SEX/GENDER DISTINCTION

(23/07/2021) Feminism is said to be the movement to end women’s oppression. One

possible way to understand women in this claim is to take it as a sex term (referring to the
biological di erence between men and women). Women picks out human females and
being a human females and being a human female depends on various biological
features. Historically, many feminists have understood women di erently, i.e., not as a sex
term but as a gender term that depends on social and cultural factors (social position). In
so doing they distinguish sex (being female or male) from gender (being a woman or a
man). More recently, this distinction came under attack and many view it with some
suspicion now a days.

The sex/gender distinction

The terms sex and gender means di erent things to di erent theorists and neither are
easy to characterise.

Biological Determinism -

Most people seem to think think that sex and gender are coextensive : women are human
females, men are human males. Many feminists have historically disagreed and have
endorsed sex/gender distinction. Provisionally, sex denotes human females and human
males depending on biological features (chromosomes, sex organs, hormones, and other
physical features); gender denotes women and men depending on social factors (social
roles, position, behaviour or identity). The main feminist motivation for making this
distinction was to counter biological determinism or the view that biology is destiny.

A typical example of biological determinist view is that of Geddes and Thompson who in
1889 argued that social, psychological and behavioural traits were caused by metabolic
state. Women supposedly conserve energy and this makes them passive, conservative,
sluggish, stable and uninterested in politics. Men expend their surplus energy and this
makes them eager, energetic, passionate, variable and thereby interested in political and
social matters. These biological facts about metabolic states were used not only to
explain behavioural di erences between women and men but also to justify what our
social and political arrangements ought to be. More speci cally, they were used to argue
political rights according to man because women are simply not suited to have those
rights and since women due to their biology will simply not be interested in exercising
their political rights to counter their biological determinism. Feminists have argued that
behavioural and psychological di erences have social, rather than biological, causes. For
instance, Simon de Beauvoir claimed that one is not born, but rather becomes woman
and that “social discrimination produces in women moral and intellectual e ects so
profound that they appear to be caused by nature.” Commonly caused behavioural traits
associated with women and men, are not caused by biological factors (chromosomes)
but are culturally learned or acquired.

Although biological determinism of the kind endorsed by Geddes and Thompson is

nowadays uncommon, the idea that behavioural and psychological differences
between women and men have biological causes has not disappeared. In the 1970s,
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sex differences were used to argue that women should not become airline pilots since
they will be hormonally unstable once a month and, therefore, unable to perform their
duties as well as men (Rogers 1999).

Gender Terminology

In order to distinguish biological differences from social/psychological ones and to talk
about the latter, feminists appropriated the term ‘gender’. Until the 1960s, ‘gender’ was
often used to refer to masculine and feminine words. The psychologist Robert Stoller
(1968) began using the terms ‘sex’ to pick out biological traits and ‘gender’ to pick out
the amount of femininity and masculinity a person exhibited. 

Feminists found it useful to distinguish sex and gender. This enabled them to argue
that many differences between women and men were socially produced and, therefore,
changeable. Gayle Rubin (for instance) uses the phrase ‘sex/gender system’ in order
to describe “a set of arrangements by which the biological raw material of human sex
and procreation is shaped by human, social intervention” (1975), describing gender as
the “socially imposed division of the sexes” (1975). Rubin's thought was that although
biological differences are xed, gender differences are the oppressive results of social
interventions that dictate how women and men should behave. Women are oppressed
as women and “by having to be women” (Rubin 1975). However, since gender is
social, it is thought to be mutable and alterable by political and social reform that would
ultimately bring an end to women's oppression. Feminism should aim to create a
“genderless (though not sexless) society, in which one's sexual anatomy is irrelevant to
who one is, what one does, and with whom one makes love” (Rubin 1975).

(26/07/2021) Gender conceived of as masculinity and femininity is superimposed upon
the ‘coat-rack’ of sex as each society imposes on sexed bodies their cultural
conceptions of how males and females should behave. This socially constructs gender
differences – or the amount of femininity/masculinity of a person – upon our sexed
bodies. That is, according to this interpretation, all humans are either male or female;
their sex is xed. But cultures interpret sexed bodies differently and project different
norms on those bodies thereby creating feminine and masculine persons. 

So, this group of feminist arguments against biological determinism suggested that
gender differences result from cultural practices and social expectations. Nowadays it
is more common to denote this by saying that gender is socially constructed. This
means that genders (women and men) and gendered traits (like being nurturing or
ambitious) are the “intended or unintended product[s] of a social practice”. But which
social practices construct gender, what social construction is and what being of a
certain gender amounts to are major feminist controversies which lack consensus.



Gender as Socially Constructed

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 Gender Socialisation

Feminine and masculine gender norms are problematic in that gendered behaviour
reinforces women's subordination so that women are socialised into subordinate social
roles: they learn to be passive, ignorant, docile, emotional helpmeets for men (Millett
1971). Social learning theorists hold that a huge array of different in uences socialise
us as women and men and hence extremely dif cult to counter gender socialisation.
For instance, parents often unconsciously treat their female and male children
differently. They use gender stereotypical language. Parents often dress their children
in gender stereotypical clothes and colours (boys are dressed in blue, girls in pink) and
parents tend to buy their children gender stereotypical toys. While the precise form of
gender socialisation has changed since the onset of second-wave feminism, even
today girls are discouraged from playing ‘rough and tumble’ games and boys are given
masculine toys like trucks and guns.

According to social learning theorists, children are also in uenced by what they
observe in the world around them. This, again, makes countering gender socialisation
dif cult. For one, children's books have portrayed males and females in blatantly
stereotypical ways: for instance, males as adventurers and leaders, and females as
helpers and followers. One way to address gender stereotyping in children's books has
been to portray females in independent roles and males as non-aggressive and
nurturing (Renzetti & Curran 1992). Some publishers have attempted an alternative
approach by making their characters, for instance, gender-neutral animals or
genderless imaginary creatures (like TV's Teletubbies). However, parents reading
books with gender-neutral or genderless characters often undermine the publishers'
efforts by reading them to their children in ways that depict the characters as either
feminine or masculine. According to Renzetti and Curran, parents labelled the
overwhelming majority of gender-neutral characters masculine whereas those
characters that t feminine gender stereotypes (for instance, by being helpful and
caring) were labelled feminine. Socialising in uences like these are still thought to send
implicit messages regarding how females and males should act and are expected to
act.

Gender as Feminine and Masculine Personality 

Nancy Chodorow (1978; 1995) has criticised social learning theory as too simplistic to
explain gender differences. Instead, she holds that gender is a matter of having
feminine and masculine personalities that develop in early infancy as responses to
prevalent parenting practices. In particular, gendered personalities develop because
women tend to be the primary caretakers of small children. the mother-daughter
relationship differs from the mother-son relationship because mothers are more likely
to identify with their daughters than their sons. This unpromptly cause the mother to
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 encourage her son to psychologically individuate himself from her thereby prompting
him to develop well de ned and rigid ego boundaries. However, the mother
unconsciously discourages the daughter from individuating herself thereby prompting
the daughter to develop exible and blurry ego boundaries. Childhood gender
socialisation further builds on and reinforces these unconsciously developed ego
boundaries nally producing feminine and masculine persons. Therefore, women are
not able to identify their own needs, men dispassionate and preferring a career. 

Chodorow thinks that these gender differences should and can be changed. Feminine
and masculine personalities play a crucial role in women's oppression since they make
females overly attentive to the needs of others and males emotionally de cient. 

(27/07/2021) Gender as Feminine and Masculine Sexuality

Catharine MacKinnon develops her theory of gender as a theory of sexuality. Very
roughly: the social meaning of sex (gender) is created by sexual objecti cation of
women whereby women are viewed and treated as objects for satisfying men's desires
(MacKinnon 1989). Masculinity is de ned as sexual dominance, femininity as sexual
submissiveness. The man/woman difference and the dominance/submission dynamic
de ne each other. This is the social meaning of sex” (MacKinnon 1989). For
MacKinnon, gender is constitutively constructed: in de ning genders (or masculinity
and femininity) In particular, we must make reference to the position one occupies in
the sexualised dominance/submission dynamic: men occupy the sexually dominant
position, women the sexually submissive one. As a result, genders are by de nition
hierarchical and this hierarchy is fundamentally tied to sexualised power relations. The
notion of ‘gender equality’, then, does not make sense to MacKinnon. If sexuality
ceased to be a manifestation of dominance, hierarchical genders (that are de ned in
terms of sexuality) would cease to exist. 

So, gender difference for MacKinnon is not a matter of having a particular
psychological orientation or behavioural pattern; rather, it is a function of sexuality that
is hierarchal in patriarchal societies. MacKinnon's thought is not that male dominance
is a result of social learning rather, socialisation is an expression of power. That is,
socialised differences in masculine and feminine traits, behaviour, and roles are not
responsible for power inequalities. Females and males are socialised differently
because there are underlying power inequalities. 



Is the Sex/Gender Distinction useful?

Some feminists hold that the sex/gender distinction is not useful. For a start, it is
thought to re ect politically problematic dualistic thinking that undercuts feminist aims:
the distinction is taken to re ect and replicate androcentric oppositions between (for
instance) mind/body, culture/nature and reason/emotion that have been used to justify
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women's oppression (e.g. Grosz 1994; Prokhovnik 1999). The thought is that in
oppositions like these, one term is always superior to the other and that the devalued
term is usually associated with women (Lloyd 1993). (one's bodily features are usually
valued less that one's mind, rationality is usually valued more than irrationality) and
women are associated with the devalued terms: they are thought to be closer to bodily
features and nature than men, to be irrational, emotional and so on. This is said to be
evident (for instance) in job interviews. Men are treated as gender-neutral persons and
not asked whether they are planning to take time off to have a family. By contrast, that
women face such queries illustrates that they are associated more closely than men
with bodily features to do with procreation (Prokhovnik 1999, 126). The opposition
between mind and body, then, is thought to map onto the opposition between men and
women. 

Now, the mind/body dualism is also said to map onto the sex/gender distinction (Grosz
1994). The idea is that gender maps onto mind, sex onto body. While sex is immutable,
gender is something individuals have control over – it is something we can alter and
change through individual choices. However, since women are said to be more closely
associated with biological features and men are treated as gender-neutral persons the
implication is that “man equals gender, which is associated with mind and choice,
freedom from body, autonomy, and with the public real; while woman equals sex,
associated with the body, reproduction, ‘natural’ rhythms and the private realm”. This is
said to render the sex/gender distinction inherently repressive and to drain it of any
potential for emancipation: rather than facilitating gender role choice for women.
Contrary to what feminists like Rubin argued, the sex/gender distinction cannot be
used as a theoretical tool that dissociates conceptions of womanhood from biological
and reproductive features. 

Moi has further argued that the sex/gender distinction is useless though not utterly
worthless. According to Moi, the sex/gender distinction worked well to show that the
historically prevalent biological determinism was false. More recently, Mikkola (2011)
has argued that the sex/gender distinction, which underlies views like Rubin's and
MacKinnon's, has certain unintuitive and undesirable ontological commitments that
render the distinction politically unhelpful, claiming that gender is a product of
oppressive social forces suggests that doing away with women and men should be
feminism's political goal. But this harbours ontologically undesirable commitments
since many ordinary social agents view their gender to be a source of positive value.
So, feminism seems to want to do away with something that should not be done away
with, which is unlikely to motivate social agents to act in ways that aim at gender
justice. Given these problems, Mikkola argues that feminists should give up the
distinction on practical political grounds. 

 Women as a Group

The various critiques of the sex/gender distinction have called into question the viability
of the category women. Feminism is the movement to end the oppression women as a
group face. But, how should the category of women be understood if feminists accept
the above arguments that a sharp distinction between biological sex and social gender
is false or (at least) not useful. 

(28/07/2021) Feminists must be able to address cultural and social differences in
gender construction if feminism is to be a genuinely inclusive movement. If feminist
critiques of the category women are successful, then what (if anything) binds women
together, what is it to be a woman, and what kinds of demands can feminists make on
behalf of women? 

Many have found the fragmentation of the category of women problematic for political
reasons. For instance, Young holds that accounts like Spelman's reduce the category
of women to a gerrymandered collection of individuals with nothing to bind them
together (1997). Black women differ from white women but members of both groups
also differ from one another with respect to nationality, ethnicity, class, sexual
orientation and economic position; that is, wealthy white women differ from working-
class white women due to their economic and class positions. These sub-groups are
themselves diverse: for instance, some working-class white women in Northern Ireland
are starkly divided along religious lines. So if we accept Spelman's position, we risk
ending up with individual women and nothing to bind them together. And this is
problematic: in order to respond to oppression of women in general, feminists must
understand them as a category in some sense. Young writes that without doing so “it is
not possible to conceptualise oppression as a systematic, structured, institutional
process” (1997). Some, then, take the articulation of an inclusive category of women to
be the prerequisite for effective feminist politics and a rich literature has emerged that
aims to conceptualise women as a group or a collective.

Contemporary Feminist Contribution to Debates Around Gender and

Sexuality 

Contemporary feminist debates have shifted emphasis to discuss gender and sexuality
as plural, uid and situated, rather than as xed identities. This attention to the
‘performative’ character of gender and sexuality has opened up new horizons for
feminist analysis, which have attracted considerable attention within psychoanalytic
circles. Erica Burman’s description of feminism’s or of feminist analysis names a set of
debate, rather than a coherent or consensual set of themes. Although, an attention to
gender is often assumed to be concerned with women, more recently feminist
researcher have focussed on men and masculinity. Gender is seen as less of an
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 individual xed attribute (masculine or feminine) than as a relationship whose

perceived and actual historical qualities are sites for analysis and intervention. 

Approaching Gender/Sexuality

Gender and sexuality are two seemingly simple and separate notion yet each is
complex, profound and profoundly contested in terms of de nition, relation and
function. One key application emerging from current feminist thinking is that we need
no longer think of feminism, sexuality and gender as each separate or single entities
instead feminism is seen as multiple shifting and mutually informing.

PATRIARCHY

(31/07/2021) Subordination of women to men is prevalent in large parts of the world.

We come across experiences where women are not only treated as subordinate to
men but are also subject to discriminations, humiliations, exploitations, oppressions,
control and violence. Women experience discrimination and unequal treatment in
terms of basic right to food , healthcare, education, employment, control over
productive resources, decision-making and livelihood not because of their biological
differences or sex, which is natural but because of their gender differences which is a
social construct. "Sex is considered a fact- one is born with either male or female
organs, gender is considered a social construction- it grants meaning to the fact of sex.
Conversely it could be said that only after speci c meanings came to be attached to
the sexes, did sex differences become pertinent" (Geetha, 2002). Gender based
discriminations and exploitations are widespread and the socio-culturally de ned
characteristics, attitudes, characteristics, desires, personality traits, roles,
responsibilities and behavioural patterns of men and women contribute to the
inequalities and hierarchies in society. Gender differences are man-made and they get
legitimised in a patriarchal society. The ongoing debates and discussions on patriarchy
manifest itself in various forms of discriminations, inequalities, hierarchies, inferior
status and position of women in society. Thus, it is important to understand patriarchy
in terms of its multiplicity, complexities and dynamics.

WHAT IS PATRIARCHY?

Patriarchy literally means the rule of the father in a male dominated society. It is a
social and ideological construct which considers men (who are the patriarchs) as
superior to women. Feminists use the concept of patriarchy to describe the power
relationship between men and women. In political theory, patriarchy refers to the
particular organisations of the family in which fathers have the power of life and death
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over the family members. A patriarchal family is therefore dominated by the father with
power transferred down the male line. Whereas the patriarchal society is based upon
the male dominance. Patriarchy refers to a society dominated by men, i.e. society,
state and the economy are characterised by systematic, institutionalised and pervasive
gender oppression. 

All feminists are highly critical of how the various instruments of patriarchy impact
adversely upon women. For example, feminists claim that marriage works in favour of
the husband because he gains an unpaid servant to take care of both his .. needs and
upkeep of the home. The exploitation of women within a marriage refers deeper
structural inequalities within a male dominated society. Sylvia Walby in "theorising
patriarchy" calls it "a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate,
oppress and exploit women" (Walby, 1990). Patriarchy is based on system of power
relations which are hierarchical and unequal where men control women's production,
reproduction and sexuality. It imposes masculinity and femininity character stereotypes
in society which strengthen the iniquitous power relations between men and women.

As an ideology, feminism seeks to highlight the disastrous impact of patriarchy upon

women's lives. They claim that the exploitation and subjugation of women occurs both
within private spheres and public realm. The socialist feminist Simon de Beauvoir
argued that only man has freedom to choose and set himself up as essential and
subject. In contrast women are both inessential and object. To address the problem,
she advocated a family structure centred upon a balanced couple that displayed
equality in difference, and difference in equality. Eco feminists such as Carolyn
Merchant extend this critique of patriarchy towards the damage done by men to the
environment, advocating a more maternal relationship with Mother Earth.

Patriarchy is not a constant and gender relations which are dynamic and complex have
changed over a periods of history. The nature of control and subjugation of women
varies from one society to the other as it differs due to differences in class, caste,
religion, region, ethnicity and the socio-culture practices. 

(02/08/2021) Patriarchy within a particular caste or class also differs terms of their
regional or religious variations. Similarly, subordination of women in developed
countries is different from those in developing countries. While subordination of of
women may differ in terms of its nature, certain characteristics such as control over
women sexuality and the reproductive parts cuts across class, caste, ethnicity, religion
and regions and is common to all patriarchies. This control has developed historically
and is institutionalised and legitimised by several ideologies, social practices and
institutions such as family, religion, caste, education, media, law, state and society. 

Patriarchal society propagate the ideology of motherhood which restricts women

 mobility and burdens them with the responsibilities to nurture and rear children. The
biological factors to bear children is linked to the social position of women’s
responsibilities of motherhood; nurturing, educating and raising children by developing
themselves to family. Patriarchal ideas blur the distinction between sex and gender and
assume that all socio-economic and political distinction between men and women are
rooted in biology or anatomy ( Heywood, 2003). Gender for social class, caste, race or
religion is a signi cant social cleavage and it is important to analyse it to understand
social inequalities, oppression and unequal relationships between men and women. It
has been explained by feminist scholars/thinkers/writers who believe that the thereof
sexual politics and sexism with theory of class politics and racism to understand
oppression of women. 

The traditional view accepts patriarchy as biologically determined and as the biological
function of men and women are different, the social roles and tasks assigned for
women are also different. Sigmund Freud stated that for women anatomy is destiny
and it is women’s biology which primarily determine psychology and thus their abilities
and roles. Similarly, the traditional notion of public-private sector which looted politics in
public sphere and family in private sphere as non political, believing that sexual
inequality is natural and not political. While the political sphere was for men, the private
sphere was reserved for women who were excluded from politics. These theories of
male supremacy have been challenged and opposed by feminists as they lack
historical or scienti c evidence. Feminists argue that the biological differences might
lead to some differences in their state but the former should not become the basis of
sexual hierarchy in which men are dominant. The dismantling of these theories enable
us to acknowledge that patriarchy is man made undeveloped historically by socio-
economic and political process in society.

Gerda Lerner in ‘the Creation of Patriarchy’ has argued against single cause theories
and against rooting for one social movement when patriarchy was established.
Patriarchy has been conceptualised and analysed by several feminist scholars in
different ways. Feminists have challenged patriarchal knowledge, values, ideas and its
practices. Despite a range of common things within feminism, disagreements exist
among the feminist in understanding patriarchy. 

All feminists do not like the term patriarchy for several reasons and prefer the term
gender suppression. Patriarchy has remained an unde ned concept and the feminist
scholars are at unease with its use when it involves a notion of the general system of
inequality. Michelle Barrett argues that the use of the term patriarchy assumes that the
relationship between men and women are unchanging and universalistic. She
suggests that it can only be appropriate if it is de ned very narrowly and refers to
speci c aspects of ideological relations such as those of father- daughter relationship
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described in Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas (Barrett, 1980). The use of the term often
involves confusion between patriarchy as the rule of the father and patriarchy as men’s
domination of women. However, Sylvia Wolby critics direct the problem is not with the
concept but with the way it is used in speci c context as it involves problems of
biologism, universalism and therefore the inconsistent de nition of patriarchy need to
be overcome in an inadequate analysis of gender inequality. 

Steeler Rowbotham also argues that the term patriarchy necessarily implies a
conception of women’s oppression that is unrealistic, a-historic and essentially
biologistic and that it incorrectly leads to a search for a single cause of women’s
oppression either on a base-superstructure model or as a quest for the ultimate origins
from capitalist relations. 

Suma Chitinis (2004) argues that because of the inadequate values of historical
circumstances and values that render women’s issues different. In india, a large
section of the population recalls from the feministic rhetoric. Similarly, the unease with
the term patriarchy is because of the roles that men had played in the emergence and
growth in women’s question in India. In a hierarchal society often gender oppression is
linked with oppression based on caste, class, community, tribe and religion and in such
multiple patriarchies “man as the principal oppressor” is not easily accepted. However,
Mary E. John argues that multiple patriarchies which are bi-product of the
discrimination caste, class and communal lines are diverse in nature and it is because
of unequal patriarchies that “there is a need to conceptualise the articulate conception
of patriarchies, along with the distinct and equally challenging question of how
subaltern genders ate relating to questions of power in the current conjecture. (John
2004). 

(03/08/2021)The assertion of autonomous Dalit women’s organisation have thrown up
several crucial theoretical and political challenges besides underlying the brahmanism
of feminist movements and patriarchal practices of Dalit politics within the framework of
difference the issues of caste is primarily responsible for oppression of Dalit women.
Sharmila Rege argues that the category of differences been brought to the centre of
feminist analysis by the black and third world feminists who questioned the sex-class
debate of the 1970s and argue that the complex interplay between sex, class, race
need to be underlined. Vaid and Samgri make a distinction between “the modernising
of patriarchal modes of regulations women” and the democratising of gender relations
both at home and work and underline Both the revolutionary potential and inherent
contradictions that the democratising movements constituted for peasants and working
class women. Thus feminist historiographies made radical breakthroughs in rede ning
gender and patriarchies in the context of hierarchies of caste, class, community and
ethnicity. Therefore it is persistent to underline several perspective of feminism for a
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comprehensive understanding of patriarchies in terms of the origin, characteristics,
nature, structure and persistence.

Feminism 

“Feminism is an awareness of patriarchal control, exploitation and oppression at the
material and ideological levels of women’s labour, fertility and sexuality in the family, at
the place of work and in society in general and conscious action by women and men to
transform the current situation” (Bhasin and Khan 1999). It is a struggle to achieve
equality, dignity, rights, freedom for women to control their lives and bodies both within
and outside. As a crosscutting ideology, feminists have different political positions and
therefore address a range of issues such as female suffrage, equal legal rights, right to
education, access to productive resources, right to participate in decision making,
legalisation of abortion, recognition of property rights and abolition of domestic
violence. Thus feminism pass through several paradigm which are referred to as rst
wave and second wave of feminism. 

Since the origin of patriarchy and establishment of male supremacy can be traced to
different factors and forces. Feminists differ in their approach to understand patriarchy
and to abolish it. One way to understand various dimensions of feminist theories and
their theoretical approach to understand patriarchy is to locate them within the broader
philosophical and political perspectives that have been broadly classi ed as Liberal,
Marxist, Socialist and Radical. However, despite the ideological differences between
the feminist groups, they are limited in the struggle against unequal and hierarchal
relationships between men and women which is no longer accepted as biological
destiny. 

Feminist theories generally share four concerns :

1. They seek to understand the general nature of all social and institutional relations
which determines who does what for whom, what we are and what we might become. 

2. Gender relations are considered as problematic as others related to their inequalities
and contradiction in social life. “Family, education and welfare, worlds of work and
politics, culture and leisure are socially structured through relations of gender, power,
class, race and sexuality.”

3. Gender relations are not viewed as either natural or immutable but as historical and
socio-cultural productions subject to reconstitution. In particular, feminist analysis
deconstructs errors and mix about women empirical realities and constructs theories
by and about women. 

