Assignment Code: BWEE-012/AST-01/TMA/2021-22

Course Code: BWEE-012

Assignment Name: Women and Society: Global Concerns and Local Issues

Year: 2021-2022

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

Answer any four of the following questions. Each question carries equal marks.

Q1) ‘Women’s issues are social issues’. Discuss. 25

Ans) In most patriarchal societies, women have fewer opportunities and privileges than men. In general, women have less “power than men in society. The economy, political system, and other social institutions can structure and perpetuate gender inequality”. Gender practises are defined within and through the social structure and institutions of a society. Gender refers to the roles men and women play in society, as well as their power. While gender expression varies by society, men and women do not perform equal roles or hold equal power. This inequality's impact on women's lives varies greatly.

Women have always been marginalised in society, and certain factors have led to current male dominance. Gender is central to individual life, social institutions, social organisations, and policies. The main goal of focusing on women's issues is to give women equal rights in society. Societies treat women as inferior. Despite culture, tradition, customs, and religion, women are discriminated against and denied basic rights. There is always a tendency for political and economic disempowerment of women in society lacking independence and decision-making powers in all spheres of life. This reflects how patriarchal social institutions are built with gender discrimination and bias. There are many derogatory practises against women that often ignore men's experiences and thus pose challenges to overcome highly irrational, unlawful, unjust institutional practises.

Society will no longer ignore women's experiences, raising gender awareness and giving women equal rights, responsibilities, and dignity. Gender equality requires reducing gender's influence on social life. Gender equality will improve if gender importance is reduced. Less gender inequality means less gender distinction and discrimination. Patriarchy is a cultural (ideological) and political system that privileges men and all things masculine, thus serving male interests at the expense of females. Intimidate and repress women, men are the “carriers of patriarchy”. Women's experiences are vastly different. Some sociologists believe capitalism and patriarchy co-opt women's economic and sexual power. In capitalist patriarchy, “economic and sexual relations are combined”. This is a political, moral and social meaning. Women are inferior in all of these ways.

Patriarchy excludes gender. Men are socially more esteemed than women in patriarchy. Patriarchy stems from denying women's power and autonomy. Women are born with power and esteem imbalances. Human society is based on binary categories, with men and women occupying the superior subordinate position. These binary oppositions are then arranged hierarchically and in opposition. Women as a group were oppressed. Male development and patriarchy both stem from a desire to deny women's power and autonomy. The dominance of men over women appears to be the foundation of social inequality, and the sexual oppression of women is seen to underpin economic, cultural, and social subordination. They see gender as a system. Gender systemic dominance ensures male dominance through masculine control of feminine sexuality. To them, gender oppression is the most basic form of oppression, preceding patriarchal economic structures.

Sexuality refers to male sexuality, of which feminine sexuality is a variant (or deviant). This is achieved through strategies such as compulsory heterosexuality, restrictions on contraception and abortion, control of reproductive technologies such as sterilisation, and male sexual violence. Sexual oppression, according to Shulasmith Firestone, is the root of patriarchal oppression. Andrea Dworkin agrees with Firestone that the oppression of women stems from biological causes, that women are oppressed by their sexuality. That medical and technological advancements only serve to further control women's sexuality and keep them bound to their biology. The threat of male violence keeps women passive and subordinate, according to Dworkin. Because they are afraid of male violence, women internalise patriarchal values such as stereotypes, loyalty and subservience.

Rape, wife-beating, forced childbearing, medical butchering, sex-motivated murder, sadistic psychological abuse, are some of the punishments Dworkin categorises, in addition to destitution, ostracism, and death (burning) that await rebellious women. Patriarchal institutions and values degrade her, glorify her powerlessness, and stifle and paralyse her most honest expressions of will and being. Patriarchy is characterised by male supremacy and female selflessness or invisibility. Prostitution, marital rape, wife beating, incest, bride price, selling daughters, purdah, and other male power strategies ensure male sexual access to women. Terrorism and sexual abuse appear natural and inevitable from the perspective of male dominance and female subservience.

It is possible to change women's position in capitalism without changing the outer world of production or the inner world of family and sexuality, according to Sheila Rowbotham. The mid-20th century Marxist feminist tradition emphasised improving women's employment status and reforming legal relations. According to socialist feminists, oppressive relationships are motivated by patriarchal power structures, which cause oppression to be experienced differently depending on class and ethnicity. Women's activities engage social relations reflected in social ideology. Women's issues challenge patriarchal values that effectively control women. These also challenge the oppressor's authority and vested or motivated interests. Women's issues also challenge patriarchal gender roles and women's own identity demands. Nowadays, women have a voice sufficient to counter the patriarchal terms of men.

