section of society against the unsatisfactory affairs of the
women's rights to property. Under the said Act a widow was entitled to a limited interest
over the property of her husband - what was to be termed as Hindu widow's estate.
● The Act was amended in 1938 to exclude the widow from any interest in agricultural
land.
The Hindu Succession Act

It enacted in 1956 was the first law to provide a comprehensive and uniform
ystem of inheritance among Hindus and to address gender inequalities in the area of
inheritance – it was therefore a process of codification as well as a reform at the same
time. Prior to this; the Hindu Women’s Rights to Property Act, 1937 was in operation
and though this enactment was itself radical a sit conferred rights of succession to the
Hindu widow for the first time, it also gave rise to lacunae which were later filled by the
Hindu Succession Act (HSA). HSA was the first post-independence enactment of
property rights among Hindus – it applies to both the Mitakshara and the Dayabhaga
systems, as also to persons in certain parts of South India previously governed by certain
Gender Studies 82
matriarchal systems of Hindu Law such as the Marumakkatayam, Aliyasantana and

Nambudri systems.The main scheme of the Act is:1. The hitherto limited estate given to
women was converted to absolute one.2. Female heirs other than the widow were
recognized while the widow’s position was strengthened.3. The principle of
simultaneous succession of heirs of a certain class was introduced.4. In the case of the
Mitakshara Coparcenary, the principle of survivorship continues to apply but if there is
a female in the line, the principle of testamentary succession is applied so as to not
exclude her.5. Remarriage, conversion and unchastity are no longer held as grounds for
disability toinherit.6. Even the unborn child, son or daughter, has a right if s/he was in
the womb at the time ofdeath of the intestate, if born subsequently.Under the old Hindu
Law only the “streedhan” (properties gifted to her at the time of marriage by bothsides
of the family and by relatives and friends) was the widow’s absolute property and she
was entitled to the other inherited properties only as a life-estate with very limited powers
of alienation, if atall. Even under the 1937 Act, the concept of “limited estate” continued.
Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act removed the disability of a female to acquire and
hold property as an absolute owner, and converted the right of a woman in any estate
already held by her on the date of the commencement of the Act as a limited owner, into
an absolute owner. The provision is retrospective in that it enlarged the limited estate into
an absolute one even if the property was inherited or held by the woman as a limited
owner before the Act came into force. The only exception, in the form of a provision, is
for the acquisitions under the terms of a gift, will or other instrument or a decree, or order
or award which prescribe a restricted estate. The Act was amended in 2005 to give equal
rights to women. The amended Act, which came into effect on September 9, 2005, is
applicable to the various sects and castes of Hindus, apart from Sikhs, Buddhists and
Jains .Prior to the amendment, a woman had no right to a joint ownership or coparcenary
property. Section 6 of the amended Act talks about the devolution of interest in
coparcenary properties now, a daughter becomes an owner of the coparcenary property
by birth, right in the same manner as a son does. Widows are also entitled to claim a
share equal to that of their children at the time of distribution of the joint family property
among the sons.
Muslim women’s property rights

Indian Muslims broadly belong to two schools of thought in Islamic Law: the
Sunni and the Shia.Under the Sunni School which is the preponderant school in India,
Gender Studies 83
there are four sub categories; Hanafi’s, Shafis, Malikis and Hanbalis. The vast majority
of Muslims in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkey are Hanafis. The Shia are divided
into a large number of sub schools, the two most important of which, so far as India is
concerned are the Ismailis and the Ithna Asharis, but they form a smaller section of the
Indian Muslim population. The usual practice in this sub-continent is to use the terms
‘Sunni’ law or ‘Shia’ law. Strictly speaking, this is inexact; by the former is meant the
Hanafi Law and bythe latter, the Ithna Ashari School. Broad principles of inheritance in
Muslim law: Till 1937 Muslims in India were governed by customary law which were
highly unjust. After the Shariat Act of 1937 Muslims in India came to be governed in
their personal matters, including property rights, by Muslim personal law as it “restored”
personal law in preference to custom. However this did not mean either “reform” or
“codification” of Muslim law and till date both these have been resisted by the patriarchal
forced in the garb of religion. Broadly the Islamic scheme of inheritance discloses three
features, which are markedly different from the Hindu law of inheritance: (i) the Koran
gives specific shares to certain individuals (ii) the residue goes to the agnatic heirs and
failing them to uterine heirs and (iii) bequests are limited to one-third of the estate, i.e.,
maximum one-third share in the property can be willed away by the owner.
The main principles of Islamic inheritance law which mark an advance vis-à-vis
the pre-Islamic law of inheritance, which have significant bearing on the property rights
of women, are: ( i) the husband or wife was made an heir (ii) females and cognates were
made competent to inherit (iii) parents and ascendants were given the right to inherit even
when there were male descendants and (iv) as general rule, a female was given one half
the share of a male .The newly created heirs were mostly females; but where a female is
equal to the customary heir in proximity to the deceased, the Islamic law gives her half
the share of a male. For example, if a daughter co-exists with the son, or a sister with a
brother, the female gets one share and the male two shares. The doctrine of survivorship
followed in Hindu law is not known to Mohammedan law; the share of each Muslim heir
is definite and known before actual partition. Rights of inheritance arise only on the death
of a certain person. Hence the question of the devolution of inheritance rests entirely
upon the exact point of time when the person through whom the heir claims dies, the
order of deaths being the sole guide. The relinquishment of a contingent right of
inheritance by a Muslim heir is generally void in Mohammedan law, but if it is supported
by good consideration and forms part of a valid family settlement, it is perfectly valid.
The rule of representation is not recognized, for example, if A dies leaving a son B and
Gender Studies 84
a predeceased son’s son C, the rule is that the nearer excludes the more remote and, there
being no representation, C is entirely excluded by B. There is however no difference
between movable property and immovable property. Some of the features of the Hanafi
School are being pointed out here to get a glimpse into the broad structure of the property
rights of Muslim women in India. The Hanafi jurists divide heirs into seven categories;
three principal and four subsidiaries. The 3principal heirs are Koranic heirs, Agnatic heirs
(through male lineage) and uterine heirs. The 4subsidiaries are the successor by contract,
the acknowledged relative, the sole legatee and the stat eby escheat.
The following 12 heirs constitute:
Class I heirs (Koranic Heirs):
(a) Heirs by Affinity - Husband and Wife, (b) Blood Relations - Father, True
Grandfather (howsoever high), Mother, True Grandmother (howsoever high), Daughter,
Son’s Daughter (howsoever low), Full sister, consanguine sister, uterine brother, and
uterine sister.
Rules of Exclusion: The husband and wife are primary heirs and cannot be
excluded by anyone, but they also don’t exclude anyone either. Law fixes the share of
the spouses; if they exist they reduce their side which may be taken by the Agnatic or
Uterine heirs, but they do not exclude either wholly or partly any heir the father does not
affect the share of any Koranic heir except the sisters (full, consanguine or uterine) all of
whom he excludes .The mother excludes the grandmother, and the nearer grandmother
excludes the more remote. The mother’s share is affected by the presence of children or
two or more brothers or sisters. Her share is also greatly affected by the existence of the
husband or wife and the father. In the case of a daughter she is the primary heir. She
partially excludes lower son’s daughters, but one daughter or son’s daughter does not
entirely exclude a lower son’s daughter. As far as the sisters are concerned, one full sister
does not exclude the consanguine sister, two full sisters however exclude the consanguine
sister. The uterine brother or sister is not excluded by the full or consanguine brother or
sister. Another rule that requires consideration is that, ‘a person though excluded himself,
may exclude others.’ For example, in a case where the survivors are the mother, father,
and two sisters: the two sisters are excluded by the father; and yet they reduce the
mother’s share to 1/6th.
Class II heir (Agnatic heir):
Their classification is done as follows; Males (Group I)- the agnate in his own
right, Group II (females)-the agnate in the right of another, Group III – the agnate with
Gender Studies 85
another. The first group comprises all male agnates; it includes the son, the son’s son, the
father, the brother, the paternal uncle and his son and so forth. These in pre-Islamic law
were the most important heirs; to a large extent they retain, in Hanafi law, their primacy,
influence and power. The second group contains four specified female agnates, when
they co-exist with male relatives of the same degree, namely, daughter (with son), and
son’s daughter howsoever low with equal son’s son howsoever low, full sister with full
brother and consanguine sister with consanguine brother .The third group comprises the
case of the full sister and consanguine sister. For example if there are two daughters and
two sisters, here the daughter is preferred as a descendant to the sister who is a collateral;
thus the daughter would be placed in Class I and she would be allotted the Koranic share
and the residue would be given to the sister as a member of Class II. Under this system
the rule that is followed is first the descendants, then the ascendants and finally the
collaterals. The agnatic heirs come into picture when there are no Koranic heirs or some
residue is left after having dealt with the Koranic heirs.
Class III (Uterine heir):
This class is constituted mainly by the female agnates and cognates.
Classification is group I-descendants, which are daughter’s children and their
descendants and children of son’s daughter hows oever low and their descendants, Group
II-ascendants, which are false grandfathers howsoever high and false grandmothers
howsoever high, Group III- collaterals, which are descendants of parents and descendants
of grandparents true as well as false. Members of this class succeed only in the absence
of members of Class I and Class II. They also succeed if the only surviving heir of Class
I is the husband or the widow of the deceased.
Property rights through marriage:
The Maher (dower) ranks as a debt and the widow is entitled, along with the other
creditors of her deceased husband, to have it satisfied out of his estate. Her right,
however, is the right of an unsecured creditor; she is not entitled to a charge on the
husband’s property unless there be an agreement. The Supreme Court has laid down that
the widow has no priority over other creditors, but that Maher as debt has priority over
the other heir’s claims. This right is known as the widow’s right of retention.
Will:
There is a provision against destitution of the family members in the Islamic law
in that it is clearly provided that a Muslim cannot bequeath more than one third of his
property. However, if he registers hisexisting marriage under the provisions of the
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Special Marriage Act, 1954 he has all the powers of a testator under the Indian Succession
Act, 1925.
Property rights of Christian, Parsi (Zoroastrians) women

