Gender And Society

Sociology Of Religion By Thinkers

 

Women, then, are unequal to men, not because of any basic and direct conflict of interest between the sexes, but because of working class oppression, with its attendant factors of property inequality, exploited labor, and segregation. The fact that women are less privileged than men within any given class, to the contrary, seems to have no immediate structural reason in Marxist feminism. Rather like liberal feminism, this fact is the result of a historical carry-over from the fall of primitive communism that Engels described.

 

  Consequently, the solution to gender inequality is the destruction of class oppression. This destruction will take place through revolutionary action by a united wage-earning class involving both men and women. Any direct mobilization of women against men is counter-revolutionary, as it divides the potentially revolutionary working class. A working class revolution that destroys the class system by making all economic wealth the property of the entire community would free society from class exploitation, a byproduct of gender inequality.

 

Early feminist writings emphasized that women had a right to work and attempted to reject prevailing attitudes that held that women’s work was marginal to both the economy and individual households. In the late 1960s and 1970s there were several strikes for equal pay and better working conditions, including a strike by sewing machines at Ford’s Dagenham factory, the London night cleaners campaign for unionisation, the occupation and strike at the Fakenham shoe factory in Norfolk Are included. by Asian women at the Imperial Typewriter in Leicester. The Working Women’s Charter campaign was established at a national level in 1974, calling for action by employers, unions and the state to ensure greater equality for women in the labor market. Campaigns by feminists have focused on wage work. In the 1980s and 1990s the issue of the value of women’s work compared to men’s was important.

Women’s Work has also produced a large body of case studies of the position of women in the labor market. These academic analyzes of women’s participation have identified three broad areas of concern.

 

The frown on the paid workforce notes the exclusion of women—even there, they are treated as invisible, invaders whose ‘proper’ and primary place is at home.

 

The question of occupational segregation and wage differential has been analysed. Women and men still work in very different types of jobs, with women being relegated to a narrow range of occupations, particularly in the service sector. And

Differences among women also on the basis of caste and class.

Feminist scholars, as well as activists, have turned their attention to the notions of equality, equal pay, equal value or comparable value, and equal opportunity in the labor market.

 

 

  Alternative Explanation of Gender Division of Labour:

The main contribution of conservative economics to explain the wage gap between men and women has been human capital theory. This suggests that a person invests in himself by devoting time to study, obtaining additional qualifications, or gaining skills and work experience. The greater the initial investment in human capital, the greater the potential for future earnings. The evidence on the distribution of earnings broadly supports this. However, earnings differences, especially between women and men, are generally much larger than the theory suggests, so human capital theories provide only a partial explanation. They are also essentially sexist, because they only count as production those skills that the market rewards, and many skills that women possess go unrewarded and unrecognized. To explain these things, we will discuss the main principles of division of labor. These are as follows:

 

Principles of Division of Labour:

Labor economists have developed theories of differentiation that complement or replace human capital theory. Two types of theories have been developed to explain the gender divide in the workforce: the dual and the segmental labor market theory which also derives from economics.

have been derived, and labor process theory is based on the work of Marxist social theory.

 

  Dual Market Theory:

The earliest and simplest dual labor market model, as its name indicates, distinguished two labor markets, a primary and a secondary sector. The former offers higher pay, good working conditions, security of employment and opportunities for promotion. In contrast, jobs in the secondary sector tend to be low-paying, heavily supervised, with poor working conditions and little potential for advancement. Most women are located in the secondary sector workforce and this is seen in large part as an explanation of their low wages. However, it

 

 

 

The model does not provide much accuracy, as there are clearly a large number of men on the periphery, while there are also many women—nurses, teachers, and other professionals, for example—in primary labor markets.

(ii) Segmented Labor Market Theory:

Radical economists give a more dynamic account, emphasizing the process that produces a segmented labor market, suggesting that different labor markets arise because employers seek to divide and rule workers from one another. To counter working class militancy, they suggest, employers turned to strategies designed to maintain control. They achieve this by dividing the workforce into distinct segments, so that the actual experiences of the workers are separate and the basis of their common operations.

Capitalism will be weak. Therefore, labor markets are segmented on the basis of gender, age, race and ethnic origin. This account makes room for considering gender as central to the structure of labor markets, and not simply as a reflection of men’s and women’s different relations to the family.

 

 

Work of various forms, but especially wage labor, is a large part of most people’s sense of self. Traditionally, work has been regarded as an area clearly separate from domestic or social life, as something people are paid to do, usually for a set number of hours each week. Work is often experienced as the opposite of home; It constitutes the ‘public’ side of our everyday life, as distinct from the more ‘private’; Or the intimate side shared with family and friends. Work is associated with production, with the producer of goods or services of some kind for exchange in the market, as opposed to consumption, which is defined as a ‘non-work’ or leisure-time activity. In the course of work we exchange time and labor power for monetary reward—at least, in advanced industrial societies.

 

  In consumption activities or leisure, monetary exchange is either revered or the cash nexus is irrelevant. And, of course, work is depicted as a masculine domain, both as an area in which men are dominant, numerically and in terms of power, and as an area in which masculinity is constructed. is done. The domain of a woman is home and family. This does not mean that women are absent from men’s workplace at home; Rather, it determines that work is

 

 

 

Home and family are primary to the construction of masculine identity and primary to the construction of femininity. Men thus regard their families as ‘earners’, while women’s paid work is often interpreted as a secondary activity in their lives, as an extension of their roles as wives and mothers.

Feminists in the 1970s and 1980s broadened the definition of work to include domestic chores, sexual and emotional service to men, care for children, the elderly, and the sick. She emphasized that women’s activities in the home constitute work, however economically unrewarded, and criticized definitions that are based narrowly on employment or productivity. Along with the production of goods and services for exchange in the market, we must also consider the acts of reproduction as a part of work. These include the reproduction of children, the reproduction of human beings in the sense of their daily physical and emotional well-being, and the reproduction of existing social relations, including class and gender relations. This type of work is essential in the formation of social persons and current and future wage laborers are exchanged for a share in the financial remuneration received by other family members who ‘go out to work’ – usually But a male earner.

In the nineteenth century, that work has become synonymous with paid employment. Feminist sociologists and historians have also been active in questioning the meaning of the work. They have pointed to the ways in which the experiences of men seem to be prioritized over those of women; the ways in which women are denied access on equal terms to paid work, and the ways in which definitions of work exclude women’s contributions. Historically, home and work have not always been separated. They were spatially separated with the rise of industrial capitalist production and the separation is still not complete.

 

Women have always been part of the informal cash economy that coexisted with the growth of formal production in factories and other specialized workplaces.

Have been in Women have always worked – taking up lodging, washing and ironing clothes, running small shops, preparing clothes and food for sale. Their gradual appearance in the UK, and hence their presence in official statistics of employees, has been through the movement of many productive activities, whether for financial reward or not, into the factory. The significant shift was not from relaxed working but from intra-family to employer-employee working relationships.

 

 

 

Related literature on work :

Feminist scholars interested in the work began in the mid-1960s, pointing out the absence of women from most studies. The first step was to fill this gap by making women workers more visible. The researchers initially focused on working-class women, particularly in manufacturing. Clerical work was viewed only in so far as it was becoming more like factory work as a result of the introduction of new technology and new work subjects. Ironically, this has the effect of reiterating the heroic myth of the ‘real’ laborer as a factory worker. In so far as it maintains existing frameworks for the study of work, fundamentally shaped by the labour/capital relationship, it can be described as a ‘add women and stir’ approach.

As feminists began to accumulate detailed case studies, they moved away from the idea that nature

The e of the labor process is determined purely by the struggle between labor and capital. There has been a concern with gender as an organizing principle of work relations, rather than simply making women “visible”. Gender should not be seen as something made at home and then taken to work. It was becoming clear that gender had been constructed in many sites and that work was important. Accounts of the construction and manipulation of masculinity and sexuality in the workplace were published in the 1980s (Cockburn: 1983, 1985; Hearn & Parkin: 1987). Cockburn: 1983, 1985) and Game and Pringle (1984) looked at the ways in which a segregated workforce was defended not only by managers but also by male workers. While new technology was continually changing the content of men’s and women’s work, and threatening to break down the existing division of labor, jobs in one way or another were continually defined to maintain the distinction. Thus, while the gendered division of labor was always changing, what did not change was the difference between men’s work and women’s work, and the difference in power between them.

Braverman (1974) argues that new technology was reducing the dignity of work, driving away old craftsmanship and drawing more and more workers into the ranks of the enlarged proletariat. He also says that the proletarianization of clerical work is dominated by women. Changes in the organization of work should not be regarded as technological innovations based on the pursuit of capital for higher profits. Rather, they are the result of a struggle for control between capitalists and workers. Feminists added a gender dimension to this, arguing that labor processes are also shaped by conflict between men and women.

 

 

 

It was the position of women in the family that allowed them to be treated by employers as a reserve army of labor. But they provided a springboard for feminist exploration of the labor process, and for continued work examining why women’s jobs are defined as unskilled regardless of the job’s content.

Game and Pringle (1984) argue that work is centrally organized around gender differences, and that gender is not just about differences but about power. Power relations are maintained by the distinction between male and female jobs. Male workers have a vested interest in maintaining the sexual division of labor, in maintaining a sense of superiority over women.

 

They have done this by traditionally defining their work as skilled and that of women as unskilled, thus establishing an association between masculinity and skill. Game and Pringle consider the relationship between gender identity and technological change and ask what happens when mechanization occurs? He argues that men’s skill is seen to be built into machines, that there is a conscious association between machines, especially large machinery, deemed appropriate for men. There are some ironies in this.

His writings on white goods manufacturing (washing machines, stoves and refrigerators) look at a whole set of polarities that define the difference between men’s work and women’s. These include: skilled/unskilled, heavy/light, dirty/clean, dangerous/boring, mobile/sedentary. While new technology is making all work look like ‘women’s work’, new distinctions (technical/non-technical) are merging to justify the ongoing sexual division of labour.

Linda McDowell (1992) returns to the impact of recent changes on two areas of ‘women’s work’ – the labor market and the home or community, and argues that women, however, are still portrayed as ‘secondary’ workers. Yes, they are an increasingly important part of the labor market. United Kingdom. This increased centrality, though ‘care at home’ as the welfare state was restructured

‘Sale and Service’ runs against the greater demands placed on them as workers, and deals with the effect of increasing the overall workload for many women in the United Kingdom in the 1990s. Whether this will lead to a wider change in the structure of gender relations is an open question.

Since the 1970s, many accounts of women’s domestic activities have been produced from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Some authors such as Selma James and Mariarosa Della Costa (1972) attack the Left for being too narrowly focused.

 

 

 

Some argued for wages for factory, and household work, while others argued that this would only confirm women’s employment in the domestic sphere. Socialist feminists were more interested in women and employment than radical feminists, which is perhaps not surprising given the traditional socialist emphasis on women’s liberation through the inclusion of women in social production. Feminists of all kinds, liberals, socialists and radicals, support anti-discrimination legislation and equal opportunity programs.

The separation of men’s work and women’s work between the labor market and the home, but also within wage labor, has developed historically.

Chris Middleton (1988) has demonstrated that patriarchal forms of division of labor predate industrial capitalism, findings which he suggests ‘will no doubt be received as meat and drink by those who believe in the existence of an autonomous system of patriarchy’. believe in and want to claim its independence.