4. Feminist theorists tend to be explicitly political about their advocacy about social
change. They challenge the traditional race-class-sexuality-power arrangements which
favour men over women, white over non-whites, adults over children and their struggle

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 to embrace inclusivity continues. 

Since feminism is not a-historic, understanding several perspective of it engages us in
understanding the history of feminism an uneasy relationships with western feminism
and the claim for an “indigenous” feminism led to the search for the indigenous roots of
feminism which is often linked to our colonial past. Kumari Jayawardena de nes
feminism as “embracing movements for equality within the current system and
signi cant struggles that have attempted to change the system”. She asserts that
women arose in the context of :

1. The formulation and consolidation of national identities which modernised anti-
imperialist movements during the independence struggle. 

2. The remaking of pre-capitalist region and federal structures in an attempt to
modernise third world societies (Jayawardena 1986, Choudhary 2004). 

Indian feminist like Veena Majumdar link the anti-imperialist struggle with women’s
issues as “independence of the country and of women has become so intertwined as
to be identical”

Whether women’s movements from the 70s onwards can only be termed as feminist is
an equally important question of concern to some feminist scholars. With the women’s
movements gaining momentum sharp critiques of mainstream conceptualisation of
work, development, legal process and the state emerged, which led to several
theoretical reformations. It led to the debates of class vs patriarchy, caste vs patriarchy,
and women’s movements have addressed issues concerning women of working class,
Dalit, tribal and minorities. 

(05/08/2021) Gopal Guru located the need for Dalit women to talk differently in a
discourse dissent against the middle class women’s movements men and the moral
economy of peasant movement. He argues that social location determines the
perception of reality and therefor representation of Dalit women by non-Dalit women
was less valid and less authentic. Dalit feminists’ standpoint is seen as emancipatory
as it places emphasis on individual experiences within socially constructed groups and
focus on the hierarchal multiple changing structural power relations of caste, class,
ethnicity which constructs such a group. Since Dalit women is not a homogenous
group, their standpoint is open to interrogations and revisions and the subject to Dalit
women standpoint is multiple, heterogeneous and contradictory. Since in the Indian
context question of cultural identity, differences, plurality and diversity have been
important, some Indian feminists in their effort to counter attacks of being Western
have turned out to Hindu and Sanskrit idioms denoting women's power thus,
inadvertently strengthening communal identity that Indian, Hindu and Sanskrit are
synonymous (Flavia and Chowdhary). Flavia Agnes critiques such feminist groups.
Maitrey Chowdhry also critiques that in India the battle for recognition of difference
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 have to be worked out differently without the accepted terminology of today's western
feminism or multiculturalism. Within the Indian subcontinent there have been in nite
variations on the status of women diverging according to cultural milieu, family
structure, class, caste, property rights and morals. Therefore, despite several debates
and discussions on Indian women's movement there have been no clear ideological
lines drawn and no major trends have emerged. In fact, the women's issues taken up
in the women's movement since 1975 have arisen out of the movement itself and have
been taken up by women's groups representing all ideologies and tendencies. The
effort to characterise the speci city of women oppression and to analyse the link with
other forms of social oppression is more of an ongoing theoretical research rather than
an ideological dividing line. In india, all feminists agree that women’s movements has
to be linked to broader movements against all kinds of oppression. While in the west
there have been a wide variety of feminists position from those facing male power and
several dominance to Marxist feminist position stressing social production. In India, it
has been mainly the Marxist who has dealt with the issue of women’s oppression and
subjugation. Though, there’s been varying approaches. 

(06/08/2021)

APPROACHES TO FEMINISM OR TO UNDERSTANDING OF PATRIARCHY

Liberal feminism-

Liberal feminists have championed equal legal and political rights for women to enable
them to compete with men in the public realm on equal terms. Liberal feminism has its
root in 18th century called enlightenment period. It was the time when two strong
concepts developed, i.e. rationality and individuality. It was called the age of reason. It
was against religious dogmas and autocratic govt. institutions ideas which couldn't
stand the critical test of reason had to be changed. The philosophical basis of liberal
feminism lies in the principle of individualism and they campaigned for all individuals to
participate in public and political life. Several women's movement demanded female
suffrage during the 1840s and 1850s in US and UK. The famous Seneca Falls
Convention in 1848 mark the birth of women's rights movement which among other
things called for female suffrage. Women were granted the right to vote in US
Constitution in 1920. In UK, though franchise was extended to women in 1918 for a
decade, they did not exercise equal voting rights with men. Mary Wollstonecraft's,
"Vindication of the Rights of Women" (1792) was the rst text of modern feminism
which campaigned for women's right to vote. The critical theme of the book is "women
are rst and foremost human being rational creatures and are not sexual beings. They
are capable of governing themselves by reason hence, if women are to be denied
natural rights, then it must be proved that they are not rational creatures."
Wollstonecraft claimed that if women gained access to education as rational creatures
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in their own right, the distinction of sex would become unimportant in political and
social life. John Stuart Mill in collaboration with Harriet Taylor in "The subjection of
Women" (1869), proposed that women should be entitled to the citizenship and political
rights and liberties enjoyed by men. It indicts traditional arrangements of work and
family as terrorising women and denying them freedom of choice. In the Subjection,
Mill discusses the problem of brilliant and talented women being a victim of patriarchal
customs which deny them their individuality. Together Mill and Harriet Taylor explore
socialism and feminism as possible solutions for the ills of a liberal democratic society
and desire a society that recognises individuality, personal freedom and independence
of thought for the rejection of idea that birth should determine one's station in life. Like
Wollstonecraft, they argue that women's freedom of choice must replace the arbitrary
rule of men.

Many writers prior to Wollstonecraft such as J.J. Rousseau had explicitly argued that
"men and women by nature were not only different in kind but different in natural ranks,
with women being weaker physically, mentally and emotionally. Men were regarded
rational, women emotional;...

A few philosophers such as John Locke had argued that the sexes should receive the
same education and that they should be given equal rights and responsibilities with
respect to their children. Nonetheless these writers stopped short of defending
complete sexual equality either for social roles or legal rights (and sex differences have
been, and in some parts of the world continue to be, the basis of loss, denying women
the right to retain property in marriage and the right to vote). 

In Vindication of Rights of Women, Wollstonecraft wrote that many of the supposed
differences between the sexes were either fabricated or exaggerated and therefore
couldn't be used as the basis for differential rights and roles. Imposing different
educational expectations on men and women was not only unjust but also
counterproductive, tending to create less productive female citizens with "arti cial,
weak characters". Both sexes, Wollstonecraft argued, has the capacity to reason
hence both should be educated to enhance their rationality, which she de ned as the
ability to act as fully responsible moral agents. The realisation of the ability would
provide self ful lment for the moral agent and bene t society. On this account, women
needed to become more rational but there was no reason for men to cultivate their
emotions. JS Mill echoed Wollstonecraft's sentiments in the Subjection of Women
(1869). He described sex roles as kind of caste system in which women were assigned
lower status and restricted in what they were permitted to do simply because of their
sex even though there were no categorical differences between the sexes that could
justify it. 

Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" marked the resurgence of liberal feminist
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thoughts in 1960s and is often credited as stimulating the emergence of second wave
feminism. She referred to the cultural myth that women seeks security and ful lment in
domestic life and that their feminine behaviour serves to discourage women from
entering employment, politics and public life in general.

(09/08/2021) In the “second stage” (1983) trident discuss the problem of reconciling
the achievement of personhood by making it possible to open up broader opportunities
for women in work and public life while continuing to give central importance to family
in women’s life which has been criticised by radical feminist as contributing to
“mystique of motherhood”. Therefore liberal feminism is essentially reformist And does
not challenge the patriarchal structure of society itself. Critiques suggest that the liberal
reforms increase opportunities for women, prohibit discrimination and to increase
public consciousness of women’s rights have not been shared equally by all women
because these changes have not addressed issues of socially structured inequalities
(Mandell, 1995). Thus while the rst wave of feminist ended with winning suffrage
rights, the emergence of second wave feminism in 1960s acknowledged that political
and legal rights were insuf cient to change women subordination. Feminist ideas and
arguments became radical and revolutionary thereafter. 

In America liberal feminist believes that American constitution has given rights and
freedom to women who can is more than many other countries. Equal opportunities
recognised by the constitution is not practised because of the sexual attitudes. Hence
the contemporary society attitude of people must change. They suggested several
measures. All these suggestions are within the existing framework and Legal channels.
Liberal feminist do not talk about breaking the network. Three major themes came up
like equal pay for similar work, equal distribution of household work and reproductive
choices. (It did not provide any explanation or roots of women’s exploitation but
existing social order as valid. They advocated improvement of social customs,
institutional laws. They strongly believed that reforms would lead to real and
substantial equality for women as…. Mary Wollstonecraft was critical of Rousseau for
assuming that men and women differed in their capacity. She was critical of Rousseau
for thinking of women as sexual being and therefore not free…. (Liberal feminism of
Wollstonecraft and Mill traced women’s oppression to unjust laws. It focused on the
subjugation of women in the private domain which was insulated from the ideas of
freedom, equality and justice that dominated the public sphere. The aim of liberal
feminism emphasis on equal rights was to gain access to the public sphere on the
same terms as men. The liberal feminist sought to reform the traditional family and
accord women dignity , self respect and independence by demanding rights…
Pateman accused liberal feminism of harbouring a masculine bias and not being
gender neutral in the conception of individuality. She observed on a patriarchy, the
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 laws re ected the basic patriarchal principle that men had sexual rights over women
and this was the sexual contract thus marriage contract guaranteed the control of
husband over their wives and later subordination. The marriage contract was not one
freely determined by free agents; but it was the state that prescribed its terms. It was
for this reason that many feminist in the 19th century called for the evolution of
marriage as a state certi ed institution. As a result feminist jurispudamcen debate on
the private- public division and the traditional ascription of women to certain functional
roles within the private sphere. The focus of the liberal thorny was on the public sphere
and in the individual citizens and their rights which was ahh feminist theory continue to
focus on the consequences of fundamental contradiction within the private sphere.
Traditional liberal theory which was largely the basis of American jurispudamcen didn’t
work as it accepts the public-private divide and the roles which women perform in the
private sphere. The private- public distinction criticised for not only excluding women
from public activities like voting or holding a public of ce but at the same time covering
up what went on within the home including violence against women and children in
public scrutiny. In feminist challenges (1996) cited by Pateman and Elizabeth gross,
many of its contributors noted that not just liberal political theory but much of western
philosophy was predicted upon women’s subordination. 

Marxist feminism

They believed that both subordination of women and division of classes developed
historically with the development of private property. Frederick Engels in the origin of
family private property and the state stated that with the emergence of private
property… women’s housework sank into insigni cance in comparison to mans
productive labour. The world historical defeat of the female sex with the establishment
of capitalism based on private property ownership by men did away with inheritance of
property and social position through female line. Thus maternal authority gave way to
paternal authority and property was to be inherited from father to son and not from
women to her clan. The bourgeoisie families which owned private property emerged as
patriarchal families where women were subjugated. Such patriarchal families became
oppressive as men ensured that their property passed on only to their sons. Therefore,
bourgeois family and private property as a byproduct of capitalism subordinated and
oppressed women.

(12/08/2021) Marxist feminist unlike the radical feminist argue that class exploitation is
deeper than sexual oppression and women’s emancipation essentially requires social
revolution which will overthrow capitalism and establish socialism. Engels believed that
in a socialist society marriage will be dissolvable and that once private property is
abolished the patriarchal features and perhaps even monogamy will disappear.
Therefore, Marxist feminist like many socialist feminist connect structural changes in
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 kinship relations and changes in the division of labour to understand women’s position
in society. They argue that it is not women’s biology alone but private property and
monogamous marriage economic and political dominance by men and their control
over female sexuality which led to patriarchy. However, the Marxist feminism has been
criticised for discriminating working class women and bourgeois women and also for
the focus on economic factors to explains subordination of women. Recent socialist
feminist critique traditional Marxist feminist as the latter emphasise only on economic
origins of gender inequality and state that female subordination occurs also in pre
capitalist and socialist systems. In fact socialist feminists accuse Marxist feminist of
being “sex blind” and only adding women to their existing critique of capitalism. 

Socialist feminism - unlike the liberal feminist, socialist feminist argue that women do
not simply face political and legal disadvantages which can be solved by equal legal
rights and opportunities but t he relationship between sexes is rooted between the
social and economic structure itself. Therefore women can only be emancipated after
social revolution brings about structural change. Socialist feminist deny the necessary
and logical link between sex and gender differences. They argue that the link between
child bearing and child rearing is cultural rather than biological and have challenged
that biology is destiny by drawing a sharp distinction between sex and gender.
Therefore while liberal feminist takes women’s equality with men as their major political
goal, socialist feminism aim at transforming basic structural arrangements of society so
that categories of class gender sexuality and race no longer act as barriers to share
equal resources. Gerda Lerner 1986 explains how control over female sexuality is
central to women subordination. She argues that it is important to understand how
production as well as reproduction was organised. The appropriation and
commodi cation of women sexual and reproductive capacity by men lies at the
foundation of private property, institutionalisation of slavery, women’s sexual
subordination and economic dependency on male. 

Most socialist feminist agree that the con nement of women to the domestic sphere of
housework and motherhood serves the economic interests of capitalism. Women
relieve men of the burden of housework and child bearing and allow them to
concentrate on productive employment. Thus unpaid domestic labour contributes to
the health and ef ciency of capitalist economy and also counts for the low status and
economic dependence of women on men but unlike the Marxist feminist, socialist
feminist look at both relations of production as well as relations of reproduction to
understand patriarchy. Unlike orthodox Marxist who have prioritised class politics over
sexual politics, modern socialist feminist give importance to the latter. They believe that
socialism in itself will not end patriarchy as it has cultural and ideological roots. In
women’s state 1971, Juliet Mitchell believes that gender relations are a part of the
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 superstructure and patriarchy is located in the ideological level while capitalism in the
economic level. like traditional Marxist analysis she fails to consider the signi cance of
sexual division of labour as an economic phenomenon. She argues that patriarchal law
is that of the rule of the father which operates to the kinship system rather than
domination of men. Mitchell stated that women ful ll four essential function. First their
members of workforce and are active in production. Second, they bear children and
thus reproduce human species. Third, they are responsible for socialising children.
Fourth, they are sex objects. therefore women can achieve emancipation only when
they liberate from each of these areas and not only when socialism replaces
capitalism. Maulvi critics Mitchell as she failed to consider the material bene ts that
men derives from women’s unpaid domestic labour and the signi cance of men’s
organised attempt to limit women’s access to paid work. on the other hand Delphy
argues that the bases of gender relations is the domestic node of action i which the
husband expropriates the wife’s labour. Women share a common class position and
are exploited by men as a class. thus its not women’s position within the domestic
mode of production which is the basis of class oppression alone but it is their main
form of subordination. The forms of oppression outside the family therefore derive from
oppression within the family. It is the relations of production which explains why their
work is excluded form the realm of value. Delphy has been critiqued by Molyneux for
placing all women in one class without making as distinction between bourgeois and
proletariat. 

(16/08/2021) similarly, Zillah Eisenstein in Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for
Socialist Feminism (1979) argues that male supremacy and capitalism are the core
relations which determine oppression of women. She de nes patriarchy as a sexual
system of power in which the male possesses superior power and economic privilege.
Patriarchy is not the direct result of biological differentiation but ideological and political
interpretation of these differentiations. On the one hand the capitalist live a process in
which exploitation occurs and on the other the patriarchal sexual hierarchy in which the
women is mother, domestic labourer and consumer and in which the oppression of
women occurs. Social relations of production are therefore important and they are not
the result of capitalist relations but cultural relations thus while in her early work in
1979 there was greater stress on the synthesis between capitalism and patriarchy in
her later work in 1984, there is more recognition of con ict and tension between the
two. Heidi Hartmann (1979) argues that both patriarchy and capitalism are
independent yet are interacting social structures. She believes that “we can usually
de ne patriarchy as a set of social relations between men who have a material base
who through hierarchal, establish/create interdependence and solidarity among men
and enable them to dominate women”. She argues that historically both had important
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effects on each other as the material base upon which patriarchy race lies most
fundamentally in men’s control over women’s labour power. In capitalist society a
healthy and strong partnership exist between patriarchy and capitalism. She has been
critiqued for paying insuf cient attention to tension and con ict between capitalism and
patriarchy. 

Thus socialist feminism has advanced theoretical boundaries by analysing the ways
class and gender relations intersect. Economic class relations are important in
determining woman’s status but gender relations are equally signi cant and therefore
eradicating Social class inequality alone will not necessarily eliminate sexism.
Patriarchy existed before capitalism and continued to exist in both capitalism and other
political economic systems. However patriarchy and capitalism are intertwined and
mutually supportive system of oppressions. Women’s subordination within capitalism
results from their economic exploitation as wage labourers and their patriarchal
oppression as mothers, consumers and domestic labourers. 

The state is a site of patriarchal Relations which is necessary to patriarchy as a whole
as it upholds the oppression of women by supporting a form of household in which
women provide unpaid domestic services to male thus capitalism bene ts from a
particular form of family which ensures cheap reproduction of labour power and the
availability of women as a reserved army. Patriarchy is also located in the social
relations of reproduction and masculinity and femininity are not biological givens but
product of long historical process. thus socialist feminist combined both Marxist and
radical approach and neither is suf cient by itself. Patriarchy is connected to both
relations of production and relations of reproduction. 

Therefore reactionary feminism deferred from conventional feminism challenging the
traditional public private divide and the in uence of patriarchy not only in politics, public
life and economy but also in all aspects of social personal psychological and sexual
existence. This was evident in the pioneering work of radical feminists. Kate Millett’s
Sexual politics (1970) and Germaine Greer’s work, Siomne de Beauvoir’s The second
sex (1970), Eva ges’ Patriarchal Attitudes (1970) drew attention to t he personal
psychological and sexual aspects of female oppression. The emphasis shifted from
political emancipation to women’s liberation and the second wave feminist campaigned
for the legislation of abortion, equal pay legislation and anti discrimination laws and
wider access to education and political and professional life. Women’s liberation
movement during the 1960s and 70s called for radical social changes rather than legal
and political reforms and criticised the repressive nature of the conventional society.
Radical Feminism - Unlike the liberal and socialist traditions, radical feminists
developed a systematic theory of sexual oppression as the root of patriarchy which
preceded private property. They challenged the very notion of femininity and
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masculinity as mutually exclusive and biologically determined categories. The ideology
of motherhood subjugates women and perpetuates patriarchy which not only forces
women to be mothers but also determines the condition of motherhood. It creates
feminine and masculine characteristics, strengthens the divide between public and
private, restricts women’s mobility and reinforces male dominance while sex
differences are linked to biological differences between male and female, gender
differences are imposed socially or even politically by constructed contrasting
stereotype of masculinity and femininity. Simone de Beauvoir in Second Sex (1970)
pointed out that women are made and not born. She believed that greater availability of
abortion rights, effective birth control and end of monogamy would increase the control
over their bodies. Judith Butler turned the sex gender distinction on its head by making
sex the affect of gender, a legitimisation subsequently imposed in order to x the
socially contingent through recourse to an unquestioned biology. The distinction
between Sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all. 

Kate millet in sexual politics de ne policy’s as power structured relationships which are
not only con ned to government and it’s citizens but also to family between children
and parents and husband and wife. Through family church and academy men secure
consent of the very women they oppress and each institution justi es and reinforces
women subordination to men with the result that women internalise a sense of
inferiority to men. Men use coercion to achieve what conditioning fails to achieve. She
proposed that patriarchy must be challenged through a process of conscious raising
and women’s liberation required a revolutionary change. The psychological and sexual
oppression of women have to be overthrown. Shulamith Firestone in the Dialect of Sex
(1972) believes that their underlying their soul that the basis of women’s oppression
lies in a reproductive capacity as fad as this has been controlled by men. She stated
that patriarchy is not natural or inevitable but it’s roots are located in biology which has
led to a natural division of labour within the biological family and liberation of women
require that gender differences between men and women to be abolished. Firestone
attempted to build to a theory of patriarchy in which different sets of patriarchal
relations have their place specify their articulation with class and raise relations is one
of the most sophisticated and highly developed radical theories. However her analysis
of relations of patriarchy with class and ethnicity are rather reductionist as she ignores
various structures and institutions which have shaped these relationships throughout
history. Walby cruci es her for her insuf cient analysis of capitalist relations and their
interrelationship with patriarchal relations which Walby sees as a serious omission. Her
believe that the connection between child birth and child care is biological rather than
social fact has also been critiqued. 

MacKinnon argues that sexuality is the basis of differentiation of sexes and oppression
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of women and this she considers as parallel to the centrality of work for Marxist
analysis of capitalism. Sexuality is to feminism what work is to Marxism that which is
most ones own yet most taken away. She considers that sexuality constructs gender
and these are social processes and not biological givens. Walby critiques her for not
accessing the relative importance of class labour for gender equality as compared to
sexuality. For radical feminists sexual relations are political acts emblematic of male/
female power relationships. The traditional political theory which divides personal and
political spheres ans believe that family of non political and personal has been
questioned by radical feminists who argue that family is that space where maximum
exploitation of women takes place. It is this public private divide which legitimises
exploitation of women. It is essential that the private sphere must be terms of the same
value of justice equality and freedom which are necessary in the public sphere. 

(17/08/2021) Radical feminist aim the need to rede ne individual identity, free
language and culture from the culture of masculinity, reestablish power, revaluate
human nature behaviour and challenge the traditional value. Thus allows legal reforms
and rights to channelise the protest against capitalist society is important to transform
the traditional section identity through sexual revolution. Radical feminists therefore
believe that unless sexuality is reconceed and reconstructed in the image and likeness
of women, the latter will remain subordinate to men. 

While radical feminists claim that personal is political, liberal feminists warn against the
dangers of politicising the private sphere which is the realm of public choice and
individual freedom. On the other hand, the limitation of individualism as a basis of
gender politics has been raised by radical feminists as an individualist perspective
draws attention away from the structural character of patriarchy. Women are
subordinated not as systematic individuals who happen to be denied rights or
opportunities but as a sex that is subject to pervasive operation. They critique
individualism which makes it dif cult for women to think and act collectively on the
basis of their common gender identity. Liberal individualism depoliticises sexual
relations and equal treatment might mean treating women like men. Finally the
demand for equal rights only equips women to take advantage of the opportunities and
may therefore re ect the interest of white, middle class women in developed countries
and failed to address problems of women of colour, working class women and women
in developing countries. Thus, while egalitarian feminists link gender differences to
patriarchy as a manifestation of oppression and subordination and want to liberate
women from gender difference, different feminists regard the very notion of equality as
either misguided or simply undesirable. Alison Jaggar in Feminist Politics and Human
Nature, 1971 critiques the radicals for ignoring the causes that led to the origin of
patriarchy and its structures which require theorising human behaviour and human
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society. She states that it is not that gender differences determine some forms of social
organisations but the latter which give rise to gender differences. Therefore, instead of
controlling their bodies women should be able to control their lives. Marxist feminists
critique the radical feminists for ignoring the historical, economic and materialist basis
of patriarchy and therefore the latter are trapped in ahistorical, biological deterministic
theory.

The new feminist traditions such as psychoanalytical feminism, eco feminism,
postmodern feminism, black feminism, lesbian feminism have emerged since 1980s.
Psychoanalytical feminists analyse the psychological process through which men and
women are engendered. They do not hold biological factors as responsible for the
construction of sexual difference. 

Eco feminists accept women's attitudes and values as different from men. They
believe that in certain respects women are superior to men and possess the qualities
of creativity, sensitivity and caring which men can never develop. Vandana Shiva in her
Conception of Eco Feminism critiques development and establishes the connection
between ecological destruction and capitalist growth as a patriarchal project.

Postmodern Feminists claim that there's no xed female identity. The socially
constructed identities can be reconstructed or deconstructed. Thus, the distinction
between sex and gender are criticised from two perspectives: 

First, Different feminists would believe that there are essential difference between men
and women and the social and cultural characteristics are seen to refer the biological
differences and ,

Second, Postmodern feminists who question whether sex is a clear cut biological
distinction as is usually assumed. In other words, the features of biological motherhood
do not apply to women who cannot bear children. Thus, there's a biology/culture
continuum rather than a xed biological/cultural divide and the categories male and
female become more or less arbitrary and the concepts of sex and gender become
hopelessly entangled. 

Linda Nicholson in "Feminism/Postmodernism" (1990) claims that there are many
points of overlap between a post modern stance and position long held by feminists
according to Nancy Fraser and Nicholson if feminism pursues a trend towards a more
historical, non universalising theory that addresses differences amongst women
(lesbians, disabled, working class women , black women) then feminism will become
more consistent with postmodernism. This trend means giving up universal claims of
gender and patriarchy. However, feminists hostile to postmodernism theory claim that
no feminist politics is possible once one is called into question the nature of gender
identity and subjectivity. 

Black feminists have prioritised differences based on race and challenge the
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 tendency within feminism to ignore it. They portray sexism and racism as interlinked
systems of oppression and highlight the particular range of gender, racial and
economic disadvantages that confront women of colour. Black feminists argue that
women are not subject to common forms of oppression due to their sex but women of
colour in particular are more vulnerable to oppression and subjugation. They criticise
the liberal, marxist, socialist and radical feminists for ignoring race as a category of
oppression and analysis. By assuming that gender is primary form of subordination,
oppression of class, sexuality and race become extensions of patriarchal domination.
Radical feminists insistence that elimination of sexism is key to the elimination, racism
is inadequate to women of colour as they experience racism from white women as well
as men. Thus, an analysis of intersection of class, caste, race, sexuality and gender is
important.

Similarly, lesbian feminists primarily struggle against homophobia which is as
important as the struggle against patriarchy. Lesbian and cultural feminism are two
types of feminist separation advocating the creation of women. identi ed world through
the attachments women have to each other. They believe that since patriarchy is
organised through men's relations with other men, unity among women is the only
affective means in order to liberate women. They position lesbianism as more than a
personal decision and an outward sign of an internal rejection of patriarchal sexuality.
Lesbianism becomes a paradigm for female control over female sexuality which meets
women's needs and desires. another popular strategy for resisting patriarchy has been
to rede ne social relations by creating women centred cultures that emphasise positive
capacities of women by focusing on creative dimensions of their experiences.

(18/08/2021) Therefore while earlier feminists struggled for a Legally equal position for
women and demanded democratic rights which include right to education and
employment, right to own property, right to vote, right to birth control, right to divorce.
Today feminists have gone beyond demanding mere legal reforms to end
discrimination between men and women . They have raised issues of violence against
women, rape, unequal wages, discriminatory personal laws, the sexual division of
labour, distribution of power within the family, use of religion to oppress women and
negative portrayal of women in media. Emancipation of women necessarily calls for
challenging patriarchy as a system which perpetuates women’s subordination. Several
structures of society such as kinship and family, class, caste, religion , ethnicity,
educational institutions and state reinforce patriarchy. Some of the experience of
multiple patriarchies can be seen by analysing the dynamics and interface of social
forces which institutionalised and legitimised patriarchy in society. 

Thus feminist theories provide explanations for a wide range of particular issues and
have been enriched by different approaches and perspectives. The feminist
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 movements need to draw on the strength of all feminist theories as each one of its own
in incomplete. In fact feminism will survive as long as patriarchy persists and the
challenge is to establish a viable and coherent third wave feminism which will explain
the changing nature of gender relations and explore the myth of post feminism that
societies are no longer patriarchal as the most obvious forms of sexist oppression have
been overcome. 

(Add to liberal) Liberal feminism dominated till 1960s, and yet it did not provide any
explanation or roots of women but accepted the existing social order as valid, they
advocated improvement of social customs, institutions, laws, attitudes without altering
social structures. They strongly believe that progression reforms will lead to real and
substantial equality for women as individuals. So liberal feminists state their democracy
and democratic structure constitute essential conditions for successful reform. Radical
change could only demolish the available freedom and justice for both men and
women. 

Difference between Radical and Liberal 

1. Liberal feminism is a strand of feminism that advocates eliminating gender inequality
through having equal rights for men and women in the legal, political, social and other
spheres within the existing system. 

Radical feminism is a strand of feminism that identi es patriarchy as the root of all
gender issues and advocates a complete reordering of the society in order to eliminate
male supremacy. 

2. Gender inequality can be eliminated when women gets the same rights as men
through legal, political, social means within the existing system. 

Gender inequality and other gender related issues can only be eliminated through a
radical restructuring of the society, removing male supremacy from all spheres of
society. 

3. It docent advocate a complete restructure. 

It advocates a complete restructuring of society. 

4. It does not focus on the root cause of gender issues. 

It identi es male supremacy or patriarchy as the root cause of gender inequality. 

5. It is not radical o militant in nature. 

It is more militant form of feminism. 

Feminism played an important role in bringing a revolutionary wave in the world. The
society witnessed many changes as the result of liberal and radical feminism. While
the former was more of a passive movement, the latter was militant in nature. Although
there were differences in the principles of the two movements, both contributed
signi cantly in changing the patriarchal aspects of the society. The feminist movement
tried to change the gendered outlook of the world and societal roles (invisible as well
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 as visible) given to both males and females on the basis of gender. It believed in
securing the rights of women, guaranteeing them equal status as that of men and
uprooting the patriarchal concepts. 

(19/08/2021) Feminism and Women’s Movements 

Feminism comprises a number of social cultural and political movements, theories and
moral philosophies concerned with gender equality and equal rights for women. It may
be understood as theory systems of concepts, propositions and analysis that describe
and explain women’s situations and experience and support recommendations about
how to improve them. Such theory’s is distinguished from non feminist thinking about
women and gender by its general respect for women’s own perspectives and authority
and is persistent attention to the working of power structure which privilege men. So it
is a politics to change the existing power relations between women and men in the
society. Different areas of life like family, education worlds of work and the power
relations of society structure all politics, culture and leisure. This power relation
determine what we are, what we become and what the limitations are. There is a
conviction that the women are oppressed and discriminated and the explicit purpose of
feminism is to promote the interest of women. The aim is not to substitute women from
men but to give rightful place to women as a sex in society. The driving force of
women’s movements is feminism. It is a movement to assert the interest of women as
a sex. This does not mean that feminist want it dominate men or that they’re anti men.
Basically feminism is a humanistic concern. It is a demand to restore to women their
humanity. Feminism is about liberation. A feminist perspective is to become aware of
the situation of women, of the relation of women to the world, of the oppression and
discrimination to which women have been subjected. There are many de nitions of
what a feminist is but the simplest and probably the best is what is listed in most
dictionaries. “A person who believes in the full equality of men and women.” Thus it
means that anyone male or female who supports this idea can be a feminist. The goal
of feminism is equality and it means that women do what men have done (be
re ghters and corporate executive). And that men do what women have done (stay at
home fathers and secretaries). It also means that women supports should have as
much support as men’s supports and that neither men nor women should be afraid of
walking home alone at night. Feminism mean the full social, political and economic
equality of men and women. The rst idea that is likely to occur in the course of any
historical thinking about feminism is that feminism is a social force. The emergence of
feminist ideas and feminist politics depends on the understanding that, in all societies
which divide the sexes into differing cultural economic or political spheres, women are
less valued than men. Feminism also depends on the premise that women can
consciously and collectively change their social place. While many languages do not
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 have noun feminism and feminism as a term for the politics of equal rights for women
did not come into English use until the 1890s. The word feminism can stand for a belief
in sexual equality combined with a commitment to eradicate sexes domination and to
transform society. So that while most writers agree that in Britain feminism, as a group
of political and social movements, probably dates from the 17th century, feminism as a
body of answers to the ‘question of women’ has a more diffuse and considerably more
long standing existence. The feminist that constitute feminism from social reforms and
suffrage campaigns through to academic feminist theory - are not indistinct. A broad
frame is needed to encompass political activism as well as as theory ; to enclose
feminist grassroots initiatives, the circling of Greenham common missile base by 30
thousand women in 1982, the suffrage banners, the disruption of Miss America
pageants and protests against dowry deaths in India as well as organise strikes and
movements.

(Maggie Humm - Dictionary of Feminist theory)

Within slogan the personal is political rst written by Carol Hanisch (1970) it is
contemporary feminism which recognises that politics is too diverse to be contained in
the tightly bounded categories of political parties. It is small collective groups known as
consciousness raising groups (CR), direct action and radical campaigns which have
shaped the political themes of contemporary movements, not elected politicians. For
example, extra parliamentary tactics include the creation of alternative institutions
(women’s aid) alternative political processes (networking) and alternative political
cultures (Greenham paci sm).

Yet feminism is shaped to both by the cultural legal and economic policies of particular
societies in which it forms as well as by the politics of reforming movements which it
outgrew. 

The rst public declaration describes women as a distinct social category with unequal
social status date from before Aphra Behn. A clear example is the 18th century
document by Mary Astell; ‘some re ections upon marriage’ 1700) organise feminism
entered the arena of public politics in America and Britain in the 1840s which suffrage
petitions to parliaments and a campaigns for greater legislative equality such as the
married women’s property act. Suffragettes success in winning the vote in 1918 in
Britain writhing the limited franchise and universal suffrage in 1920 in America,
narrowed to welfare feminism in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s with the campaigns for
family allowances (Britain) and legal equalities (American league of women). It was in
the 1960s that militant feminism or women’s liberation, created a new politics out of
Marxist and socialist feminisms, radical feminism and other multifarious responses to
the question of why women continue to suffer social inequality exploitation and
oppression. 

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(24/08/2021) Feminism in America 

In the 1840s feminism began to grow into a substantial political force in America. The
women’s rights movement led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony had its
origin in their anti slavery and temperance campaigns. The exclusion of women
delegates, including Stanton, from the world anti slavery convention held in London in
1840, resulted in the famous Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 and its declaration of
sentiments which sought to apply the principles of American Declaration of
Independence to women. When the alliance between feminism and the anti slavery
movements began to dissolve following the nominal enfranchisement of blacks but not
women after the American Civil War, Anthony and Stanton founded the National
Women’s Suffrage Association while Lucy stone created the more conservative
American Women’s Association. While Anthony and Stanton aided economic demands
such as protective legislation to the suffrage platform in their working women’s
association and to their 6000 signature petition to the New York legislature.

The suffrage movement inspired other organisations such as the International Council
of Women founded in Washington DC in 1888 - the oldest and largest feminist
organisation in the world. Both suffrage organisations merged in 1890 to form the
National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) which gained the support
of suffrage activist like Alice Paul who returned from Britain to found the Congressional
Union, later the Women’s Party in 1914 and the daughter of Mrs Stanton, Harriet
Stanton Blatch who founded the Equality League in 1907. In addition there was a
groundswell of socialist feminism perhaps best represented by the Settlement
movement and by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and an argument in the Manmade World
(1911) that women should be economically independent from men. When Carrie
Chapman Catt took over the leadership of NAWSA (now the League of Women’s
Voters) NAWSA petitions, the state by state campaigns and the militant actions of the
women’s party such as special suffrage trains and anti Woodrow Wilson
demonstrations resulted in the 19th amendment of 1920 which gave women the vote.
Legal advances of women in the 1920s and 1930s scattered the possibility of a single
suffrage identity of American feminism. The women’s party proposed Equal Rights
Amendments in order to enforce federal equality which was opposed by the League of
Women Voters. While welfare feminism was the aim of New Deal Feminism anti
poverty campaigns, paci st feminist with Jane Adams formed the Women’s Peace
Party, later the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom at the 1915
International Congress. But it was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), rst proposed
to congress in 1923 by the Women’s Party as an amendment to the constitution : men
and women shall have equal rights throughout the US and every place subject to its
jurisdiction, which eventually became a focus for the new feminist movements of the
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late 1960s. Well the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) emerges in the late 1960s,
it was shaped both by its similarity to rst wave feminism in a way that both grew out in
its limited roles in Black Rights Movements (civil rights and anti slavery) and also by
changing its political order brought about by that earlier feminism. For example, in
1964 the criteria of sex was added to Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited
discrimination in employment, and the act was enforced by an equal opportunity
commission. In other ways, women’s liberation was radically different. Women’s
liberation extended the terms politics and the economy to sexuality, the body and
emotions and other areas of social life previously treated as personal only and the
household. The movements also created new political organisations - small anti
hierarchical consciousness raising groups, organised and acting independently of men
with a preference for direct action and alternative living patterns. The core of WLM, and
it’s socialist and radical heart, grew from radical groups such as r he New York
Redstockings whose founding membership included Anne Koedt and Shaulamith
Firestone; from a concern about reproductive issues (the Dialectic of Sex 1970) and
the Ubiquity of Patriarchy (Sexual politics 1970); from the rst women’s studies
programs such as Noemie Weinstein’s seminar at the Free University of Chicago in
1976; and from direct actions such as the 1968 Miss America demonstration when bras
were trashed but not burnt.

Another crucial stimulus was the appearance of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine
Mystique 1963, which criticised the idea that women could only nd ful lment through
child bearing and rearing. According to Friedan’s obituary in the New York Times the
feminist mystique digni ed the contemporary women’s movement in 1963 and as a
result permanently transformed the social fabric of the US and countries around the
world. In the book Frieden hypothesis that women are victims of the false belief system
that requires them to nd identity and meaning in their lives through their husbands
and their children. Such as system causes women to completely loose their identity in
that of their family. Friedan speci cally locates this system among post world war 2
middle class sub urban communities. At the same time, American post war economic
boom had led to the development of new technologies that was supposed to make
household work less dif cult but that often had the result of making women’s work less
meaningful and valuable. It also describes the frustration of white heterosexual middle
class women without careers logged into domesticity and Friendans founding of the
National Organisation of Women (NOW) in 1966. NOW adopted a reformist agenda
advocating educational and legal change but following its 1970s strike for abortion on
demand, 24 hour nurseries and equal opportunities. NOW added abortion and gay
rights to its platform at the 1977 NOW conference at Houston. The equal rights
amendment campaign supported by NOW, gathered together a large number of
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 women’s organisations to ght for state by state rati cation until the amendment
expired in 1982. This campaign radicalised a wide spectrum of American women.
Similarly by the 1990s campaigns such as Women against pornography and women
against violence against women, Bernice Reagan’s Coalition politics, AIDS activism,
third world women against violence and the national coalition of Black Gays, gained
support across America so that the women’s movement has continued to grow in spite
of New Right pro family campaign and Republican anti women budgets.

(25/08/2021) Britain

Although feminist ideas date before Afra Bhen, the rst full political argument for
women’s rights in Britain is Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the rights of women
(1792). Wollstonecraft based her argument on the analysis of the psychological and
economic damage done to women from a forced dependence on men and exclusion
from the public sphere. Although suffrage discussion were done or held, it was not until
1850s that feminism was recognised in public politics in Britain. Josephine butler’s
campaigns against the contagious diseases acts of 1864 (which required medical
examination of women suspected to be prostitutes) highlighted women’s legal
inferiority. In 1856 Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon’s A brief summery in plain language
of the most important laws concerning women (1854), initiated the campaign for a
married women’s property act and a national group of women organised through the
Langham Place group of feminist, organised a petition to parliament to widen the
electorate. Further parliamentary debates on electoral reforms inspired the founding of
the national society for women’s suffrage; supported by JS Mill whose the subjection of
women (1859) coauthored with his wife Harriet Taylor and is regarded as a classic
liberal argument for equal rights by the turn of the century labour women, women in the
arts, the women’s cooperative guild 1882 with its 18000 members and other suffrage
groups were combined in the national union of women’s suffrage society (NUWSS).
There were also radical working class feminist, for example, the women’s protective
and provident league 1874 which opposed protective legislation for men and the
exploitation of women workers. But it was the founding of the women’s social and
political union (WSPU) in 1903, by Emmeline Pankurst and her daughters, which has
become the best known organisation of rst wave feminism although equally important
were the NUWSS and the women’s freedom league (WFL). By 1908 a WSPU open air
meeting in Hyde Park attracted between a quarter and half million people and NUWSS
events similarly engaged large numbers of people. Feminism continued high public
pro le, militancy and shrewd political campaigning, together with the combined affects
of the WSPU, the WFL and the NUWSS ensured that with the end of the First World
War, at least a limited franchise would be considered for women aged over 30 (1918). 

First wave feminism, then, was a long lasting highly diverse movement stretching from
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before the liberalism of Mary Wollstonecraft to the militant activism of Edwardian
feminism. The NUWS became the National Union of Societies for equal citizenship in
1919 and by the 1920s and 1930s its energy was devoted to the political education of
women. It joined the women’s cooperative guild, the women’s labour league and the
six point group in 1921. The six objectives of this group are equal pay, widows
pensions, equal rights of guardianship, and laws on child assault, equal civil services
opportunities, and provision for unmarried mothers. These early decades of the 20th
century saw divisions between old feminists such as Ray Strachey, who wanted to end
protective legislation and new feminists such as Eleanor Rathbone, who campaigned
for the endowment of motherhood and family allowances. These were the decades of
campaigning for equal pay, for example, the annual resolution acts at labour women’s
conferences; paci st feminism in the women’s international league for peace and
freedom (WILPF); and the anti fascist activism of a wide variety of feminist women. In
1968 the Rhizome Militant Feminism which in 1968 which started in America became
visible in Britain. The same involvement in and the same disenchantment with, New
Left causes (in Britain the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Vietnam
Solidarity Campaign) marks the British women’s liberation movement as much as it’s
American sisters. What was an additional, uniquely British, inspiration was the impact
of the militancy of women workers in the Ford strike (1968) for equal pay. The rst
women’s liberation conference at Ruskin college Oxford (1970) had over 600
participants, and funnelled socialist and liberation energies into demands for equal pay,
24 hour child care, free contraception and abortion on demand. 

Gerda Lerner - The Creation of Feminist Consciousness from the Middle Ages to 1870 

(26/08/2021) together with its papers shrew 1969, Spare rib (1972) and Wires (1975),
the WLM battled to defend women from sexual and domestic balance by founding the
innovative battered women’s refuges and rape crisis centre. The WLM launched
campaigns such as women against violence against women and reclaimed the right
and worked to advance employment rights in a working women’s charter 1974
supported by the national trade union council . This pursuit of equal opportunities led to
the practical af rmative action programmes of the municipal women’s committees of
which the largest and most successful ones was that of the greater London council
(1982). Thus far reaching London programme gave over 4.5 million to women’s
projects until its disbandment in 1986 by the conservative government. 

The history of feminism consists of three waves . The rst wave appeared in the 19th
century. The second wave appeared in the 1960s and 1970s and the third wave
started from the 1990s to the present. It takes a number of forms in a variety of
disciplines such as feminist geography, feminist history, literary criticism. Feminism has
changed aspects of western society. Most of the leaders of feminist social and political
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movements and feminist theories have been middle class white women, predominantly
in Britain, France and the US at least since Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech to US
feminists, however, women of other races have proposed alternative feminism. This
trend accelerated in the 1960s with the Civil Rights movement in the US and the
collapse of European colonialism in Africa and European colonies and the third world
have proposed alternative post colonial and third world feminisms as well. Some third
world feminists or post colonial feminists such as Chandra Talpade Mohanti, are critical
of western feminism for being ethnocentric. Black feminist such as Angela Davis and
Alice Walker, share this view. Since the 1980s, standpoint feminist have argued that
the feminist movement should address global issues (such as rape, incest and
prostitution) and culturally speci c issues (such as female genital mutilation in some
parts of Africa and Middle East and glass ceiling practices that impede women
advancement in developed economies). In order to understand how gender inequality
interacts with racism, homophobia, lesbophobia, colonialism and classism in the
“matrix of domination”. Some feminists have argued that gendered and sexed identities
such as “man” and “women” are social constructs. The rst wave refers to the feminist
movements of the 19th through early 20th centuries which mainly dealt with the
suffrage movements. (Book - by Miram Sechneir) The second wave (1960s to 1980s)
dealt with the inequality of laws as well as the cultural inequalities. The third wave
(1990s to present) is seen as both a continuation and a response to the perceived
failure of the second wave. 

First wave feminism 

It refers to a period of feminist activity during the 19th century and early 20th century in
the UK and the US. Originally it focused on equal rights of contract and property and
opposition to chattel marriage and ownership of married women (and their children) by
husbands by the end of the 19th century. Activism focused primarily on gaining political
power - the right of women suffrage, though feminist like Voltairine de Cleyre and
Margret Sanger were still active in campaigning for women’s sexual and reproductive
and economic rights at this time. The term rst wave was coined retrospectively after
the term second wave feminism began to be used to describe a newer feminist
movement that focused as much on ghting social and cultural inequalities as further
political inequalities. (Book - by Sharda Ahmed). 

Second wave feminism 

It refers to a period of feminist activities beginning in the early 1970s and lasting
through the late 1980s and it was a continuation of the earlier phase of feminism that
involved the suffragettes in the UK and US. Second wave feminism has existed
continuously since then and continuance to echo exist with what is third wave
feminism. The second wave feminism saw a cultural and political inequalities as
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 inextricable linked. The movement encouraged women to understand aspects of their
own personal life as deeply publicised, and re ective of a sexist structure of power. If
rst wave feminism focused upon absolute rights such as suffrage, second wave
feminism was largely concerned with other issues of equality, such as end to
discrimination. 

Third wave feminism 

It began in the early 1990s. the movement arose as a response to perceived failures of
the second wave. It was also as response to the backlash against initiatives and
movements created by the second wave. Third wave feminism seeks to challenge or
avoid what it deems the second waves “essentialist” de nitions of feminity, which
overemphasised the experiences of upper middle class white women. A post
structuralism interpretation of gender and sexuality is central too much of the third
waves ideology. Third wave feminist often focus on “micro politics” and challenge the
second wave’s paradigm as to what is or is not good for females.

Thus in the western world various social, ideological and political circumstances were
responsible for encouraging the women’s movements for gender equality. In erstwhile
Communist countries, especially Russia, Lenin and his wife Krupskaya were great
advocates of women’s equality and Soviet rule gave equal rights to women. Russian
women workers with men in secret police and in the army. In fascist countries women
were valued for pro did not favour women participation in war efforts. He said a
women’s battle eld is her home where she produces children for the nation. Thus
fascist countries did not encourage women’s movements. 

(27/08/2021) In India women’s movement was born out of the social reforms
movement of the 19th and 20th century. At rst philanthropic men initiated welfare
programs for women, later on, women took the lead themselves by starting all india
women’s conference. Gandhi’s encouragement of women taking part in the freedom
struggle gave a new con dence to women and helped the women’s movement. All
feminists are concerned about women’s subordination and want to nd out it’s cause.
Within the women’s movement there have been 3 major ideological positions
described as liberal feminism, radical feminism and socialist feminism. They differ in
their analysis of the causes of the subordinate position of women and consequently in
their action programs. 

Liberal feminism started in 18th century in Europe. It is the most widely known form of
feminist thought. It is certainly the ‘moderate or mainstream’ phase of feminism. Liberal
philosophy was based on reason, equality and individual freedom. In this approach the
explanation for women’s position in society is seen in terms of unequal rights or
arti cial barrier to women’s participation in the public world, beyond the family and
household. The focus of liberal feminist was on the public sphere on legal, political and
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institutional struggles for the rights of individuals to compete in the public market. 

The basic idea of liberal feminism was that women are foremost human beings and not
sexual beings. Women should have freedom to act according to their wishes, as they
are rational creatures and they should not be denied natural rights. Though some times
this freedom from social restraints is understood in terms of freedom from interference
by the state or government, more often it is seen as freedom from the bonds of custom
or prejudice. The liberals accepted the Sex role differences and expected women to
take care of the home and thus contribute to the well-being of society. But they
contended that both sexes are equal and so women should have the same role like
men. In this context it can be mentioned that the Indian social reformers of 19th
century have similar thoughts. Liberal feminist political strategies re ect a conception
of a fundamentally sexually undifferentiated human nature that is since women are
much the same as men. So women should the same what men can do but they did not
emphasise upon the reform of society rather than revolutionary changes. Liberal
feminism draws on welfare feminism - a form of liberal political thought in uenced by
writers such as JS Mill. Liberal feminist also take from welfare liberalism a limited
acknowledgment of social or collective responsibility, that is they accept a need for
some intervention in the competition between individuals for social opportunities and
reject so called Laissez faire liberalism which argues that freedom and justice are best
served by nominal government and that a just and natural inequality will emerge if
individuals are left to their own devices. In 1960s, liberal feminism extended the
concept of equality to new areas like demand for children facilities, rights of poor
women and controls over ones reproductive life. Liberals accepted the existing social
order and also wanted equal rights but they were not able to provide more insights into
causes of inferior status of women. 

Radical feminism started in the 1970s. This feminism, unlike liberal and Marxist/
socialist feminism is not drawn directly from previous bodies of male stream thought. It
has some links with liberal feminism example some feminist spoke of sexual politics
but it offers a real challenge and rejection of the liberal orientation towards the public
world of men. Liberal feminism did not consider the connection between sexual
oppression, sexual division of labour and the economic class structure. So, it claimed
for reforms. Indeed it gives a positive value to women-hood rather than supporting a
notion of assimilating women into arenas of activity associated with men. Radical
feminist demand the destruction of patriarchy. It pays attention to women’s oppression
as women in a social order dominated by men. Kate Millet, Germane Greer etc are
some well known radical feminists who see patriarchy as male control over women’s
fertility. Actually, the distinguishing character of women’s oppression is their oppression
as women not as oppression as another groups such as their social class. Hence the
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explanation for women’s oppression is seen as lying in sexual oppression. Women are
oppressed because of their sex. He Notion shared oppression is intimately connected
with a strong emphasis on the sisterhood of women. There is a strategic focus on
women’s similarity and the pledges of forming political and other bonds between
women in a world where such bonds are marginalised or dismissed. In this context
Johnson comments - ‘One of the basic tents of radical feminism is that any women…
has more in common with any other women regardless of class, race, age, ethnic
group, nationality - than any women has with any man.’ Sexual oppression is seen as
the oldest and even the most profound form of inequality. The radicals believe
patriarchy is an autonomous fact rooted in biology than economy and according to
them the gender relations are the fundamental form of oppression. Due to the
biological differences there is the male domination of power over women in society.
The Radical do not favour marriage and family because these institutions help to
establish patriarchy in society. Given the signi cance of patriarchy to radical feminism,
it is appropriate to provide a brief account of the term. 

(31/08/2021) The subject of considerable debate remains widely used and refers to the
systematic organisation of male supremacy and female subordination. Starcy
summarises three major instances of its usage - historical, mentalist and psychological.
She notes that some feminist employ patriarchy to trace the historical emergence and
development of systems of male domination. Others used the term to explore the
sexual division of labour and nally certain feminists perceived the term as enabling
recognition of the deep rooted nature of male dominance in the very formation and
organisation of ourselves (The Psychological or Unconscious internalising of social
patterns). Radical feminism describes the sexual oppression as the very least a
fundamental form of oppression and the primary oppression for women. 

(Feminism - A very short introduction by Margret Walters) 

Men as a group are considered to be the bene ciaries of this systematic form of power.
In radical feminism all men are unambigiously viewed as having power over atleast
some women. Indeed this approach suggests that it is stated that radical feminists
perceive all men without exception as sharing in the bene ts of a social system of male
supremacy patriarchy. This does not however mean that all men are invariably
oppressive to all women all the time. Nor does this deny that some men at least, may
struggle to overcome this system of domination. Radical feminist thinkers consider
sexual oppression to be profoundly entrenched frequently depicting it as the original
form of coercive power. Other radical feminists writers note that male domination is a
social structure and not t he consequence of some inbuilt male propensity. In other
words feminists in this tradition see a difference between men and women as
inevitable. Indeed the radical present a social and political change required to
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 overthrow the system of male domination as far reaching. They generally advocate a
revolutionary model of social change and want women to unite and become self reliant
and overthrow male domination by a complete sexual revolution. 

Socialist feminism is still in ascent form. Socialist feminist attempt to maintain some
elements of marxism regarding the signi cance of class distinction and labour. All
social feminists assert that women subordination predated the development of class
based society and hence that women’s oppression could not be caused by class
division. Even in socialist society they feel that to bring equality only the overthrow of
capitalism is not enough but the overthrow of patriarchy is also essential. There are
several versions of socialist feminism which sometimes incorporate the in uence of
psychoanalytic feminism. The three major socialist feminism traditions which may be
described as deriving from debates between radical and Marxist feminists. The rst
strand involves a concern with the social construction of sex (gender). The second
major strand of socialist feminism attempts to draw the work of radical and Marxist
feminists into one theory to as capitalist patriarchy. The third form of socialist feminism
offers a more full blown account of systems in which sexual and class oppression
interact but are not cast as dependent forms. This version of socialsit feminism are
identi ed by their views of the relationship between class and sex that is the
relationship between capitalism and patriarchy. According to socialist feminists
women’s subordinate status is rooted in private property and class divided society. The
powerlessness of women is rooted in four basic structures : those of production,
reproduction, sexuality and socialisation of children. Some socialist feminist also think
that women’s oppression is based on unpaid domestic work. They are not anti man;
they believe in collaboration , the term support their cause. So in general it can be said
that feminism is for liberation and it is also for equality. For a long time there had been
a accepted tendency that all types of activities related to women who the private
domain of individual within the family. Due to this belief, women’s issues were
discussed only within the household domain however the gradual change in the
attitudes towards women’s questions had started including different dimensions. A new
kind of awareness is visible among women and this phenomenon has given rise to
women’s movements. Women’s movement is the most dominant thrust areas of
gender studies having an interdisciplinary nature. It has a way as well as an indicator
of social change because until now women have been in back pages with an inferior
status in the society as compared to the male counterparts.

Feminist movement/origin in the west


By the 1980s western feminism could no longer be divided into three general
categories of liberal, radical and Marxist/socialist traditions because many other
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 possibilities of feminist perspectives became a feature of academic feminism at least.
Psychoanalysis was one of the more in uential stream of thought which could be
reassessed by feminist in western countries. The work of psychoanalysis was
reconsidered as an element within the work of some Marxist/socialist feminist.
Psychoanalytic feminists share in common with radical feminism - an interest in the
issue of difference in relation to the sexes. The in uence of psychoanalysis has
produced two major varients. One is Freudian feminism which attended to the
signi cance of psychology and added scienti c justi cation to claims for female
inferiority by analysing the impact of women’s responsibility for mothering. The second
groupings are Lacanian feminist who draw upon the work of Jacks lackn, an interpreter
of Freud’s analytical method. Lacanian feminist approaches are linked with French and
to a lesser extent some British and Australian writers. There are two subgroups waiting
Lacanian feminism that is those who more or less follow Lacan’s interpretation of
psychoanalysis and those who may be described as post Lacanian or French
feminists. 

(01/09/2021) Q. Feminism in the French revolution/ Feminist movement during
the French Revolution / Attempts of gender equality by feminist movements in
the French revolution.

French feminism has a long history; its roots go back far beyond the onset of new
ideas that map the revolution. Since the renaissance, indeed since the Middle Ages,
French women and men-have argued for equality of legal and political rights for the
sexes. Many think of the natural human rights men gained with the adoption of the
declaration of THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND CITZENS in august of 1798. However, most
people disregard the progress in women’s rights that also occurred during the
revolution as Shirley Elson Roessler author of the book Out of the Shadows, says “the
topic of women’s participation of French Revolution has generally received little
attention from historians, who have displayed a tendency to minimize the role of
women in the major events of those years or else to ignore it altogether”. before 1789,
the idea of rights of women fell on deaf ears in part this lack of interest followed from
the fact that women were not considered prosecuted group like Jews or slaves while it
is true that women did not gain explicit rights during this time, the women of the French
revolution and the activities they participated in did in uence feminism. And women’s
rights from that point forward. The French women’s March on Versailles, their political
clubs and pamphlets, and their prominent women political gures all contributed to
changing the way women were viewed in society. Although these views and rights
were taken away again during Napoleon’s rule, they set the precedent for women’s
right in the future.

During the ancient regime, the political and social system in France before the
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 revolution occurred, both single and married women had few rights although women’s
property rights and nancial independence met with many restriction under French law
and custom. Most men and women agreed with Rousseau and other Enlightenment
thinkers that women belonged in the private sphere of the home and therefore had no
role to play in public affairs. Most of France’s female population worked as peasants,
shopkeepers, laundresses and the like yet women were de ned primarily by their sex
and relationship in marriage and not by their own occupations. Until they were
married, women were controlled by their father and after marriage this control shifted to
the husband. Women had no power over their property or even over their own person.
Economically their situation was also unfavorable. They were not paid well and the law
con ned women to domestic service, heavy labor and underpaid labor-intensive
industries like the lace trade. They did have a few small political rights e.g., women in
religious orders and noble women were allowed to send representatives to the state’s
general, however these rights were insigni cant compared to those of men so women
never gained full political rights during the French Revolution. No of the national bodies
considered legislation granting political rights of women (they could neither vote nor
hold of ce). most deputies thought the very idea outlandish. For the most part people
thought women can stay at home and raise children and they sexual equality was a
bad idea. These ideas were age old truths of western civilization and they were also
more recently in uenced by the French enlightenment philosopher Jean Jacques
Rousseau who strongly believed that women should not engage in politics.

Very Imp. During the late 1780s women felt as if they were losing the few traditional
rights they originally possessed and that their roles were gradually being eroded by
state intervention

(02/09/2021) Brochures started to appear in 1787 arguing for higher education, access
to higher paying jobs and equality in marriage for women. All of these ideas about
economic and sexual equality that were rst brought up during the French Revolution
have continued to recur in society through present day. But unlike today, only a few
men during the eighteenth century agreed that gender equality should become reality.
One of them, the Marquis de Condorcet, thought women should be able to vote and
published a newspaper article in support of full political rights for women. Even though
many disagreed with Condorcet and his feminist friends, it was a big breakthrough that
there were both men and women who agreed women should have equal rights, argued
for a liberal divorce law and reform in inheritance laws as well, a view that is common
place today. 

The march on Versailles on October 5, 1789 was the rst major event that helped set
the tone for women in politics. Because of a series of bad harvest and the country’s
debt from their support of the American revolution and bankrolling Marie Antoinette’s
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expensive taste, bread prices were skyrocketing in the summer and fall of 1789.
Wages were so low that poor a need working class women were having trouble
feeding their families. Some began to participate in riots such as the Reveillon riot in
Paris against low wages and even the Bastille riot on July 13, 1789. By October Paris
was starving and despite many riots there was still no food. In the March of Versailles,
women put bread on bikes and marched from Paris to Versailles. Men followed the
women and together they captured the king and brought him and his family back to
Paris to see the living conditions. This was a turning point in the revolution for women
because it showed that they could help the cause, and thus were lot politically
irrelevant as previously thought. Also, even though the men that marched served as a
escorts or came separately from the women, the March still showed that men and
women were able to work side by side as equals to accomplish a goal, in this case
humiliating the out of touch monarchs. 

Starting in the 1790s, women were again seen in a new way politically. After a
representative government started in France women changed their tactic from writing
political pamphlets to participating in political clubs. Political clubs - emerging in the last
quarter of 18th Century- had originally been all men but women began to come as
spectators to clubs such as the Jacobins and Cordeliers in Paris. There experience of
political awakening led to over 30 women’s clubs being created in French cities such
as Dijon, Lyon, and Bordeaux, in addition to Paris. The multiple locations of these clubs
prove how the idea of women’s rights was already beginning to spread its in uence
nationwide. Both men and women representatives from the clubs began to petition the
National Assembly about higher education for women as well as ideas for the
revolution. One woman Theroigne de Mericourt, founded Amis de la loi a short lived
coed society meant to “enlighten the populace in political matters and to dispel fear
and ignorance”. Despite being a women she decided to propose an idea for a new
building for the National Assembly. Although her proposal was denied, “the action was
noteworthy that a women made such an address at that time”. This concept of women
taking noteworthy political actions proves that political clubs were helping women to
overcome boundaries and possess more con dence in addressing men. They were
trying to contribute to the revolution and to their own well-being, a big step up from
sitting at home with children as they were so relegated in the ancient regime and
before. 

Beyond starting their own clubs women were able to assert their sexual identity by
founding and participating in dual gender clubs. A mix club was created in Paris in
1790. Women and men participated equally in discussion and elections. For example
there were both male and female secretaries and four male and female helped select
new members and introduce them to the society. The club increased rapidly in
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popularity and members and led to many similar clubs in Paris. In these troupes of
clubs that welcomed women, “the basis was established for the process of women’s
politicisation”. One example of this is the club, Societe de Indigents created by Louis-
Marie Trudhomme, a one time anti feminist editor and journalist of a newspaper
Revolutions de Paris, the club not only accepted women but was run by Trudhomme’s
very own wife. This transformation of a male revolutionary from and advocate of
sexism into a proponent of his wife’s political equality clearly depicts the evolution of
women’s status in French Revolution. 

Although political clubs now played a large role for women’s politics, pamphlets and
brochures for women’s rights were still being published in the background. One
pamphleteer, Olympe de Gouges, wrote a declaration of women’s equality that rings
true even to this day. De Gouges, the daughter of a butcher was born in 1743 and was
self educated. By the beginning of the revolution she had already written many
pamphlets. Despite the success of her previous work, it wasn’t until September 1791
that she wrote her most famous document in response to the discriminatory essence of
the new French constitution.

In august of 1789, the National Assembly had adopted the declaration of rights of man
and citizens. A document spelling out human liberty that was eventually used in
France’s constitution 1791. Ironically, although the declaration supposedly spelled out
human rights, they only applied to free, non enslaved men. For ex the article one of the
declaration, “men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinction may
be only bare on considerations of the common good.” The article helps to demonstrate
that the basic human rights applied for the rst time during the revolution was not basic
human rights at all - they were solely for men. The preamble of the declaration also
states that the documents purpose is to set forth “the natural, unalienable, and sacred
rights of man”, further highlighting the complete ignorance of women and the strong
roles they had played thus far in the revolution.

De Gouges, based her September 1791 pamphlet on the declaration of the rights of
man and citizens, speaking of the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of women” that
mirrored those of men. She bravely went further, suggesting that “property belongs to
both sexes whether united or separated”suggesting that she strongly believed that
women should be able to live lives independent of a husband if they choose. Gouges
even encouraged women to “wake up and recognise their rights” in her writing,
Awakening a new view that women truly deserved to be given equal rights to men. 

(03/09/2021)

Rights were something that they, as humans, were entitled to. Although Olympe de
Gouges was later executed during the reign of terror for a writing, her work was forever
preserved as proof of the changing view of women’s rights during the French
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Revolution. Many inconceivable ideas, such as the freedom of opinion and thought,
were suddenly encouraged to the point where women felt like they’re entitled to these
rights. This entitlement to freedom has in uenced women through modern day.

Male revolutionaries promptly rejected every call for equal rights for women but their
reactions and print and in speech show that these demands troubled their conception
of the proper role for women. Now they had to explain themselves; rejection of
women’s rights was no longer automatic, in part because the revolutionary
governments established divorce, with equal rights for women ensuing for divorce and
granted girls equal rights to the inheritance of family property. In February 1791, one of
the leading newspapers responded explicitly to Condorcet’s article demanding equal
political rights for women. Te editor Louis-Marie Prudhomme restated the view,
commonly attributed to Rousseau, that nature determined different but complementary
roles for men and women. During the discussion of a new constitution in April 1793, the
issue of women’s rights came up once again. The spokesperson for the constitutional
committee retested the arguments against equal rights for women but he admitted that
deputies have begun to speak out in favour of women’s rights. He cited in particular the
pamphlets by Deputy Pierre Guyomar insisting that women should have the right to
vote and hold of ce. 

Unfortunately for 19th century women, when Napoleon took over France in 1799, most
of the progress they’ve made in terms of gaining rights and being recognised as
politically equal would be reversed. Napoleon have even been quoted as saying “the
husband must possess the absolute power and right to say to his wife : Madame you
shall not go out, you shall not go to the theatre, you shall not visit such and such
person : for the children you bear, they shall be mine”. 

However if the short term effect on women’s rights have failed, the long term effect was
certainly opposite. Many of the rights women in North America, Europe and other parts
of the world enjoy today match up perfectly with the rights Olympe de Gouges
espoused in the pamphlets - including equality with men, freedom of speech and
opinion and the right to own property. Women in America in the 1920s fought for the
right to vote, a right rst brought up by the Marques de Condorcet during the
revolution. And nally, the sense of entitlement that women today feel about the rights
we have and the fact that they should be equal to men dates back to the pamphlets
spread during the French Revolution. With all the modern day evidence of women’s
rights that were rst articulated, if not put to action during the French Revolution, it is
clear the revolution played a major role in in uencing women’s rights for centuries to
come. 

FEMINISM IN SOCIALIST COUNTRIES 

Revolutionary role in socialist countries

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 It has been hugely considered in the US for almost hundred years that the socialist
revolutions in Russia (1917), China (1949) and Cuba (1959) constituted a danger to
the world. Every US president demonised each country and it’s leadership as such it is
understandable that Most people here possess little factual knowledge about the extra
ordinary advances for women that quickly followed each revolution. 

While many advances have been achieved through hard struggle by and for women in
the more progressive or social democratic capitalist countries, what distinguishes
socialist women’s movements from those in capitalist countries is the idea that
complete women’s liberation cannot be one independent of the liberation for all people
and the total transformation of society. 

Socialist revolution in Russia , China and Cuba saw immediate gain for women in
employment in opportunities, income, worker’s protection, healthcare, reproductive
rights, education, child care, personal freedoms and protection from violence. 

The union of soviet socialist republics - The US ruling class made opposition to
revolutionary socialism and communism a cornerstone in its political outlook ever since
the successful Russian revolution led by the Bolshevik party in November 1917 that
deposed Czar Nicholas II, the wealthy aristocratic and rich landholders. This was not
out of any special loyalty to the Czar or any principle to oppose changes of
government. What was different in Russia was that it proved that those at the bottom of
society namely, the working class, could cease power from the rich, and then hold that
power. The Russian revolution provided a living example of what had previously just
been theory; it provided a universal lesson for oppressed people everywhere that there
was hope in revolution. 

The Russian revolutionary state led by Vladimir Lenin, immediately began to ful l its
promise of “Bread, Peace and Land” for the workers and peasants of this huge, largely
poor and backward agricultural society, where only a few major cities had experienced
industrialisation. 

One of the rst acts of the new government was to withdraw from World war 1 to
demonstrate opposition to pitting worker against worker, angering the US and other
aligned belligerents. In 1918, pro-Czarist counter revolutionary forces (called the white
army as opposed to the revolutionary red army), lunched a bitter civil war to return
Russia to aristocratic control. The US and 13 other countries invaded Russia with
troops and war materials on the side of the counter-revolutionaries. It took 2 years of
ghting until it was clear they were unable to turn the red tide, not least because as
interlopers and supporters of the hated old ruling classes, they enjoyed very little
support from the masses of Russian people. The revolutionaries initial seizure of power
was essentially quick and bloodless but the civil war took millions of life before the
masses of Russia nally defeated the counter revolution and consolidated their victory. 

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Before the revolution, women’s work for the majority of Russians was hard household
and farm labour. In the home women had no rights and were at the mercy of their men.
Violence against women were rampant as world war 1 approached and Russia began
to industrialise, women started to work in industry, making up a third of the counties
relatively small industrial labour force. With no family bene ts women factory workers
suffered a two third rate of infant mortality. Women joined the Bolshevik party in large
numbers, and the party called for pay equity, maternity leave, child care at factories,
and an end to wife beating (which had been legal at the time) - and peace. 

After the revolution, the early years of the Soviet Union saw dramatic gains in the lives
of women, both on paper and on practice. These gains were rooted in the participation
of Russian working women in the Bolshevik Party and the connection between the
working class and women’s struggle in fact, it was an international women’s day
March of women textile workers jn Petrograd in opposition to world war 1, High prices
and the oppression of women’s workers that led to the massive strike movement that
overthrew the Czar in the rst stage of the Russian revolution in February 1917. 

(07/09/2021) soviet women gained full legal and political equality immediately after the
revolution, including the right to vote. Some of the more isolating and burdensome
chores that continued women’s work began to be socialised, with the establishment of
communal kitchens, dining halls and daycare centres. Abortion was legalised, free and
on demand. In the workplace , women became eligible for the same jobs as men. In
the civil services, industry, the party and the armed forces. Women workers had paid
maternity leaves. Homosexuality was decriminalised. The right to divorce was
equalised and the concept of “illegitimacy” was abolished. Universal education was
mandated and began to wipe out rampant illiteracy. 

All this happened immediately after the revolution. This was an astonishing pace of
change for the legal, social and economic rights of women and undoubtedly
unparalleled in any capitalist country, where the states makes winning the most
elementary reforms a better struggle.

The main obstacle facing the Soviet government in this period was that the country did
not have an adequate system of administration or the technological means - given the
paltry state of even basic communications - to immediately bring all these changes to
every city, town and village. In these initial years, the revolutionary government’s main
role with respect to women’s oppression was to wipe out old reactionary laws and
create new ones on the basis of equality. This created new legal framework for women
on the ground, acting individually or in special women’s organisation to ght and make
the new laws a reality. 

Alexander Kollontai, a revolutionary communist and feminist, commissioner of Soviet
welfare and the rst women to serve as a Soviet diplomat, staunchly bagged the
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 extensive changes in the status of women and was a leader of these special women’s
organisations. Kollontai’s views of sex and marriage were largely sidelined by men and
women in her party particularly what was called “free love”. By this she meant sexual
romantic relationships freed from bourgeois possession and property. Her view of
women is expressed in this quote “I was believed that the time inevitably must come
when women will be judged by the same moral standards applied do men. For it is not
her speci c feminine virtue that gives a place of honour in human society but the worth
of the useful mission accomplished by her, the worth of personality as human being, as
citizen, as thinker, as ghter.”

Some of the gains for women’s were reversed in the 1930sunder Stalin , where nearly
all social, cultural and political trends were subordinated to the task of rebuilding
national unity and strength, war preparations and production more generally. Women
were again taught their place in the nuclear family. Homosexuality was recriminalised
and abortion was restricted. Marriage and divorce laws became more conservative. 

(08/09/2021) 

(09/09/2021) THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA

Cuba, a small underdeveloped agricultural island in the shadow of the Yankee
Colossus 90 miles North, had been under military and then political control by the US
since 1899. This ended abruptly a new year's day 1959 when the revolutionary
movement led by Fidel Castro ousted US puppet dictator Fulgencio Batista. Within a
year Uncle Sam began to impose draconian sanctions that expanded into s strict
blockade, which is still in effect at the time of this writing. The US govt likewise
launched an intense effort to subvert and overthrow the revolutionary govt, using a
multitude of tactics.

The condition and rights of women improved with the end of direct US domination
despite the hardships of the economic and trade blockade.

Cuba set the goal of full emancipation of women from the very beginning of its
revolution. Calling the struggle for women's equality the "revolution within the
revolution", Cuba has understood that women's liberation cannot be achieved
overnight but must be a part of ongoing process of education, legislation and the
engagement of the country's women. Despite over a half century of imperialist trade
blockade, constant political interference by the US, and the economic hardships
caused by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Cuba has continued to move in the
direction of increased rights, bene ts and equality for women. 

Women had to overcome decades of oppression , illiteracy and a complete lack of
economic opportunity, that existed before the revolution. Those who were employed
outside the home worked mostly as domestic servants and agricultural labourers.
Many worked as prostitutes, others did homework such as suing or making cigars. The
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Cuban economy was not yet developed enough to provide suf cient jobs for this new
work force, so the state rst focused on educating women so they would be
employable in the future, when the economy could support them, and organising them
to teach others. In fact young women and girls played leading roles in the revolutions
literacy brigades, travelling through the countryside to teach rural residents how to read
and write and helping to create one of the most literate societies in the world.

The Cuban Constitution explicitly grants women equal economic, political, cultural,
social and familiar rights with men and prohibits discrimination based in race, skin
colour, sex, national origin, religious belief or any other form of discrimination. These
rights are further supported by provisions in various laws including the ground breaking
Family Code of 1975, which requires men to participate equally in domestic labour,
guarantees equal rights to women and men in marriage and divorce, equal parental
rights and equal property and social rights for women in the home. Provisions in the
Penal Code , legislated in 1979 and 1984 provided additional penalties for violations of
sexual equality.

Cuba was the rst country to sign and the second to ratify, the UN 1979 Convention on
the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1980-81.
The US has never rati ed it. The National Action Plan was instituted in 1997 to
implement the terms of the fourth UN Conference on Women in Beijing.

The Cuban women's movement has been important in furthering women's gains .
Women took part in the revolution including in leadership roles from the beginning.

The Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) is the national agency responsible for the
advancement of women. It was founded in 1960 by Vilma Espin, a leader of the
revolution. The FMC is a non governmental org with close ties to the govt.

The FMC has been integral in shaping the Family Code and ghting for its
implementation. According to Espin: "We had to change women's mentality-
accustomed as they were to playing a secondary role in society. Our women has
endured years of discrimination. We had to show her own possibilities, her ability to do
all kinds of work. We had to make her feel the urgent needs of our revolution in the
construction of our new life. We had to change both women's image of herself and
society's image of women". 

An important early initiative to assist some of the most oppressed an exploited women
in Cuba was the creation of schools for domestic servants. The rst one opened in
Hawana in April 1961; eventually sone 30 thousand women were enrolled at hundreds
of schools all over the country. Students studied the revolution: agrarian reform, rent
reform and urban reform as well as vocational skills to prepare them for other work by
1968 the schools were no longer needed and were closed.

To help eliminate stereotypes, the FMC conducts training for public speakers and
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writers and sets up counselling centres for women and families. Curriculum, textbooks,
band communications are constantly been revised to eliminate sexist, patriarchal or
discriminatory language and values. Parenting (if not yet equal housework) is
increasingly shared by fathers and mothers, and the new generation is growing up to
express these values. The Federation has also established a program of sensitising
judges, lawyers, the police and even law students to women's experiences and
perspectives. They oversee the judiciary to ensure that women's complaints are
answered at every stage of investigation.

Today women in Cuba comprise 44% of the labor force. They are 66.4% of all
technicians, mid level professionals and higher degree professionals. They make up
72% of all educational workers, 67% of health workers including 72% of doctors and
43% of all science workers. These gures represented remarkable achievement,
although more signi cant being accomplished by a poor nation under imperialist
blockade.

While much progress has been made in the area of pay equity, there's still work to be
done to increase women's access to the very top levels of professions and government
in which men predominate and to continue to change male attitudes towards shared
housework and child raising so that women are freed from a double day.

Political participation, and that of women, is especially Hugh in Cuba. The
government's policy for the advancement of women, along with the work carried out by
FMC, has led to signi cance progress in women's participation in govt. As of 2013
women comprise 48.9% of the national assembly ranking Cuba's legislature third in the
world in women's participation. About half the judges including the people's supreme
court are women.

(10/09/2021) Infant and maternal mortality and reproductive rights are a priority. Cuba's
2014 infant mortality rate - deaths under 1 year old - is 4.7 per thousand live births, on
a par with Canada and the lowest in Latin America. This gure is one and one half
points better than the US in the aggregate and lower than the district of Columbia's
rate of 7.9 per thousand live births and Detroit's 13.3 per thousand. 

Abortion is free, as in all healthcare and available on demand. About 77% of sexually
active women use contraception.

Infant day care centres are a govt mandated bene t as are paid maternity and
paternity leave. 

Crimes of violence against women , especially rape and sexual assault, are severely
punished in Cuba. In of cial circles violence against women had previously been seen
as something that was taken care of as part of the revolution. However after the UN's
fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 the FMC began travelling the
country to nd out if there was hidden violence and to set up mechanisms for reporting
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and for community intervention.

The traditional imbalance in work load in the home for men and women was cited by
many as the most common form of injustice affecting women within the family not
physical violence. 

They also found that in view of the strong social cohesion and close communication
networks between families and neighbourhoods, cases of violence against women
couldn't be hidden and when it became known community intervention would be likely.

Mariela Castro, daughter of Vimla Espin and President Raul Castro and leader of the
National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX) address this issue in a 2008 interview,
"Women everywhere in all patriarchal societies are the victims of violence. I call it the
pathology of power, since it is about exerting power unevenly. ...we have severe laws
against domestic violence and very harsh sentences, mainly for cases of sexually
abused children. ...the FMC is launching more and more information and education
campaigns to increase public awareness especially among women who are the main
victims. But men are also victims of their upbringing and the way manhood is potrayed
all over the world, which makes them very vulnerable and likely to become victimizers.
So we have a lot of work to do because what we are doing is not enough. ...it's more
common among older people and decreasing among the younger ones. … we have
made great progress but not enough to be able to atleast make a few changes." 

Because gender based violence cannot be eradicated by legal means alone, the
country, led by Cenesex and the FMC has launched education programs for men and
boys as well as women and girls; arts and media campaigns to change the way women
are represented in public images and tourist advertising; and programs to increase
opportunities for women. These efforts were lauded by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-
Moon in 2014 speech in Hawana.

LGBTQ rights are advancing in Cuba , reversing a strong history of heterosexual
cutlture. Sexual relations between same sex conserving adults and over have been
legal in Cuba since 1979 and Cuba's 2018 Constitution de nes marriage as
"consensual union of two people regardless of gender. Hawana now has open and
vibrant gay cultural scene. Educational campaigns on LGBTQ issues are currently
implemented by Cenesex and Cuba now provides citizens with gender af rmation
surgery (called "Gender changed surgery" in Cuba) for free.

The years 2014-15 saw two signi cant occurrences in the direction of more rights for
the LGBTQ community. Mariela Castro voted in the National Assembly against a new
labour law that banned discrimination based on sexual orientation because it did not
also ban discrimination based on gender identity and on May 9, 2015 one thousand
LGBTQ Cubans, led by Mariela marched in Hawana in the eighth annual march
against Homophobia and Transphobia where 20 couples changed symbolic vows.

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By law women have pay equity with men in the labour force. Even in the 1990s during
the special period in time of peace, a period of extreme economic hardship as a result
of loss of Cuba's primary trading partner after the collapse of Soviet Union, great
efforts were made to keep gender equality during this economic crisis. The govt had
long outlawed prostitution and all but eradicated the practice by 1990, de ning it a
manifestation of colonialism and oppression. But prostitution returned to Cuba during
the period of extreme economic calamity for the whole nation, in which they lost 85% of
their foreign trade. It took almost a decade for the country to recover .

Before the revolution, Cuba was the center of sex tourism for wealthy US elites but
after the revolution the practice was largely eliminated with comprehensive
educational, social and employment programs for Cuba's poor communities during the
special period , dual economy rose from the combination of the extreme economic
hardship and the acceptance of US dollars from tourists. This further contributed to the
return of prostitution mainly in Hawana. Pimping remains a criminal offence and there's
no brothels or red light streets. 

Cuba is relatively poor country but as held rmly to score socialist and egalitarian
values even when extreme conditions caused by US blockade... and the elimination of
most of Cuba's socialist allies.

SUMMARY- Cuba China USSR

The socialist revolutions described above set the foundations for profound political
economic and social gains for women even if they were not accomplished overnight.
The collapse of international socialist movement and the restoration of capitalism in
some of the formerly socialist countries have set back the struggle for women's
equality all over the planet.

The 21st century socialist movement must of course include the eradication of
women's inequality right upfront. For example the program of Party for Socialism and
Liberation (PSL) which describes what a socialist govt of poor and working people
would set out to do, stipulates that sexism and other forms of male chauvinism and
oppression of women will be eliminated as an immediate task, recognising that this
goal will not be achieved automatically or by decree. It will be prohibited to advocate
any forms of sexism or male chauvinism.

The program goes on to call for a guarantee of the right of women workers to receive
the same pay, bene ts and treatment as their male counterparts, the absolute right to
contraception, abortion services, high quality pre and post natal heath care and child
care; and an end to all forms of discrimination against anyone on the basis of their
sexual orientation and gender expression.

(14/09/2021) Women’s participation in National liberation and Anti
colonial struggle with special reference to India

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The themes of nationalist consciousness and the birth of the nation have been major
concerns for scholars of Indian history since the end of the British Raj and the
attainment of independence by India and Pakistan in 1947. Several historiographical
perspectives have investigated these topics over time. The Cambridge school
described Indian nationalism and an ideology shaped by elite groups to mobilise the
masses around their own narrow needs which nally bargained successfully with the
foreign rulers for power. On the other side Indian nationalist historians have since the
colonial period highlighted the mass, idealistic, and liberation character of the
nationalist movement depicting it as a struggle aimed at freedom from colonial
exploitation. This view has often overshadowed class and caste (not to mention
gender) contradictions at work within Indian societies, as well as the class perspective
of the nationalist movement itself. Class became instead from the the early 1980s the
major analytical tool of the subaltern studies project. Research carried forward in this
framework rejected a reading of the colonial era through the binary opposition between
imperialism and the Indian people, rather focusing on the con icts between elite
groups (indigenous and foreign) and subalterns. 

The gender dimension remained marginal in the work of these schools of thought, until
the emergence of feminist studies that have provided gender conscious accounts of
nationalist ideology and the anti imperialist venture. These works have engaged in a
critique of previous narratives, complicating the picture of women’s involvement in
agitational politics, as well as addressing the affects of Gandhian ideology on women’s
roles. Aparna Basu, one of the rst to deal with such critiques has hinted at how
reassuring the Gandhian message sounded to the male guardians of women.
Something which led husbands and fathers to allow (or even encourage) the
participation of their women folk in their movement. 

As far as the impact of Gandhian ideology on women is concerned, several other
scholars have come to de ne it as a complex set of discourses with contradictory
implications. If on the one hand it recognised women’s subordination and preached
their equality and opportunities for self realisation, on the other it never stepped out of
the safe arena of a traditional, religious and patriarchal sense of the word. Narrating
women as unsexed beings, who embodied faith and by nature could endure sacri ce
and suffering (like the mythical Sita), Gandhi claimed that they would play a key part in
organised passive resistance… at the time of the non cooperation movement, Gandhi
urged elite women in public places to adhere to the swadeshi programme, by
boycotting foreign goods and devoting some time a day to spinning … 

While this call did receive a response from some elite women, the size and quality of
their participation would increase dramatically only in the following decades, During the
civil disobedience campaign. Although Gandhi had refused to include women in the
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 240 mile march from Ahmedabad to Dandi to manufacture salt that inaugurated the
March 1930, soon after it he fully incorporated them in the campaign, putting them in
charge of the foreign cloth and liquor shops. Scholars agree on the fact that women
responded to Gandhi’s call enmasse and many studies have detailed the facts and
gures of such participation both at the national and regional level, producing in some
cases enthusiastic description of these boards of women pouring out of their homes…
to give proof of their will, courage and forbearance.

Women mobilised themselves through various nationalist organisations all across india
such as rashtriya street sangha, dash sevika sangh or Manila rashtriya sangh. During
civil disobedience and non cooperation movements, they marched, raised ags,
demonstrated often in thousands, picketed shops, selling liquor or foreign cloth,
collected funds, donated their jewellery for the movement, formed support groups such
as mothers of political prisoners and so on. They even went underground and helped
from parallel Govts during quit india movement. Women participation became affective
and their bravery during police violence and imprisonment shamed men and provoked
them to join protest.

However the so called myth of participation has universalised women’s involvement in
nationalist agitations, projecting it as homogeneous. Such narrative has overshadowed
the variety of experiences of those women, considering them as a collectivity rather
than as a sum of individuals grouped according to a number of different criteria. The
tendency to describe women’s participants as a homogeneous group is a legacy of the
nationalist movement itself which - in the attempt to become a mass movement and
gain cohesiveness - utilise the category of women as the undifferentiated label. It was
in public consciousness, ‘the sole universal category which cut through divisions and
could mean all things to all persons’ (Pearson 1981). Such a tendency has brought
some historiographical account to overlook division of class, caste, origin (urban/rural),
level of education, religion and age, to name but a few. Equally neglected has often
been a distinction between the women belonging to preexisting women’s organisation
and the less educated women who could not boast previous form of activism or
political awareness. 

In fact under the umbrella category of women, stood a number of different motivation to
join nationalist agitations. Experience within the movement, practices, and
expectations. Although often overshadowed by the Gandhian movement popularity,
other forms of agitations were present on the Indian public scene and women joined
them too. During the partition of Bengal, in 1905, middle class Hindu women joined the
boycott campaign at a time when the Bharat mata (Mother India) was a powerful
symbol within the Bengali nationalist rhetorics. Many were also the women and girls
who later on having grown dissatis ed with Gandhian politics decided to side with the
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 revolutionary movement - what the colonial state, some revolutionaries themselves and
much historiography has termed terrorism (on the revolutionary self de nition as
terrorist and the lack of any negative connotations). Mostly active in the states of
Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Punjab, the revolutionary movements drew upon
socialist and Marxist theory for the construction of their ideologies, were in uenced by
the Russian and Irish revolutions and inspired by anti imperialist as well as anti
capitalist feelings, re ecting a wide range of locals and transnational activities and
philosophy.

Among the leader of the revolutionary movement outside India was a woman Madame
Cama who settled in Paris in the early 1900s and became focus of Indian revolutionary
activity in Europe, in uencing a number of young Parsi women in Bombay from where
she came. However it was only from the late 1920s that women joined revolutionary
society in signi cant number. Although such groups have been active in Bengal and
North India sense the early twentieth century, for several years their underground
activities had been carried out by small cells of men, who took a while of chastity and
were expected to be unquestionably loyal to their leader. Later on many newly formed
groups were eager to include women among their militants and treated them as equal
to men. 

(15/09/2021) It is indeed in the de nition of women's role in the anti colonial struggle
that - acc to Geraldine Forbes- lies the difference between the Gandhian movement
and the revolutionary society. While the former envisioned a precise role and speci c
activities for women, within the anti colonial struggle, the latter believed that women
revolutionaries could help the cause not only by playing subsidiary roles but also by
carrying out the same task as their male comrades, such as killing , sabotaging or
leading the sales activities.

The two movements however had two major traits in common. Firstly they were similar
in a way they represented the activist women, as both constructed their narrative
around the same myth of female sacri ce. As a natural predisposition to endurance
and self sacri ce would make women the best satyagrahis, the same virtue could lead
women revolutionaries to offer their own body and life to the nation. Secondly both
movements drew upon mythical and religious discourses to recruit members and
explain their activities to the less educated. Gandhi's Sita’s were the revolutionary kalis
and Shaktis and each regarded these gures as symbols of the motherland though
projecting very diff models of femininity, these images were powerful and very effective
in mobilising women. 

Similarly when Subhash Chandra Bose in the milieu of the dynamics of the British
participation in World War 2, formed the Indian National Army with Japanese help to
ght for the liberation of India; the women's regiment was launched under the
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leadership of Laxmi Sehgal. However, even when these 1500 or so women, coming
largely from lower class overseas Indians and immigrant plantation workers were
mobilised and provided military training, there was often suspicious about their battle
readiness. Further these brave heroic acts of revolutionary women were invariably
seen as manly and unsuitable for women, often subjecting them to police brutality.
Hence the revolutionary women though valorised, were largely not considered as
respectable women. They were either considered as unsexed or bringing young men
to the cause with their sexual allure. Women’s participation then came to be
encouraged rather in the domestic roles which could disguise revolutionary activities
such as hiding weapons, carrying msgs, spreading propaganda, posing as wives or
mothers of revolutionary men to protect them from police suspicion, sheltering fugitive,
making explosives and so on.

Towards the end of the 19th century militant nationalism was promoted for instance by
Sarla Debi Gosal who popularised gymnasium and physical tness club for young men
by recasting Hindu mythical and local gures as nationalist warrior heroes to celebrate
masculine physical powers and valour. Revolutionary movements speci cally in Bengal
due from Hindu religious imagery of aggression and bravery. Invoking female deities
like Kali, hostility and violence against the tyrannical colonial state came to be
legitimised and the signi cance of women in instigating men to ght for the women
became prominent.

The homogeneity of women participating in the nationalist women, though, was not
settled only by the presence of diff ideological sub groups on the Indian political scene,
as even within the same group women made for a very homogeneous lot. Female
participants in the Gandhian movement ranged from the respectable 'few brave
women' adhering to non cooperation and the Khilafat movement in early 1920s to
Tamil prostitutes from national leader like Sarojini Naidu who had taken part in
Congress activities since 1904, to women who set up organisations speci cally for the
purpose of coordinating processions, picketing and spinning activities; from those who
had been mobilising for women's rights since the start of the century and wished to see
the social, legal and political status of their lot improved, after their involvement in and
support for nationalist agitations, to those who responded to their dual duty- to their
beloved Gandhi… and to their guardians… and who generally followed men (Forbes
1997:83) .

Yet women participating in Gandhian agitations were not only those who joined the
public activities envisioned for them. Indeed, as highlighted by the work of Suruchi
Thapar and pointed out by Veena Majumdar and Leela Kasturi one decade earlier,
there were a number of women who couldn't access the world outside their homes,
either women from the peasantry and the working class… or the thousands of
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housewives -mostly mothers and wives- who provided indirect support by shouldering
family responsibilities when their men went to jail or got killed (Kasturi and Majumdar
1994) . Drawing upon oral interviews and women's autobiographies Thapar found that
the lives of women who did not cross domestic threshold during nationalist agitations
were no less impacted by political changes than those of their more visible sisters.
Although some of them were constrained by segregating social customs, they were
more interested in what they did despite such constraints and for those women the
domestic sphere emerged a site of both contestation and subordination, as well as of
political practices. These ranged from taking responsibilities for the family elders when
their husbands were imprisoned to earning a livelihood, from taking independent
decisions about their children, to dealing with food shortages; the awareness that they
had to survive without inhibiting their husbands commitment to the nationalist cause-
the author concluded- helped in the development of their own political consciousness
(Thapar, 2006). 

Among the protagonist in female involvement with Gandhian and Congress led
nationalist politics, women belonging to the organised women's movement deserve
special attention. Although during the 19th century a number of women's groups and
associations led by women had emerged in various parts of the subcontinent (mainly in
Bengal and Maharashtra), it was only in early 1900s that women's all India
organisations started to be set up by and for women of the urban elites- the rst being
the Bharat Stri Maha Mandal, founded in 1901 by Sarla Devi Chaudhurani. Such rst
experiment proved short lived but a few years later a new association was born which
could gain greater recognition. It was 1917 when Irish feminists Margaret cousins and
Ginarajadasa, and the British Annie Besant- all closely connected to the theosophical
society- started the Women's Indian Association (WIA) in Madras, with branches all
over India. The WIA welcomed members of both Indian and European origins and
engaged from the beginning in the elds of philanthropy, religion, politics and
education, the latter the area to which association devoted most of its efforts. In 1918
the WIA started editing its mouthpiece Stridharma, a monthly journal featuring
contributions in English, Tamil, Telugu and -from the late 1920s- Hindi. International in
its character, this publication mirrored the advocacy generals edited by British feminists
in the late 19th century and soon became a strong voice in the international feminist
movement, supporting claims that women shared certain concerns as women that
transcended all other differences. Although Stridharma and the WIA in general acted
within a clearly anti imperialist framework, their main concern was with international
feminist politics: they imagine the women of the world as sisters in a great family and
believed in gender solidarity as a unifying force.

(16/09/2021)An international aspiration also lay at the core of another all India
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 organisation, the national council of women of India (NCWI) established in 1925 as the
Indian branch of the international council of women, counting amongst its members
women belonging to some of India’s wealthiest industrial and royal families, like
Mehribai Tata and the maharani of Baroda. The council engaged in philanthropy and
other activities that modelled on those of upper class British women, would seem
enlightened to make British of cials policy makers. It was in character close to the
British and socially conservative, the council never went beyond petition politics aimed
mainly at making India reach the internationally acceptable standards for health and
welfare - as an interest shared by Indian and British men in power.

Ten years after the WIA, the third Pan Indian organisation was born. The all Indian
women’s conference held its rst meeting In Pune in 1927, thanks to the efforts of
Margret cousins and responding to the call of the director of public instruction in
Bengal, Mr Oaten who had urged women to raise a unanimous voice and tell the govt
what kind of education they deemed suitable for Indian girls. The stated focus of AIWC
was thus on female education although the conference at that time did not imagine it
as a mass phenomenon, nor as equal to the education received by men. From 1928
the conference widened its scope to include social issues relating to women and girls
(like child marriage), a focus that would be extended in the following years to labour
rural reconstruction text books and indigenous industries. 

From 1930, when civil disobedience broke out, two of these organisations that
consistently contributed to create the Indian women’s movement, drawing together
country’s most active and engaged women, started to face important chances while the
NCWI due to its social composition and alliances with the British establishment never
joined the struggle for independence. The WIA and the AIWC were more inclined to get
closer to the nationalist movement. The AIWC initially chose to remain apolitical but by
the mid 1930s, it could not longer ignore that it’s work was leading towards two
directions, for which different and con icting strategies needed to be put in place. on
the one hand it’s work for women’s rights and equal rights and equality required
cooperation with the British on the other it’s growing commitment to the welfare of the
nation and to Gandhian programme of reconstruction involved work at the grassroots
level. Furthermore the AIWC found it extremely dif cult to counter critics such as
Nehru’s, according to whom the association’s program was super cial and did not
inquire into the root causes - that is could not see yet women uplift as a part of the
wider plan to the nations uplift. The AIWC’s priorities were deemed to change, as
Margret cousins made clear During a presidential address in 1930 urging her audience
to work rst for political liberty, for liberation, from subjection both internal and external
and side by side to the supreme task work for all our already expressed ideas and
reforms. 

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 (17/09/2021) The WIA had stated in its anti imperialist feelings since its inception but
these became even clearer in the 1930s in response to the political events agitating
the country and thanks to the presence of Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy as Stree dharna’s
editor. Elected in 1927 as rst women member of the madras legislative council, Reddy
resigned in 1930 in protest over Gandhi’s arrest and dedicated herself to the nationalist
cause. Slowly but surely the generals commitment to Gandhian politics started to grow
while the internationalist agenda of the previous year gradually faded away. Western
vs indigenous leadership of the women’s movement became an issue, as did Indian vs
universalised liberal female subjectivity; along these lines political as well as personal
con icts among women activists started to emerge and the WIA unable to deal with
these concerns nally closed the general in 1936. In her analysis of Stree Dharma,
Tusan concluded that the general story embodied the fragile relationship between the
western and non western women during the beginning of the decolonisation
movement, thus ascribing the WIAs putting aside its aspiration to global sisterhood (in
favour of nationalist politics) to issues among Indian and European women, rather than
among Indian women/ feminists and Indian men /nationalists.

Previous studies, on the contrary, insisted upon the nationalist movement interest in
maintaining the patriarchal order and in the incapacity of women themselves to use the
occasion todays issues that affected them as women. Maria Mies claimed that the
movement could not but include women in the struggle for tactical reasons, it did not
envision change in the social order. Having accepted their limited function women
made for excellent instrument in the struggle but did not workout a strategy for their
own liberation struggle for their interest. By subordinating these goals to the national
cause they con rmed to the traditional of pati-vrata and sati ideal of the self sacri cing
women. Despite the apparent radicalism of the Gandhian nationalist movement, Veena
Majumdar added, under its surface lay an essential conservatism aimed at maintaining
women’s roles within the family and society unaltered or even further emphasising
them.

Younger scholars found such readings, concentrated exclusively on the coercive role
of patriarchy culpable for shadowing women conscious agency as claimed by Charu
Gupta, accounts like Partha Chaterjee’s, according to whom the women’s question
was resolved by the nationalist and cooperation to the largest product of national
liberation do the necessarily hold true for every context. Not only was this not the case
in several regions outside Bengal but the various limitation inscribed in the reform and
nationalist movement did not prevent many women from carving out spaces for
themselves and paving ways for social and political activism bth in public and private
domains implicitly and explicitly. Reforms and nationalism did signal new opportunities
for women, however limited they proved to be (Gupta 2010). 

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 Gupta highlighted several ways in which initiatives originally planned to control women
were appropriated by women themselves and transformed into instruments of
assertion. In the mind of reformers and early nationalist for instance female education
was meant to instruct a multitude of wives and mothers who would be upto the
expectations of their modern husbands as well as those of a nation in need of new
generation of nationalist citizens. However once educated women became dif cult to
control - what they read and how they made use of their education was beyond their
control, making them conscious agents similarly debates on issues like Sati, parda,
infant marriages and widow remarriage, though more concerned with granting India a
place among the modern nations than with women’s actual well beings and rights had
unpredicted outcomes, and women gradually became both the subjects and object of
social reforms (on the Sarda act and women's involvement in debates around it)

Padma Anagol argued that the historical quest for an understanding of patriarchal
mechanisms and their affects on women’s lives is indispensable and as much as an
incomplete project, for its obscures the ways in which some resist patriarchy,
constructs identities, assert their rights and contest the hierarchal arrangements of
social relationships between the sexes. According to her, the theme of the creation and
recreation of patriarchy crossing much feminist historiography has prevented the
recovery of women’s agency and of its twin aspects of assertion and resistance. The
task of recovering women’s voice and consciousness can be achieved, Anagol argued
in a study on Maharashtra - by turning away from the most investigated regions like
Bengal (from where the image of the passive Indian women has emerged), in search of
different women’s and historical paradigm, as well as by concentrating on sources in
the local languages.

Even more substantial for women’s recovery is, according to Anagol, the eruption of a
new chronology by historians dealing with the gender and a women’s history of modern
India. The dominant imperialism/nationalism frame of thinking has led scholars to
privilege the rst four decades of the 20th century in such readings, women’s
participation has often been described as a sudden phenomenon while credit has been
primarily given to Gandhi. This tendency has led to the of ce station of continuity
between the theory women’s nationalists of the early 20th century and earlier period of
women’s assertion, who women’s of the next generation must have inherited or
bene ted from. 

The real nature of female involvement in nationalist politics could be better retrieved -
as Anagol suggested - is if 19th century were treated in its own right the apex of the
colonial period, a time during which India faced important changes in the social,
economic, judicial, and educational levels. It is back to the social and religious
movement of the 19th century, according to this author, that the origins of Indian
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 women’s activism can be traced. Several scholars analysed this period of reformist
zeal through prism of post structuralism, showing that behind the efforts for the
emulation of women’s conditions lay the needs and contradict the newly formed Hindu
middle class. Caught between their desire for modernisation (unnecessary steps
towards self government) and their wish to project Indian future as an example of
morality (in oppose to western materialism), 19th century reformers were not
concerned about women’s status as they were about nationalism and political power
(on Sati). 

Anagol instead suggested that, far from being silent grounds on which make actors
constructed discourses and enacted laws, women took signi cant and often radical
stands during the social reform era. Such stands were not about nationalism or
imperialism but rather marked the beginning of women's politicisation and mobilisation
for their own cause.

(21/09/2021) The theme of women’s participation in the Indian Nationalist movement,
though have been debated extensively over the last few decades still draws historian
attention and cause for continuing revision and rethinking. Despite the magni cent
effort of recent gender historiography, the complex relationship between the diverse
segment of the Indian women. The several wings of the anti imperialism movement
requires for the investigation. Women’s contribution to the nationalist cause cannot be
divide ; their efforts in both Gandhian and evolutionary agitations and in less visible
roles as supporters of male of their families, where essential in securing India’s
independence. Moreover women as a category provided the symbolic imagery backing
the anti imperialist organisation coming to embody various aspects of nationalist
theoretical thinking for an essentialised and pure indigenous in the minds of early
nationalist, to non violence and passive resistance in Gandhian philosophy, to extreme
sacri ce in revolutionary rhetoric. However many facets - which call into question and
analysis of female agency and require that women be studied as conscious subjects in
their own rights - still remain vague. Among these aspects are the roots of women’s
involvement in political life; the relationship of feminist organisations with the
leadership of congress led movement and the gains and losses of joining the
mainstream movement entailed for such women; the strategic )rather than merely
sentimental or patriarchy patriotic) Motivation behind the participation and the changes
that it brought about (or did not) in women’s evetday lives as well as their self
perception. 

Reference - Anagol, Pete (The emergence of feminism in India) 

Article by Basu A (The role of women in the Indian struggle for freedom. 

Indian women from parda to modernity 

Chandra B, M Mukherjee, A Mukerjee, S Mahajan and KN Panikkar (India’s struggle for
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independence)

Forbes G (2004) women in modern India 



Explain the contribution of social reforms movement towards uplifting the status
of women in India 

Or

Analyse the feminist views on social reforms movement on emulating the status
of women in India.

The status of women in India has varied in different historical and in the different
regions of the country and has also been subject to differentiation according to class,
religion and ethnicity. The general situation however was one of suppression and
domination within the bounds of patriarchal system whether the women in question
belonged to the a peasant family and was compelled to drudgery in the eld and home
or to a high caste family and living a life of leisure she was the victims of a set of
values that demanded implicit obedience to male domination and of many other social
practices that circumscribed her life.

The European emphasised the low status of Indian women as a re ection of the
general backwardness of the country but the Indian reformer were keen to show that
whatever the current position, women’s status have been high in ancient India and
many outstanding women have made their marks on Indian history, these include, the
warrior queens, Sulatan Razia, who succeeded to the throne of her father, the king of
Delhi, in the 13th century and her troops to battle and Noor Jahan who exercised real
power and let army to war in the early 17th century during the reign of her husband the
emperor Jahangir. The best known, however was the legendary Laxmibai the Rani of
Jhansi who, during the war against the British in 1857 rode on horseback in erce
battle against the foreigner and died in combat. 

Movements of reforms against the social evils that affected women began in India in
the early 19th century. 

(22/09/2021) The issues tackled by the reform movement- including sati, widow
remarriage, polygamy and women's property rights- were problems of a certain stratum
of society being mainly con ned to the Hindus of the higher caste and classes. 

Some reformists also felt that middle class family structures were endangered by the
prevailing social evils. The fact that some high caste widows who had been ill treated
and prevented from remarriage had returned to prostitution was an example of such a
threat. 

This concern to prevent the disintegration of family life which existed among the
English educated and also among the non westernised intelligentsia was a theme in
the literature of North and South India.

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With success measured by each legislative act that was passed, since all areas of
social reform concerned the family, the effect of the reforms may have been to
increase conservatism and for liberating women merely to make decisions within the
family structure less deplorable. It is clear that while some Indians fought for social
reform, many conservatives felt otherwise. For example the famous reformer M.G.
Ranade (1841-1901) who was a lawyer, judge and legislative council in Bombay ,
expressed the view that social reform was in the great Hindu tradition of seeking out
ancient principles in order to restate them. Instead of destroying the structure, the
reformer should restore vitality and energy to social organism. Moreover, many social
reformers themselves condoned child marriage and opposed widow remarriage in their
own families. Even before the nationalist movement had become politically active in
India, the social reformer has started to agitate on two of these issues- the practice of
sati and the ban on widow remarriage. They could safely be tackled because they had
not existed in very early times, were con ned to the upper caste and classes and if
remedied, would give India the appearance of being civilised without endangering the
traditional family structures. 

Raja Ram Mohan Roy

The pioneer in agitation for women rights in India was Raja Ram Mohan Roy, a Bengali
who had been in uenced by western liberal thought and had attempted to reform and
revitalise hinduism. His family was brahmin, a group which has for several generations
been involved in administration and higher learning and were to gure permanently in
the 19th century social reform movements. Roy's early classical education had
included Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian and by 1800 he was af uent and well read in
English. He was exposed not only to dissident Calcutta British radicals , utilitarians and
advocates of free trade but also to liberal political thinker of Europe Locke, Bentham,
Montesquieu and Adam Smith among others . This was a period when the question of
women's emancipation was eagerly discussed in Europe especially by the radicals and
utilitarians in Britain. While the British radicals were directly in uenced by the
philosophers of the Enlightenment in France and by the events of the French
Revolution and were at the forefront of the reformist and democratic movements,
associated by radical utilitarians was Mary Wollstonecraft who had made impact with
her book Vindication of Rights of Women and one can only speculate that living during
that period one had been exposed to her writings.

Roy's mobilisation of Hindu thought against the system of sati created the necessary
public opinion to enable the government, which was also under pressure from
missionaries on this issue, to make the practice a criminal offence in 1829. Although
ancient Hindu law had made provision for widows to remarry in certain circumstances
by the medieval period of Indian history the higher caste had prohibited remarriage.
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 This issue came up between the 1830s and 1850s and agitation for a reform of the law
was taken up in many parts of India. The young Bengali Movement founded in the
1830s for example was a proponent of social reform and women's emancipation. 

The reform of Hinduism become a vital issue if the Indians were to counter the attacks
and criticisms of the British and ultimately if they were to resist British domination. In
1828, Roy and other enlightened Bengalis formed the Brahmo Samaj which drew
inspiration from many religions and aimed at changing the kind of Hinduism that
prevailed. The brahmo as they were called, challenged all forms of obscurantism and
rituals as well as female oppression associated with orthodox beliefs and many of the
later activists who took up issues if women's emancipation were from this group of
brahmo samaj reformers. 

Growth of the reform movement

The reformist campaign increased in fervour during the 1850s- the most active
campaigners on widow remarriage during this period were Ishwar Chandra Vidya
Sagar, a Bengali who in 1856 published a pamphlet "Marriage of Hindu widows" and
presented a petition to the government on the issue. Devendra Nath Tagore, an activist
of the Brahmo Samaj, who formed an organisation to campaign for widow remarriage
and against other evils affecting women. Another movement for the puri cation and
revival of Hinduism with support from the Press and British of cials, the agitation led to
the act of 1856 which legally permitted the remarriage of widows. Social custom was
dif cult to change by legislation however and it was only the very daring who de ed
tradition.

As in many Asian countries at this time, the reformers idea was the monogamous
nuclear family. Polygamy in India was practised by both Muslims and Hindus of High
caste and class, the Muslim being allowed 4 wives, the kulin brahmins, for example,
was permitted an in nite number of wives. The campaign was continued especially by
Vidya Sagar who in 1870s wrote tracks exposing the evils of polygamy. Government
policy at that time however was against too much interference against traditional
practices affecting family life.

The issue of child marriage was also taken up by social reformer of the 19th century.
Unlike sati, polygamy and the ban on widow remarriage which affected the upper
section of society, child marriage was practiced among the Hindus. The practice... by
higher caste and means by which to protect their daughters from men with economic
power of the lower class. It was also economic saving since male children commanded
lower dowry. The reformer best known for their agitation on this issue were Keshav,
Vidya Sagar, Gopal Hari Deshmukh, K.C. Sen. K. C Sen argued that the practice of
child marriage was a corruption of scripture and wrote the custom of pre mature
marriage as it prevails in this country is injurious to the moral ,social and physical
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interests of the people and is one of the main obstacles in the way of their
advancement. Vidya Sagar pointed out in 1850 that child marriage was linked to the
problem of Indian widows because many of the child brides were widowed at an early
age. Dayand Saraswati argued that girls should be educated and only allowed to marry
at 16 or 18.

In 1872 some success was achieved with the Marriage Act which set higher age limits
for marriage, 14 for girl and 18 for men . further agitation from reformers like Behramji
Malban , who had used the press for the campaign against child marriage led to the
age of consent bill of 1891 which raised the legal age of consent for sexual intercourse
from 10 to 12 for girls even this was achieved only after bitter controversy since it was
opposed by political leaders like B.G. Tilak as being and unwanted interference by the
British in local customs.

(23/09/2021) Another area of agitation for the social reformers was that of property
rights for Hindu women. Existing unwritten practice was particularly harsh on Hindu
widow who had no claim on her husband's property except the right of maintenance,
as a result of which she was at the mercy of her husband's relatives. In 1874, the right
of property act gave a widow a life interest in her husband's share of the property and
a share equal to that of a son. However the act didn't give a widow the right to own or
dispose of this property and daughters continued to be excluded from right of
inheritance. 

The subordination of women is crucial to the general hierarchical organisation of caste,
society and the anti brahmin movement in India was consequently also linked to the
women's struggle. One of the rst to make the connection between caste oppression
and women oppressions, Dwivedi was the most radical social reformer of the 19th
century.

Jyotiba Phule (1827-90) , a Maharashtrian of low caste who led the anti brahmin
struggle, also opposing polygamy and child marriage and advocating women's
education and widow remarriage. In the 1850s Phule had set up his school for girls in
Pune and two schools for untouchables and in 1863 a home for the prevention of
infanticide, to care for the unwanted children of widows was started. Phule's forceful
writings in Marathi had an impact especially works like Gulamgiri published in 1872. In
opposing sati, Phule speculated about whatever any husband would emulate on the
funeral pyre of his wife. Phule has shown concern for women's rights.

The Marathi and Gujarati reformers of the 19th century were in the forefront of several
controversies over women's rights and the public debates on caste and women's
oppression raged in western India. An in uential Gujarati reformer was Darsonds Mulji,
who had a newspaper Satyaprakash, which led an attack on the immorality of
Maharajas and Hindu priests and supported widow remarriage, women's education
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 and foreign travel. Another of the early Maharastrian reformer was Gopal Hari
Deshmukh who in the 1840s had begun to attack brahmin traditional practices,
including the caste system, child marriage and the treatment of widows. Deshmukh
urged these of English texts or translations to foster scienti c thought and advocated
the rejection of brahmin learning, writing in Marathi. He said "I think that the misery of
women is so great that when I remember it my hair stands on end".

These brahmins instead of killing their daughters put them into great misery. The
women question remained an important issue in the non brahmin movement of the
later years. In 1920 for instance the nationalist leader was violently opposed when he
argued that there were funds only for male education.

Another element in the continuing expansion of education for women was in the
creative elds. Ravindra Nath Tagore had transformed Shanti Niketan into an institute
for the regeneration and revival of Indian culture and art while being open to in uences
from all other cultures. Shanti Niketan was open to women and R.N. Tagore plays
great emphasis on the conditions, necessary for the release of creative potential in
women. This was evident not only in his educational work but also in his well known
poems and short stories. He came out strongly against traditional customs and
practices while adopting a modern attitude to the role and status of women in society .
The women in his creative writings are drawn more vividly and with their fervour hand
than the male characters. An example of his story Devi later made into a lm by
Satyajit Roy where a woman is driven to insanity by a tradition ridden father in law who
believes on the basis of dream that she's the reincarnation of goddess.

In South India too, the non brahmin movement had oriented against brahmin
hegemony questioning the right of the brahmins to dominate top class jobs and to
perpetuate the myth of a superior culture. The self respect movement in the 1920s
against the brahmins led by E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, popularly known as Periyar,
attacked the caste system and all forms of religious ritual and idol worship. Equal rights
for women were advocated and marriages based on self respect were popularised.
This meant that there should be equal consent between man and women and that
there should be no priest present to of ciate at a marriage.

There were several male writers and poets in South India who were forceful
proponents of women's emancipation. One was the leading Tamil poet Subhramaniam
Bharati who belonged to the stream of radical thought in Asia and the middle class
which advocated modernity and reform while asserting a cultural identity against
imperialism. He was active in many areas of political and social reform and was
in uenced by foreign radical and revolutionary movements, welcoming the Russian
Revolution in 1917. He championed Indian Independence while denouncing caste
oppression and ill treatment of migrant Tamil workers in Fiji, the inequitable distribution
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(24/09/2021) Female education 

Since the reform of social events was linked to the issue of preserving and
strengthening basic family structures and creating good wives and mothers. The
question that frequently arose was that of female education, a policy supported by both
progressive and orthodox reformers. There have been many educated women in the
upper classes including famous women writers and poets but the general education
was available to women. This became an issue of which there was broader agreement
that on such issue as widow remarriage, which had touched religious sensibilities.
Many liberal reformers campaigned in favour of female education. Conservatives also
joined the campaign for female education. Ramakrishna Paramahans, the Hindu
philosopher, who popularised the concept of a supreme mother and a worship in the
form of the goddess Kali, said “I realise the mother of the universe in every women’s
form”. Ramakrishna renounced disciple Vivekananda however a radical on many
issues believed that women should not be educated in the modern sciences but should
be trained to achieve ful lment within the family. 

In the 19th century as in other countries Indian reformers thought that the social evils
could best be eliminated through education. However the concept of education was
limited to producing good home maker and perpetuate orthodox ideology . Education
could not wean the women away from their family roles but improve their ef ciencies
as wives and mothers and strengthen the hold of traditional values on society Since
women are better carriers of these values.

By the 1870s women had begun not only to write literary works in English but also to
translate works from other European languages, a notable example being Toru Dutt
born to a wealthy literary family of Bengali Christians. In 1870 they went to England
where the poems of the family published that year by longmans green and co under
the title of the Dutt family album. In 1871 the Dutts went to Cambridge where they
attended the higher lectures for women with great zeal and application and also took
French lessons returning to Bengal in 1973.

However education enabled some women to break into avenues of employment that
had previously been denied to them. Cornelia Sorabji, a Parsi was the rst Indian
nurse and midwife. Cornelius Sorabji was the rst Indian women to graduate in law at
Oxford in 1882. Although it was not until 1923 that women were allowed to practice
law. Another category of pioneers were the Indian women who challenged convention
by studying medicine either in India or by going abroad to medical colleges in the west
where women were accepted among the early women doctors were Anandibai Joshi
who graduated in 1886 from the women’s college in Philadelphia and worked as a
physician in the women’s ward of the Kolhapur hospital. 

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Kadambini who had been educated in Britain and was the rst women graduate of
Calcutta university and Bengal’s rst women doctor. Anni Janagardhan who studied in
the newly founded edinbaraha school of medicine for women in 1888 and in 1892
became a house surgeon in a Bombay hospital. Rukhmabai who obtained a medical
degree from London university in 1895 and later worked in the women’s hospital in
Rajkot. 

Agitation by women

Pandita Ramabai : Although leading social reformers in the 19th century were males
whose objectives were to clean and reinforce family life, the women themselves started
to overstep the home and family limits envisage for them by the reformers, There were
several women activists and pioneers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The
majority of them linked by birth or marriage to families in which the men had
participated in religious or political reform movement. Many examples of protests by
women has been lost to history, Phule had refers to a Marathi book written by a non
braahman women Tarabai Shinde, “The comparison of men and women” put both this
19th century women and her writings have disappeared from available records. 

One of the most notable pioneers among the women we do know of was Pandita
Ramabai, A reputable Sanskrit scholar, whose courageous and independent activities
on behalf of women’s causes made her the foremost female agitator of her time.
Although orthodox on other issues she took an uncompromising attitude towards the
education and the marriageable age of girls. Because of such views the family was
hounded from place to place and lived the life of nomadic scholars wandering all over
India. As a child Ramabai not only acquired mobility and experience but learned
Sanskrit anthology from her parents. The family went through many misfortunes and it
was said of Ramabai that the persistent social persecution that ultimately led to the
death of her parents and sister reinforced by the famine of 1874, steeled her heat
against the Hindu religion and society neither of which she could ever forgive. 

In 1878 Ramabai went to Calcutta together with her surviving brother. Her critique of
Hinduism made her known in Bengali reforming circles and because of her r
knowledge of Sanskrit she was given the title of pandita. She also went on a tour of
Bengal and Assam lecturing social injustice for a women in a society where religion is
all pervasive.

Using the argument that women had held high position in ancient India, Ramabai made
an all out attack against the orthodox priests having been widowed with a newborn
daughter she had to ght for her self and to face criticism for not conforming to the
traditional values of a widow. She wrote a book Stri Dharma-Niti which advocated
women’s emancipation and attached traditional practices harmful for women. By this
time she had also learned English having come into contact with Christian missionaries
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 in Pune. In 1883 she travelled to Britain where she met Dorothea Beale a pioneer
women educationist and principle of a ladies college where Ramabai spent some time
studying and teaching. She went to US and Canada in 1896 where she studied and
lectured returning to India in 1889 via Japan. 

Muslim women and social reformer : The most prominent Muslim reformer was
Syed Ahmed Khan who pioneered Muslim higher education and in 1875 founded a
Muslim university college at Aligarh believing that the decline of the Muslim was due to
their reluctance to adopt western side education. Khan advocated modern education
for both men and women. He also opposed polygamy taking the view that since men
could not treat all his wives equally, polygamy must be absolutely and de nitely
restricted. Monogamy should be the rule. He also challenged the orthodox view that
Islam advocated parda of women that discouraged women’s education. Other Muslim
male reformer included Badruddian Tyabji a Bombay business man who campaigned
against the parda system. Syed imam who nanced a Muslim girls school in Patna
believing that the country’s progress was linked to women’s education and Hyderi a
well known right who expressed the prevailing views in need for Educating girls. While
the education of a boy helps him only, the education of a girl lifts the whole family to
higher state of mental and moral life.

(28/09/2021) Women and nationalist agitation

It was in the political struggles against imperialism that Indian women began actively to
participate in life outside the home and in doing so they had the support of many
nationalist political leaders. The expansion of women's education and their admission
to universities that produced a number of English educated middle class women by
the late 19th century and they made their presence felt in the political activity. 

Bengal had been exposed to British in uence from the 18th century and was in
vanguard of both westernisation and political and reform movements linked to national
revival rationalism and nationalism. The women of the Bengali bourgeoisie was also
among the earliest pioneers of reform and political agitation. In 1882 she started the
ladies theosophical society for women of all religions during a period when Indian
intellectuals had shown some interest in the theosophical movement founded by
Colonel Olcott and Helena Blavatsky. In 1886 Swarna Kumar also began a women's
association which was concerned with promoting local handicrafts made by women. In
an un nished song the heroine is westernised and marries a doctor who has studied in
England and is supportive of women's rights but she adheres to certain orthodox
values and to the traditional ideal of female religious devotion.

Women continued to participate in Congress politics in 1890s including activists like
Pandita Ramabai and women professionals such as Dr. Kadambini Ganguly. In the
early 20th century women became more involved in politics with the increase in
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 nationalist activities. Mass struggle of self rule including the boycott of British goods,
took place during this period. There was also increased militancy, bomb throwing and
assassinations specially in Punjab and Bengal. Violence occurred after the partition of
Bengal in 1905 and event such as the deportation of extremist leader Bal Gangadhar
Tilak. As part of campaign, a pamphlet for Bengali women was circulated explaining
the Swadeshi movement to village women calling upon themselves to participate in
certain rituals which had political signi cance and to boycott foreign goods. Protest
meetings were held throughout Bengal some of them exclusively for women. The most
active woman leader of this period was Swarna Kumar's daughter who started physical
exercise clubs and a Swadeshi store for products made by women. Many foreign
theosophists also participated in nationalist and women's movements, the foremost
being Annie Besant (1847-1903), feminists who in 1880s had created a stir in Britain
with a campaign for birth control. Other theosophists who were concerned about Indian
women's status included Margaret Cousins, an Irish feminist who arrived in India in
1915 and participated in many of the social and political reform movements of the time,
being one of the founders of the All India Women's Conference in 1927 and Dorothy
and Jina Rajadasa who together with Besant and cousins formed the Women's Indian
Association in 1917. Margaret Noble (1867-1911) who arrived in India in 1895 and
under the in uence of Swami Vivekananda took the name of Sister Nivedita and
worked in Bengal. She said to have had links with Irish revolutionaries and her work in
education, cultural activities and agitation for Swaraj was characterised by
revolutionary zeal.

Gandhi and women's rights

The Congress leader saw the advantages of mobilising women and always exhorted
them to join the nationalist struggle as equals. The role of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru
pertained to the role and status of women; the similarities and differences of their idea
re ect the many currents of thought that were then prevalent on the issue of women's
emancipation.

Gandhi's basic ideas on women's rights were equality in some spheres and opportunity
for self development and self realisation. He believed that women is the companion of
men gifted with equal mental capacities and realised that the contemporary
subordinate position was a result of domination by man.

In this connection, Gandhi said "Men have not realised this truth in its fullness in their
behaviour towards women. They have not considered them as their friends and co-
workers." Gandhi was equally aware that the position and role of women differed from
class to class and that, for example, in the village generally they hold their own with
their men folk and in some respects even rules them. But he was convinced that the
legal and customary status of women is bad enough throughout and demands radical
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 alteration. However Gandhi's view of women's equality was located within a religious
sense of the word and within the patriarchal system, projecting a concept of women's
role as being complementary to that of men and embodying virtues of sacri ce and
suffering. Gandhi believed that every man and woman have duty to perform in the
interest of self realisation and social well being. While arguing that she should labour
under no legal disability. He was all in favour of educating women but the emphasis
must be different for men and women.

He had similar ideas on female morality and divorce and in 1926 spoke against double
standards for men and women. He even questioned why there's so much anxiety
about female purity and we do not hear anything about women's anxiety over man's
purity. Why do men have right to regulate female purity. To Gandhi self restraint in
sexual matters was a great virtue but it had to come from an individual. Marriage was a
sacred thing. Dowry system should be abolished reducing it to be arrangement for
money. Divorce was preferable to continuance of marriage which has ceased to be
vehicles of self realization.

Gandhi's ideal woman was the mythical Sita, the self sacri cing monogamous wife of
the Ramayana who guarded her purity and remained loyal to Rama despite of many
provocations. She was promoted as model for Indian women. Gandhi was probably
hardly conscious of the fact that his idea of womanhood which he considered to be
revival of Hindu ideal, contained in fact many traits of the puritan Victorian ideal of
women as it was preached by English bourgeoisie.

Gandhi however was very conscious of the power that women could have in her
struggle based on the concept of non cooperation. He stressed the importance of their
participation in political and social matters and exhorted them to join the nationalist
struggles in order to play her full and destined role in world affairs. In the solution of
con ict by non violent means women must extend their interest beyond the narrow
con nes of their homes and family and embrace the whole of humanity.

Gandhi pays particular stress on the issue of non violent struggle, claiming that women
had great ability to endure suffering and could therefore play key part in the movement.
He claimed that the principle of non violence and political non violent resistance was
suited to women as they were by nature non violent. I do believe, he wrote in 1938,
that women is more tted than man to make ahimsha for the courage of self sacri ce
women in any way is superior to man. It was suggested that being used to forms of
passive resistance in their daily lives they could more effectively participate in socially
organised passive resistance and non cooperation.

(29/09/2021) Moreover Indian women themselves were soon to take up the Gandhian
ideology and to advocate Satyagraha as a form of struggle particularly suitable for
women. A women's journal Stridharma started in 1930 because the qualities with this
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 new form of welfare is displaying her feminine rather than masculine.

Nehru and women's rights

Nehru particularly emphasised the necessity for women to work outside the home to be
economically independent and not to regard marriage as a profession. Freedom
depends on economic conditions even more than political and if a woman is not
economically free and self earning she will have to depend on her husband or
someone else and dependence are never free. He realised that this economic
bondage was the root cause of the troubles of the Indian women and clearly perceived
that super cial reforms would not serve the cause of their emancipation. The joint
family system of the Hindus , a relic of a feudal age utterly out of keeping with modern
conditions must go and also many other customs and traditions but the ultimate
solution lies only in complete refashioning our society.

Nehru's more progressive attitude is also revealed in his views on female education.
He did not agree that there was a xed house for women and that education for
women should therefore have a different emphasis. He took part in the foundation
laying ceremony for women's college at Allahabad and discovered that its prospectus
had shown that women's place was in the home that her duty was to be a devoted
wife, bringing up her children dutifully, obedient to her elders, he was quite outspoken
in his criticism of these ideals. Nehru also argued women to participate in the
nationalist struggle in 1931 he stated in a national war there's no question of either sex
or community whoever is born in this country ought to be a soldier. Nehru spoke with
great enthusiasm about the women who took part in the nationalist movement of the
thousand who braved police charges and the prison. however he was quite conscious
that women had to engage in a double struggle against imperialism and against
oppression by men ultimately linked.

Sarojini Naidu and her political campaign

Sarojini Naidu, a Bengali who had studied medicine in Calcutta University and obtained
a DSC degree from Edinburgh in 1877. She was in the Brahmo Samaj movement for
social reform as a Congress activist and was the principal of the college in Hyderabad.
Sarojini was educated in Madras and later studied in Cambridge returning to India in
1898. She married a South Indian Dr. G. Naidu that year thereby breaking barriers of
both prevents and casteism. In 1974 she met Gandhi in England and in subsequent
year she was the devoted follower also becoming one of the chief speaker of the INC.
In 1920 Sarojini joined Gandhi in non cooperation movement and campaigned all over
India on this issue during the nationalist upsurge of the early 1930s she worked with
Gandhi and was with him on the Salt March of 1930 As the Round Table Conference in
London in 1931and during subsequent Congress agitation. being jailed in 1942 during
the Quit India Movement.

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 Sarojini Naidu during these years of political activity also campaigned for women's
rights in 1917. She was involved in the campaign for women's rights lecturing on
women's emancipation and petitioning the secretary of state on women's franchise
rights but her views were conservative as he had the traditional view on ideal women.
Moreover her emphasis was on harmony and comradely cooperation between man
and woman in the common struggle for freedom and progress. In 1926 she became
the rst woman president of the Congress an event that received much publicity
outside India. In the 1930 she wa active in the all India women's conference and
represented the moderate current of reformers who while campaigning against
discrimination against women were more preoccupied with the nationalist political
struggle, by passing the issue of women's subordination within the family.

Kamla Devi Chattopadhyay: A Radical Reformer

More radical than Sarojini Naidu was her sister in law Kamla Devi Chattopadhyay
whose life re ected the many strands of activity in women's movement at that time.
She was born in South India in 1903, the daughter of a govt of cial in a wealthy
orthodox family. Her husband died soon after their marriage and kamla instead of
adopting secluded life of Tamil widow shocked conservative society by going to Madras
to study and by marrying the Bengali playwright Harindranath Chattopadhyay. Through
a marriage he became linked to a distinguished family. Chattopadhyay and their sister
was Sarojini Naidu and his brother Virendranath Chattopadhyay who had grouped the
Communist Indian political exiles in Berlin, was the common law husband of Agnes
Smedley whom Kamla Devi had met in 1920s . In 1926 Kamla Devi was the rst
woman in India to win for the legislative council but she was defeated by 200 votes.
Apart from her activities in Indian national movement which resulted in her being jailed
for participating in the salt march and satyagraha, she had been in uenced by
feminists in Europe in early 1820s, joined the Congress socialist party in 1930s and
presided at the Meerut session at the party.

Divorced in 1933, Kamla Devi travelled widely in Europe, China and Japan to
propagate the cause of Indian independence. On returning she was jailed but used the
occasion to write extensively. On 1946-47 she was on Nehru's Congress working
committee and in subsequent years concentrated her activities on developing a
national theatre and reviving the handicraft industry.

Women and revolutionary nationalism

Although the INC which had adopted a policy of non violence under the leadership of
Gandhi, was the dominant nationalist organisation there were some Indian nationalist
groups which followed a more militant policy if revolutionary and violent action. These
groups were active within India as well as abroad where they were able to canvas and
organise support. Several foreign women were linked with these revolutionaries and
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 communists among them Evelyn Roy, wife of M.N. Roy and Agnes Smedley who
worked for Indian revolutionaries in exile in new York and Berlin.

Bikaji Kama

The best known Indian women in revolutionary circles in Europe was Bikaji Kama who
came from a wealthy Bombay family of Parsi social reformers . In 1885 she married
Rustomji Kama, a lawyer who was pre British . after leaving her husband at an early
age she became a nationalist in politics attending sessions in Bombay. She went in
1901 for medical treatment where she came in contact with Indian revolutionary
nationalist Krishna Verma. Her militant features attracted attention and she left for
Paris to avoid being arrested remaining there in exile. In 1907 Kama was part of British
delegation to the International Socialist Congress where she spoke against British
imperialism and unfold Indian ag. She made an impressive speech on this occasion.
In Paris Kama became the focus of Indian revolutionary activity in Europe. During
these years several thousand Parsi women who were reported to have been her
in uence were kept under police surveillance. One of her associates being Paris
captain, the grand daughter of the moderate nationalist Dadabhai Naoroji.

In India two women were involved in militant and violent activity during the various
periods if agitation, for example Sarala Devi Chodhurani who worked with the suhrid
samiti supported the male revolutionaries and another women Devi collected funds for
revolutionaries in Lahore.

In 1942 some of the active women of the left Kamala Chatterjee, Manikuntala Sen,
Renu Chakravartty and Ela Raid formed the Mahila Atma Raksha samiti which grew
rapidly throughout Bengal . The tragic events of Bengal famine of 1942-44 brought
women of all classes in relief work and political agitation

(30/09/2021) SEXUAL DIVISION OF LABOUR 


The objective of development is to improve the living conditions of society as whole.
This presupposes that the status of women will necessarily improve along with the
development of the society especially economic development but the researches
conducted since Ester Boserup's pioneering study Women's Role in Economic
Development (1971) proved that this generally held assumption is wrong. Indeed
women status deteriorated in many aspects. Women who represent one half of the
world's population have been discriminated in the past and in the present based on an
unequal sexual division of labor at home and outside. This obstructed their involvement
in the development process and thus development of the society as a whole.

With the evolution of societies from simpler to more complex forms there also evolved
division of tasks based on sex but as we have seen the evolved pattern of role and
work allocation based on sex was not gender neutral; rather it gave a subordinate role
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for women. This gender biased division of labor re ected in all avenues of
development process of human beings. This resulted the further process of
development of the society to have a differential impact on genders. The gendering of
development process bestows women lesser opportunity to take part in the
development process and also in receiving the bene ts of development. The focus
here is the differential impact of the process of development on women and men
specially through the execution of sexual division of labor in the society.

We will try to understand rst what is understood by sexual division of labor and its
implications for female labor. The functioning of sexual division of labor in household
and labor market of the contemporary society would be discussed. The impact of
technological innovations and liberalisation of economies in the globalisation era on
women's labour would also be examined. 

Sexual division of labor and its implications on female labor

The division of labor can be said as organisation of work into specialised roles which
means the division of work process into a number of parts, each to be founded on sex
or gender. The sexual division of labor means the organisation/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 labor as it operates in the
contemporary society gives women a subordinate position in the family and society. It
expresses, embodies and perpetuates female subordination.

There are different perspectives about the origin of male favoured sexual division of
labor in the society. Traditionalists argue that sexual division of labor as natural, god
given, complimentary even essential for the continuance of human race. For them it is
originated due to the biological differences between male and female and its roots are
in the prehistoric cultures. Women's biological weakness is said to have been at the
base of the social institutionalisation, harder jobs for men and simpler household
chores for women but the heterogeneity of the sexual division across time and space,
regions and classes within the same society refutes the case for biological determinism
(Vina Majumdar and Kumud Sharma). Another view is that the subordination of women
by men is the basis on which early civilisation has formed and that the sexual division
of labor has maintained a reciprocal state of dependency between the sexes. The
marxist argument is that women's subordination and division of labor 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, an increase in trade and subsequent
functional specialisation and reorganisation of production relations led to new patterns
of dependence that have affected groups in general and gender relations speci cally
and (Okaley..) observes that the gender roles based on the sexual division of labor is
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 culturally rather than biologically determined. She argues 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 labor is
women biased and it manifests the subordination and sex stereotyping of women in the
family as well as the labour market. This sexual division of labor and the dichotomy in
terms of hard and soft jobs has led to the trivialisation and the subsequent devaluation
of women's work and it has wrongly perpetuated the myth that women do not and
cannot engage in work that requires physical labor. This myth negates the actual life
experiences of majority of women who do back-breaking jobs besides routine domestic
chores and productive labour in elds or factories, activities such as collection of water
and fuel , carrying heavy head loads over long distances. Thus, the institutionalised
hierarchy in the ... between men and women leads to asymmetry in roles and gender
division in family and the labour market. Due to this women's task if household and
childcare are seen as extensions of their physiology and women's work is
conceptualised as domestic and private and personal work and goes unrecognised
and unpaid.

(01/10/2021) Change in status of women with economic development 

The conventional perception on sexual division of labour based on gender 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. Eastor Boserup (1970) pioneering analysis
of women’s agricultural roles and the impact of economic development on gender roles
challenged century 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 specialised production using better technologies and scienti c methods
and increasing elaborate economic and social infrastructure. Along with this transition
the role of movement also changed from a comparatively better position as agricultural
producers with presumably higher status to more and more subordinative 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
societies had a very active economic role. They were not only food gatherers but also
were the rst managers of negligible surplus although this role was later transferred to
the patriarch of the tribal chief. According to Kosambi women were the rst
agriculturalists, the rst pottery makers and textile producers. 

Earlier societies based on subsistence economies were more or less egalitarian with
both women and men toyed for subsistence. The gender education started changing
with the family production and the tribal ownership of land transformed into a system of
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 peasant production and private ownership of land with the use of animals for cultivation
and transport (Boserup 1970). According to her the changes in the production
accompanied by the changes in the position of women, pushing them into a secondary
status. The society became more and more strati ed in terms of several criteria which
included gender too. Types of work also recti ed with manual work getting low status
the favourite male group became the owner of land and asserted the use of more and
new ef cient equipment. Men are taught to operate animal driven equipment while
women continue to prepare land with hand tool. Such discrimination continued with the
technological advancements and the use of mechanised equipments. While men like
tractors women continued to do the tedious job of weeding and transplanting in the
agricultural elds. The modernisation of agriculture reduced the work burden of men.
Women continued to perform their traditional hand operations unless their family’s
income is suf cient to allow them to pass all or some of their agricultural work onto
women or men from poorer families. 

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
changes 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 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 labour
market participation, their 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
with the shift of education from family to educational institutions, and spread of
education in the society both males and females deceived chances to get formal
education but with the preference of men to take up jobs and responsibility of earning
for the livelihood of the family they got more support from their family and society for
specialised and technical education which gained them better paid jobs. Thus
modernisation and development generally speaking by all means consolidated the
secondary status of women in the society. 

In the contemporary Indian society division of labour based of 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 de ned roles of cooking of food and caring for children. The
division of work is socially de ned rather that arbitrarily. Women are expected to
perform household dominated activity which are supplementary or supportive to men
folk.

In the present day society it is found that the normative framework altered in practice
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 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
obligations of normal household obligations.

Thus researches proves that gender differentiation and asymmetries in sexual division
of labour instant to decreasing tend to widen with increasing modernisation and
economic development of the society. Now let us examine the facets of sexual division
of labour in the contemporary economy of modern specialised production.

(05/10/2021) Sexual division of labour and unequal distribution of household
labour

The occupational distribution of men and women in terms of domestic circumstances
focus on sexual division at home based on the socially constructed gender roles.
Women in the family are supposed to carry the responsibility for the care of the
children, The ill and older people together with other domestic responsibility of cooking
cleaning etc. it was assumed that women have relations to domestic circumstances
and men to waged labour. For women this division entailed disadvantageous both in
terms of accommodated hours of work and labour. The distinction between female and
Male sex primary is biological distinction whereas gender is social construction of sex
differences. Gender roles means the sexual assignment of what men and women do in
a social setting as well as the social expectations of what they should do. We have
also seen that the gender roles are constructed socially and culturally. It is argued that
gender roles in the household are the product of the in uence of the gender division in
the society at large and vice versa and as it exists in the present day society. Social
construction of gender roles and the devision of labour based on sex compliments
each other, assigning the primary role of women as home maker and that fo men as
wage earner.

The speci c sexual division of labour in the society assign them special responsibilities
not shared by others; they have chid rearing and home making responsibilities put
them in a different and dif cult position. Even when they take paid employment outside
home their home sealed duties and responsibilities remain the same which makes
them to take double burden.

Moreover the secondary role of women in family and society based on the gender roles
and gender divine fo labour extends to the labour market too. Let us discuss the
dimensions of sexual division of labour as it exists in the contemporary labour Market.
We will also analyse whether the contemporary process of economic development
could bring any change in the pattern of sex based division of labour. 

Sexual division of labor in the contemporary labour market

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Although women entered the labour market in large numbers in the modern period
there lives and work are de ned largely on the basis of gendered division of labor. This
gendered division of labor makes a good deal of women's work invisible and in the
visible paid employment women's potentials and capabilities are undervalued or
undermined for the advantages of men. In all societies the kind of work women do,
where, how and under what terms - all these are determined to a large extent by the
nature of sexual division of labor existing in that society.

When we look into the signi cance of gender in studies of economic development,
employment and inequality we can reach in some common observations. One is that
strong patterns of difference between women and men in paid and unpaid work.
Women often have less access to better paying jobs in organised sector and are
disproportionately represented high among unpaid family workers and in the informal
sectors. There are certain distributions within employment which can be related to
gender categories in the society. Also the pay and occupational distribution coincides
with the gender categories . This bias in division of labor in the economy against
women exist primarily. 

Women's work and the issue of non recognition : Women's work both for the
labour market and for the household 

Some of these work are recognised and remunerated while most of them are not
enumerated and remains unpaid. Women contribu.. females are involved in. Most
activities do not enter this sphere of the market and remain non-monetised. Most of the
work undertaken by the women is often interest rst with other household chores,
making it dif cult to separate the various task performed. The perpetuation of gender
stereotypes and the sexual division of the labour that typecast women mainly as
workers in the domestic sphere has been the chief barrier to the recognition of the
women's economic work participation (Vardhan 1995, Tinker 1990). Non-recognition of
women participation in economic activities is an outcome of the awed de nition and
the limited scope of the economic activities.

FEMALE WORKFORCE PARTICIPATION AND SEXUAL DIVISION OF LABOUR

In the modern period more and more women began to get out of their household to
take up jobs and join the nation's workforce showing an increased work participation
rate of women. Female work participation rate is measured calculating the proportion
of female workers among the female population. The studies on female labour force
participation mainly concentrate on the increase or decrease in women's participation
in the labour market. 

Trends in female work force participation: At the end of 18th century there were almost
4 million working women in India as per the census data. This was about one sixth of
the then working population at around that time about one sixth of all women were in
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labour force in USA. By the end of the 20th century there the number increased to
become one third of total work force as well as one third of all women. This is mainly
because of the rapid urbanisation and the new opportunities opened for women since
second world war due to industrial technological and scienti c advancements. In
France women workers made up a little over 25% of the employed labour force, by
1976 about 40% of the employed labour force were women . As far as the Asian
women are concerned the workforce participation is comparitively low. A lot of factors
such as socio political system, ethnicity, culture, religion, class and urbanisation etc
affect women's decision to join workforce. In Bangladesh in the year 1974, the
workforce participation of women were a mere 4%. In Pakistan, it was 8% around that
time. In the countries of South East Asia women had a higher rate of participation in
the labour force, around 33% in Philippines, 39% in Korea and 50% in Japan. In China
it was 36%. 

In the past few decades there is a clear economic shift from the agricultural sector to
industry and services both in developed and developing countries. There are several
individual developing countries (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tunisia) where women form an
important part of labour force compared to men, although women in manufacturing
sector is more in developed countries, 29% than in developing countries, 26%.
However for all the sectors the overall recorded in the total labour force in developing
countries is 40% compared to the 33% in developed countries because here more
women from lower classes taking part in the labour force.

(06/10/2021) Female work participation in India

In india during earlier periods women used to help men in their agricultural activities
and in the production and marketing of the agricultural goods and handicrafts con ned
mostly to the homes or nearby farms. However with the increasing pressure of
population and growing economic needs and social awakening the prejudice against
wage employment of women has weakened and as result ore and more women started
taking up jobs in the non traditional elds also. A vast majority of the female work force
participation is in rural areas where a majority of them are concentrated in agriculture. 

In india important sources of participation in economic activity are census report. The
work participation rate (WPR) which is de ned as the percent of total workers to the
total population is 39.3%. In the last three decades the increase is mainly due to the
increase in proportion of marginal workers which registered signi cant increase from
3.4% to 8.7% since 1991 More signi cantly in the case of rural marginal workers. Out
of the total marginal workers women constitute over 90%. The gap between female
workers for every 1000 male workers too has been increasing slowly, from 389 female
workers in 1987-88 to 359 in 1993-94. Women’s share in organised sector is only 17%
and even in the organised sector they are located in the lower rungs of the hierarchy.

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The pattern of women’s participation in the labour force varies across the country
depending upon geographic region, caste, socio-economic class and formal and
informal sectors. The rural female participation rate is 27.2% nearly thrice as much as
the urban female participation rate of 9.7%. The majority of the women main workers
(66.8%) are employed in agricultural and allied industrial sector. In urban areas
manufacturing, processing, servicing and repair (when it is in the household) absorbs
larger proportions of the total female employment compared to men. The reverse is
true when it is other that household work. Industries that employ more women than
men are bidi making, match box making, cotton textile, Cotton spinning, cashew nut
processing, tobacco stemming and re-drying, sh processing. Out of all women
workers only 17% is in the organised sector which is protected by legislation on wage
and working conditions. There is also regional variations in female workforce
participation in the organised sector with Kerala (39%) having highest and Bihar the
lowest. 

Though female work participation improved over the years it is much lower than that of
males. This disparity is even in the nature of work both the sexes are engaged in.
Majority of women are engaged in low paid and low status job. The continuation fo
sexual division of labour is clearly evident from the nature of female work force
participation rates in the contemporary society. The gender inequality perpetuated
through gender division of labour and gender roles limit women’s chances compared to
men to join the labour force. 

Non-economic or feminist or gender theories regarding women’s workforce

The basic premise of the gender theories is that women’s disadvantaged position in
the labour market is caused by and re ection of patriarchy and women’s subordinate
position in society and family. In all societies household work and child care are seen
as the main responsibility of women while men are seen as mainly responsible for
being the bread winner. This division of responsibilities and patriarchal ordering fo
society helps determine why women tend to accumulate less human capital as
compared to men before entering into the labour market; why female children get less
education compared to their counterparts, why girls are less likely to pursue studies
relevant for labour market etc. The patriarchal ordering of the society also explains why
women acquire less labour experience, why they withdraw from labour market
temporarily etc. 

Gender theory explains occupational segregation by sex by pointing out how closely
the characteristics of female occupations correspond to the typical stereotype of
women and their supposed abilities. In addition to female stereotypes there are also
masculine stereotypes which play a role in determining what are typical male
occupations. Gender theories also point out hoe cultural restrictions helped de ne what
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 is acceptable work for women and in some cases effectively bar women from certain
occupations. 

Job Segregation 

Levels fo occupational segregation by sex differ greatly across global regions. The Asia
paci c region has the lowest average level and the Middle East/north Africa region the
highest. 

The level of occupational segregation by sex. It is quite similar in both European
capitalist and formerly communist countries. One of the reasons for high occupational
segregation by sex as per labour market theories is gender stereotyping in
occupations.

Social cultural and historical factors are important in determining the extent to which
occupations are segmented by sex.

It is not very dif cult for men to enter into conventionally female occupations whereas
females entering traditionally male occupations is uncommon such as architects,
engineers, technical workers, blacksmith, tool-makers etc is very low. But the entry of
men into typically female jobs such as nurses, secretaries, maids etc is not very
dif cult.

Another most important nding is that women have very limited labour market choices
throughout the world as women tend to work in a small set of occupations. in addition
the most important occupations for women represents relatively poor jobs in terms of
pay, status, decision making authority and carrier opportunities. Another fact is that the
main occupations for women workers throughout the world have features, which are
highly consistent with typical female stereotypes in society at large.