The laws of succession for Christians and Parsis are laid down in the Indian Succession
Act, 1925(ISA). Sections 31 to 49 deal with Christian Succession and Sections 50 to 56
deal with Succession for Parsis.
Christian women’s property rights:
The Indian Christian widow’s right is not an exclusive right and gets curtailed as
the other heirs’ step in. Only if the intestate has left none who are of kindred to him, the
whole of his property would belong to his widow. Where the intestate has left a widow
and any lineal descendants, one third of his property devolves to his widow and the
remaining two thirds go to his lineal descendants. If he has left no lineal descendants but
has left persons who are kindred to him, one half of his property devolves to hi swidow
and the remaining half goes to those who are of kindred to him. Another anomaly is a
peculiar feature that the widow of a pre-deceased son gets no share, but the children
whether born or in the womb at the time of the death would be entitled to equal shares
.Where there are no lineal descendants, after having deducted the widow’s share, the
remaining property devolves to the father of the intestate in the first instance. Only in
case the father of the intestate is dead but mother and brothers and sisters are alive, they
all would share equally. If the intestate’s father has died, but his mother is living and
there are no surviving brothers, sisters, nieces, or nephews, then, the entire property
would belong to the mother.
Parsi women’s right to property:

The property rights of the Parsis are quite gender just. Basically, a Parsi widow
and all herchildren, both sons and daughters, irrespective of their marital status, get equal
shares in the property of the intestate while each parent, both father and mother, get half
of the share of each child. However ,on a closer look there are anomalies: for example, a
widow of a predeceased son who died issueless, gets no share at all .It is clear from the
foregoing that though the property rights of Indian women have grown better with
advance of time, they are far from totally equal and fair. There is much that remains in
Indian women’s property rights that can be struck down as unconstitutional. The response
of the judiciary has been ambivalent. On one hand, the Supreme Court of India has in a
Gender Studies 87
number of cases held that personal laws of parties are not susceptible to fundamental
rights under the Constitution and therefore they cannot be challenged on the ground that
they are in violation of fundamental rights especially those guaranteed under Articles 14,
15 and 21 of the Constitution of India. On the other hand, in a number of other cases the
Supreme Court has tested personal laws on the touchstone of fundamental rights and read
down the laws or interpreted them so as to make the consistent with fundamental rights.
Though in these decisions the personal laws under challenge may not have been struck
down, but the fact that the decisions were on merits go to show that though enactment of
a uniform civil code may require legislative intervention but the discriminatory aspects
of personal laws can definitely be challenged as being violate of the fundamental rights
of women under Articles 14 and 15 and can be struck down. In fact in one case the
Supreme Court has held that that personal laws, to the extent that they are in violation of
the fundamental rights, are void. In some judgments the Supreme Court has expressly
recommended to the State to carry out its obligation.
Under Article 44 of the Constitution and formulate a uniform civil code. There is
a definite swing is towards a uniform civil code and one can see that the courts are going
to play a significant role to usher it in. Another heartening trend is that the Indian courts
are increasingly relying on international standards, derived from various international
declarations and conventions. Specifically, CEDAW has been referred to and relied upon
by the Supreme Court of India in some judgments. These line of judgments give a firm
basis for the women of India to demand gender justice and equal rights on par with
international from the ongoing struggle for a uniform civil code in accordance with the
Constitutional framework, today the India women are fighting for rights in marital
property, denied uniformly to them across all religious boundaries. There is also a
significant movement in some of the hill states, towards community ownership of land
by women by creating group titles and promoting group production and management of
land and natural resources by landless women for joint cultivation or related farm
activity. Land rights would be linked directly to residence and working on land under
this approach. It is time to forget that men are the only holder of the property, women
have the same rights in the property. Above mentioned these factors prompted to make
laws to give women their due share. Democratic decentralization and rule of gender
justice breaks the male bias thereafter social change of the society also dismisses the
patriarchal notion and creates a new dimension of society. The women right to property
is considered very much to be a part of such new dimension. It is time to forget that men
Gender Studies 88
are the only holder of the property, women have the same rights in the property. Above
mentioned these factors prompted the legislature to make laws to give women their due
share. Now we discuss the matter that how does law protect and give an equal life chances
for women.
References
 Pandey Sruthi, Property rights of Indian women
 Agarwal Bin, Gender and command over property A critical gap in economic
analysis and policy in south Asia
 www.legalserviceindia.com
 Htttps://vikaspedia.in
 www.investopedi
Gender wage Gap

The gender pay gap or gender wage gap is the average difference between the
remuneration for men and women who are working. Women are generally considered to
be paid less than men. There are two distinct numbers regarding the pay gap: non-
adjusted versus adjusted pay gap. The latter typically takes into account differences in
hours worked, occupations chosen, education and job experience. For example, someone
who takes time off (e.g. maternity leave) will likely not earn as much as someone who
does not take time off from work. The reasons link to legal, social and economic factors,
and extend beyond the ‘equal pay for equal work'. (The two terms, gender pay gap, and
equal pay are not the same. The gender pay gap can be a problem from a public policy
perspective even when the reason for the gap is entirely voluntary, because economic
output and means that women are more likely to be dependent upon welfare payments,
especially in old age. Gender pay gap in India refers to the difference in earnings between
women and men in the paid employment and labor market. For the year 2013, the gender
pay gap in India was estimated to be 24.81%. Further, while analyzing the level of female
participation in the economy, this reports lots India as one of the bottom 10 countries on
its list. Thus, in addition to unequal pay, there is also unequal representation, because
while women constitute almost half the Indian population (about 48% of the total), their
representation in the work force amounts to only about one-fourth of the total. The gender
pay gap is considered to be a myth by conservatives and economists, since it does not
take into account the total work hours and the working industry of the individual. If an
Gender Studies 89
entity is to act upon the wage gap, it would result in a tradeoff between equality of
opportunities to equality of outcomes. According to the latest World Economic Forum’s
(WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2020, India ranked 112th out of 153 countries on the
gender gap index. The global list was topped by Iceland for the 10th consecutive year,
having closed more than 85.8% of its overall gender gap. Despite government efforts like
minimum wages act, equal remuneration act, maternity benefits act, and others gender
wage gap still remains high because of the following reasons.
Occupational preferences
The rate of female participation in the paid labor market is generally low, and is
primarily concentrated in rural areas in the agricultural sector. In rural north India, it has
been observed that labor is divided sharply on the basis of gender. Certain activities in
agriculture have been assigned specifically to women, like drying and storing the grain,
while other tasks like plowing and harvesting are only performed by men. This is a mere
preference and not domination. Female labor participation in India has been observed to
be higher in sectors involving personal services and care work, and is also higher in
informal sectors, especially in agriculture.
Cultural barriers
While social and cultural norms vary from state to state within India, one
commonality that has been observed is the exclusion of women from the paid labor
market and status-based segregation of labor. Ironically, women from higher castes faced
more difficulty when they tried to obtain paid work, even if their survival depended on
it. In interviews conducted with widows from rural North India, they stated that if
attempts were made to seek gainful employment outside their homes, they would be
forced to give up their property rights and made to leave the villages they live in,
indicating that paid work was not a feasible option even to sustain themselves due to the
existing social norms. Because childcare is viewed primarily as a woman's job, women
often take part-time jobs or take time off during their careers to care for their families.
When women return to work after a break, they are paid lower wages than their male
colleagues. Women employed full-time ordinarily already earned 34% less than men, but
when compared to part-time working women, the pay gap further increased as they
earned almost 42% less than men. Additionally, even if women do not have children, it
has been observed that they still face pay discrimination as they are viewed as potential
mothers, who may require a break from work in the near future.
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Education and training