Q2) Discuss the issues addressed by contemporary women’s movement in India. (25 marks)

Ans) The Indian women's movement has been active since the 1970s. During this time period, the Indian women's movement focused on a) women's representation in government; b) the neglect of women in development (widening the gap between constitutional and legal guarantees and women's lives); and c) violence against women (Swarup). The fundamental cause of women's oppression is woven into many issues.

Women in Peasant Uprisings

A continuum from pre- to post-independence, the Tebhaga and Telangana Movements originated as a bridge between political and socio-economic conditions that existed at the time. These movements sought to achieve a more equitable distribution of land, as did the Tebhaga movement in Bengal. Female guerrilla fighters were trained to protect villages, homes, and children from police brutality in both movements. In the early 1950s, many Indian states passed the Zamindari Abolition Acts, which granted some rights to landowners. A separate platform called Nari Bahini was set up by the women of the movement to run shelters and maintain communication.

During the movement, party women joined rural women to raise issues of class oppression, caste oppression, and women's rights to finance and property. They attacked patriarchy at the village level through Mahila Atma Raksha Samitis, such as wife beating. But the struggle ended just before independence. The Tebhaga movement left a legacy for toiling women to reclaim (Ibid). The Telangana movement, like the Tebhaga movement, was rebellious and opposed the feudal oppression of rural landlords. But the Telangana movement was created to oppose the Nizam's rule. Women fought alongside men in guerrilla warfare and against state repression.

Bodhagaya Math Struggle

On the road to Total Revolution, CYSV cadres went rural. In the Bodhgaya Math struggle, CYSV organised poor peasants from villages under Bodhgaya Math's feudal and religious control. The peasants demanded legal rights to the lands their families had farmed for generations, with the women demanding individual land rights in their own names. Land ownership and control was seen as a first step towards social identity.

Women in rural Bihar have been fighting against state officials' and community men's prejudices against women having independent land rights. Since the Middle Ages, the Bodhgaya Math had controlled most of the land in Gaya, a rural district of Bihar where agriculture was the main occupation. After independence, the problem persisted. Mathematicians had total control over the poor peasants. The oppression and exploitation of farm workers broke all minimum wage laws. Women were the most abused. The powerful exploited women's labour and bodies.

CYSV led the resistance to Math authoritarianism. The movement included men and women. They saw women's issues as part of the larger movement. That women are oppressed by men and their concept of manliness is what they see as the struggle for women's liberation. So, they felt the need to fight for their freedom from man's exploitation and dependence on them. CYSV activists emphasised that the women's movement is for equal rights in the means of production and full participation in all spheres of decision-making.

So, the Bodhgaya Math struggle became a powerful patriarchy critique. Women raised issues of family, work distribution, family violence, unequal access to resources enjoyed by men and women, male female relationships, and women's sexuality.

Shramik Sangathana of Dhulia

Women were more militant among the more active workers in the movement. They created militant slogans, sang revolutionary songs, and mobilised the masses. They went from hut-to-hut agitating men to join the Shramik Sangathana. They were more tenacious than men in negotiations with landlords. As the movement grew, women began to recognise their oppression as a gender. They began bringing up gender issues like wife beating. They vandalised liquor stores to protest the community's men's drinking habits.

Protest Social Evils/Issues

Women in the cities organised to fight the rise in prices of essential commodities that followed the famine. For the cities, the United Women's Anti-Inflation Front was formed in 1973. The movement quickly grew into a mass women's consumer protection movement, demanding that the government regulate prices and distribution of basic commodities. With the help of the state-sponsored literacy campaign, women in Nellore district, Andhra Pradesh, learned about the dangers of alcoholism and its impact on women.

Women who suffer daily from their husbands' alcoholic habits took spontaneous action. Thousands of women joined in picketing liquor stores, chastising habitual drinkers, and demanding an end to alcohol sales. Women of all political stripes worked tirelessly to make the protest a success. Women gained strength and importance, and the government bowed to popular demand. The sale of arrack was initially restricted to Nellore district, before being extended to the entire state. Andhra Pradesh's protests prompted similar actions in other states, particularly Haryana.

Protesting Violence against Women

Women in India have always faced and still face many forms of violence simply for being women. Female infanticide and foeticide, rape, and dowry murders are among the most extreme forms of patriarchal religious and economic violence. Cultural and socially based violence against women is a crime that is punishable under the laws of the secular and liberal state envisioned by the national movement. This society's violence against women ended.

Anti-Rape Movement: The anti-rape movement began in 1977 after a custodial rape incident. Following the public outcry, women's groups started the anti-rape movement. On March 8, 1980, thousands of women from all walks of life gathered in Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Pune, Bombay, and Delhi to protest the Supreme Court judgement. They demanded a reopening. Rallies, seminars, marches, sit-ins, and street plays were held in Nagpur and Bombay. The Forum Against Rape was founded by a group of women committed to ending rape. The Supreme Court agreed to review its decision, but ultimately upheld it. Due to the pressure from this campaign, the Law Commission of India recommended harsher rape penalties in the Criminal Law Amendment Bill of 1980, which was passed by Parliament in 1983.