 

of the mode of production and of the class structure. Middleton herself rejects the idea that patriarchy is an autonomous structure and emphasizes the ways in which both gender and class relations are historically constituted and intertwined in particular places at given times. It is clear that the construction of the category ‘women’s work’ in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is linked to the ambiguity of women’s classification as dependents and their contribution to family enterprises. For example, in Victorian England, behind the ideology of separate spheres for men and women, much of the work in the home continued to be done by women. And of course there were large numbers of working class women in various types of paid employment.

 

Production Versus Reproductive Work of Women:

An investigation into the role of the Western housewife in production and reproduction clarified the work of women elsewhere. In the Third World and parts of advanced capitalist societies, women were shown to be directly engaged in productive labor during their domestic work. This is particularly clearly shown in the case of African women, but there is also overwhelming evidence from all other parts of the world to show the contribution of women to food production, processing and distribution, animal care, craft work and community development. (Slocum: 1975); Rogers: 1980; Bujra: 1986, Roberts: 1984). Women were once identified as workers, not as a worker

 

 

 

Wives and mothers, it became very easy to recognize the extent and variation of male dominance around the world. Social differences between men’s work and women’s work concealed divisions in access to land, knowledge skills and other resources, control over labor, and rights to dispose of what was produced. By making women’s labor (and especially women’s unpaid labor) visible, feminists could show how this work had become devalued in relation to men, though not in any equal or harmonious way.

A distinction between arguments that apply to all capitalist societies everywhere and those that are specific to particular capitalist societies in particular historical periods, however, has not always been carefully drawn. Marxist feminists also treated women in capitalist society as if they were full-time housewives or workers. It ignored the extent to which women engage in these conflicting fields of work throughout their working lives.

 

The need for a more careful qualification of generalizations was brought home in the form of work on production and reproduction in the Third World (Radclift: 1985). In the 1980s, more historically specific knowledge emerged of the complex relationships experienced by women in the processes of production and reproduction and the relationship of these processes with the activities of the state (Elson and Pearson: 1981; Balbo: 1987). .

The gendered structure of capitalist labor markets ensured a sexual division of labor at work. Women were less valued as workers than men, with access to a more limited range of work. Men benefited from this status and played a role in maintaining it (Cockburn: 1983).

 

Some Marxist feminists argued that women were a reserve army of labor, available to work outside the home where insufficient men were available. The problem with this view is that women in advanced capitalist societies are a pool of child labor rather than a reserve army of labor in the sense defined by Marx (Bruegel: 1979). Marx (1976) argued that it was a necessary mechanism of the capitalist system that an industrial reserve army could be called upon when additional labor was needed, so that wages could be increased.

Dhi can be prevented from eating into profits. This labor could be redeployed when the demand for labor decreased. Women remain a paradoxical form of cheap labor in advanced capitalist societies, as they have to be maintained even when they are in paid work, and have rights to housing, health care, education, pensions, etc. However, these rights are increasingly being curtailed by Thatcherism in Britain in the 1980s. Women’s cheap or part-time labor rarely directly replaces men’s

 

 

 

Expensive or full-time labor due to the extent of gender segregation in the labor market. The argument also requires specific qualifications in different parts of the world based on the structure of labor markets and women’s rights to maintenance from the state.

Women’s work is oppressive with respect to their pay levels and working conditions. There are limited work options available for women. They lack access to skills, and male activities in the home and workplace ensure that women do not leave work

masticatory zones without conflict (Berman: 1979; Cockburn: 1983; Westwood: 1984). Work, status and rewards became linked to the relative power of men and women in the home and women’s responsibility for children. The impact of technology on domestic labor then occurred in ways that have reinforced rather than relieved women’s responsibility for domestic labor (Ravets: 1987).

Making women’s oppression visible through work clarified the links between production and reproduction, but left many problems in the explanation of how and why these links formed, and how and why they differ. Nicholson (1987) suggests these not as characteristics of all societies, but as a historical (987) development, which led liberals to differentiate between family and state and Marxists to differentiate between production and reproduction. The inability of the Marxist concept of production to take gender into account leaves feminism with the problem of explaining the various ways in which women’s work is oppressive.

 

Production and reproduction :

What mothers really do with their time has been one of feminism’s most dramatic revelations. Once feminists turned their attention to women inside and outside the domestic sphere, it became very clear that most women lived lives of more or less constant labor. Although ridiculed at first (Mainardi: 1980). Feminists set out to seriously consider housework as an area of unpaid labor in capitalist societies. Marxist feminists took up the domestic labor debate, first in empirical and historical studies (Oakley: 1974) and then in the more abstract domestic labor debate. Women’s work in the domestic sphere was shown to be much more than the work of the private household. It was revealed as a work of social and economic importance, and showed a place in the systematic oppression of women (Kaluzynska: 1980).

 

 

 

Feminists were then faced with another situation in which knowledge of women’s familiar, everyday world was insufficient due to a lack of concepts that could explain it. Feminists used Marxist concepts of production and reproduction in an attempt to include women’s work in the production of children, hot dinners, clean shirts, and emotional support, as well as their paid labor. While the conceptual separation of women’s work in production and reproduction encouraged knowledge of women’s work in both areas, this dualism also created problems (Adholm et al, 1977).

In the 1970s the concept of reproduction was one of the more abstract and controversial areas of Marxist feminism (influenced by the work of Althusser) because it was difficult to specify in general how the ideology of sexual subordination interacted with the organization of production and reproduction. does the action. While Marxist analysis should be applicable to any mode of production, and some feminists have raised this point, Marxist feminism has focused specifically on the general features of the oppression of women in Western capitalism. This has created a lot of problems with generalization.

Obviously there cannot be a universal answer to why women’s work is considered less than men’s that will always be valid in every historical situation, but Marxist feminists seek a general framework of explanation, And they did so sometimes at very little cost. Abstract level. Women were not only workers inside and outside the home; They also physically reproduced and nurtured the future labor force within families as mothers. Women helped reproduce and maintain the social structure of capitalism. Marxist feminists then found women’s oppression in the family, homosexuality and marriage, as did radical feminists, but also in the production system and in the context of state activities.

The concepts of production and reproduction set women as workers on very different terms to men. Work studies exposed an unequal sexual division of labor inside and outside the home, which did not have its own history and ideology. Questioning the dichotomy of the private and public domains allowed women’s work to take place within the home and beyond.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a need to directly conceptualize both in the public sector. The nature of work allotted to women could not be separated from their general subordination. Feminists began to assess concepts of work, and in particular the idea that ‘real work’ took place outside the home in organized productive activity. Women’s work at home became visible in meeting the needs of the household and in reproducing the labor necessary for production.

 

 

  The changing relationship between production and reproduction:

The massive and permanent entry of women into the labor market … poses a challenge to conservative arguments, whether from a feminist perspective. The circumstances of the 1980s cast doubt on the need for domestic labour, whether for capital or for individual men. The disappearance of family wages in recent years of economic change means that fewer and fewer

Men can afford the services of a full time homemaker. And capital has discovered that the exploitation of women’s cheap labor maintains the level of profit. Overall, the amount of domestic labor in the economy can be reduced without disaster. The male employees still seem capable of doing their jobs without cooked breakfasts and ironed clothes. Although it is women who continue to do the majority of domestic labor … the total number of hours worked has declined in the majority. By definition, women who work for wages have less time for other pursuits. But a massive shift has also fueled the capital’s indifference to what is going on at home. The importance of labor force produced in situ has declined.

The state, unlike capital, is dependent on women’s unpaid labor in the field of reproduction. This is seen most clearly in the movement towards ‘community care’ rather than institutional provision for the elderly, disabled and seriously ill. In the debate about community care there has been a familiar juxtaposition of moral responsibility and individual achievement as well as collective provision which exhausts the initiative.

The welfare state and benefits system in Britain is dependent on an idealized gender division in the nuclear family that no longer exists. This dependence of women on men in the welfare sector has strengthened in a decade when changes in the economy have increasingly challenged it. This contradiction between reorganization in the spheres of reproduction and production has, so far, been contained by greater investment of female labor in both spheres. But the resulting ‘social momentum’ is not infinitely expandable.

The seeds of a crisis, but also of struggle and reconstruction, lie in this contradiction. In the post-Fordist era the relationship between industrial organization and the institutions of social regulation is being restructured in a paradoxical way that centers gender relations. Women’s labor force is an increasingly important element in both production and reproduction. Capital has resolved the contradiction between the short-term prerequisites of the economy for cheap female labor and the long-term requirements for social reproduction, in favor of the former. At the same time, the state is retreating from the latter sector as well.

 

  This contradiction has so far been resolved by an individually affluent minority purchasing goods and services for reproduction in the market and increasing dependence on the labor of individual women in almost all households.

Competing and conflicting needs and interests regarding women’s roles in the home and in the labor market create new cleavages and create scope for new alliances. Any ‘economic’ analysis that ignores the centrality of the gendered division of labour, and neglects domestic work, child care and support of a growing dependent population, is an inadequate explanation of the nature of contemporary industrial reorganisation. Nor can such an analysis lead to a political understanding of how such restructuring can be challenged.

 

  Domestic work Women’s domestic work:

Feminists interested in work are concerned with the sexual division of labor, the allocation of tasks based on sex. It establishes the work of women and men both at home and in the paid workforce, as well as the subordination of ‘home’ to ‘work’. The gender division of labor cannot be understood in purely economic terms. It also has sexual and symbolic dimensions. It is not only imposed on people but comes as part of a social package in which it is presented as right, natural and desirable. Our identity as masculine or feminine is tied to it.

Domestic labor can have a timeless quality about it, a job that women have always done. But apparently this has changed dramatically. the concept of ‘housewife’; One who stays at home and takes care of the household, husband, and children is essentially a modern woman—before the twentieth century few women had this option, other than the affluent with domestic servants. The advent of running water, gas, electricity, refrigerators and washing machines, dishwashers and microwave ovens, and the decline of domestic service have markedly influenced the nature of domestic work, which is now lighter than it used to be like factory work. Has gone. But whether it is less time consuming, or more widely shared, is a matter of debate.

 

 

 

one thing that doesn’t change

 

 

What appears to be true is that most women do so, even if the contribution of other household members has changed. Even the most biological functions of childbirth have been affected by technology, while changes in decisions about the number, timing and spacing of children have affected childcare responsibilities.

 

Women now have fewer children than in the past, but it can be argued that they are expected to devote more attention to child care.

Mental and emotional well-being compared to the past. While technology now tends to remove much domestic labor, the expectations of the home as a dimension of personal fulfillment have given it a new set of meanings. Rather than simply being ‘hard work’, it has sexual, emotional and symbolic significance. Yet, there are indications that the time spent by women in the paid workforce on housework is declining; Husbands and children do not seem to be lifting more, but women are doing less (Hartmann: 1981).

Feminist strategies attempted to analyze the interrelationships of family and production in capitalist societies. It was clear that inequalities at work were related to inequalities at home.

 

Women’s wage work was constructed as secondary, their wages viewed as pin money; Often their paid work was considered an extension of what they did at home—office wives, service and care work. But equally clearly, inequality at home was linked to their employment choices. Without equal provision of jobs and child care, a woman has no choice but to find herself primarily as wives and mothers. Recent changes in the economy and welfare sector also raise the question to what extent contemporary capitalist societies are based on the old model of an adjustment between capital and patriarchy. Socialist feminists see the world as a bargain between men and capital, based on support for the traditional nuclear family, in which a wage-earning man is served by the domestic labor of a home-based woman, and the welfare state. Institutions bargained. But it now seems that the ideal male workers of earlier eras, who worked solidly at a single job their whole lives, are no longer needed, and capitalists can make more profit from women’s labor, without society Collapsible if the beds are not made on time, the men do not have hot dippers everyday. Socialist feminists may have to re-evaluate theories of the relationship between capitalism and domestic labor, between the family and the welfare state.

One of the most notable features of the change in the nature of domestic labor has been the decline of productive work explicitly done in the home (for example, making cloth for bottling fruit and making jams) and replacing it with a production of goods, commodities and services. Bought the series in the market. For example, home cooking, as Ehrenreich noted,

 

 

 

Food is being displaced from food purchased at fast food outlets or other types of restaurants, most clothing is now purchased off-peak rather than made by women at home, and other activities, such as cleaning and child care, are also purchased. Can This ‘commodification’ of domestic labor has been intensified by the entry of women into the labor market. Paradoxically, at the same time, other types of goods are being purchased and used at home to replace previously market-based goods.

 

Music systems and video recorders are good examples here, as are DIY prerequisites. Rosemary Pringle suggests that these home-based activities are regarded as ‘leisure’ rather than ‘work’ and while ‘production’ is considered a qualifying activity. Consumption becomes trivial. He suggests that we should break away from this identification of work with production and consider the labor processes of consumption. Nevertheless, it is clear that the home is still the center of work for women and an increasing part of this is so-called community care.

9.8 Feminization of Work

Sociologists divide people’s lives into ‘work’ (paid employment), ‘leisure’ (time when people choose what they want to do) and ‘duty time’ (periods of sleep, eating and other necessary activities). Are. Feminists have pointed out that this model reflects the male view of the world and is not necessarily consistent with the experiences of most women. This is partly because unpaid domestic labor is not recognized as work – it is ‘hidden’ labor – and partly because many women participate in some leisure activities outside the home. It is not only the organization of work that is based on gender but also the cultural values with which paid work and domestic labor are attached; Paid work and the workplace are largely seen as the domain of men, the home as that of women. Rosemary Pringle summarizes some of these issues when she states that:

Although the home and private life can be romanticised, they are generally considered to represent the ‘feminine’ world of the personal and emotional, the concrete and the ‘special’, of the domestic and sexual. The public world of work sets itself up against all these things: it is rational, ‘abstract, ordered, generalised’.

es, and is, of course, masculine… For men, home and work are both opposites and complementary. [For ladies)

Home is not a respite from work but another workplace. For some women work is actually a respite from home!

 

 

 

Most classical sociological studies of paid work were for example male coal miners, affluent assembly line workers, male clerks, or salesmen – and, until

More recently, the findings of these studies formed the ’empirical data’ on which to base sociological theories about the attitudes and experiences of all workers. Even when women were included in the samples, it was (and still is) assumed that their attitudes and behavior differed little from men, or that married women were seen as working for pin money. was seen; Paid employment is being seen as ‘secondary relative to their domestic roles’.

However, a growing body of feminist and pro-feminist research has challenged these assumptions, and provided sociologists with a more detailed understanding of the relationship between gender, work, and organization, and in particular the different work experiences of men and women. are different.

 

Feminists have argued that domestic labor is work and should be treated as such. She has also stated that most women do not take up paid employment for ‘pinmoney’, but rather out of necessity, and that paid work is seen by many women as meeting important emotional and identity needs. This does not mean that women’s experiences of paid employment are the same as men’s, however, and feminists have highlighted the many ways in which work is gendered.

In Britain, for example, 46 percent of people in the labor market are women. However, 44 percent of women in employment and only 10 percent of men work part-time. Average hourly earnings are 18 percent lower for women working full time, and 40 percent lower for women working part time than for women working full time. 52 percent of mothers of children under five are unemployed, compared with 91 percent of fathers of children under five. There are 4.5 children under the age of 8 for every location registered with a childminder, in full daycare or out of school clubs. Modern apprentices in hairdressing and early years care and education are predominantly female, while those in construction, engineering and plumbing are predominantly male. Women are by far the majority in administrative and secretarial (80 percent) and personal service jobs (84 percent), while men hold most skilled trades (92 percent) and process, plant. and machine operative jobs (85 percent). Feminist sociologists have tried to explain these patterns in terms of a number of concepts, especially the sexual division of labor.

 

care and support work

Many women are expected to care not only for their husbands and children but also for other dependents, and generally for people in the community in a voluntary capacity. Women

 

 

 

As Janet Finch (1983) has demonstrated, this goes beyond the wives of managers and businessmen, who are expected to entertain on behalf of their husbands. This labor benefits the employer. Finch also notes that in many professional occupations, women often “support” or substitute for their husbands in more peripheral aspects of their work (in the case of clergy, politicians, and so on). Goffey and Case (1985) ) have suggested that wives play an important role in helping self-employed husbands, who are often heavily dependent on (unpaid) clerical and administrative work performed by their wives. Wives are often seen as ‘self-made’. are forced to give up their own careers to reduce the male’s efforts. In addition, given the long hours’ self-employed men often work, many wives are left to cope with children and household responsibilities alone. is left for.

 

Sallie Westwood and Parminder Bhachu (1988) point to the importance of (unpaid) female relationship labor in Black and Asian business’ communities in the UK, although they also emphasize that a business is a joint venture between husband and wife. There can be strategy.

Women are also expected to care for elderly or dependent relatives. However, some feminists have criticized the concept of ‘caring’, arguing that it detracts from the reciprocal nature of many caring relationships. Other feminists have noted that the policies of ‘community care’ (as opposed to care in institutions), which have been advocated by successive governments since the 1950s, have a hidden agenda for women. Such policies, which often involve closing or not providing large-scale residential care, often assume that women are ready to take on the responsibility of care.

 

Furthermore, research shows that the majority of caregivers of elderly or dependent relatives committed to providing care on a long-term basis are women. While it is generally suggested that ‘where possible the family should provide care’, in practice this often means that women in families provide care

. It is commonly believed that caregiving is part of a woman’s role and that women are natural caregivers.

Sally Baldwin and Julie Twigg (1991) summarize the key findings of feminist research on care work and indicate that ‘informal’ care work reflects

• that care for non-spousal dependents falls primarily to women;
• that it is not shared substantially by relatives, statutory or voluntary agencies

 

that it creates burdens and material costs that are the source of significant inequalities

 

 

 

 

 

gender gap :

• Although the focus on gender difference is a minority position in contemporary feminism, some influential contributions to modern feminist theory take this approach (Baker Miller, 1976; Burnico, 1980; Gilligan, 1982; Kessler and McKenna, 1978; Ruddick, 1980; Snitto , 1979). There are also research papers (Masters & Johnson, 1966; Height, 1976) with findings on male/female differences that have deeply influenced contemporary feminist thought. The central theme in the contemporary literature on gender differences is that the inner mental life of women, in its overall configuration, is different from that of men. in their core values and interests (Rudick, 1980), the way they make

 

 

 

• value judgments (Gilligan, 1982), their formulation of achievement motives (Kauffman and Richardson, 1982), their literary creativity (Gilbert and Guber, 1979), their sexual fantasies (Height, 1976; Redway, 1984; Snitto, 1983), In their sense of identity (Law & Schwartz, 1977), and their general processes of consciousness and selfhood (Baker Miller, 1976; Kasper, 1986), women have a distinct vision and a distinct voice for the construction of social reality. The second theme is that the overall configuration of women’s relationships and life experiences is unique.

 

• women relate to their biological offspring differently from men (Rossi, 1977; 1983); boys and girls have distinct styles of play (Best, 1983; Lever, 1978); Adult women relate to each other (Bernico, 1980) and to women’s studies as scholars (Asher et al., 1984) in unique ways. In fact, the life experience of women from infancy to old age is fundamentally different from that of men (Bernard, 1981). This in conjunction with the literature on differences in consciousness and life experience offers a unique answer to the question, “What about women?” The second question, “Why?” Picking up identifies key lines of variation within this overall focus on gender differences. There are essentially three types of explanation of psychological and relational differences between women and men: biological, cultural or institutional, and largely constructed, social psychological.
• In this context, this chapter deals with theories of gender inequality in relation to biological explanation, cultural explanation and Marxist interpretation of inequality. In the following chapter, we would like to explain the feminist and postmodernist perspective of gender inequality.

 

 

• Biological explanation of sex differences :
• The biological perspective says that the sexual division of labor and inequality between the sexes are determined to some extent by some biological or genetically based differences between men and women.
• Biological explanations have been helpful for stereotypical thinking on gender differences. Freud traced the different personality structures of men and women to their different genitalia and the cognitive and emotional processes that begin when children discover their physical differences.
• Clearly women are biologically different from men. Although there is disagreement about the exact nature and consequences of this distinction, some sociologists,

 

 

 

• Anthropologists and psychologists argue that this is sufficient to explain the basic sexual division of labor in all societies. Contributions to the explanation of gender inequality from a biological perspective are given below.
• Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox – The Human Biographer:
• Contemporary sociologists Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox (1971) write of “biogrammers” as determining variables in early hominid development that motivated females to bond emotionally with their infants and males to bond pragmatically with other males. does. The Biogrammer is a genetically based program that primes mankind to behave in certain ways. These predispositions are not the same as instincts because they can be greatly modified by culture, but they are fundamental influences on human behavior. Partly they are inherited from the primate ancestors of man, partly they evolved during the existence of man in hunting and gathering bands.

 

• Tiger and Fox argue that it is reasonable to assume that, to some extent, he is genetically adapted to
• Life. Although the biogrammers of men and women are similar in many ways, there are important differences between them. Tiger and Fox argue that males are more aggressive and dominant than females. These characteristics are genetically based; Specifically they result from differences between male and female hormones. These differences are partly due to genetic inheritance from man’s primate ancestors, partly due to genetic adaptation to a hunting way of life.

 

• Males do the hunting which is an aggressive activity. They are responsible for the band’s security and for alliances or wars with other bands. Thus, men monopolize positions of power. By comparison, females are programmed by their biogrammers to reproduce and care for children. Tigger and Fox argue that the basic family unit consists of mother and child. In his words, “Nature intended mother and child to be together. It does not matter particularly how this basic unit is supported and protected. This may be in addition to the single male, as that in the case of the nuclear family, or by the impersonal services of a welfare state.
• George Peter Murdock – Biology and Pragmatism :
• Murdock (1949) sees biological differences between men and women as the basis for the sexual division of labor in society. However, he does not suggest that men and women are guided by genetically based predispositions or characteristics to adopt their particular roles. Instead, he merely suggests that biological differences, such as the greater physical strength of men and the fact that women bear children, drive gender.

 

 

 

• Roles out of sheer practicality. Given the biological differences between men and women, the sexual division of labor is the most efficient way of organizing society. In a cross-cultural survey of 224 societies ranging from hunting and gathering bands to modern nation states, Murdock examines the activities assigned to men and women. He finds tasks such as hunting, lumbering and mining to be predominantly male roles, tasks such as cooking, gathering, carrying water and making and repairing clothes to be predominantly female roles. Women are tied to the home base because of their biological function of childbearing and parenting. Murdock found that the sexual division of labor is present in all societies in his sample and concluded that the advantages inherent in the division of labor by gender probably account for its universality.

 

• Talcott Parsons – Biology and the ‘expressive’ woman :
• Parsons (1959) sees the isolated nuclear family in modern industrial society as specializing in two basic functions: the socialization of youth and the stabilization of adult personalities. For socialization to be effective, a close, warm and supportive group is essential. The family fulfills this need. Within the family, the female is primarily responsible for socializing the young. Parsons turns to biology to explain this fact. He states that the fundamental explanation of the allocation of roles between the biological sexes lies in the fact that the birth and rearing of children establishes a strong presumptive primacy of the mother’s relation to the younger child. Moreover, the absence of the husband and father from the premises of the house for such a long time means that they have to shoulder the primary responsibility of the children. Parsons characterizes the woman’s role in the family as ‘expressive’ meaning that she provides warmth, security and emotional support. This is essential for effective socialization of youth. They argue that for the family as a social system to operate efficiently, there must be a clear sexual division of labor. In this sense, the supporting and expressive roles complement each other. Like a button and buttonhole, they snap close together to promote family togetherness. Although Parsons goes far beyond biology, this is his starting point. Biological differences between the sexes provide the basis on which the sexual division of labor is based.
• John Bowlby – The Mother-Child Bond:

 

• John Bowlby (1946) has examined the role of women, especially their role as mothers, from a psychological point of view. Like Parsons, he argues that a mother; place in it

 

 

 

• Home, caring for your children, especially in their early years. Bowlby conducted several studies of juvenile delinquents and found that the youngest experienced psychological distress and separation from their mothers. Many grew up in orphanages and as a result were deprived of maternal love. They appeared unable to give or receive love and were forced to embark on careers of destructive and anti-social relationships. They conclude that it is essential for mental health that ‘the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate and continuing relationship with their mother’. Bowlby’s arguments imply that there is a psychological need for a close and close mother-child relationship genetically. Thus the role of the mother is strongly associated with the woman.
• Liquor.
• Biological arguments have also been used in writings more sympathetic to feminism. Masters and Johnson’s exploration of the anatomy of female sexuality has given feminist theorists the fundamentals to rethink the whole question of the social patterning of sexuality, and Lyce Rossi (1979; 1983) has focused heavily on the biological foundations of gender-specific behavior. attention from. Rossi has linked the different biological functions of males and females to different patterns of hormonally determined development over the life cycle and this, in turn, to sex-specific characteristics such as sensitivity to light and sound and differences in the left and right brain.

Relation for fractional variation. She feels that these differences feed into the different patterns of childhood noted by Carol Gilligan (1982), Janet Lever (1978) and Rafaela Best (1983); for the famous female “math-anxiety”, and also the obvious fact that ermines are more sensitive to caring for infants than males. Rossi’s feminism seeks to compensate for biologically “given” disadvantages, through social education, but as a biosociologist she also argues for a rational acceptance of the implications of biological research.

• Second. Gender Inequality: Cultural Theory:
• Cultural interpretations of gender differences often place too much emphasis on the specific tasks of women and the care of infants. This responsibility for motherhood is seen as a major determinant of the wider sexual division of labor that typically ties women to the functions of wife, mother, and domestic worker, to the private sphere of home and family, and thus to events. and differs greatly from men by a lifelong range of experiences. In this setting, women develop specific interpretations of achievement, specific interests and values, characteristics but also the skills necessary for openness in relationships. “caring for others”,

 

 

 

• and special networks of support from other women (mothers, daughters, sisters, co-wives and friends) who live in their different regions. While some institutional theorists of difference accept the sexual division of labor as a social necessity (Berger and Berger, 1983), others recognize that separate areas for women and men lead to gender inequality (Bernard, 1981; Kelly -Godol, 1983) or even be embedded within a wider pattern of victimization (Rudick, 1980).
• Many sociologists begin with the assumption that human behavior is largely guided and determined by culture, which is the learned prescriptions for behavior shared by members of a society. Thus norms, values and roles are culturally determined and socially transmitted. From this perspective, gender roles are a product of culture rather than biology. Individuals learn their respective male and female roles. The gender division of labor that gender roles are normal, natural, right, and appropriate.
• Ann Oakley – Cultural Division of Labour:
• Ann Oakley, a British sociologist and supporter of the women’s liberation movement, came down strongly in favor of culture as a determinant of gender roles. Her position is summarized in the following quote, ‘The division of labor by sex is not only universal, but there is no reason why it should be so. Human cultures are diverse and endlessly changing. They owe their creation to human ingenuity rather than to invincible biological forces. Oakley First takes Murdock to task by arguing that the sexual division of labor is not universal, not that some tasks are always performed by men, others by women. She biases Murdock’s interpretations of her data because she tolls on other cultures through both Western and male eyes.

 

o Specifically, she claims that the pre-judicial role of women in the context of the Western housewife-mother role. Oakley examines a number of societies in which biology has little or no influence on women’s roles. The Mbuti Pygimes, a hunting and gathering society who live in the Congo rainforest, have no specific rules for the division of labor by sex. Men and women hunt together. There is no special difference in the role of father and mother. Both sexes share the responsibility of caring for the children.

o Among Australian Aborigines in Tasmania, women were responsible for seal hunting, fishing, and catching opossums (free-living mammals). Turning to present-day societies, Oakley notes that women are an important part of many armed forces, notably those of China, Russia, Cuba, and Israel. Thus, it shows that there are no specific female roles and that biological characteristics do not prevent women from having specific jobs. he is regarded as a myth

 

 

 

• ‘The biological inability of women to do heavy and demanding work’. Oakley also attacks Parsons and Bowlby’s arguments by pointing to the kibbutz to show that systems other than the family and the role of the female mother can effectively socialize the group. Using the example of Alor, an island in Indonesia, Oakley shows how in this and other small-scale horticultural societies, the world
• Males are not bonded to their offspring, and this has not been shown to have any harmful effects on children. In traditional Aloris society, women were largely responsible for the cultivation and collection of vegetables. This involved him spending a lot of time away from the village.

 

o Within a fortnight after the birth of their child, women returned to the fields leaving the infant in the care of a sibling, father or grandparents. Turning to Western society, Oakley rejected Bowlby’s claim that an ‘intimate and constant’ relationship between mother and child was essential to the child’s well-being. Shane notes that a large body of research suggests that the employment of another has no detrimental effect on a child’s development. some studies

Studies indicate that children of working mothers are less likely to be delinquent than children of stay-at-home mothers. Oakley is particularly harsh in his attack on Parsons’ view of the family and the role of the ‘expressive’ woman in it. She accuses him of basing his analysis on the beliefs and values of his culture, and especially the myths of male superiority and the sanctity of marriage and family. They argue that the expressive housewife-mother role is not necessary for the functioning of the family unit. It exists only for the convenience of men. They claim that Parsons’ interpretation of gender roles is only a valid myth for ‘domestic subjugation of gender roles’, a valid myth for ‘domestic subjugation of women’. Finally, Oakley concludes that gender roles are culturally, not biologically, determined.

 

o Bruno Bettelheim is a psychotherapist specializing in child development. His study of group parenting in Ekibutz indicated that a close, continuous mother-child relationship is not necessary for effective socialization. The kibbutz children had little mental illness and little evidence of jealousy, rivalry or bullying. The children appeared hardworking and responsible, had no delinquencies and did not equate to a high school ‘dropout’. Compared to Western society, there is stronger pressure to conform to group norms and, as a result, Bettleheim found that children tend to be less individualistic. He argues that they develop a ‘collective’ rather than individual sense of self. By Western standards, the children appear ’emotionally flat, they stay away from any kind of emotion’ and seem unable to establish ‘really’.

 

 

 

• Deep, intimate and loving relationships’. Betelheim claims that parents raised in the kibbutz ‘expect little intimacy with their children, not hoping or desiring a one-to-one relationship with them. So their relationships with their children tend to be more casual – neither close nor intense.
• Ernestine Friedel – Male dominance and sexual division of labor :
• In men and women: an anthropological perspective, Friedl offers an explanation for the sexual division of labor and male dominance. Like Oakley, she favors a cultural explanation taking into account the vast variation in gender roles between societies. For example, she observes that in some societies, activities such as weaving, pottery-making and sewing are considered ‘inherently’ men’s work, in others, women’s. It is significant, however, that societies in which such tasks are defined as male roles generally have higher prestige than societies where they are assigned to women.

 

o Friedl sees this as a reflection of male dominance which exists to some degree in all societies. She defines male dominance as a situation in which men have highly preferential access, though not always exclusive rights, to the activities that society values most and which are used as a means of control over others. allows. He argues that the degree of male dominance is ‘a consequence of the frequency with which males have more authority to distribute goods outside the home group than do females’. Thus men are domains because they control the exchange of valuable goods beyond the family group. This activity brings prestige and power. The greater their control over the exchange of valuable goods outside the family, the greater their dominance. Friedl tests this hypothesis by examining hunting and gathering bands and small-scale horticultural societies.

o In hunting and gathering bands, men hunt and women gather vegetable produce, nuts and berries. Friedel turns to biological arguments to explain this gendered division of labor. Breeding, breeding and rearing are not adapted to the demands of hunting, while they do not pose a serious inconvenience to gathering. Yet this does not explain why hunting carriers have more prestige than gathering. The explanation lies in the fact that meat is a scarce resource and thus more valuable than vegetable production. The latter is usually readily available, can be easily assembled and is therefore not exchanged. The successful outcome of the hunt cannot be guaranteed. some men return empty handed

• Ed. In order for the whole band to enjoy a regular protein diet, which means it provides, it is necessary for successful hunters to distribute their kills to other members of the band. Friedel argues that ‘a resource scarcely or irregularly distributed is a source of available power’. Those who distribute such resources gain prestige, those who receive them are indebted and bound. Since hunting is largely a male monopoly, men are plugged into a dominant power structure by exchanging meat.

 

o Friedl’s ideas are novel and interesting and reveal a fascinating interplay between biology and culture. Although she claims that her work shows that male dominated

Sex and gender roles are culturally determined. She fails to completely dismiss the biological arguments. The fact that women bear children is an important part of their explanation for the sexual division of labor and, less directly, for the explanation of male dominance. However, his arguments reveal the importance of culture and avoid simplistic claims of the mentioned biological arguments.

 

o A somewhat different, though equally interesting explanation for the subordinate position of women has been offered by Sherry B. Ortner. She attempts to provide a general explanation for the ‘universal devaluation of women’. Ortner claims that it is not biology that holds women responsible for their position in society but the way each culture defines and values female biology.

o In this way, if this universal evaluation changes, then the basis of female subordination will end. Ortner argues that culture is given more importance than nature in every society. Culture is the means by which man controls and controls nature. By inventing weapons and hunting techniques man could capture and kill animals. By inventing religion and rituals, humans could invoke supernatural forces to ensure a successful hunt or a bountiful harvest. By the use of culture man does not have to be passively subject to nature, he can control and control it. Thus, man’s thought and technology, which is his culture, holds authority over nature and is therefore seen as superior to nature.

 

The universal assessment of culture as superior to nature is the root cause of devaluation of women. Women are seen as closer to nature than men and therefore inferior to men. Ortner argues that women are universally defined as closer to nature because their bodies and bodily functions are more related to the ‘natural processes surrounding the reproduction of the species’. These natural processes include menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth and lactation, processes for which the female body is ‘naturally equipped’. The social role of women as mothers is also seen as close to nature. They are mainly responsible for the socialization of the youth. Babies and young children are seen as ‘barely human’, a step away from nature because their cultural repertoire is small

 

 

 

• Compared to adults. The close relationship of women with young children further connects them with nature. Since the role of the mother is linked to the family, the family itself is considered closer in nature than the activities and institutions outside the family. Thus activities such as politics, war, and religion are seen as more distant from nature, superior to household chores, and therefore the province of men. Finally, Ortner argues that the ‘woman’s psyche’, her psychological makeup, is defined as something closer to nature. Because women are concerned with child care and primary socialization, they tend to develop more personal, intimate, and special relationships with others, especially their children.

 

o By comparison, men engaging in politics, war, and religion have a wider touch of contact and less personal and special relationships. Thus men are seen as being more objective and less emotional. Ortner argues that culture is, in a sense, the encroachment of the natural gifts of existence, through systems of thought and technology. Thus men are seen to be closer to culture than women. Since culture is considered superior to nature, the ‘feminine psyche’ is devalued and once again men come out on top.

 

o Ortner concludes that in terms of her biology, physiological processes, social roles and psychology, woman ‘appears to be intermediate between culture and nature’. Ortner failed to show conclusively that culture is valued more highly than nature in all societies. Although many societies have rituals that attempt to control nature, it is not clear that nature is necessarily devalued in comparison to culture. In fact it can be argued that the very existence of such rituals points to the superior power of nature. However, Ortner’s argument is missing an important quality. It provides a universal explanation for a universal phenomenon, the second class status of women. If Ortner’s view is correct, then the subjection of women to biology is nothing but the cultural evaluation of their biological makeup. A change in this assessment would remove the basis of female subordination.

• Third. Gender Inequality and Marxist Interpretation:
• Marxism presents one of the best known and intellectually most comprehensive theories of social oppression. This theory not only explains oppression but is a more tacit statement of gender-inequality. The foundation of this theory was laid by Marx and Engels. The main concern of Marx and Engels was social class oppression.

But she often turned her attention to sexual harassment. His most famous exploration of this issue is presented in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884). Chief

 

 

 

• The arguments of this book are:
•  Women’s subjugation does not result from their biology, which is probably unchangeable, it is constructed from social systems that have a clear and traceable history, systems that can possibly be changed.

 

•  The relational basis for women’s subordination lies in the family, an institution aptly named from the Latin word for servant, as the family existing in complex societies is a system of highly dominant and subordinate roles. The key features of the family in Western societies are that it is centered on a mated pair and their offspring are usually located in the same household; It is patrilineal, with descent and property passed through the male line, patriarchal, with authority invested in the male household head, and not least in enforcement of the rule that the wife has sex with her husband. The double standard allows men far more sexual freedom. Within such an institution, especially when, as in a middle-class family, women have no jobs outside the home and no economic independence, women are virtually the property or possessions of their husbands.

 

•  Society legitimizes this family system by claiming that such a structure is the basic institution in all societies. This is actually a false claim, as much anthropological and archaeological evidence shows. There was no such family structure for most of human prehistory. Instead people were linked in broad kinship networks—gon, large-scale associations between people sharing blood ties.

 

• Also these relationships were traced through the female line because one’s direct relationship to one’s mother could be demonstrated much more easily than one’s relationship to one’s father, in other words the gene was matrilineal. It was also matriarchal, with a significant power resting in the hands of women, who performed an independent and important economic function in those primitive hunting and gathering economies, as gatherers, craftsmen, stores, and distributors of essential materials. Are. This power was exercised in collective and cooperative communal living arrangements. commodity use, child rearing and decision-making, and through the free and weightless choice of love and sexual partners by both women and men. This type of society, which Marx and Engels elsewhere describe as primitive communism, is associated with the free and empowered social position of women in The Origin.

 

 

•  The factors that destroyed this type of social order, which Engels calls “the”

 

 

 

• The world historical defeat of the female sex” (Engels and Marx: 1884). There is the replacement of hunting-gathering by economic and especially animal husbandry, horticultural, and agricultural economies. This change is accompanied by the property, thought, and reality of some group members. Claiming essential resources of economic production as their own emerged. It was men who insisted on this clam, as their mobility, power, and monopoly on certain tools gave them economic dominance. With these changes, property owners Men, too, developed enforceable requirements both for an obedient labor force, whether they were slaves, captives, women-wives, or children, and for heirs who served as a means of preserving and transferring property. will work as

 

• Thus arose the first family, a master and his slave-servant, wife-servant, child-servant, a unit in which the master fiercely defended his claim of exclusive sexual access to his wives and thereby protected his heirs. Sons would also favor this system of sexual control, as it would rest their property claims.
•  Since then the exploitation of labor has evolved into increasingly complex structures of dominance, especially class relations; The political system was created to protect all these systems of domination; And the family itself has evolved into an embedded and dependent institution with historical changes of economic and property systems, reflecting the all-pervasive injustices of political economy and consistently enforcing women’s subordination. Only with the destruction of property rights in the coming communist revolution will women gain freedom of social, political, economic and personal action.
• Genesis has been challenged by anthropologists and archaeologists on questions of evidence by feminists
• Failing in various ways to understand the full complexity of the oppression of women. But in claiming that women are oppressed, in analyzing how this oppression is perpetuated by the family, institutions held almost sacred by powerful sections of society, and in the study of women’s economic and sexual status. In ascertaining the effect of this subordination. The Origin offers a powerful sociological theory of gender inequality, which contrasts dramatically with the mainstream sociological theory of Parsons.

 

• Contemporary Marxist
• Embeds contemporary Marxist feminists within the structure of the class system, and specifically the contemporary capitalist class system. From this theoretical vantage point,

 

 

 

• The quality of each person’s life experiences is a reflection of their class status first and their gender only second. Clearly women from class backgrounds have less life experiences with men of their class than women of a particular class. For example, in both their class-determined experiences and interests, upper-class, wealthy women are the antithesis of blue-collar or poor, welfare women, but share many experiences and interests with upper-class, wealthy-men. Given this starting point, Marxist feminists acknowledge that within any given class, women are less privileged than men in their access to material goods, powers, status and possibilities or self-actualization. The reason for this inequality lies in the organization of capitalism itself.
• The inherent nature of gender inequality within the class system is most simply and clearly visible within the dominant class of contemporary capitalism, the bourgeoisie. Bourgeois men own the productive and organizational resources of industrial production, commercial agriculture, and national and international trade. Bourgeois women are not property, but they are property themselves, the wives and possessions of bourgeois women being attractive and conspicuous objects in an ongoing process of exchange between men (Rubin: 1975) and often used to seal property alliances between men. There are means of

 

• Bourgeois women produce and train sons who will inherit the socio-economic resources of their fathers. Bourgeois women also provide emotional, social, and sexual services to the men of their class. For all this they are rewarded with an appropriately luxurious lifestyle. Gender inequality in the wage-earning classes is also functional to capitalism, and therefore perpetuated by the capitalist. As wage-labour women, because of their lower social status, are more poorly paid and find it difficult to form unions because of their sense of wage-sector marginality. Thus they serve as an irresistible source of profit for the ruling classes.

 

• In addition, women’s marginalization in the wage sector makes them a significant part of the reserve labor force, which, as a pool of alternative workers, acts as a threat and brake to unionized male wage demands. as housewives, as consumers of goods and services for the home and as unpaid caregivers to make a profit that subsidizes and hides the real costs of reproducing and maintaining the workforce (Gardiner: 1975) . Finally, but not least for Marxists, the wage-earner’s wife provides her husband with a small sense of personal power, a compensation for his actual powerlessness in society. In other words, she is the “slave’s handmaid” (McKimmon: 1982).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perspectives on Gender Inequality:

biological, cultural, marxian

• The word ‘sex’ is ambiguous. As commonly used, it refers to the physical and cultural differences between men and women (as in the male sex, ‘female sex’) as well as sexual function. It is useful to distinguish between sex and gender in the physiological or biological sense, which is a cultural construct (a set of learned behavior patterns).
• Some argue that differences in behavior between the sexes are genetically determined, but there is no conclusive evidence. Gender socialization begins with the birth of a child. Even parents who believe they treat children equally react differently to boys and girls. These differences are reinforced by many other cultural influences.
• Gender identity and ways of expressing sexuality develop together. It has been argued that masculinity depends on the denial of intimate emotional attachment to the mother, thus creating ‘male ‘formlessness’. Sylvia Walby acknowledges the importance of these points but rejects the original position underlying them. She explains through the concept of patriarchy.

 

 

 

o The sociology of gender considers the ways in which physical differences between men and women are mediated by culture and social structure. These differences are culturally and socially wide so that

o Women are defined through socialization as distinctly feminine personalities and a ‘gender identity’; (2) women are often isolated from public activities in industrial societies by their relegation to the private domain of the home; (3) women are allocated to inferior and usually degrading productive activities;

• (4) Women are subjected to stereotypical ideologies that define women as weak and emotionally dependent on men.

 

• There have been two major debates within the sociology of gender. The first has addressed the issue of whether gender is a separate and independent dimension of social stratification and social division of labor. The second debate pertains to the general approach to the analysis of gender differences and divisions in society.

The suitability of the theoretical approach. Therefore, four themes characterize theories of gender inequality. Firstly, men and women are not only placed in different positions in the society but they are unequally situated.

 

o In particular, women have less access to material resources, social status, power and opportunities for self-actualization than men who share their social space – whether by class, caste, occupation, ethnicity, religion, education, nationality, or any other socially significant factor. Second, this inequality stems from the organization of society, not from any significant biological or personality difference between women and men. The third theme of all disequilibrium theory is that although individual humans may differ from one another to some degree in their capacities and profile of traits, no significant pattern of natural variation separates the sexes.

 

Instead, all human beings are characterized by a deep need for freedom to seek self-actualization and a fundamental flexibility that leads them to adapt to the constraints or opportunities of the situations in which they find themselves. To say there is gender inequality is to claim that women are less empowered in terms of status

• For men to realize the need they share with men for self-actualization. Fourth, all theories of inequality assume that women and men will respond fairly easily and naturally to more social structures and conditions.

 

• Explanation of gender inequality :
• Feminist and postmodernist

 

• Feminist Theory :
• Contemporary feminist scholars have produced a rapidly growing, extraordinarily rich and highly diverse body of theoretical writing. The framework of feminist theory is based on two fundamental questions that unite all these theories: The descriptive question is: what about women? And the explanatory question is: why is the situation the way it is? The pattern of response to the descriptive question yields four classifications of main categories. Essentially you are answering the question, “What about the women?” The first answer is that in most situations women’s place and their experience is different from that of men. The investigation then focuses on the details of that difference. The second answer is that the status of women in most situations differs from that of men not only by having fewer or unequal privileges. future focus

 

 

 

• The details are then on the nature of that disparity. The third answer is that the position of women also has to be understood in terms of the direct power relationship between men and women. Women are oppressed, that is, restrained, subjugated, molded and used and abused by men. The details then focus on the quality of the harassment. Each of the different types of feminist theories can be classified as a theory of difference, or inequality, or oppression. In the previous chapter, we have discussed the theories of gender inequality in terms of biological explanation, cultural explanation and Marxist explanation of inequality. In this chapter, we will explain the feminist and postmodernist perspective on gender inequality.

 

• Gender Inequality and Feminist Perspectives:
• Feminist ideas can be traced back to the eighteenth century. The first significant feminist movements developed in the mid-nineteenth century, particularly their focus on gaining the vote for women. Although in decline after the 1920s, feminism rose to prominence again in the 1960s, and has had an impact on many areas of social life and intellectual activity. Sexual practices vary widely between and within cultures. In the West, repressive attitudes towards sexuality gave way to more liberal attitudes in the 1960s, the effects of which are still evident today.
• Feminist thought has had a major impact on social theory, and the social sciences more generally, over the past quarter of a century. Feminist theory is in a significant sense a subject matter in its own right, concerned with gender theory and addressing the ‘invisibility’ of women in social theoretical thinking. Yet it also has implications for some of the most fundamental problems of social theory.

 

 

• Liberal feminism :
• Liberal feminism’s interpretation of gender inequality begins where theories of gender difference end; the existence of separate public and private spheres of social activity, with the recognition of the sexual division of labor, the primary place of men in the former and women in the latter, and the systematic socialization of children so that they move into adult roles and spheres of their gender Suitable for. Unlike theories of difference, however, liberal feminists see nothing of particular value about the private sphere, including the demanding, mindless, unpaid and low-value tasks associated with housework, child care, and emotional, practical, and sexual service. Contains an endless round of tasks.

 

 

 

 

• Of adult males. The true rewards of social life are to be found in the public sphere. systems that restrict women’s access to that sector, burden them with responsibilities in the private sector, isolate them in individual households, and

It exempts men from the drudgery of the private sector, a system that creates gender inequality.

• When asked to identify the dominant forces in this system, liberal feminists point to sexism, an ideology similar to racism, hesitatingly consisting partly of prejudices and discriminatory practices against women, partly of women. The supposed belief about the “natural” differences between women and men that are adapted to their various social destinies. Because of sexism, women are confined and crippled from childhood, so that they can go into their adult roles and “reduce” from full humanity in those roles to mindless, dependent, subconsciously depressed beings due to the constraints and needs of their own. their gender-assigned roles.
• Bernard (1982) in The Future of Marriage presents marriage as a cultural system of beliefs and ideals, an institutionalized system of roles and norms, and a complex of interpersonal experiences for individual women and men. Institutionally, marriage empowers the role of the husband with rights and freedoms, in fact, obligations, beyond the domestic setting; It associates the idea of male authority with sexual power and male power; And it mandates that wives be complacent, dependent, self-void, and essentially isolated focused on domestic household activities and chores. Empirically, any institutionalized marriage consists of two marriages: the marriage of the man, in which he believes to be constrained and burdened, while experiencing what the norms determine—rights, freedom, and the domestic, emotional one by the wife. and the right to sexual service; and the wife’s marriage, in which she normatively confirms the cultural value of fulfillment while experiencing inevitable powerlessness and dependence, an obligation to provide domestic, emotional, and sexual services, and a gradual “decreasing” of the independent young person she is. It was before marriage.

 

• All of this results in data measuring human stress: married women, whatever they claim to fulfillment, and unmarried men, whatever they claim to freedom, heart palpitations, dizziness, headache, fainting ranks high on all stress indicators, including fear of nightmares, insomnia, and nervous breakdowns; Unmarried women, whatever their feelings of social stigma and married women, are all lower on stress indicators. Marriage is then good for men and bad for women and unequal in its effect will end only when couples feel sufficiently free from existing institutional constraints

 

 

 

• Best suited to their individual needs and personalities.
• Liberal feminists propose the following strategies to end gender inequality using existing political and legal channels for change, equal economic opportunity; changes in family, school, and mass media messages so that people are no longer socialized into rigidly compartmentalized sex roles; and an attempt by all individuals to challenge sexism where they encounter it in daily life. For liberal feminists, the ideal gender order is one in which each person chooses the lifestyle most appropriate for themselves and that choice is accepted and respected, whether as a housewife or husband, unmarried careerist or part of a couple. . Income family, childless or with children, heterosexual or homosexual. Liberal feminists see this ideal as an ideal that enhances the practice of freedom and equality.

 

 

• Gender and postmodernism :
• In the past forty years feminist theorists have advanced critical social theory out of the box. Challenges to liberal feminist theory have stimulated notable developments, particularly during this period. These challenges have taken shape most clearly in the form of an anti-enlightenment perspective around postmodernism, yet the most consequential resistance comes from multicultural and postcolonial theorists who focus on racial/ethnic and other hierarchies. (postmodernist or not) demand.
• Two other types of feminist theorizing have also challenged liberal feminist theory, namely the queer and psychoanalytical approaches. Adrienne Rich (1980) The Lesbian Continuum, raising issues that liberal feminist theory largely ignores or opposes, from sexual relationships between women to the emotional bonds that take priority in women’s lives. Similarly, feminist psychoanalytic approaches such as those of Nancy Chodorow (1978) or Jessica Benjamin (1988, 1995) introduce ideological and political baggage that liberal feminists often find problematic, even if not counterproductive.

 

• Gender inequality and postmodernist approach:
• If women have sometimes turned to modernism for critical purposes, feminist writers today have sought to use the concepts of ‘postmodernism’ in their interpretations of women’s experience more broadly.
• gender. Theories of ‘postmodernism’ or ‘postmodernity’ (sometimes these terms are considered equivalent, sometimes the author

 

 

 

• the difference between them) has tended to follow the ideas set out by Lyotard already mentioned. influenced by the concepts of postmodernism

Feminists have argued that there can be no universal theory of male supremacy, patriarchy, or sexual difference. They have distanced themselves from what they see as a mistaken ‘essentialism’: the idea that there are some characteristics, or experiences, that separate virtually all women from almost all men. Gender categories, like other social categories, are fragmented and contextual.

• Thus, it is claimed, for example, that the life of a poor Black woman living in an inner-city ghetto may be more different from that of an affluent suburban White woman than the experience of a poor Black man. There is no intrinsic unity to being a ‘woman’ apart from the physical equality of the sexes. Such approach has a concrete as well as theoretical thrust. In postmodern conditions it is seen that social life itself has become fragmented and civilized. In this context, we will discuss the postmodernist perspective of feminism.
• Postmodernism opposes liberalism as a modernist myopia, a failed experiment, an array of false hopes and a colonialist logic. As with liberalism itself, postmodernism presents itself in many forms. Whatever the version, postmodernism holds that modernist values and dreams began to lose their hold on people’s consciousness during the twentieth century. In their wake arose an appetite for ambiguity, irony and contradiction and a realization of how local and situated our knowledge, in the end and for all practical purposes, is. As postmodernism gained ground, many feminist theorists developed a love-hate or ambivalent relationship with it. Often fearing that postmodern skepticism towards modern values such as equality may promote resistance to feminism, for example, some theorists (Hartsock: 1990; Minich: 1990) advocated. Others embrace postmodernism, while still other feminist theorists evoke more subtle responses such as their ‘political project of … discursive instability’ (Gibson-Graham: 1996: 241).
• Prominent among postmodernist feminist theorists are: Judith Butler, Donna Harvey and Laurel Richardson. Some of Butler’s (1990) most important works focus on showing how cultures ‘intelligent’ only certain identities so that other enactments of identity are set aside from the mainstream pile as abnormal, distorted, unsuccessful or strange. identity in Butler’s hands is a demonstrative phenomenon which is

 

 

 

• Highly regulated. Institutional regimes render some enactments of identity ‘genuine’—that is, recognizable versions of X, Y or Z, and some enactments other than versions of X, Y or Z. For example, only culturally approved ways of enacting femininity are seen as expressions of femininity; Other ways of enacting it are seen as selfishness, man-hating, feminist dogma, or deviousness, rather than more ways of enacting femininity and expressing ‘femininity’.

 

• As Butler (1992) sees it, ‘part of the project of postmodernism … is to question the ways in which such ‘examples’ and ‘paradigms’ serve to subordinate and explain what they seek to explain. More generally, for Butler, ‘identity categories are never merely descriptive, but always normative, and thus, exclusionary’.
• Feminist postmodernism or postmodernist feminism for Haraway (1993) ‘revolves around the politics and epistemology of place, position and status, where there is no partiality and universalism to listen to the claims of rational knowledge’ . Her feminism supports ‘interpreting, translating, stuttering and partially understanding science and politics’. Haraway adopts irony as both a ‘rhetorical strategy’ and a ‘political method’, and she places the cyborg—a machine/creature hybrid—’at the center of (her) ironic belief’. Yet there are also modernist elements in that center. For example, Haraway insisted that ‘valid witnessing depends not only on modesty, but also on nurturing and accepting alliances with a vibrant group of others’.
• Richardson’s (1997) theoretical projects revolve around ‘redefining sociological discourse as a feminist-postmodernist practice’. When interrogating narratives, Richardson looks at ‘issues of representation’, specifically what hierarchies they reproduce. more than any other contemporary social theorist. Richardson has examined writing practices for their political baggage and transformative promise and has experimented with a variety of genres in his theoretical endeavours. In constructing her ‘feminist speaking positions’, Richardson thus creates a ‘postmodernist sensibility’ that celebrates a plurality of modes and multiple sites of contestation. Richardson’s bold interpretation of non-tradition
• All styles for writing social theory put her in the camp of feminist theorists committed to breaking representational boundaries as well as discipline-based boundaries. For example, some feminist theorists (Alfonso and Trigilio: 1997)

For, have published their work in dialogue form in the form of electronic-mail exchanges. Others (eg Rinehart: 1998) talk about feminist theorizing as a ‘dialogue’. At least two feminist social theorists—Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham—have done their

 

 

 

• Collaborative theory using a joint-name pseudonym (JK Gibson-Graham) to designate the authorship of his texts. Then they largely write in the first person singular! What Richardson and others are theorizing is, in fact, a deep connection. And what can be said, who can say it credibly and who can hear it in meaningful, practical ways?
• Feminist thinkers have drawn widely on Foucault’s writings, although usually in different or selective ways. Foucault’s work on the body, and on sexuality in particular, has been particularly important. In his work concerning the asylum and the prison, Foucault suggests that the body was the focus of new disciplinary processes integrated to the establishment of the modern state. In the ‘disciplinary society’ of modernity, the body is strictly controlled and ordered through direct supervision, or direct supervision, to coordinate the activities of individuals within the regular settings of modern organisations.
• Here the body appears to be relatively positive: indeed, in his study of the rise of the prison, Discipline and Punishment, Foucault talks of the new administrative orders being presented as ‘submissive bodies’. In his later writings, especially as he moved on to reflect on the nature of sexuality, Foucault placed a greater emphasis on the body as a medium of action and a source of pleasure. His multi-volume work The History of Sexuality attempts to demonstrate that in modern societies the body becomes a site of ‘dual power’: it is disciplined on the one hand, but becomes a center of fulfillment and self-discovery on the other. Is. Understanding.
• As Lois McNay points out, many feminists have objected to Foucault’s non-gendered treatment of the body. Her discussion of prisons, for example, focused almost entirely on an underlying model of the male experience, rather than considering the specific ways in which women’s discipline differed from those affecting men. Yet the force of this criticism, as McNay points out, may also be exaggerated. Foucault’s writings provide insight into how the body is ‘acted’ by gender construction, as in some key ways the ‘inscription’ of social influences on the body is actually a means of producing gender differences. The ‘visible’ rendition of women’s history should not lead us to conclude that it is an isolated and isolated experience, unrelated to other aspects of social organization and change.
• In McNay’s view, instead of criticizing Foucault for neglecting gender, we should

 

 

 

• For a critical appraisal of Foucault’s concept of the relationship between power and the body, see. Foucault correctly sees power not only as a negative, ‘ability to say no’, but also as a productive phenomenon. The view that Foucault’s study of ‘disciplinary society’ provides no basis for an analysis of resistance to power. McNay’s argument is wrong. Foucault’s theory, in fact, examines resistance and observes that it takes as many different forms as the contexts in which power is exercised. Yet, Foucault fails to adequately see that ‘biopower’ is a paradoxical and tense force. Biopower can provide a means of salvation in some circumstances and is not just a process involving administrative regulation.

 

• Nancy Fraser focuses on Habermas Like Foucault, although she often refers to the struggles of women’s movements, Habermas rarely discusses gender issues in a systematic way. In his most detailed statement of his social theory, The Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas distinguishes between the symbolic material reproduction of societies. To survive over time, a society must provide economic exchange with the physical environment, and it must also create and maintain symbolic values and norms that provide a framework for communication among its members. In Habermas’ view, paid employment in modern societies is part of the system of material reproduction, while women’s unpaid activities in the domestic sphere, including childbearing and rearing, belong to the sphere of symbolic reproduction. Fraser finds this approach insufficient. The raising and raising of children is a material as well as a symbolic phenomenon; After all, it is the means of physical survival of the species.
• Yet so is the realm of paid work: work is never just a series of economic transactions, but involves symbolic meaning and value. Fraser also questions Habermas’ thesis that the domestic sphere is related to the realm
• ‘Social integration’ – integration of large scale institutions. Habermas’ ideological distinctions, because they are not informed by a satisfactory explanation of gender, are in fact easily justified by ideological distinctions.

work to boot, which they explicitly expose and criticize. Habermas’ theory of ‘colonization’ of the ‘living world’ is flawed for similar reasons. In concluding her discussion Fraser indicates how Habermas’ ideas can be modified if they are linked, as they should be, with an account of gender.

• Janet Wolff’s analysis considers the implications of taking gender seriously

 

 

 

• Modernism as a cultural phenomenon. She begins with a brief discussion of some of the ideas of her namesake. Virginia Woolf was a champion of modernism and advocated a break with the tradition established by modernism. Wolfe was sympathetic to feminism and saw the new movements in the literature of her time as a means of breaking with the ‘man-made sentence’—the heavy, long-winded writing style of Converse. Women may be able to use new models of linguistic expression to give voice to specific lived experiences in a world dominated by men. Wolfe’s ideas about the relationship between modernism and feminism have since been echoed by many other feminist writers.
• Modernism, points out Janet Wolfe (like postmodernism), is difficult to define. It is usually located in the period 1890 to 1930, but includes a variety of literary and artistic forms. Following Eugene Lunn, Wolff defined postmodernism as a rebellion against realism and romanticism, characterized by the disappearance of aesthetic self-consciousness, simultaneity, ambiguity and the ‘unified personality’. She notes, however, that these traits actually remarkably parallel those often associated with postmodernism.
• Understood in this way, modernism appears as a history of male achievement. Here the general description of the development of modernism goes far beyond the failure to recognize the role of women writers and artists. Modernism is in fact primarily a masculine phenomenon. Looking specifically at the work of women writers, it is possible to see that modernism, as suggested by Virginia Woolf, often depicted the mechanisms of a patriarchal society.
• Pierre Bourdieu to account for the fact that women are, in most known societies, relegated to inferior social positions, the economics of symbolic exchange required taking into account the asymmetry of status given to each gender. Whereas men are subjects of marital strategies through which they work to maintain or increase their symbolic capital, women have always been treated as objects of these exchanges in which they serve as symbols suitable for striking alliances. are broadcast in This object status accorded to women is best seen in the place where the tribal-mythological-ritual system attributes their contribution to reproduction. this system is conflicting

 

 

 

• Properly negates the female labor of the womb (as it negates the associated labor of the soil in the agricultural cycle) for the benefit of male intervention in sexual activity. Similarly, in European societies, the privileged role that women play in symbolic production inside and outside the home is always devalued if not rejected. Male supremacy is thus founded on the economic logic of symbolic exchange, that is, based on a fundamental asymmetry between men and women in the social construction of relationship and marriage: that between subject and object, agent and means. A symbolic struggle capable of challenging the practically immediate accord of tangible and objective structures, i.e. of a symbolic revolution that questions the very foundations of the production and reproduction of symbolic capital, in particular, the dialectic of pretense and distinction that pervades cultural objects. as an indication of the distinction at the root of production and consumption.

 

 

• Psychoanalytic Theory of Feminism :
• Psychoanalytic theory suggests that the human individual ore ‘subject’ is socially constructed. It is partly because of the great influence of psychoanalysis that so many writers, both within and outside the sphere of feminist thought, have spoken of the ‘end of the subject’ in modern social theory. Agnes Heller takes up this issue. She doesn’t specifically discuss it in relation to feminism, or even gender, but careful readers will easily be able to apply her arguments back to the points
• Picked up by previous selections within this section.
• The ‘death of the subject’ is particularly associated with postmodernism, but, as it shows, has an ancestor in social theory and philosophy. Yet who really is the one who is believed to have died? Critics of essentialism would say that it is a ‘unitary individual’ category that has no relevance in social analysis today. Yet such a category was from the beginning a constructed category and in part such critics are attacking a position that few, if any, have ever held.
• We can see that this is so by taking the concrete example of autobiography. A person who writes an autobiography is both the author of the text and the author as a subject as well as authorizing a ‘world’ in which that subject exists. Subject

 

 

 

• (human person) and

The interactions (natural and social environments) are never really separate entities, they only ‘act’ on each other; They are mutually constructed in the course of history. Individuals have existed in all societies; The ‘subject’ is the creation of modernity. In the conditions of modern social life, in which, as previously emphasized, tradition has largely been taken away; The individual does not inherit a pre-given map for his or her self-understanding. Women and men in modern societies have contingent identities and are aware of this contingency; It is precisely this that makes for the formation of the ‘subject’ rather than speaking of the death of the subject. Therefore, we should see that the ‘openness’ of experience associated with socially constructed identity has been associated with modernity since its inception. is tied. ,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gender Inequality In Law

 

, The social reforms of the nineteenth century attempted some marginal adjustments arising out of humanitarian considerations and social demands, their most important achievement being the law against the practice of Sati. Although no such legislation was attempted in 1857. The strengthening of the national movement and the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi led to demands for bringing major changes in the law and removing the legal inferiority of women and ending discrimination against them. In matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, or custody of children that affect their lives and personalities. Thus reform of Hindu law was initiated before independence, however, due to orthodox resistance, it could not be implemented piecemeal during the 1950s.

 

During the British period, the general policy of non-interference in social and religious affairs perpetuated many systems and stabilized and hardened the differences between different religious communities and between men and women, preventing normal adjustment to socio-economic changes . The colonial rulers, in their own way, distinguished between the private and public spheres of life according to their own rules and decided not to interfere in private spheres as far as possible, as this could lead to unrest. The laws governing such issues are personal laws, which have their origins in the religions of various communities. With the passage of time, there was little room left for rituals and customs, as political expediency became the guiding principle for the colonial rulers. By the time India gained independence from British rule, the personal laws of various communities were named religious laws, but in some cases they were actually state laws, while in others the content of the rules had changed significantly.

 

Matrimonial Law:

 

Most of the laws made before independence point towards this reality. The Special Marriage Act of 1872 provided Indians with the opportunity to contract a civil marriage. But under the Act the parties to the marriage had to declare that they had ceased to practice their religion.

 

The Indian Succession Act of 1925 can be seen as a secular and pro-women law that was not further developed to develop an equal citizen

 

Secularization of law in India has always been a formidable struggle because of the multiplicity and diversity found among different communities and the inability of the rulers to deal with them. ,

 

Many important Acts have been made in 1930. Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act of 1937; The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, and the Dissolution of the Muslim Marriage Act, 1939. These Acts gave limited rights to women but did not question the fundamental gender inequality experienced by both Hindu and Muslim women.

 

The Hindu Marriage Act of 1955, declares that all Hindus enter into one marriage and empowers the aggrieved party—the wife and family members—to initiate criminal proceedings against the husband.

band if he takes a second wife. But in a traditional Hindu society it is extremely difficult for a wife to go to court against her husband because of her economic dependence, lack of education and information and social pressure, in fact, such progressive provisions go far to help the woman. Do not go till whose husbands have taken second wives, because by and large the courts hold that for a marriage to be declared void, it has to be solemnized, which means all the necessary rituals have to be performed. Muslim law is discriminatory against women in matters of polygamy. A Muslim in India can have up to four wives, although this is not the case in many other Islamic countries.

The destructive effects of child marriage prompted social reformers to stop them by law. The Child Marriage Act, 1978 sets the minimum age of marriage at 18 years for girls and 21 years for boys. While it is necessary to punish the performance of child marriage, the benefit of such a law is much greater than the fact that the marriage itself is considered valid.

 

The long-term objective should be to amend this aspect of the law and declare child marriage legally void. Marriage under the prescribed age limit does not in itself end the marriage, although the party to the marriage may be punished with imprisonment and/or fine for violating the law. a minor boy

Or how can a girl, who marries below the prescribed age-limit, be punished for violating the law? This is an issue that needs careful consideration. Very often the provision regarding the age of marriage is flouted on a large scale.

Compulsory registration of marriages as recommended by the United Nations would be an effective check on child and bigamy, provide reliable proof of marriages and ensure the legitimacy and inheritance rights of children. registration of marriages

 

 

 

For all marriages performed under the Compulsory and Special Marriage Act, 1954 between Parsis and Christians, Section 16 of the Act which allows registration of marriages celebrated under other laws has failed to generate much response . Therefore, it is necessary to introduce a system of compulsory registration of all marriages.

16.8 Dowry:

The practice of taking and giving dowry is deeply rooted, and often leads to neglect of the girl’s education, impoverishment of her parents, and even suicide of the girl. Condemned by social reformers and progressive elements, the system continues to percolate down to all levels, even to classes where it was not there earlier. The Dowry Prohibition Act was enacted by Parliament in 1961, which was amended in 1984 and 1986. Now the offense of dowry is treated as cognizable and non-bailable, giving and taking of dowry is prohibited, cruelty to others on abetment of suicide of woman. punished.

Unfortunately the social conscience is still sleeping as is evident from the many cases of ill-treatment of a girl child by her in-laws or her husband for failing to bring sufficient dowry, which were reported to the police. Legal technicalities and loopholes in the laws, which delay the process, reluctance of the woman and her parents/relatives to take legal action, and social prejudice, defeat the very purpose of progressive legislation.

 

Parents often do not want their married daughters to return to the parental home. So instead of making strategy for the dignified life of the daughter, they fulfill the demand of dowry. Helpless and humiliated, the women either resort to suicide or burn themselves in their homes. Although the court condemns the dowry system, its approach only accepts the patriarchal notions of the dominant family ideology, which sees brides move from their paternal families to their matrimonial families (Kapur and Cossman: 1993).

 

 

  Divorce :

 

 

The Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, upholds the superior rights of the father and makes him the first (mother second) natural guardian for boys and unmarried girls. However, the father has lost his previous right to disinherit the mother by appointing a testamentary guardian. The prior right of the mother is recognized ‘generally’ only for the custody of children below the age of five years. Even in the case of illegitimate children, she has a better claim than the father. The Act also directs that, in deciding guardianship, the courts should take

The ‘welfare of the child’ as a paramount consideration.

 

Hindu women have been given the right to divorce under specified conditions: Importance of the husband; abandonment or cruelty. There is also a provision for divorce by mutual consent. Liberal judgments go a long way in mitigating the agony arising out of irreconcilable differences in marriage. Still, divorce is not easily acceptable and a divorced woman has to face social and economic problems. as far as maintenance is concerned

 

 

 

Related, it does not come on time or there is insufficient amount for it. The provisions relating to maintenance and custody of children are also unsatisfactory.

 

 

Heritage :

Even after so many years of independence, women still have to face equality, supremacy and exploitation. Whereas the Constitution of India prescribes the norm of family as egalitarian, conjugal and nuclear families of husband and wife who have entered into a marriage of their own choice; Several Acts, especially those dealing with personal laws, gave legal legitimacy to the different, diverse and contradictory patterns of family types for different religious communities. These pertain to personal laws allowing patriarchal, monogamous, large families which not only shape different structures of families but also provide diversity and contradiction in the rights and obligations of different members within the family, as well as succession, descent , also discriminate with respect to heritage and other aspects of the family.

 

 

There were several systems of succession among Hindus in pre-independence India, in most of which the status of women was that of a dependency with hardly any proprietary rights. Where they had some rights, they had only life interest and absolute ownership. The Hindu Succession Act, 1956 has given equal rights of succession among female heirs in the same category (brother and sister, son and daughter). But this act remained imaginary because they are so cultured that they do not oppose only a part of their brothers. But in the absence of social security and adequate employment opportunities, inheritance rights in property, financial security and preventing women from becoming destitute.

 

  While it is true that only a limited number of women are benefiting from wealth, gender inequality

Has been made. However, some liberal provisions cannot remove the male-bias of the law. The Hindu Succession Act upheld co-obligation under the Mitakshara joint family system, which excludes women from the right to inherit and control joint family property. The property is owned by the father, his sons and their male descendants. On the death of any of them, the remaining members continue to be the owners of the property. This provision raised strong arguments for and against this male bias, and is still being debated by progressive elements. Five states have taken steps to deal with the situation. Kerala has completely abolished the Kerala Joint Family. Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka have also taken legislative steps to remove the discriminatory feature of the Mitakshara joint family.

Further, the woman’s right to maintenance is recognized as a tangible right

 

 

 

Property and the husband has a personal obligation to maintain his wife, and if he or his family has property, the woman has a legal right to be maintained from that property.

In conclusion, it can be seen that granting fundamental rights and passing progressive laws have not paved the way for an egalitarian society. It is not easy to adapt the legal system to the pace of social change. The Directive Principles of State Policy remain ideals; And the archaic functions remain operative. Woman is still seen more as an embodiment of virtue and sacrifice than as a citizen, equal to man and a participant in the process of development. Bad practices like bigamy, dowry system etc. have not ended yet. Crimes against women are not decreasing. In addition, the legal process is cumbersome and costly.

The right to development is a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of the fundamental human rights. Thus, the human person naturally becomes the central subject of development. The right to development should be fulfilled so as to be fulfilled equitably

 

 

 

Population, development and environment. This is the need of present and future generations.

All human beings are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature. They have the right to an adequate standard of living including adequate food, clothing, housing, water and sanitation for themselves and their families. Countries should ensure that all individuals are given the opportunity to reach their maximum potential. UNDP’s Human Development Reports (HDRs) since 1990 have repeatedly pointed out that people are the real asset of a nation. Human progress is not about expanding income and speeding up the production of goods, but about expanding human capabilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gender And Disability

 

 

• Women with disabilities occupy a diverse and marginalized position in Indian society based on their disability and socio-cultural identity, which divides them into different categories. Assets such as caste, class and residential status. However, women with disabilities who may have plural identification marks make their daily experience complex and difficult. For women as well as women with disabilities, the rise of neoliberal states has deepened already severe oppression and exclusion based on physical ability and gender (Chouinard).

 

 

 

• While the Indian cultural reality has never been conducive to the birth of daughters (as evidenced by the steady decline in the sex ratio), the onset of disability in a daughter is worse than death. While women have been fighting hard for equal rights in a patriarchal system, women with disabilities are rarely recognized as individuals. A society that accepts the ableist standard treats girls and women with disabilities in the most inhumane way possible. It is not only for those whose disability is very severe, but also for all those who are ideally different.

 

• Disability from childhood thus imposes a subordinate position on them, and increases the likelihood that their rights will be neglected. Women with disabilities also face discrimination at the hands of the feminist world, which has not benefited women with disabilities as a frame to understand women’s lives and status in society, the mix of disability and gender Women with Disabilities in India reflects the reality of The opportunities for improving the quality of life of a disabled girl child are almost non-existent. Women already living a life of subjugation without education and employment can function without the burden of disability. As one mother lamented, ‘Wasn’t it enough that we had a hand-to-mouth existence? Why did God have to be added to punish us further by giving us a lame (crippled) daughter’ (Ghai 2001: 31).

 

• In a culture where having a daughter is considered a curse, having a disabled daughter is a fate worse than death as she has to struggle with both her role as a daughter, her desire for a son, and her own disability. The desire for sons should be understood in the context of the ritual value of sons as well as the social and economic burden of raising daughters (Johri 1999: 78). Building of; construction of

 

• The daughter as a burden is rooted in a cultural milieu that sees daughters as parai (other). As Johri elaborates, ‘one of the religious duties of the father

There is a kanyadan, which is the gift of a virgin girl to the husband and family. Giving dowry becomes a part of this ritual. However, the underlying understanding in this exercise is that whatever you are giving must be correct. A disabled girl, when offered to a prospective son-in-law, should be compensated accordingly. If compensation is not possible then compromises have to be made like marrying a widower. On the other hand, a disability in a son, although painful, would still be more acceptable because he does not have to give in.

 

• Women with disabilities occupy a diverse and marginalized position in Indian society based on their disability and socio-cultural identity, which divides them into different categories. Assets such as caste, class and residential status. However, women with disabilities who may have plural identification marks make their daily experience complex and difficult. For women as well as women with disabilities, the rise of neoliberal states has deepened already severe oppression and exclusion based on physical ability and gender (Chouinard).

 

• Within India, the fact that disability can have a gender dimension has only recently been realised. (Ghai 2003; Hans & Patri 2003; Das & Agnihotri (1999) indicate that the incidence of disability intersects (or is influenced) by gender. Extrapolating from the available data, they indicate that women with disabilities are more likely to be disabled than men with disabilities. are heavily marginalized in the U.S. Disability law also adopts a gendered approach, as a result of which none of the 28 chapters outlining the various issues address the problems of women with disabilities.

 

 

• In the chapter on interactions with culture, I talk about the negative interpretation of a disabled woman (Doniger and Smith 1991, 205–06). As a result, a culture that rules arranged marriages puts a woman with a disability in a difficult position. Where there is a possibility (however difficult) of resistance to this cultural system for ‘normal’ women, for girls with disabilities it is an uphill task. Some disabled girls from the rich or middle class may be able to cope with the difficulties inherent in an arranged marriage, although it involves a lot of compromise. Disabled sons retain the possibility of marriage, as they are not gifted but gifted recipients. Disabled and non-disabled men seek ‘normal’ women as wives, and therefore participate in the devaluation of people because of their disability.

 

• Son preference in the large Hindu community in India, in keeping with its religious philosophy, is now combined with technology that can examine an unborn fetus and provide a test to determine sex.
• The 2011 census indicated a continued preference for boy children over female children. The latest child sex ratio is 914 females per 1,000 males – the lowest since independence (PTI March 31, 2011). In a society where female abortion is rampant, aborting preterm babies would not cause any stir or resentment. While the ethical contradictions of prenatal sex testing are under discussion for feminists, prenatal testing to identify and abort children with disabilities is not addressed (cited in Ghai 2003:69). For women with disabilities themselves, these issues become secondary because cultural stereotypes exclude them from the role of motherhood. However, women with disabilities are denied the possibility of this fulfillment, as both marriage and reproduction are difficult accomplishments in a socially restrictive environment.

 

• Denial of women with disabilities from ‘traditional roles’ of women Fine and Ash (1988) coin the term ‘hopelessness’, a social invisibility and cancellation of femininity that may force women with disabilities to move forward, (all helplessness Despite this), female identity was valued by their given culture but rejected because of their disability. A number of thoughtful works by Indian feminists analyze the impact of the evaluative male gaze. However, the essential distinction between sexual objects and ‘gazing’ objects is not understood. If the male gaze makes ordinary women feel like inert objects, then the stare turns the ineffable object into a grotesque sight.

 

• Women with disabilities struggle not only with how men view women but also with how society as a whole views people with disabilities, denying them any sense of resistance. Davies (1995, p. 128) cites a scenario described by Anne Finger

 

• Interpretation of an imaginary meeting between Rosa Luxemburg and Antonio Gramsci, each of whom is handicapped, given Rosa the temporary power of the able gaze, we can measure the startle response as she holds her hand in one hand towards him Seeing the limping ‘misshapen midget’ black suit so worn that the handcuffs crumble and the fabric turn green with age, his eye is immediately drawn to this disruption in the visual field; faint fluttering; retorts that she is staring at him and rapidly turning her head. And then moments later, a quick aversion of the consciousness’s gaze was as humiliating as staring, so that it threw back its head but

Try to make the focus normal, not the sharp gaze of Comrade Rosa.

 

• Davies points to the irony that Rosa has walked with a limp her whole life, and yet found it unusual. It brings a throbbing pain to me when I realize that stigma is nearly impossible to overcome. I get confused when books say am I not a woman am I not handicapped? A few years ago I went to Trafalgar Square to see a marble statue of Ellison. My first reaction was that this is a wonderful example to be found in the life of disabled artist Alison Lapper.

 

• Apparently, the artist, Mark Quinn, wanted to introduce some femininity. The nearby Nelson’s Column appears to have been a linga monument. A significant statement, titled ‘Alison Lapper Pregnant’ can be appreciated. Nelson who was ‘crippled and blind’ is regarded as a ‘war hero’; His disability does not overwhelm him and does not arouse pity. One review told me that able-bodied artist, