Assignment Code: MWG-006/AST/TMA-2022

Course Code: MWG-006

Assignment Name: Gendered Nation

Year: 2022-2023

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

Attempt any two of the following Long Answer questions (50 marks each)

1. Read Block 2, Unit 1, Race and Ethnicity and Unit 3, Caste. Discuss the relationship between race, ethnicity and caste with suitable examples.

Ans)

There is an ongoing debate in the philosophy of social science and the social sciences themselves about the status of social and behavioral science categories and classifications. The worries are that social science categories do not pick out anything objective, that they do not allow for measurement, that they provide arbitrary and vague groupings of individuals, that they have no consistent definition across investigators, that they are social constructions in some sense that lack stability over time, and so on.

To give a couple of examples, the concepts of social capital and culture illustrate the worries. Social capital is a trendy idea in the social sciences. It builds on the idea of human capital which is well developed in economics. Social capital may be an intuitive idea perhaps, but it is one that has many different operationalizations and ambiguities, enough to raise doubts that it is picking out anything real. Similarly, the concept of culture has long faced such criticisms. I am not saying I agree, but you can certainly see where the antirealist sympathies come from. Moreover, it easy to see how social constructivist accounts of these categories in terms of advancing disciplinary interests in a social context could be advanced. They certainly have been about the concept of culture.

Such questions about the reality of social categories have produced a lively debate about race among philosophers and social scientist and parallel debates about closely related notions of ethnicity and caste among social scientists, but not philosophers so far as I know. This section describes numerous doubts, documenting many of them in the literature.

Not in order of importance or frequency, doubts about the reality of the categories of race, caste and ethnic groups claim that the three categories:

·do not pick out substantial "things."

·are not natural kinds

·are not and cannot be collective agents

·are not composed of individuals who define themselves as members of the category

·are not constituted by a common culture

·are socially constructed in various ways that show they are not real

·exist only if there is collective agreement, common knowledge, collective recognition among those in the category and this usually fails

·have unclear and variable criteria for membership

·vary over time, context, and nation in how defined

·have no biological basis although the concepts essentially require that

·do not provide for systematic classification: not every individual in a society belongs to the categories in question and these categories do not form the basic building blocks of society

·different social science measures of the categories vary in how they classify individuals

·cannot ground causal explanations because these categories are fixed traits of individuals and there is no coherent account of causation for fixed traits

·refer to phenomena that are not independently existing but rather the byproduct of other social categories such as class and/or more individual level processes

·inequality between these categories is not just due to discrimination

·progress in ending discrimination due to legal changes or market place forces are making these groups increasingly unimportant to understanding social processes

These claims are not always made about each of race, caste and ethnicity, though their general approach suggests that should generalize across all three. The claims are also not all independent and are related in complex ways and different ways from author to author. Yet these claims do form a "family resemblance" or the elements of --to use equally vague but suggestive notions--a research tradition or paradigm in the social sciences and philosophy of the social sciences that has significant influence.

Let me provide some references from the literature. Brubaker in Ethnicity without Groups (2004) and Loveman (1999) in a seminal earlier article on the reality of social groups both advance a number of the theses listed above. So Brubaker says that races or ethnic groups are not bounded wholes, are not entities and are not collective actors (2004, p.3). They are not things in the world but perspectives on the world (2004, p. 17). Racial, ethnic and other social groups are not real things but just categorizations. Pierson (1967) agrees that race does not exist in Brazil.

Loveman provides a similar viewpoint. ""Race" should be abandoned as a category of analysis" (1999, p. 2); explanations in terms of race face "three critical pitfalls: (1) confounding categories with groups, (2) reifying "race," and (3) maintaining the unwarranted analytical distinction between "race" and "ethnicity." These three flaws undermine the usefulness of "racialized social system" framework" (1999, p. 2).

Webster adds to the chorus by claiming that race does not exist but that racial categories are the result of "racialization" by various groups, especially government and social scientists (Webster 1993). Wimmer (2013) argues that races and ethnic groups are not substantial entities; what is real is boundary making that is generally contested.

Similar claims about the social construction of groups come from Zack who claims that race is not a fact in the world (2003, p. 183 2013, ). Gracia (2017) sets up the issue about the reality of race as a debate about whether race is outside the mind or a mere social construction. Wimmer  claims that those invoking ethnic group concepts can give an adequate account only if these categorizations make for a systematic typology. All individuals must be assigned to one ethnic group and the groups must be mutually exclusive (Wimmer  2013 p. 47), but racial and ethnic categories do not do that. True groups require subjectively felt belonging.

Among philosophers, at least the following support the antirealist program to some extent and in various ways. Atkins argues that we need to first get clear on our concept of race, where our concept is the common-sense notion (2017). He also claims that if race is real, it must be a natural kind (2012, p. 71), but it is not. Glasgow offers similar views, saying that any discussion of race is bound by our ordinary concept (2017). Taylor argues that groups are real only if they involve individuals that self consciously recognize themselves as member of the group (2013, p. 106) and that collective agreement of some type is required. Mallon (2016) affirms this latter requirement in some form as does Elder-Vass (2011).