Anti-Dowry Movement: Hyderabad's Progressive Organization of Women began protesting dowry in 1975. Protests against dowry and dowry-related crimes erupted across the country, but Delhi seemed to have the highest number of women murdered for dowry. Women's death by kerosene protests could change the public's and policymakers' attitudes. They may even show that many of the official suicides are murders committed by the women's husbands and their families demanding more dowry.

The feminist groups devised a series of strategies to raise public awareness of dowry issues. They recorded the dying women's last words, took family testimony, and encouraged friends and neighbours to testify. As a result, many families began to report their daughters' in-laws' dowry harassment to the police. In 1980, a year after the anti-dowry movement began, the government passed a law outlawing dowry-related crimes and requiring police to investigate any woman's death within five years of marriage.

Q3) Explain how gender construction marginalizes women in society. (25 marks)

Ans) In our society, social institutions such as family, caste, and religion are important agents of gender construction. The role of some of these institutions in the construction and institutionalisation of gender roles.

Gender and Sexual Division of Labour in Family and Household

Family and household are basic social institutions. Inherent in gender construction and discrimination. The institution of family is based on age, consanguinity, affinity, and most importantly, gender. An important function of the family as a social institution is to regulate and canalise sex, nurture and educate the next generation, produce and distribute economic goods and services, and legalise inheritance.

Families are believed to represent mutuality of interests, lack of individualism, shared workload and utility, interdependence, and security. However, oppressive structures that help maintain this institution's boundary and ensure its smooth functioning have been discovered by feminists. They claim that the gender-based roles and responsibilities, resource allocation, and power distribution within the family and household devalues women.

The sexual division of labour is fundamental to gender socialisation. In society, women and men have different productive tasks based on their sexual identity. Men and women are given separate and equal spheres of work, like breadwinning and homemaking. This means that each socially assigned task will be equally valued. In practise, however, tasks assigned to females and males are treated differently, with one group being lauded and the other ignored. Many societies devalue female tasks and assign a higher status to male tasks than female tasks. Examining the tasks performed by both genders will shed more light on this.

Women's responsibilities revolve around reproduction, mothering, childcare, and socialisation, while men's responsibilities revolve around earning. If different spheres of activity have equal status, then resource distribution within and outside the household must be equal. The distribution of resources within and outside the household is unequal, as various studies have shown. Less than men often. Determining public and private spheres also provides low status and recognition. The ‘private sphere' encompasses a large proportion of women's domestic work. Barrett shows in a study on gender construction and the sexual division of labour in capitalist societies that women are solely responsible for domestic and childcare duties, which are unpaid and undervalued. This stereotypical view of female responsibility is reflected in the workplace.

Thus, the family system's hierarchy of gender roles leads to asymmetry in gender roles and expectations, as well as exploitation of women by men. Men's tasks are seen as truly human, conscious, rational, planned, and productive, while women's tasks of household and childcare are seen as extensions of their physiology, and thus not real work.

In patriarchal families, boys are valued more than girls, and men than women. It also determines access to resources such as food, education, wealth, leisure, and even space. Because women have no direct control over their own bodies or persons, this inequality in access to vital resources for physical and mental well-being shapes both the foundations of male and female life, as well as the construction of genders. Women who feel powerless exhibit traits of isolation, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, ignorance, non-involvement, dependence, and passive acceptance.

Gender Differentials in Labour Market

Women's low productivity, low levels of human capital in terms of appropriate skills and training, and their family responsibilities have traditionally been explained as obstacles to more active participation in the market. However, cultural and social construction of gender influences men and women's aptitudes on the job market. The workplace gendering is based on the perceived biological differences and aptitudes of men and women. Women's abilities are judged by the gender construction of sexual division of labour, which sees women as caregivers for the young and old, sick, educators, food producers, and homemakers. Their sexuality is made to imply beauty, passiveness, and sedation.

Even before they enter the market, their gender is seen to define their workplace. Because of this perception, certain jobs, like teaching, nursing, and clerical work, automatically attract a female workforce. Women's income is also seen as secondary to men's, resulting in low status, low skill development, and low salary. Thus, gender role construction underpins gender stereotyping in the workplace and wage disparities between men and women. The trend persists despite the fact that more women are entering the workforce today. The process of gender stereotyping in the workplace reinforces sex stereotyping. The process of institutionalising gender role stereotyping in society becomes teleological as both processes mutually reinforce each other.

Socialization and Role Stereotyping

Socialization is the process of internalising societal values and norms into one's personality. It is also an integral part of social interaction, with individuals constantly transmitting, exchanging, and transacting cultural messages. It is a lifelong process of preparing an individual for roles that they will play in life. To be socialised and integrated into society, one must first go through family. Gender stereotyping and internalisation begin in the family. In an average Indian household, the birth of a girl child is not a joyous occasion. In many Hindu families, parents and relatives console their first-born daughters by calling them Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Women's births put the family in a bleak situation, with the mother feeling guilty of adding to the household's burden and the girl children feeling unwanted and even despised. In such situations, girls (and boys) are socialised to assume adult roles in society.

The girls are often told how unwanted they are as females. They are constantly reminded that they are married into the family, not born into it. So, investing in them is like ‘pouring water into sand'. Having a boy is also seen as an investment by the parents. This explains and justifies the unequal distribution of family resources like food, education, health care, space, and leisure. To meet patriarchal demands, the ‘custodial property' concept is extended to girls, limiting their mobility and thus sexuality. The girls' laughter, walk, eat, and playtime activities are all restricted.

The girls are taught by their mothers how to be a good wife, daughter-in-law, mother, etc. in patriarchal families. Girlhood is promoted in contemporary Indian society, at least among certain classes. Family is always first, and her role as a housewife, other family duties, and jobs are secondary. From the preceding analysis, we can deduce that gender roles and the consequent inferior position of women in society are not biological but socially constructed. The persistence of gender inequality in society can be explained theoretically.

Q4) Discuss the form, extent and implications of women’s of political participation in India. 25

Ans) Although women's political participation has improved dramatically in India over the last century, it does not appear to be sufficient to significantly improve their social status or emancipation. Their low level of political participation limits their influence. Despite legal equality, women in India face formidable obstacles to equal participation and leadership in politics. Sinha cites numerous reasons for women's under-representation in formal political structures. The low social status of women, lack of access to education, low economic status, restrictive cultural norms, unfavourable political environment, political structure, and succession processes all favour men and discourage women from active political participation.

Lack of political skills among women, perceived conflict between women's domestic and public roles, and a male-dominated party leadership all contribute to low female participation in politics. In any society, women and men have different political views. The levels of political awareness and thus participation by various sections of society vary by region, class, and community, depending on factors such as local political culture, political party approach to various groups, local leadership quality, caste, class, and gender-based stratification, etc. Many cultures deny women the self-esteem required for political leadership. In a culture that values men over women, women lack the confidence and autonomy to seek power and wield it effectively.

India had some great female leaders, but they were few and far between. Most women in politics don't (or couldn't) perform as actively. The low female participation in parliamentary business demonstrates this. State legislators' performance is also similar. It's not that they don't want to or can't. It reflects the patriarchal social system that subordinates women. Political education and mobilisation are neglected by both political parties and women's organisations. The structures of political parties’ favour men, and despite notable exceptions, most party men share society's prejudices and attitudes.

Political parties do play a significant role in promoting women's formal political participation. The political parties must support and encourage the election of women to various decision-making positions. Women are often discouraged from participating in politics due to both socio-cultural and political party disinterest. Only 200 women ran for office in the 1999 general elections, out of a total of 5336 candidates. Despite the significant increase in female higher education and participation in social and economic activities, the political parties' attitudes have not changed much. The increased cost of elections also discourages women from running. The threat of violence and character assassination deters female candidates.

All political parties have a low percentage of female executives. The number of female ministers. Women are given ‘soft' or unimportant portfolios whenever they exist. The Constitution's promise of political equality and contemporary reality diverge. The political culture of contemporary Indian society also discourages women from participating in politics. Politics and decision-making become complicated, and decisions are often made behind closed doors. It's become very costly and difficult for women with limited resources. Further, character assassination and unethical power struggles have hampered women's full participation. Other socio-cultural factors influence women's political participation in India.

The dominance of caste, class, religion, feudal and family status in Indian politics, etc., are all parochial and essentially patriarchal forces that work in favour of men against women. As a result, women are still marginalised in the political process, even though they vote and are elected. Women in leadership positions at the local, village, district, and national levels are still underrepresented. Women's subordination in all spheres of society restricts their political participation. Due to the family's gender-based division of labour, women must do all household chores. This reduces women's time available for other tasks. Due to a lack of supportive structures, women find it difficult to participate in activities that require repetitive, continuous work.

Also, much of political participation requires knowledge, exposure to various experiments, strategies, and models. Women's educational status and participation in higher education are low, so their political participation cannot be fully effective. Understanding political policies, strategies, and actions requires constant interaction and education. Gender equality is required for women to effectively participate in strengthening democratic institutions. Like in other countries, women in India have yet to fully participate in politics.