(07/10/2021) It is only a minority of urban women workers who are employed in high
paying and high status jobs among the female workers in all the countries. There are
various reasons which constrain women employment to the low paid and low skilled
jobs. The social construction of gender roles, lack of women's higher and technical
education due to traditional familial and societal reasons, lack of vocational and other
training to women and consideration of women's income only as supplementary
income in the family, women's double burden of family and job responsibility etc. all
work against women achieving better heights in job front. 

Productive and reproductive work

‘Work’ has been de ned and conceptualised and categorised by various data
generating systems both within India and Internationally.We will now read how feminist
economists have argued about devaluation of women’s work, both productive and
reproductive. what constitutes productive work of women and how reproductive
function performed by women contribute to market activities and production process.
one of the key challenges for feminist economics was to make visible the so-called
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invisible or unpaid economy. We will now learn how productive and reproductive work
affect women’s status in society. 

Productive work of women

The tendency to highlight the unpaid economic work has a long-standing history within
the debates on gender and development, going back to the Women in Development
(WID) tradition and the work of the Danish economist Ester Boserup. From the
perspective of the WID advocates, the importance of Boserup’s book (Women’s Role in
Economic Development in 1970) was that, it challenged the assumptions of the
‘welfare approach’ and highlighted women’s importance to the agricultural economy.
Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, was singled out as the great global area of ‘female
farming systems’ in which women using traditional hoe technology assumed a
substantial responsibility for food production. Moreover, Boserup posited a positive
correlation between the role women played in agricultural production and their status
vis-à-vis men. One reason why Boserup’s research was picked up so enthusiastically
by WID advocates was that it helped to reject the narrow view of women’s roles as
mothers and wives, which underpinned much of earlier development policy vis-à-vis
women.

In general, a great effort was made to distinguish WID from women’s programmes that
were carried out under the rubric of health or social welfare. Instead of characterising
women as needy bene ciaries, WID arguments represented women as productive
members of society.

Reproductive Work

One of the most pervasive themes of the present feminist movement is the emphasis
placed on the role of reproduction as a determinant of women’s work, the sexual
division of labor, and the subordinate/ dominant relationships between women and
men.

The emphasis on reproduction and on analysis of the household sphere indicates that
the traditional focus placed upon commodity production is insuf cient to understand
women’s work and its roots in patriarchal relations. In order to fully understand the
nature of gender discrimination at work, women’s wages, their participation in the
development process, and implications for political action, analysts must re-examine
the two areas of production and reproduction as well as the inter linkage between
them. An example here is the internal labour market model of gender differentials in the
work force. This model represents a step forward from neo-classical explanations of
women’s secondary status in the labor market. It focuses on the internal organisation
of the capitalist rm to explain sex segregation and wage differentials, rather than on
factors of supply and demand developed by other models. Sex is one factor by which
workers can be separated. In this model, occupational segregation, wage differentials,
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and other types of discrimination by sex are viewed as resulting from the hierarchical
and self- regulatory structure of production.

Box:Feminist argue that domestic work must be shared between women and men,
child-care services must become available, and both patriarchal relations and gender
stereotyping in the socialisation process must be eliminated to realise women's true
potential in market economy

Traditional Marxist thinking and traditional leftist and liberal politics have followed a
similar pattern. The new emphasis on reproduction is the result of the questions posed
by feminists. It can be viewed as an elaboration of the simpli cations inherent in
Engel’s initial formulation. A variety of recent studies on women in Third World
countries have focused on the interaction between production and reproduction to
analyse women’s work. Maria Mies’s (1981) study of Indian women lace makers in
Narsapur, Andhra Pradesh, for example, shows how the seclusion of women has
conditioned their participation in non-household production. Although lace making is a
‘producing’ industry geared toward the international market, it is highly compatible with
seclusion and domestic work. Women are engaged in lace making as much as six to
eight hours a day, in addition to their household chores. Their average daily earnings
amount to less than a third of the of cial minimum wage for female agricultural
labourers. This situation persists even though the industry has grown considerably
since 1970 and represents a very high proportion of the foreign exchange earnings
from handicrafts in the region. Many of the women are the actual breadwinners in their
families. Mies argues that this highly exploitative system has in fact led to greater class
differentiation within local communities as well as greater polarisation between the
sexes. The system is made possible by the ideology of seclusion that rigidly con nes
women to the home, eliminates their opportunities for outside work, and makes them
willing to accept extremely low wages.

(08/10/2021) FAMILY IN CONTEMPORARY INDIAMarriage is a universal social
institution. human beings have created marriage to control and regulate sexual life. It is
closely related with families. Without marriage creation of family is a utopia. Family is
the most primary group in society. Here the child develops his or her own basic
attitude. So it is dif cult to imagine a society without family. Like family no other
institution in the world can engage in activities of production and reproduction. It
provides an atmosphere where emotion and affection can be blossomed. The work
family has been derived from the Latin word famulus which implies a servant.In the
traditional society the servant enjoyed the status Of member of a household. Robert
Bierstett highlighted the importance of family as “the family, almost without question is
the most important of any of the groups that human experience offers. Other reps we
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 join for longer or shorter period of times for the satisfaction of this interest or that the
family on contrary is with us always or rather more precisely we are with it, we have it”.
Family is a more or less durable association of husband and wife with or without child
or of a man or a women home alone with children. Nimkott, Elliot and Merrill has
de ned family as the biological unit composed of husband wife and children.” So family
is a small group consisting of husband wife and children …. A) on the basis of marriage
-1 Polygamous family

2. Polyandrous family

B) On the basis of nature of residence

Matrilineal family and patrilineal family

C) on the basis of nature of residence

Patrilocal family and Matrilocal family

D) On the basis of blood relationship

Conjugal family, Consanguine family

E) On the basis of authority

Matriarchal family and Patriarchal Family

F) On the basis of nature of relations 

(18/10/2021) 

(22/10/2021)Property

Related to succession the property of a Hindu female has the following categories:-

Property inherited by a female from her father or mother. This does not include the
property which she acquires at the time if her marriage from her father or mother. Such
property is Streedhan.

Property inherited from her husband or father in law. Under the Hindu succession act
1956, a daughter in law inherits from father in law only if she is a widow, i.e. she cannot
inherit if her husband is alive property inherited from any other source a person who
died without making a will property of a Hindu female died shall be distributed as
follows:-

upon sons and daughters, husband and children of any pre deceased son or daughter

upon the heirs of the husband

upon the father and mother

upon the heirs of the father

upon the heirs of the mother

Guardianship

A guardian is a person responsible for taking care of a minor or of his property or of
both person and property. A minor is considered to be person who is physically and
practically immature and hence need someone's protection. Certain important aspects
of guardianship are as follows:-

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 father is the natural guardian of his minor children, both sons and daughters where a
father is alive but he is a non functioning natural guardian, a mother can act as a
natural guardian. the mother is a natural guardian of her minor legitimate children only
and if father is dead or is incapable of acting as a guardian. The mother is the natural
guardian of the minor illegitimate children even if the father is alive. the Hindu minority
and guardianship act lays down that the custody of the minor below the age of 5 years
shall be with the mother unless the welfare of the mother requires otherwise. step
parents are not entitled to guardianship unless they are specially appointed by the
court. the natural guardian has the right to protect the property of the minor. remarriage
of the mother is no longer a disquali cation and a mother who has remarried does not
lose her right of guardianship.

Muslim family laws

MARRIAGE

A Muslim marriage, Nikah, is a contract between two persons of opposite sex.

…. (Ma’am sent pages)

(25/10/2021) Of all the institutions, family is… sociologist and anthropologist have
devoted much time and energy towards the study of family across cultures. The family
is the site for reproduction, production and consumption; it is the primary agency of
socialisation within which the new generation learns the norms, values and life ways of
the social group, it is the primary agency for identifying formation within which an
individual learns what roles she/he is expected to play and positions to occupy.
Symbolic interactionist theorists like Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead
have emphasised that it is within primary groups like the family that an individual
develops a sense of 'self' and learns how to shape and regulate behaviour with
reference to the expectations and value judgements of the wider social group. In a
nutshell, it is the family that facilitates the development of the unsocialised individual
organism into a social person.

Gender relations in social institutions

Gender identity, gender socialisation and enactment of gender appropriate roles are a
critical aspect of these process. Our identi cation as male or female places certain
constraints or limitations as well as certain avenues and opportunities in our lives.

Let us begin by clarifying a distinction made by scholars between the term sex and
gender in a famous book the second sex in 1979 the French author Simon de Beauvoir
asserted that 'one is not born a woman, one becomes one , one may be born as
female of human race but it is culture, society or civilisation which creates women',
which de nes what is feminine and prescribes how women should behave and what
they should do. Sociologist Ann Oakley made the distinction between biological sex
and social gender in her book Sex, Gender and Society, rst published in 1972. She
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 wrote that the word sex related to the biological differences between male and female
in terms of sex organs and reproductive capacities. Gender referred to the cultural
meanings ascribed by the society and the social classi cation into masculine and
feminine.

Feminist anthropologist Gayle Rubins classical article The Traf c in Women: Notes on
the Political Economy of Sex ( 1975) drew on the theories of authors such as Karl
Marx, Friedrich Engels and Claude Levi Strauss to understand the realities of the
status of women. Her theory of the sex/gender system attempted to identify a dynamic
system through which the biological features of sex were transformed into the social
features of gender. In the words of Ellen Lewin (2006) "Society is dependent upon
gender as a way to render person's eligible for particular kinds of manipulation in the
social exchanges that occurred through marriages". 

Society needs men and women and hence creates them everywhere. Despite this
analytical difference we see that everywhere the natural or biological differences
between male and female are overlaid with layers of cultural meanings and societal
proscriptions. Women are thus seen as naturally weak, submissive , nurturing, family
oriented, self sacri cing and unsuited to the herley berley of professional commitments,
politics, science and technology etc. The natural thus becomes social just as the social
and cultural are attributed to biological difference.

The family is the key site where biological sex transforms into social gender. When a
baby is born the rst question that is usually asked by anxious relatives and friend is is
it a girl or a boy. the answer of this question will determine the great many of life
chances and opportunities of infant. It may even play an imp role in survival chances
as in some communities the girl child is viewed as an economic and social burden and
maybe subjected to fatal neglect and even infanticide. Girl children may not have
access to the same quality and quantity of nutrition maybe groomed to help in
domestic chores and child care while their male siblings may be sent to school or
college. Being born male or female plays a crucial role in division of labour, in the
prestige and pay accorded to various kinds of work and in participation in various
public spheres like the economy polity religious and aesthetic realms of society.
Biological differences thus translate into differing cultural expectations and
opportunities and signi cantly into discrimination on the basis of this difference.
Gender is thus recognised by social scientist as one of the most imp exes of
strati cation and discrimination amongst human beings. Gender theorists in
contemporary times prefer to take an intersectional approach, by studying the manner
in which gender interacts and intersects with the other bases or axes of differentiation
like race, caste, class, ethnicity, etc. 

The terms can chip marriage and family are usually used together in anthropology and
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it is very dif cult to analytically separate them. Any discussion of kinship will
necessarily involve family and marriage. Feminists have opined that any attempt to rid
society of its gender discriminatory ideologies and practices must begin with the matrix
of the family and intimate relations, with some radical feminist calling for the
dismantling of the heterosexual nuclear family itself. Shulamith Firestone's
controversial and famous book 'The Dialectic of Sex' is one such extreme viewpoint.

It is important to bear in mind that we cannot speak if family as a static unchanging
social institution de nition of who constitute a family, family organisation, patterns of
male selection , residence, inheritance etc exhibit great historical and cross cultural
variation. The family is also embedded within and in constant interaction within social
institutions including the economy, the state, the legal system, religious and
educational institutions. Changes in the institutional matrix have a corresponding
impact on family functions and relationships. Gender is among the core things
underpinning these interactions. To give a simple example sexual division of labor is
observed both within the domestic spaces if family and household as well as public
spheres like market and workplace. Any change in one is bound to affect the other.
Frederick Engels theorised the interrelatedness of capitalism and patriarchy and class
and gender and compared women to proletariat and oppressed working class whose
labor power was appropriate by men/capitalist class.

(26/10/2021) Reproduction and the family

One of the important functions of the family is the reproductive function. Men and
women come together through the socially sanctioned institutions of marriage in order
to generalise their sexuality in socially approved relationships and have children thus
ensuring generational continuity. 

The ethnographic record thus have several examples of same sex marriage like the
“temporary boy wives” of the Azande of Africa and female to female marriage amongst
the Nandi community in Kenya. However, these are the exceptions rather than the rule
and family systems across the world rest fundamentally upon heterosexual unions
between men and women. 

Feminist opine that reproduction like all human activities is not a purely biological act
but a social one. Even though the acts of conceiving and giving birth to a child involve
biological processes in a fundamental way they are “overlain by multiple layers of
social and cultural practices” (Bradley 2007). 

Engels the origin of the family is regarded as a fundamental text by scholars of gender.
Reproduction according to Engels, was of a two fold character involving both the
production of survival needs like food clothing and shelter as well as the production of
human beings reproduction (in order to carry on the species). These mutually
connected activities involve the most important gender based activities of the family
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namely, domestic labour (housework and child care) and maternity and motherhood.

The domestic division of labour

In a short but in uential article entitled a note on the division of labour by sex by Judith
brown (1970) asks the question about whether there was something universal about
the kind of work done by women across societies. Surveying on array of ethnographic
materials on division of labour by sex brown suggested that it was because women’s
responsibility for the bearing and rearing of children that determined the nature of
division of labour by sex. If Women undertook work that was dangerous , kept them
away from their children for long periods or interrupted their child care duties, it would
threaten the survival and well being of their children as Lewin (2006) writes “Browns
article thus codi es a classic statement of the relationship between Sex and gender :
women’s reproductive roles are in this view a biological given; the social obligations
that arise from them are cultural but fundamentally linked to the biological foundation
that admits few variations. Sex and gender then, are imagined as theoretically divisible
but empirically intertwined, tied together by evolutionary pressures and much as by
convention”.

Brown’s formulations set the tone for a good deal of theorising in feminist anthropology
particularly the understanding that it was women’s reproductive role and its attendant
responsibilities that is motherhood that were at the core of gender systems across
cultures. Irrespective of economic and technological development, women across
cultures are charged with a speci c set of reproductive responsibilities that determine
their participation in activity outside the domestic sphere. Esther Boserup (1970)
examined various systems of agriculture across the world and observed that less
intensive forms of food production such as gathering and early horticulture tended to
be more amenable or friendly to women’s labour however when communities adopted
plow based agricultural which requires greater physical strength and intensive labour,
men assumed the major role. It can be speculated that when labour of women is less
vital to the survival of the family than that of man their relative social status also
decline. 

The notion of separate spheres that is women in charge of the private, domestic world
of housekeeping, cooking, caring and of course giving birth to babies and men in
charge of the public spheres including working, earning a livelihood and participating in
the other works of society, is in fact at the very heart of the modern industrial nuclear
family. 

Gender differences in the responsibility for children are an important aspect of the
family as a gendered institution. Placing the historical evolution of this pattern in
American society, Amy Wharton (2005) notes that the word housework was not
introduced in the English language until 1841, suggesting that in earlier times there
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 was no clear cut distinction between work performed at home and work performed
elsewhere. With the dawn of the industrial revolution, the growth of the factory system
and urbanisation the domains of home and work came to be separated. And this was
further reinforced by gender based Division of labour.

Among the middle class the workplace became men’s domain, while families were
seen as populated by women and children because middle class wives cooked,
cleaned, raised children provided emotional support entertained and sacri ced their
own ambitions for their husbands careers, it was as if marriage, middle class men
brought two people to work rather than one. (Wharton, 2005).

However it was a different story with the working class. Many working class women
had to contribute to the household by taking the wage to work. They had to juggle the
double responsibilities of housework and paid work. The above example illustrates the
complex interplay of gender and class in shaping family arrangements and
adjustments. However it was a middle class experience that became the basis for
cultural norms and practices at the work place which became an essentially male
sphere. As Cancian writes “In some the ideologies of separate sphere reinforced the
new division of labour and portrayed a world of independent self made men and
dependent, loving women. The ideal family was portrayed as a harmonious stable
nuclear household with an economically successful father and an angelic mother
(Wharton, 2005). Wharton makes an important point that the doctrine of separate
sphere was as much prescriptive as descriptive, providing a powerful cultural
justi cation for men to work for pay and women to stay at home and care for the family.
If for some reason a man was unable to work or provide adequately for his wife and
children he was deemed a failure an un t husband and father. Likewise a women was
expected to centre her life around the needs and well being of her family and it was
this investment of love and emotions that also made her un t to be a worker. A women
who was unwilling to be a full time care taker was also stigmatised and her feminity
was held in doubt. 

(27/10/2021) In the Indian context, Maitreyi Choudhury traces the recasting of women
as creatures of domesticity to colonial capitalism and modernity. The 19th century
social reform movement was strongly in uenced by Victorian values and culture and
accordingly Indian women were sought to be educated and moulded to t the ideal
type of reformed women. The new Indian women was to be gentle, re ned and skilled
in running a home. Reformers wanted to devise a system of education for women that
would unable the wife to serve as a solace to her husband in his bright and dark
moments… to superintend the early instruction of a child and the lady of the house to
provide those sweet social comfort idealised in the English word home. Continuing to
the discussion on the domestic division of labour, Harriet Bradley 2007 notes that
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 despite the increase in labour market, labour market participation of women in the post
world was 2 period in the west, their domestic responsibilities have not altered
signi cantly. Several research studies show that even in dual earner family in advance
countries like Australia, Canada, the USA and Norway, Men reported doing only about
25% of the total housework. The nature of housework men do is also a matter of
choice; they play with children, take them out for excursion, read them stories etc while
leaving the routine maintenance take like cooking cleaning and feeding to women. The
responsibility for planning and coordinating the household routine falls largely on
women. The are the household managers. Bradley sums up women do the housework,
men help. The gendered nature of domestic work thus creates and sustains gender
disparities within the household and at the work place. Women’s contribution to the
running of the household is largely seen as an extension of their feminine nature rather
than important work in its own rights. The coming of the Industrial Age further
sharpened the division between the ‘world of work’ and the ‘world of domesticity’
placing cultural expectations and norms on the performance of both sex of duties and
responsibilities. The bread winner-homemaker dichotomy on which the industrial,
nuclear household was based has had a profound impact on gender relations within
the family. 

Becoming gendered - the family and social and gender socialisation 

How do children develop this understating and start to behave like girls or boys as
expected to win that social setting? Is it a biological or a genetic response or it as
product of culture or environment? Social scientist agree that biology and genetics
de nitely play a role in personality and behaviour however more social scientists agree
that it is culture that shapes or acts upon an individuals biological raw material to form
a specialised person, a member of society. The major theory of socialisation include
the theory of social learning and cognitive development which are general theories that
are applicable to gender socialisation as well. Another perspective - identi cation
theory - was speci cally developed to explain gender socialisation and acquisition of a
gender identity. While the former theories focus on the way children learn appropriate
behaviours through imitations from their parents, identi cation theory draws on
Freudian ideas and focus on how psychological, unconscious process work in shaping
gender identity. Nancy Chodorow’s 1978 classic the reproduction of mothering is an
extremely in uential text for anthropologist and sociologist of gender. According to
Chodorow, gender identity is formed during early childhood as children develop strong
attachment to the same Sex parent or adult that is boys to the father, girls to the
mother. However in societies like the US (to which Chodorow belonged) women were
the primary care givers and thus children of both sexes develop their early emotional
attachment to their mother. However as children grow up boys have to switch
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 identi cation From mother to father - an emotionally painful and dif cult process
especially because fathers are less involved that mothers in child care. Girls on the
other hand continues to identify with the mother and learns what it means to be a
female from her. 

These different parts to gender identi cation according to Chodorow are responsible
for the formation of gender differentiated male and female personalities. While girls
tend to be more connected to others and empathise with the feeling of others, boys are
more comfortable with distance and separation and do not develop empathy to the
same extent as girls. Moreover girls are more secure to their female identity whereas
boys and men may need more to prove their masculinity every now and then to
themselves and to others. 

(29/10/2021) Even though Chodorow has been criticised for generalising on the basis
of a particular type of family, i.e. the western nuclear family- her observations about the
importance and centrality of the mother's role in early childcare and nurturance are
important. Also, the insight that mothering itself is reproduced through the formation of
a feminine personality that values attachment, nurturance and empathy- faces that are
commonly identi ed as maternal ones- enriches our understanding about how gender
is produced and reproduced within the setting of the family. 

Family and gender relations in transition

We have earlier stated and noted that family systems are not static . They respond to
and simultaneously impact other social institutions. In contemporary times the state
has played a major role in the affairs of the family. The state mandated program to
control population and limit family size, for example, has had a distinct impact on
reproductive behaviour and choices. The enactment of legislations pertaining to family
matters like marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption, prohibition of dowry, prevention of
domestic violence, etc. demonstrate that the demarcation between the private and
public realms is rather arti cial. The women's movement has played an important role
in sensitising in society to the crimes and discriminations being faced by girls and
women within the family like dowry, bride burning, domestic violence, women and
sexual abuse, foeticide and infanticide. The landmark report towards equality (1974)
highlighted discriminations being faced by Indian women in all spheres including
domestic a quarter of a century after independence. 

Spread of women's education, urbanisation and greater female workforce participation,
globalisation, the information revolution and the growing impact of mass media, mobile
telephone and other means of communication have virtually opened up a new world of
possibilities and opportunities for the new generation of men and women.

Alongside these trends, we also note the prevalence of sex related crimes, marital
descriptions and breakdowns, the so-called honour killings, traf cking of women and
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 girls and an alarming decline in sex ratio.

There has been a rich data on change and continuity in Indian family. Suzanne
Seymour's ethnography… her data sheds light on the changing perceptions about
family roles, responsibilities and obligations through a gender lens. Seymour notes the
gradual shift from interdependence towards independence and personal autonomy. 

Women have experienced con icting signals about their roles and identity. Greater
access to education, greater age at marriage have made girls more independent at the
same time cultural values of modesty and obedience to family wishes co-exist. The
continued reliance on arrange marriages seem to prove this. 

Seymour's ndings indicate that the conjugal bind between the married couple is
growing stronger and husbands and wives in upper middle class families have a more
egalitarian relationship. Young women are less fearful and willing to walk out of
unhappy marriages. 

Suzanne Wadleys (1999) Study of Kareempur, a North Indian village where she had
done a eld work and to which she returned in 1983-84 also describes signi cant
educational change for women and impact of TV and lms on rede ning gender roles.
Families are growing more couple oriented and young husbands and wives demand
their private space within a joint household which would have been unthinkable to older
generations. Kareempur villagers however see this change as a symptom of disorder
challenging the once well entrenched caste and gender hierarchies. The above
empirical studies demonstrate the changes in family structure and gender roles
brought about by modernisation. Simon (1999) raises the following questions "To what
extent will the patrifocal joint family be able to adjust to these kinds of democratising
changes while retaining the general commitment of family members to the well being of
the collective whole? Will India achieve any better solutions to the dilemma faced in
western societies of how to balance the needs of the family, whether extended or
nuclear, with the desire to enhance gender equity and provide women as well as men
with personal autonomy?.... Will these women be able to rely on the help of husbands,
parents in law and other extended kin in caring for children and the elderly or will the
kinds of familial problems faced by working couples in the contemporary United States
simply be duplicated in India?" These are indeed very important and interesting
questions and only time can reveal the answers. There's a need for ongoing
anthropological and sociological research on these various dimensions. 

SUMMARY

We have focused upon the centrality of gender as a fundamental organising principle
of the institution of family. Gender shapes our personalities, structures, opportunities
and expectations and controls our behaviour. We noted how domestic labour is
gendered and how the idea of separate spheres places women and men into distinct
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slots as homemakers and breadwinners. We examined how the family system creates
gendered subjects through gender socialisation. And nally we discussed change and
transformations in the system of gender and family in contemporary Indian society.

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