Critics also argue that each of these categories are really proxies for or reducible to other social phenomena. Wilson’s Declining Significance of Race (1980) is probably the best known variant of this claim, with race being replaced with class as determinant of outcomes. Race it is also suggested may just be a product of ethnicity (Lovaman 1999) and ethnicity may just be a side effect of of homophily in networks. Wimmer in Ethnic Boundary Making (2013) makes both claims.

So, there is a strong current in contemporary social science and philosophy that is antirealist and skeptical about important social categories and groups. These are doubts the philosophy of social science should be able to address and that is the goal of this paper.

There is a significant trend among philosophers and social scientists to doubt the reality of social groups. Philosophers have doubted the reality of race, and social scientists the reality of race, caste, and ethnicity. These doubts are on general, conceptual grounds that are misguided.  Serious doubts have to be based on specific empirical evidence showing that these categories do not show there is evidence of objective explanations invoking these categories. There is considerable tentative empirical evidence that the three categories do indeed pick out real groupings in a range of circumstances. When and where that is the case is an open and important question for investigation.

2. Critically describe the gendered dimensions of religion with the help of examples related to different countries.

Ans) In Indian culture, the Manusmruti gives women less status than men. They can't get a guru to teach them the Vedas, and they can't do anything on their own. According to this text, a woman's father is her protector before she gets married. After she gets married, her husband is her protector, and if she dies, her son takes care of her. In the 20th century, women were thought to be dirty after giving birth and had to go through rituals to get rid of this "birth pollution." Even though these rituals may have started out as a way to protect mother and child in the past and keep them from getting contagious diseases or infections, they are still done because they are a way to put women down. Women are told that the Hindu religion sees them as unclean and that they need to clean up before they can return to the community. Also, texts like the Atharvaveda have charms and rituals that make sure a boy is born instead of a girl. These parts of Hinduism have made it possible for women to be left out and treated badly.

In the western intellectual tradition, early Christian scholars like St. Jerome, St. Clement, and St. Augustine thought that women were bad for society and should be kept away from. St. Jerome thought of marriage as a bad thing that had to happen if people wanted to have legitimate children. Medieval works of literature like Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meuns's Roman de la Rose show women to be dishonest and untrustworthy. This is used to justify the subordination of women by saying that a woman's spirit needs to be improved by men's control and guidance.

The sura An-Nisa, which is the fourth chapter of the Quran, has been the subject of many feminist debates. Some readings of An-Nisa, especially verse 34, have made it possible for women to be subservient to men. Some Islamic scholars, like Jamal Badawi, have said that the Quran is not controversial, but that the fact that women are treated as less important than men has to do with the social and political situation in Arabia in the seventh century. In his 1971 essay The Status of Women in Islam, Badawi says that Muslim women's reputation, chastity, and role as mothers have been admired by fair-minded people throughout history. However, he doesn't realise that his so-called liberal analysis is also based on reducing women's roles to family honour, virginity, and motherhood. This interpretation is also based on the possibly false idea that a woman is only interested in domestic roles and that her sense of self is tied to her family and community.

Buddhism is practised in different ways around the world, and Buddhism itself has changed over time, so the status of women in Buddhism is also different. When Buddhism came to India, women did not have the same rights as men. The canonical Buddhist texts say that Buddha was reluctant to let women join the Sangha (community of ordained nuns and monks). The Theravada tradition says that the Bhikkunis (ordained female nuns) came about five years after the Bhikkus (ordained male monks). But different Buddhist commentaries say that the Buddha did this because he was worried about the safety of women. Buddhist canonical texts also show that the Buddha says it is possible for women to reach nirvana. This was a change from Hindu teachings of the time, which said that women were not spiritually capable. Even though these commentaries say that women aren't left out of Buddhism, the eight Garudhammas, which are extra rules that only the Bhikkunis have to follow and put them below the Bhikkus, seem to say otherwise.

Later Buddhist studies have argued about whether or not the Garudhammas were the original teachings of the Buddha. For example, scholars like Karma Lekshe Tsomo and Bhikkuni Kusuma have pointed out mistakes in the history of Buddhist women. Buddhist scholar Bhikkuni Kusuma says that the garudhammas were not followed in places like Sri Lanka even in the third century BCE. This is proof that the garudhammas are not part of the Vinaya, either as a rule or as a practise. Bhikkuni Kusuma is talking about how Buddhist teachings have been changed over time to make women less important. So, Buddhist doctrine and teaching have also been seen through the lens of patriarchy, in which women are seen as less important.

Sikhism started as a religion in India in the 1500s. One of the most important parts of the religion is that everyone is equal, no matter their class, caste, or gender. Sikhism was heavily influenced by the Bhakti Movement, which was going on at the same time it was. Because of this, it puts a lot of emphasis on equality. It stresses that men and women are equal and sees that men and women depend on each other. The Sikh gurus spoke out against the practises of purdah and sati, and sangat and pangat were used to help women get the same rights as men. Sikhism also encourages marriage and sexual union, which is different from most other religions, which prefer celibacy and sexual abstinence. What needs to be talked about, though, is that even though Sikh religious texts like the Adi Granth talk about how women have the same status as men, women are always shown as being good wives or mothers. So, a woman's identity is based on her ability to reproduce sexually and on her role in the family. This is linked to the promotion of marriage, in which a woman's identity is tied to her role as a wife and mother, leaving her with few other ways to define herself.