The literacy rate for women in India is far lower than the rate for men, and it has
been observed that many girls drop out of school and fail to fully complete their
education. Investment in education and training has also been strongly in favor of men
as they are brought up with the expectation of being bread earners, and hence this
investment is considered necessary for their success, while women are instead viewed as
"future homemakers" for whom education may not be as essential. Unpaid work literacy
rate for women in India is far lower than the rate for men, and it has been observed that
many girls drop out of school and fail to fully complete their education. Investment in
education and training has also beenstrongly in favor of men as they are brought up with
the expectation of being bread earners, and hence this investment is considered necessary
for their success, while women are instead viewed as "future homemakers" for whom
education may not be as essential. In India, therefore, the gender pay gap is still quite
wide. According to the Monster Salary Index (MSI) published in March 2019, women in
the country earn 19% less than men. The survey revealed that the median gross hourly
salary for men in India in 2018 was ₹242.49, while ₹196.3 forwomen, meaning men
earned ₹46.19 more than women. According to the survey, the gender pay gap spans
across key industries. IT services showed a sharp pay gap of 26% in favour of men,
while in the manufacturing sector, men earn 24% more than women. However, this is
only part of the picture. Across the unorganized sector and especially in areas like
agriculture, women are routinely paid significantly less than men, citing differences in
capability. Till India’s social stigma againstwomen in the workforce and the general
environment of social injustice against women is not tackled, the gender pay gap may
not show any sign of closing
Some other reasons are:
 Prevailing patriarchal mindset among the employers, women do not get respect
for their pot closing
 Lack of awareness among women regarding equal pay norms.
 Centuries of disparagement of women in their socio-economic and political roles
have oppressed their bargaining powers
 Preferring men for managerial jobs, as compared to preference of women for
lesser demanding positions.
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 Women have taken this rule of the society in their stride and tend to protest less
to protect their jobs or being ridiculed by colleague
 No strict enforcement of equal pay for equal work as mentioned in DPSP
Presence of wage gap prevents women from

 getting access to better health care
 disincentives women
 Leaves India far away from achieving SDG of gender neutrality
 malnutrition and anemia are other problems
 the change in social attitude can rarely be seen with huge wage gap
International obligations
India has been a permanent member of the ILO Governing Body from 1922. In
September 1958, India ratified the C100 Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951(No.
100), which addressed the issue of equal pay between men and women for work of equal
value. This convention requires all member states to direct their national laws and
policies towards guaranteeing equal remuneration to all workers, regardless of gender.
In an attempt to ensure compliance with this convention and in response to the Report by
the Committee on status of women in India, the government enacted the Equal
Remuneration Act. Equal Remuneration Act, 1976In 1976, the Equal Remuneration Act
was passed with the aim of providing equal remuneration to men and women workers
and to prevent discrimination on the basis of gender in all matters relating to employment
and employment opportunities. This legislation not only provides women with a right to
demand equal pay, but any inequality with respect to recruitment processes, job training,
promotions, and transfers within the organization can also be challenged under this Act.
Constitutional protections as part of its Directive Principles of State Policy, the
Constitution of India through Article 39 envisages that all states ideally direct their policy
towards securing equal pay for equal work for both men and women, and also ensuring
that men and women have the right to an adequate means of livelihood. While these
Directive Principles are not enforceable by any court of law, they are crucial to the
governance of the country and a state is duty bound to consider them while enacting laws.
While “equal pay for equal work” is not expressly a constitutional right, it has been read
into the Constitution through the interpretation of Articles 14, 15 and 16 – which
guarantee equality before the law, protection against discrimination and equality of
Gender Studies 92
opportunity in matters of public employment. The Supreme Court of India has also
declared this to be a constitutional goal, available to every individual and capable of
being attained through the enforcement of their fundamental rights set out in Articles
14through 16. Research suggests that when countries are able to raise the female labor
participation rate, this stands to benefit the entire economy. Apart from potential GDP
growth, equal employment opportunities for women could also result in increased growth
and profitability in the private sector. In countries where the population is aging quickly,
an increase in the female labor participation rate would help offset the negative effects
of a declining workforce. It is also important to note that women in India perform 9.8
times the amount of labor in the unpaid sector either through household duties or care
work. If this work was measured and valued, it was estimated by McKinsey that it would
contribute 0.3 trillion dollars to India's total economic output.
Remedies:
In order to close the wage gap and to attain gender neutrality as in sustainable
development goals it is necessary to
a) Increasing awareness among both the employers and employees regarding equal pay
b) The Companies act should be strictly implemented to ensure a particular percentage
of women directors in the private/ public companies to forward concept of gender parity
c) Education sector should be strengthened to impart better values in boys to respect their
female counterparts and help in promoting concept of inclusive governance.
Unpaid labour and glass ceilings

Unpaid labor is defined as labor that does not receive any direct remuneration.
This is a form of 'non-market work' which can fall into one of two categories: (1) unpaid
work that is placed within the production boundary of the System of National Accounts
(SNA), such as gross domestic product (GDP), and (2) unpaid work that falls outside of
the production boundary (non-SNA work), such as domestic labor that occurs inside
households for their consumption.[1] Unpaid labor is visible in many forms and isn't
limited to activities within a household. Other types of unpaid labor activities include
volunteering as a form of charity work and interning as a form of unpaid employment.
According to time-use surveys collected by the United Nations Statistics Division
(UNSD), women are the main undertakers of unpaid labor globally. This uneven division
of unpaid labor within households has implications for women's involvement in both
public and private spheres. One common form of unpaid work is unpaid domestic work.
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The burden of this type of unpaid work generally falls on the women in a household.
Contributing so much time to unpaid domestic work has major effects on women and
their participation in the labor market, which consequently affects children, society, and
the state.
un paid care work
"Unpaid care work" typically specifically contains everyday activities, such as
cooking, washing, cleaning, shopping for own household, as well as care of children, the
elderly, the sick, and the disabled. The term "unpaid care work" is primarily defined as
care work for family members, but it is important to note that other types of unpaid work
exist that address 'productive activities’, which include types of labor such as "growing
food for own consumption, and collecting water and fuel". Reproductive labor while
unpaid care work is not completely biological, reproductive labor(partially) is. Debra
Satz believes that reproductive labor is "a special kind of labor that should not be treated
according to market norms"; it includes childbearing and raising/taking care of children
and other family members. Childbearing is an act that only those who possess female
reproductive organs can perform, making it irreversibly a biological-female's job.
History:
The role of women and men within their households is deeply rooted in gender
norms and cultural values that have been reinforced over time by colonization and
imperialism. . For example, as seen in Patricia Grimshaw'sresearch in Hawaii: New
England missionaries assumed the roles of imperialists and colonialists by preaching
their Christian values to the native Hawaiian population, who, before the missionary
women arrived, practiced polygamy (high class-status allowing) and did not trouble
themselves with domestic tasks like ironing. The Christian women, in particular, saw it
as their responsibility to teach the native women notions of femininity that consisted of
remaining inside the home to care for the family and to remain submissive to their
husbands. Historically, a woman's position in the home was seen as a prerequisite to
being a "good" wife and mother. Since the 1960s, however, the spread of globalization
has given rise to new opportunities for women to participate in market work. The spread
of globalization has created more opportunities for women to enter paid employment, but
has not relieved them of their time spent on unpaid labor. While participating in the labor
market, women who secure paid employment undertake what is known as the "double
burden" of labor. Finding the optimal balance of balance of paid and unpaid labor, or
work life balance, is a constant struggle for women trying to create careers for themselves
Gender Studies 94
while raising children or caring for elderly family members. Women have toconstantly
decide where to allocate time and financial resources, which impacts their ability to
develop their own capabilities. Social norms and expectations, the burden of unpaid work
primarily falls on the female member of the household. Even if the male member of the
household is available to perform the care labor after they return home from their paid
job, it is more often seen that the women are taking on the bulk of the care labor after
they return home.
Effects of unpaid domestic work on women, Time Use Surveys (Ministry Of
Statistics and Programme Implementation) show that women spend far more time doing
unpaid work than men. With women spending more time providing unpaid domestic
work than men, women are also spending less time in the workforce and, therefore,
bringing in lower incomes to the household. Because women are traditionally believed
to bring in less income than men, women are discouraged from investing in education
and skills. This further entrenches women into domestic unpaid work, creating a cycle of
social norms that is difficult to break and exacerbates gender inequality. This form of
gender inequality feeds into the dynamic of 'gender risks', which explains why it is
women and girls that are most disadvantaged, as well as why it is more likely for
increased poverty to affect women more than men. Even if women do enter the
workforce, they are usually still held accountable for the majority of the domestic unpaid
work at home. This phenomenon of having to work a full day in the workforce and then
come home and complete a full day of unpaid domestic work is known as the double
burden. The double burden negatively affects women because it gives them less time to
spend in the workforce, resulting in men dedicating more time to the workforce, and,
therefore, likely getting promoted over women. The double burden also negatively
affects women's personal wellbeing because it means women have less time for taking
care of themselves and sleeping. This can also negatively affect their job performance in
the workforce, encouraging male promotion over female.
Glass ceiling
The word “Glass ceiling” refers to an intangible barrier within a hierarchy that
restrains qualified women or minorities from obtaining higher level positions at their
workplace. Society have consciously maintained the tradition: “a woman’s place is at
home” (Jacob,1999; Moore,1995). Most of the women still believe that their duties are
only restricted to household works and looking after their children. To speak the truth,
Gender Studies 95
our society is compelling women not to think beyond that. But with the introduction and
advancement of education and changing mindset of ‘generation-Y’ have compelled
women to think differently maintaining social values and ethics. Besides, globalization
and changes in economic and social condition act as positive catalyst for changing of the
role and self-perception (Stedham & Yamamura,2004). Nowadays, women are trying to
participate in the public domain and progressing towards managerial ranks or higher level
of management of their participating organization. But the career path does not welcome
women with red carpet. In spite of these positive changes, women still have to face
intangible barriers in climbing up the corporate ladder. Along with “glass ceiling”,
women, in the leadership position, may have to face the metaphors like “glass elevators”
and “glass cliffs” which refer to greater scrutiny and criticism (Ryan and Haslam,2005).
Eagly and Carly (2007) have suggested another metaphor of the “labyrinth” which
suggests that a woman accepts many obstacles for her career progression. Despite of all
these obstacles, women are trying to put strong foothold in corporate in India but the
percentage of women in senior management position in India is roughly 3%-6%. which
is still very low. Glass ceiling effect is instigated by the issues of gender differentiation
and gender stereotyping which affect women continuously. There are some barriers e.g.
psychological barriers, societal-related barriers, organizational barriers against which
women are still fighting to strengthen their presence in the higher level of management
of organizations.
1.Psychological barriers:
From the very childhood days, women are bound to abide by some so called social
rules which are deeply enrooted in their mind and they cannot even ignore the influence
of those rules in their matured age. In some cases, they accept these rules as the rules of
thumb and flow their lives as it goes. This kind of mindset gradually demotivate them
and they loss their confidence and enthusiasm. And also, there is class of women who try
to overcome these rules and reshape their mind as career oriented. This class of women
are actually psychologically potential to cope up with any situation either in war fronts
or in organizations. But to ignore these rules and prejudices is not so easy as it works
against the society or rather societal rules. It has been found in psychological studies that
certain personality traits like emotional, social, soft heartedness, warmth found in women
which are not suitable for managerial roles. They are also risk averse. Whereas, in this
era of globalization and increased competition, organizations demand aggressiveness,
competitiveness and risk-taking ability to develop and sustain. And the society driven
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psychology which is playing the whole game of gender discrimination have a great
impact on organization.
2. Societal-related barriers:
Indian society has not been able to break the shackles of old tradition of “woman
at home” concept. Women are always in dilemma to make progress in their career. This
problem creates a heavy impact basically on married women. Marriage is social
institution and once a woman is married, it is their prime responsibility to take care of
her husbands, in laws and child. It has been seen that male members are the main bread
earners of their families and women, either married or not, do their domestic or household
works including elder care and if married, neonatal and child care. As women have long
been considered as household or domestic workers so ‘education for women’ got the
least or no priority in the society. Now, the mentality of the society has been changed
with the change of time and economy of the country. In this era of globalization, no
country can progress having the ‘half human resources’. In spite of changing situation,
women employees still have to face problems as they have to play dual roles like an
employee of an organization and household worker. Due to the improvement of thought
and need for financial security, husband also wants a working wife. Nowadays many
organizations have started Flexible Working Arrangements (FWA) for women by the
means of job sharing, flexi-time, telecommunicating etc. to give them relaxation. But
according to Anker (1977), women can not concentrate at their workplace as they bring
their domestic responsibilities and children with them at their workplace and prefer
flexible work time for convenience. So women are compelled to take a career break or
flexible working hours to look after their young children (Schwartz, 1989) and these are
the barriers in acquiring managerial positions in their organizations. Whereas, male
employees can focus solely on their assigned work as they have stay-at-home wives who
are taking dual responsibilities as of office and home and children. Our society expect a
woman to be a “good mother”. But there is a dilemma with dual roles: “If they do access
FWAs, they are seen as good mothers, but not good workers. If they do not use FWAs,
they face being viewed as good workers, but lousy mothers” (Beard et.al,2010). Besides,
women have to relocate with the relocation of their husbands due to job switch and thus
women have to sacrifice their prospecting jobs to honor this kind of social norm.
3.Organizational barriers:
Having the stereotyped and preconceived notion, male employees cannot accept
women for their upward mobility in the organization and try to create barriers in any
Gender Studies 97
form. Women are excluded from informal organizational network and get no help from
their colleagues in decision making process. Thus, by restraining women from strategic
decision-making process male counterparts try to heckle intentionally and creates a
barrier for promotion. So, women are less popular in strategic decision maker role. Due
to male imposed pressure women are also stressed throughout the day and indirectly it
affects their performances and then it would be easy to find excuse to restrain them from
promotion. This kind of thing sometimes causes losing of enthusiasm and it also affects
their personal lives. It has been seen that a woman, in her prime time in organization or
at the peak of her career, suddenly bounds to drop her career to meet social obligations
and responsibilities and never think of returning back due to the unwelcoming situation
of the organization. So women in an organization are still facing barriers on career
advancement, gender stereotyping and other threats from within or out of the
organization. There is a hairline difference between female feticide and gender diversity
or gender stereotyping because killing the honest motives of life of human being is very
much synonymous with the killing of lives. This scenario should be changed and only
the modernization of thought process of the management of organizations can change it
with the help of positive societal changes. Every organization should prioritize talents
over anything else for the growth of themselves which in turn, helps the society to grow.
Every organization should focus on “human resource” rather than “man resource” or
“woman resource” separately. Everything should be balanced and nothing can be grown
being unbalanced. Some initiatives have been taken for women like women bank, women
police station which are directed fully by the women. Our society should carry on this
noble Endeavour by encouraging women in every step of their lives keeping a thing in
mind that where women are the creators of new life then they can easily maintain lifelines
of the organization. Alternatively, Entrepreneurship may be the option for women who
are ambitious, careerist and have passion for work and especially who want to prove
themselves. On the other hand, society, government and private organizations should
take collective efforts to diminish the practice of gender diversity and gender
stereotyping for the amelioration of society, organizations and women.
References
● Dr. Kalpana Maheshwari, "The Glass Ceiling impact on Indian Women
Employees", National Conference on Emerging Challenges for Sustainable
Business 2012, , ISBN - 978-93-81583-46-3, pp.1071-1080.
Gender Studies 98
● Usha Kiran Rai, " Women Executives and the glass ceiling: Myths and Mysteries
From Razia Sultana to Hillary Clinton", pp. 4-8. Cansu Akpinar-Sposito,
● "Career barriers for women executives and the Glass Ceiling Syndrome: the case
study comparison between French and Turkish women executives", 2nd
International Conference on Leadership, Technology and Innovation
Management, Istanbul : Turkey (2012). October 26, 2012, pp. 3-7.
● Brittany J. Galloway, "The Glass Ceiling: Examining the Advancement of
Women in the Domain of Athletic Administration", McNair Scholars Research
Journal: Vol. 5: Iss. 1, Article 6. August 10, 2012, pp. 52-59.
● Federal Glass Ceiling Commission. (1995). "Good for business: Making full use
of the nation’s human capital." U.S Department of Labor.
● https://tejas.iimb.ac.in/interviews/35.php
3.3Representations of Gender
Representations of gender are often defined by how a male see others i.e., gender
(termed the 'male gaze'), or by how society expects women or queer to look and behave.
Many representations of women concentrate on sexuality and emotions. Men are being
represented as more agentic (e.g., competent, ambitious, assertive, and competitive) and
women as more communal (e.g., supportive, caring, warm, and emotional) compared to
members of the other sex. These associations represent well-established, cross-culturally
consistent gender stereotypes (e.g., Williams & Best, 1990). Because gender stereotypes
bias perceptions, it is more difficult for women to persuade others that they have the
necessary agency to be strong leaders (Goldberg, 1968; Deaux & Emswiller, 1974;
Foschi, 2000; Swim & Sanna, 1996).
Objectification and stereotyping

A. Gender Stereotypes:
Gender stereotypes are the beliefs that people have about the characteristics of
males and females. The content of stereotypes varies over cultures and over time. These
expectations are often related to the roles that the sexes fulfill in the culture. Children
learn some aspects of stereotypes at a very young age. By the age of –3-years, children
show evidence of having some rudimentary knowledge of the activities and objects
associated with each sex. Children's gender stereotypes of activities and occupations
Gender Studies 99
develop quickly during the preschool years, reaching a very high level by kindergarten.
During the elementary school years, gender stereotypes broaden to include sports, school
subjects, and personality traits. With age, children become increasingly knowledgeable
about gender stereotypes and yet the rigidity of their stereotypes declines as they
increasingly recognize the cultural relativity of these norms (Huston 1983). Some
evidence suggests that boys hold more rigid gender stereotypes than girls and are held to
more rigid ideals than girls. In adolescence, flexibility in stereotypes fluctuates in
response to two opposing forces—increasing cognitive flexibility tends to increase
adolescents' flexibility in applying stereotypes whereas increasing pressure to conform
to stereotypes in preparation for sexual roles and adult status increases adherence to
stereotypes (Ruble and Martin 1998).
Children use gender stereotypes to make inferences about others at a young age.
When making judgments of other people, children and adults will apply their gender
stereotypic expectations to them. Even more than adults, children will rely on a person's
sex to make judgments and they are less likely to consider other relevant information
about the person than adults are (see Ruble and Martin 1998).
Gender stereotypes and Indian Society

India, the country where we worship Goddess Durga and Kali for the protection
from evils, the same country with an average of 2,39,000 excess female dies each year
under the age of five owing to neglect due to gender discrimination.Girls are made to
learn that “her husband’s house” is the place where she belongs. Whereas boys are told
that they need to feed their ageing parents, they need to build a house and earn money so
that a “beautiful” woman can marry him.
Family influences and reinforces such kind of acts and thoughts.
Now the perception is changing.
The girls engaged in the service sector are quite prominent. They entered in to
business is moving forward to raise their voice and break the age-old shackles of myths.
The family decisions are now based on the opinion of both the genders. Also, with the
amendment of 2005 in the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 giving equal rights to daughters
to inherit her father’s property, the women are given equal status to men, hence
empowering them. Although this amendment attracted a lot of criticism, still this was a
way forward to gender equality in Indian society.
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Some other notable points are:

● Owing to male patriarchy society, the females aren’t given the opportunity to
express their feelings. Even if she does, she is considered weak and is generally
neglected.
● self-esteem issues
● The male child is pressured with the fact that they need to cater to the family
business or they need to study hard so that they get a good package of salary.
● Restrictions the family members; The females are asked to come home before the
sunset, or the male of the family more often are forced to join family business
while ignoring their passion. When a girl smokes or drinks, their family members
advise her to quit it, since it can ruin her character, while if a boy smokes or
drinks, the parents or relatives give remarks like “that it is just a phase, let him
enjoy his teenage life”
B. Sexual objectification:
Objectification is a notion central to feminist theory. It can be roughly defined as the
seeing and/or treating a person, usually a woman, as an object. In this entry, the focus is
primarily on sexual objectification, objectification occurring in the sexual realm. Martha
Nussbaum (1995, 257) has identified seven features that are involved in the idea of
treating a person as an object:
● instrumentality: the treatment of a person as a tool for the objectifier’s purposes;
● denial of autonomy: the treatment of a person as lacking in autonomy and self-
determination;
● inertness: the treatment of a person as lacking in agency, and perhaps also in
activity;
● fungibility: the treatment of a person as interchangeable with other objects;
● violability: the treatment of a person as lacking in boundary-integrity;
● Ownership: the treatment of a person as something that is owned by another (can
be bought or sold);
● Denial of subjectivity: the treatment of a person as something whose experiences
and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account.
Rae Langton (2009, 228–229) has added three more features to Nussbaum’s list:
● reduction to body: the treatment of a person as identified with their body, or body
parts;
Gender Studies 101

● reduction to appearance: the treatment of a person primarily in terms of how they

look, or how they appear to the senses;
● Silencing: the treatment of a person as if they are silent, lacking the capacity to
speak.
The majority of the thinkers discussing objectification have taken it to be a morally
problematic phenomenon.
Representations through media

In India gender objectification and stereotypes are being depicted through films
advertisements textual works and through social media platforms. Bollywood, south and
several other local movie industries cannot escape blame for objectifying women.
Eg: rape scene.
● A common scene in all grades of film was of a woman being molested and a
superhuman hero coming to her rescue. If the woman was the heroine, she would
be saved. Otherwise, she would be killed brutally and the whole movie would
revolve around revenge. Most villains were shown as sexual perverts, and
Bollywood had special faces who appeared as rapists in most films they acted
● There are many film songs that commodities the female body.
● Hyper local film industries which seem to generate content solely based on
commoditizing the female body. Earlier, the LGBT community in India was not
being depicted in media to a great extent but now the scenario is changing. There
are many films which portray the difficulty of being a part of the LGBT
community - the societal pressure to abide by their assigned roles for each gender,
their conflicts regarding their decision to be honest with the society and to face
the consequences of criticisms, rejection or acceptance.
● ‘Ardhanaari’, is a Malayalam movie based on the life of the transgender residing
in Kerala. It focuses on the difficulties that they have to face in the society, the
society’s perception and behavior towards them. It shows the audience a glimpse
of their everyday lives, where they are discouraged and humiliated by the people,
even though they are as human as them.
Hence, non-gendered representations in media and other texts educate people about how
we are bombarded with gendered ideas which we unknowingly accept. However, if seen
through the political lens, India’s democracy ensures equality through the universal right
to vote. Thus, irrespective of an individual’s sexual orientation, he/she is entitled to be
Gender Studies 102

treated with respect and dignity. However, the media has depicted both the stereotypes
and exceptions regarding all genders in India and these have surely affected the
audience’s perception of gender norms in some way.
The news that a huge number of Indians searched for the video of a recent horrifying
rape on various platforms just confirms the mental state of the country.
Gendered Violence
Gender-based violence is a phenomenon deeply rooted in gender inequality, and
continues to be one of the most notable human rights violations within all societies.
Gender-based violence is violence directed against a person because of their gender. Both
women men and LGBTQIA communities experience gender-based violence but the
majority of victims are women and girls.
A. violence against women

Globally, one in three women experience either intimate partner violence or non-
partner sexual violence during their lifetime. Intimate partner violence, female genital
mutilation, early and forced marriage and violence as a weapon of war, sexual and
gender-based violence, are a major public health concern across the world, a barrier to
women’s empowerment and gender equality, and a constraint on individual and societal
development, with high economic costs.
The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) suggests that 30 percent women
in India in the age group of 15-49 have experienced physical violence since the age of
15. The report further reveals that 6 percent women in the same age group have
experienced sexual violence at least once in their lifetime. About 31 percent of married
women have experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence by their spouses. Cases
of violence against women and girls in India continue to rise. They are supported by the
persistence of patriarchal gender and social norms. The indicators of violence against
women are a reflection of the structural and institutional inequality that is a reality for
most women in India. India’s average rate of reported rape cases is about 6.3 per 100,000
of the population. However, this differs in places like Sikkim and Delhi, which have rates
of 30.3 and 22.5, respectively, while Tamil Nadu has a rate of less than one.
About 99 percent cases of sexual violence go unreported. It is time for a systemic change
in social and patriarchal attitudes to eradicate this social evil.
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Globally, seven percent of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other
than a partner and as many as 38 percent of murders of women are committed by an
intimate partner. In some countries, violence against women is estimated to cost countries
up to 3.7 percent of their GDP – more than double what most governments spend on
education (World Bank, 2018).
The widespread socio-economic dependency of women underlines this
unbalanced equation with their husbands and other family members. The fear of social
exclusion and banishment, and the lack of effective response to violence sees the Indian
woman face continuing violence and intimidation.
Key Indicators of Gender Based Violence

● Legal frameworks in place to promote, enforce and monitor equality and
non‑discrimination based on gender.
● Proportion of ever-partnered women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected
to physical, sexual or psychological violence by a current or former intimate
partner in the previous 12 months, by form of violence and by age.
● Proportion of women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected to sexual
violence by persons other than an intimate partner in the previous 12 months, by
age and place of occurrence.
● Proportion of time spent on unpaid domestic and care work, by sex, age and
location.
● Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments and local
governments.
● Proportion of women in managerial positions.
● Proportion of women aged 15-49 years who make their own informed decisions
regarding sexual relations, contraceptive use and reproductive health care.
● Access to sexual and reproductive health care, information and education systems
to track and make public allocations for gender equality and women’s
empowerment
Government schemes, systems and mechanisms to safeguard women’s rights

At the national level, laws and policies have been put in place to prevent and
respond to violence against women. While the under-reporting of GBV has been a major
obstacle in the path of eradication of this social evil and achieving equality, legislation
exists in the nation to support women and the other genders who seek assistance. The
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widespread socio-economic dependency of women underlines this unbalanced equation

with their husbands and other family members. The fear of social exclusion and
banishment, and the lack of effective response to violence sees the Indian woman face
continuing violence and intimidation.
Unfortunately, cases of violence against women and girls in India continue to
rise. They are supported by the persistence of patriarchal gender and social norms. The
indicators of violence against women are a reflection of the structural and institutional
inequality that is a reality for most women in India. India’s average rate of reported rape
cases is about 6.3 per 100,000 of the population. However, this differs in places like
Sikkim and Delhi, which have rates of 30.3 and 22.5, respectively, while Tamil Nadu has
a rate of less than one. The interpretation of state-wise difference also depends on
‘reported’ cases, and could suffer from under-reporting. According to a recent report by
Livemint, about 99 percent cases of sexual violence go unreported. The extent of under-
reporting tends to be higher on average in states with a low female literacy. In states like
Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, less than 0.5 percent of incidents of violence against
women were reported.
Key Government schemes, systems and mechanisms to safeguard a women’s rights:

India has introduced numerous international human rights instruments, including
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities. At the national level, laws and policies have been put
in place to prevent and respond to violence against women. While the under-reporting of
GBV has been a major obstacle in the path of eradication of this social evil and achieving
equality, legislation exists in the nation to support women and the other genders who
seek assistance.
A few key changes in India’s legal system, including the passing of stricter sexual
assault laws, and the creation of fast-track courts for prosecution of rapes have reaped
better results. In the recent past, the landmark decision of decriminalizing homosexual
relationships under section 377 along with the implementation of HIV/AIDS Act came
as a huge relief to the LGBTQIA communities in the nation. Recent cases of violence
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against women like the Kathua Rape case and Unnao rape case have also led to legislative
changes.
Policies and programs which support not only the health of women and girls, but also
their socio-economic development should be introduced. There must be a strong focus
on girls and the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence, including harmful
traditional practices that compromise their health and limit development in other areas of
their lives.
For further reading:
 https://yourstory.com/socialstory/2019/09/gender-violence-india
3.4 Issues of Sexual Minorities
Being LGBTQI is not just about sexuality, it's about the complex life styles which
impact on all other aspects of individual's social life. The universal declaration of human
rights includes right to life, privacy, equality before law, etc. and certain freedoms like
freedom of speech and expression, freedom from discrimination and violence, etc.
Therefore, on account of being human, these rights and freedoms shall also be vested
upon people belonging to LGBT community. But it is often seen that LGBT persons fear,
face torture, imprisonment, etc. they are deprived of their rights. Although, there are
health differences between transgender and non- transgender people, but it should be
realized that there is no shame being a gay, lesbian, transgender or a bisexual and at the
end of the day.
Issues and Challenges of sexual minorities in India:

The main problems that are being faced by the LGBT community are of
discrimination, unemployment, lack of educational facilities, homelessness, and lack of
medical facilities: like HIV care and hygiene, depression, hormone pill abuse, tobacco
and alcohol abuse, penectomy, and problems related to marriage and adoption. In 1994,
transgender persons got the voting right but the task of issuing them voter identity cards
got caught up in the male or female question. Several of them were denied cards with
sexual category of their choice. The other fields where this community feels neglected
are inheritance of property or adoption of a child. They are often pushed to the periphery
as a social outcaste and many may end up begging and dancing. This is by all means
human trafficking. Sometimes running out of all options to feed themselves, they even
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engage themselves as sex workers for survival. Transgenders have very limited
employment opportunities. Transgenders have no access to bathrooms/toilets and public
spaces. The lack of access to bathrooms and public spaces access is illustrative of
discrimination faced by transgenders in availing each facilities and amenities. They face
similar problems in prisons, hospitals and schools.
Most families do not accept if their male child starts behaving in ways that are
considered feminine or inappropriate to the expected gender role. Consequently, family
members may threaten, scold or even assault their son/sibling from behaving or dressing-
up like a girl or woman. Some parents may outright disown and evict their own child for
crossing the prescribed gender norms of the society and for not fulfilling the roles
expected from a male child. Parents may provide several reasons for doing so: bringing
disgrace and shame to the family; diminished chances of their child getting married to a
woman in the future and thus end of their generation (if they have only one male child);
and perceived inability on the part of their child to take care of the family. Thus, later
transgender women may find it difficult even to claim their share of the property or
inherit what would be lawfully theirs. Sometimes, the child or teenager may decide to
run away from the family not able to tolerate the discrimination or not wanting to bring
shame to one's family. Some of them may eventually find their way to Hijra communities.
This means many Hijras are not educated or uneducated and consequently find it difficult
to get jobs. Moreover, it is hard to find people who employ LGBTQI people. Some
members of the society ridicule gender-variant people for being 'different' and they may
even be hostile. Even from police, they face physical and verbal abuse, forced sex,
extortion of money and materials; and arrests on false allegations. Absence of protection
from police means ruffians find Hijras/TG people as easy targets for extorting money
and as sexual objects. A 2007 study documented that in the past one year, the percentage
of those MSM and Hijras who reported: forced sex is 46%; physical abuse is 44%; verbal
abuse is 56%; blackmail for money is 31%; and threat to life is 24%.
Trans Genders face discrimination even in the healthcare settings. Types of
discrimination reported by TG communities in the healthcare settings include: deliberate
use of male pronouns in addressing Hijras; registering them as 'males' and admitting them
in male wards; humiliation faced in having to stand in the male queue; verbal harassment
by the hospital staff and co-patients; and lack of healthcare providers who are sensitive
to and trained on providing treatment/care to transgender people and even denial of
medical services. Discrimination could be due to transgender status, sex work status or
HIV status or a combination of these.
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Social welfare departments provide a variety of social welfare schemes for socially and
economically disadvantaged groups. However, so far, no specific schemes are available
for TGs or other categories except some rare cases of Kerala, Tamilnadu and Andhra
Pradesh.
Kerala has been at the forefront of LGBT issues in India. It became one of the
first states in India to establish a welfare policy for the transgender community and in
2016, introduced free sex reassignment surgery through government hospitals.
Numerous LGBT-related events have been held across Kerala, including in Kochi,
Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram.
Tamil Nadu providing land for Aravanis. Recently, the state government of
Andhra Pradesh has ordered the Minority Welfare Department to consider TGs' as a
minority and develop welfare schemes for them. Stringent and cumbersome procedures
and requirement of address proof, identity proof, and income certificate hinders even the
deserving people from making use of available schemes. In addition, most TG
communities do not know much about social welfare schemes available for them. Only
the Department of Social Welfare in the state of Tamil Nadu has recently established
'Aravanigal/Transgender Women Welfare Board' to address the social welfare issues of
Aravanis/Hijras.
The Supreme Court judgment on Transgender Rights

This judgment covers persons who want to identify with the third gender as well
as persons who want to transition from one identity to another, i.e. to male to female or
vice versa. The Court has directed Centre and State Governments to grant legal
recognition of gender identity whether it be male, female or third gender.
• Legal Recognition for Third Gender: In recognizing the third gender category, the Court
ruled that fundamental rights are available to the third gender in the same manner as they
are to males and females. Further, non-recognition of third gender in both criminal and
civil statutes such as those relating to marriage, adoption, divorce, etc. is discriminatory
to the third gender.
• Legal Recognition for people transitioning within male/female binary: As for how the
actual procedure of recognition will happen, the Court merely states that they prefer to
follow the psyche of the person and use the ‘Psychological Test’ as opposed to the
‘Biological Test’. They also declare that insisting on Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS)
as a condition for changing one's gender is illegal.
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• Public Health and Sanitation: Centre and State Governments have been directed to take
proper measures to provide medical care to Transgender people in the hospitals and also
provide them separate public toilets and other facilities. Further, they have been directed
to operate separate HIV/ Sero-surveillance measures for Transgenders.
• Socio-Economic Rights: Centre and State Governments have been asked to provide the
community various social welfare schemes and to treat the community as socially and
economically backward classes. They have also been asked to extend reservation in
educational institutions and for public appointments.
• Stigma and Public Awareness: These are the broadest directions - Centre and
StateGovernments are asked to take steps to create public awareness so that Transgender
people will feel that they are also part and parcel of the social life and not be treated as
untouchables; take measures to regain their respect and place in society; and seriously
address the problems such as fear, shame, gender dysphoria, social pressure, depression,
suicidal tendencies, and social stigma.
• Challenging 377: The judgment contradicts the findings of the Supreme Court in Suresh
Kumar Koushal in various ways. The main points include:
I. The judgment notes that Section 377, though associated with specific sexual acts,
highlighted certain identities, including Hijras. It also recognizes that sec 377 has been
used as an instrument of harassment and physical abuse against Hijras and transgender
persons. The judgment only says that this amounts to a misuse of the Section as opposed
to what it actually dictates, thus refusing to meaningfully apply a fundamental rights
analysis to it. Now we have a clearly contradictory finding.
II. It argues against Koushal's infamous ‘miniscule minority’ argument noting that
Transgenders, even though insignificant in numbers, are still human beings and therefore
they have every right to enjoy their human rights.
III. The Court finds that discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender
identity violates Article 14, and that transgenders are extremely vulnerable to harassment,
violence and sexual assault in public spaces, at home and in jail, also by the police. If we
are to read this with their finding that 377 is used to harass and physically abuse
transgender persons, we can clearly make the link that 377 fails the test of equality under
the Constitution.
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Reforms needed to improve situation

• Legal Measures:
I. Every person must have the right to decide their gender expression and identity,
including transsexuals, transgenders, transvestites, and hijras. They should also have the
right to freely express their gender identity. This includes the demand for hijras to be
considered female as well as a third sex.
II. There should be a special legal protection against this form of discrimination inflicted
by both state and civil society which is very akin to the offence of practicing
untouchability.
III. The Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act, 1956, as has been pointed out earlier, is
used less for preventing trafficking than for intimidating those who are the most
vulnerable i.e., the individual sex worker as opposed to brothel keepers or pimps. This
law needs to be reformed with a clear understanding of how the state is to deal with those
engaged in sex work.
IV. Civil rights under law such as the right to get a passport, ration card, make a will,
inherit property and adopt children must be available to all regardless of change in gender
/ sex identities.
• Police Reforms:
I. The police administration should appoint a standing committee comprising Station
House Officers and human rights and social activists to promptly investigate reports of
gross abuses by the police against kothis and hijras in public areas and police stations,
and the guilty policeman be immediately punished.
II. The police administration should adopt transparency in their dealings with hijras and
kothis; make available all information relating to procedures and penalties used in
detaining kothis and hijras in public places.
III. Protection and safety should be ensured for hijras and kothis to prevent rape in police
custody and in jail. Hijras should not be sent into male cells with other men in order to
prevent harassment, abuse, and rape.
IV. The police at all levels should undergo sensitization workshops by human rights
groups/queer groups in order to break down their social prejudices and to train them to
accord hijras and kothis the same courteous and humane treatment as they should towards
the general public.
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• Other Measures:
I. A comprehensive sex-education program should be included as part of the school
curricula that alters the heterosexist bias in education and provides judgment-free
information and fosters a liberal outlook with regard to matters of sexuality, including
orientation, identity and behavior of all sexualities. Vocational training centers should be
established for giving the transgender new occupational opportunities.
II. The Press Council of India and other watchdog institutions of various popular media
(including film, video and TV) should issue guidelines to ensure sensitive and respectful
treatment of these issues.
For additional reading:
 https://blog.ipleaders.in/discrimination-towards-sexual-minorities-in-india/
 https://www.in.undp.org/content/india/en/home/blog/lgbtequalityindia.html
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MODULE 4
GENDER AND KERALA SOCIETY
4.1 The making of the ideal Malayalee Woman J.Devika kulasthreeyum

Chandappennum undayathengane.
4.2 Politics, women, and well-being: How Kerala became a model- Robin Jeffrey
4.3 Scripting Lives: Narratives of ‘Dominant Women’ in Kerala- Sharmila
Sreekumar
4.4 Hierarchies of masculine performance: Friendship and Flirting: Micro politics
in Kerala
4.1J. Devika kulasthreeyum Chandappennum undayathengane?
Kulastriyum chandappennum undayathengane? (How Kulastri and Chandappennu

come into being?)(2010)
It is an extraordinary book that codifies the social, cultural and historical aspects
of Keralite women. The only Malayalam model that changes the theory and practice of
feminist historiography. This book becomes a historical reconstruction of patriarchal
institutions and ideologies that deny women citizenship, social status, equality, freedom
and even ownership over their own bodies.
The largest study of feminism and women's history in Malayalam, compiled and
analyzed from several narratives written in Malayalam about women in ten areas.
Presented in ten parts, this history of the identity formations of the modern
Malayalee woman becomes at the same time a reconstruction of Kerala history studies.
National, elite, male, female, official, political and historical approaches adopted by
modern 'neutral' historic projects, including those of Kerala.
The book opens up the possibility of a simultaneous academic and popular history-
making, as well as future Malayalam drama, as Devika codifies the modern history of
Kerala women from a number of sources, written, narrated and visualized on the various
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volumes of the Kerala women's renaissance formed from the early nineteenth century
onwards.
The methodology of this study is her social history, which is constructed through
the life forms of the woman, such as political power, family status, motherhood,
citizenship, intellectual and imaginative expressions, the significance of religion and
caste, and the performance of the body. An extraordinary textbook that changes with the
biography of modern Kerala women as well as the biography of modern Kerala.
It explores the different levels of freedom enjoyed by Keralite women in terms of
social structures such as in-laws, marriage and family, 'Pennarasunadu or Kerala?' The
first part of. This inquiry observes that the identity status of women, which varies
according to factors such as caste, religion, race and country, has never been the same
anywhere. Numerous autobiographies, literary works, historical references, etc. form the
basis of this discussion.
The second part is an analysis of the past political power of Kerala women. This
section traces the history of Malayalee women from queens to ladies to judges and
ministers as well as the history of marginalization of women in power.
The third part explores the cultural background of the social adjectives 'born in
the family' and 'market woman', which symbolize the nobility and nobility bestowed on
women in every field such as religion, caste, literature and art. Man has never faced such
a moral division. This division is the result of the modern 'moral' system created by
society to curb the sexual freedom that women gain through factors such as education,
employment and financial freedom. It is an injustice created by society to forbid these
women from expressing any intellectual or imaginary freedom.
The fourth part, which focuses on 'revenue', is about the various forms of dowry.
This section becomes an analysis of the self-esteem that a woman loses when the reality
remains that ‘dowry is not the property that a woman has to return after divorce, only the
amount that the groom charges for the marriage’. Devika analyzes the history of the level
of income imposed on women within different castes, religions and communities,
ranging from in-laws to modern marriage practices.
The politics of the glory of 'motherhood' is the same as the 'income' that socially
and economically strengthens marriage and the family system. This is the topic of
discussion in the next section. Devika cites historical, literary and social lessons that
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obscure the various value systems built on Kerala motherhood, from the joint family to
the nuclear family, from government policies to labor.
The sixth part, 'Wars around the Body of Women', analyzes the history of violence
against women in Kerala in the name of dress and 'dignity' and the current state of
violence against women. Documents of moral modernity created by caste and religious
institutions from Brahmanism to Victorian morality have in fact shaped the general
consciousness of the Malayalee about dress and body hygiene. In the foreword, Devika
presents a different view of in-laws and its femininity from that of traditional historians,
and here also reinterprets the 'feminism' behind agitations such as the 'Transfiguration
Struggle'. The politics and originality of historians are revealed in the interpretation of
the past. The above are some of the contexts in which Devika's feminist and historical
analysis is revealed.
The next topic is women's education and the creation of modern Keralite women.
This factor is mainly the contribution of missionary modernity. While education helped
women to overcome caste and religious discrimination in general and gain some
economic and employment freedom, gender discrimination was also a problem in
education. In short, Devika Sayuktikam establishes that the general principle that
education is the path to freedom was only a masculinity.
The next section is an analysis of the interventions of literature and art in the
authorship of Keralite women. From temple art to electronic art; from classical literature
to modern language discourses, each opened up a woman to intellectual expression and
imposed gender, body, and moral laws on her. Devika exposes the abuses of women in
the past in the fields of poetry, drama, literary organizations, dance and cinema.
The ninth part is about the conflict between a woman's family and civil status.
Civil liberties, such as women's social liberties, property rights, employment equality and
gender equality, are still problematic areas. The public consciousness of Kerala society
has not deviated from its horned masculinity by the struggles waged by women in all
spheres from freedom of movement to freedom of dress and from the right to vote to the
right to property. Look at these words written by the famous lawyer Anna Chandy in
1935: 'Many of the Keralite sisters have property rights. Have the right to consent. There
is financial freedom. How many have authority over their own bodies? How many
women have been subjected to the superstitious belief that the female body is only an
instrument of male pleasure? (Anna Chandy, 'Weakness of Weakness',
Malayalamanorama Special 1935)
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The last part of 'Women and Struggles' is about the role of women in popular
struggles in the twentieth century. Does the visibility of women always make struggles
more popular and social? Isn't it often the case that women are taken to the streets under
the organized influence of religious, caste and political movements, such as thalapoli,
temple festivals, church festivals and the escorting of deities? Devika analyzes the labor
struggles and the liberation struggle of the 1950s.
4.2 Politics, Women and Well-Being How Kerala Became 'a Model-
Robin Bannerman Jeffrey
Robin Bannerman Jeffrey is a Canadian-born professor. His primary research

interest is the modern history and politics of India, especially with reference to the
northern area of Punjab and Kerala in the south. In the work Politics, Women and Well-
Being How Kerala Became 'a Model Robin Jeffrey emphasizes on the ways in which
Kerala women could establish a political and social identity herself. Here the author is
specifically focusing on the political context and education.It is concerned with how the
political structure and context of kerala has contributed to the wellbeing and
establishment of women in the society. The book begins with explaining the concept of
kerala model development and following that he examines the concept of women and
politics and their role and contributions. He tries to illustrate the role and contributions
of women to politics by focusing on the contribution of KR Gowri Amma and
Janamma.The book is divided into 4 parts: a)how old kerala gave away, b)How public
politics took hold, c)how the model took shape, d)conclusion
A)At the introductory part he talks about old kerala and its geographical structure
by focusing on geographical segregation of kerala into Malabar, Travancore and
Cochin.Besides this the introductory part also comprises explanations related to the
concept of kerala model.Then he moves on to old kerala and explains how old kerala
gave away.Robbin jeffrey talks about family, education and the economy and attitudes
in old kerala.He discusses about system of matrilineal family and marriage existed in
kerala. He also discusses about the reason behind the crumbling of matrilineal family in
kerala.He explains about the role of karanavar and how the authority of karanavar led to
destruction of matriarchy in kerala.He also moves on to talk about the public politics and
the abolition of matriliny. He also mentions about the evolution of the rules related to
matriliny, legislations related to marriage inheritance and about sambandham.He
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gradually changes his focus to the dissolution of matriarchy and the reasons behind it.
Next he talks about ezhavas and thiyyas and their family structure. In the last parts he
explains about the emergence of a new family and the implementation of family planning
programmes and the acceptance it got. Next his focus changed into schools and education
and the magnitude of its contributions in society. He also talks about new schooling ideas
and its impact on whole schooling processes. After education he focused on the economy.
Here he explains about economic depression which engulfed the whole world.In his
analysis on the effect of world war he brings out the points such as the world war enriched
the land possessing class and the devastating effects of war and acute hunger and poverty
led to the organization of deprived sections of society. He also pointed out that the
wartime shortages forced the kerala government to work more actively in kerala society.
B)In the second part he talks about how public politics took hold.Here he explains
about the role of christians in kerala society.He also explained about other communities
and their organizations such as the Nair service society, SNDP, Pulayasamajam.He also
talks about moplah rebellion and the formation of muslim league and their impact on
kerala society. After his analysis of nationalism he moves on to the analysis of classes
by focusing on the emergence of communist ideology and its impacts on kerala society.
C)In the third part he talks about how the kerala model took shape.He specifically
pointed out 3 indicators in kerala model development. 1)Education -he explains about
how education has contributed to the kerala model of development, 2)Land-he mentions
about how land ceiling and regulations contributed to the model, 3)Wellbeing -He talks
about wellbeing in terms of health.Here he explains about how hospitals, nursing,
nutrition, family planning contributed to the development of kerala model.
D)In The concluding part he talks about the role of women in active kerala
politics. He explains about the signs created by them in the arena of kerala politics. The
specialty of his work is that he deals with women in all contexts with a case study
model.In each part of the book he talks about KR Gowri Amma, Mary punnen luckose,
akkamma cheriyan, Janamma etc.
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4.3 Scripting Lives: Narratives of ‘Dominant Women’ in Kerala- Sharmila

Sreekumar
Sharmila Sreekumar is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and
Social Sciences,IIT Bombay.Scripting Lives: Narratives of ‘Dominant Women’ in
Kerala forms an investigation on making of modern -day Kerala by focusing on:
● women's personal narratives that participate in the constitution of experience and
subject formation and
● Social discourses that deal with various facets of the development experience.
It brings together these domains to tease out the shared assumptions about normative
feminine subjectivities within these narratives.The book looking at personal narratives
available through letters, diaries and other jottings' by ordinary women in contemporary
Kerala, and analyses how 'dominant women' configure their selves. The term 'dominant
women' envisions here to indicate women of relative privilege,whose experience speaks
simultaneously of devaluation and dominance.Their lives also indicates the
instabilities,imbalances and inequalities within the category of 'woman' .The use of the
term ordinary’, is used to indicate the category of women who are the focus of this study
as also to draw attention to the generality of women whose achievements in the areas of
education, health and demo graphic transition are celebrated in development narratives,
is somewhat deceptive and strategically masks the fault lines that separate dominant
women in terms of caste, class, religion) from those who are excluded.
This book discusses diverse and disconnected discourses around the Kerala
model,tourism, AIDS and sexual violence and argues that contemporary Kerala maps
Two opposing world's ;
● As a perfected Utopia and
● As a dystopia(a society that is on the edge of collapse)
Thus the book reveals how discourses apparently removed from women's every day
,shape their personal experiences, and in turn how their self-formations overwrite,extend
and re work these 'larger 'discourses.
4.4 Hierarchies of masculine performance:Friendship and Flirting: Micro politics
in Kerala-filippo Osella&Caroline Osella
Filippo Osella is Professor of anthropology and South Asian studies at the
University of Sussex. He has conducted extensive research in Kerala, South India, as
well as in Sri Lanka, and in Gulf Cooperation Countries such as UAE, Oman and Qatar.
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His research is concerning issues such as social mobility in the context of socio-religious
reform movements and migration to West Asia.
Caroline Osella is a Reader in Anthropology with a specialist in South Asia. She
teaches South Asia, Islam, and gender at the School of Oriental and Aftrican Studies,
London. She has been conducting ethnographic research since 1989 between the south
Indian state of Kerala and the Gulf States among Keralite migrants. She has published
on a range of issues, including Muslim fashion, Islamic reformism, and migrant
masculinities.She is the author of Social Mobility in Kerala (Pluto Press, 2000).
Their articleexplores some ways in which the principle of hierarchy, often argued
to stand at the Centre of Indian social life, is subverted, reversed, denied and re-affirmed
in episodes of personal interaction in rural Kerala, South India. Filippo and Caroline
osella consider the simultaneous creation of single-sex egalitarian communities and of
hierarchies of masculine performance among young men; they, then examine young
people's pre-marriage flirting and romance relationships.They take issue with some
recent analyses of sexual joking, teasing and flirting as necessarily expressive or
constitutive of structure and hierarchy, and offer an alternative analysis grounded in
socio-linguistic theory and anthropological understandings of joking. As well as the
value of hierarchy, which itself proves to be highly unstable, less explicit but equally
salient values of ambiguity, indeterminacy or ambivalence emerge as important
principles of everyday Indian social life.
This article also explore some ways through which the principle of hierarchy is
subverted, reversed, denied and re-affirmed in episodes of personal interaction in rural
Kerala, South India. The arguments that' hierarchy stands at the Centre of Indian social
life' is evidenced, for example, by the continuing existence of endogamous and ranked
castes or communities, and by formal rules of respect which obtain between young and
old, men and women. They suggest that this principle of hierarchy is not an unavoidable
factor in Indian social interaction. The article thus continues a time-honored Indianist
tradition of finding islands of anti-hierarchy within a wider hierarchical system (e.g.
Dumont 1980: 184 sqq; Kolenda 1990: 127; Parry 1974), at the same time shows their
interest is not in peripheral or exceptional cases but in the mainstream of everyday social
life. Filippo and Caroline focuses particularly on the sphere of gender, far this is an arena
in which hierarchy may be both made and contested. The article first discuss young men
in single- sex groups, joking, sharing and making friendships with each other in
egalitarian modes which are in apparent denial of principles of caste hierarchy.An
Gender Studies 118

informal hierarchy, that of 'performance', insinuates itself into these otherwise egalitarian
communities.Then they focuses on what happens when young men and young women
meet.
Their analysis of flirting and romance will show that hierarchy,in these arenas is
consciously played with: intensified,negated and reversed.
For original article see:

 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239785488_Friendship_and_Flirting_
Micro-Politics_in_Kerala_South_India
******
Gender Studies 119

II Sem MA Sociology-Gender Studies

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GENDER STUDIES

2019 Admission (SOC2 C08)

MODULE 1: GENDER AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT

MODULE 2: PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER

MODULE 3: GENDER DYNAMICS IN INDIA

MODULE 4: GENDER AND KERALA SOCIETY

1.1 Gender Studies: Genesis Of Women’s studies/gender studies

Feminism and Gender Studies

Multi-disciplinary nature of Gender Studies

1.2 Basic Concepts

SEX vs. GENDER

Biological characteristics (including genetics, Socially constructed set of roles and

Born with Not born with.

AGE OF FORMATION OF GENDER IDENTITY

 Martin and Ruble conceptualize this process of development as three stages

 Barbara Newman breaks it down into four parts as

FACTORS INFLUENCING THE FORMATION OF GENDER IDENTITY

Gender Discrimination in India

control over resources, which were important elements to consider in development,

empowerment contains exciting possibilities. It is a wide term with no specific meaning.

E. Gendered Division of Labour

The conventional perception on sexual division of labour based on distinction between

 Not only does heteronormativity assume that a ‘normal’ marriage is between a

 Heteronormativity leads to serious consequences for those who are not

 Due to heteronormative beliefs, LGBT (Lesbian. Gay, bisexual and Transgender)

 Due to heteronormative norms, the LGBT individuals are discriminated from

TRANSGENDER: A person whose sense of personal identity or gender does not

QUESTIONING: An individual who is unsure of and/or exploring their gender identity

AROMANTIC: A person who experiences little or no romantic attraction to others and/or

PANSEXUAL: A person who experiences sexual, romantic, physical, and/or spiritual

STUD: A term originating within communities of color to describe a masculine

HETEROSEXISM: Prejudice against individuals and groups who display non-

CISGENDER: A person whose sense of personal identity or gender does correspond to

LGBTQI ALLY: Someone who confronts heterosexism, anti- LGBTQIA biases,

1.3 Different Waves of Feminism

arguing that the second-wave over-emphasized experiences of upper middle-class white

2. Marxist and Socialist Feminism

It is a diverse movement because it represents different strands within feminism.

 We need to understand linkages between the oppressions of women and nature in

 Feminist theory and practice must consider ecological/environmental

 Ecology and environmental ethics must include feminist perspectives.

● Ecofeminist Theory and Grassroots Politics. Hypatia, 6 (1): 28–45.

2.1 Nancy Julia Chodorow, Ann Oakley, Simone de Beauvoir

2.1Nancy Julia Chodorow, Ann Oakley, Simone de Beauvoir

A. Nancy Julia Chodorow

Psychoanalytical and feminism

Chodorow: development of gender identity and gendered personalities-

The development of sexual object choice/ sexual identity

Identification with parents

Importance of equal parenting

 Introduction to contemporary social theory: Anthony Elliott, Charles Lemert

Cultural division of labour

 The mother role is a cultural construction.Evidence from several societies

De Beauvoir further (and perhaps controversially) highlights the role of women

2.2 Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva

Gender identity and performativity

Judith Butler and Performativity

 There is no self-preceding or outside a gendered self: Butler writes, “ ... if gender

Powers of horror: an essay on Abjection

2.2Queer theory and queer politics

sexuality and homosexuality in academia which remained absent in the mainstream

2.4 Theories of Masculinities

3.1 Social institutions and Gender reproduction- Caste, Class, Religion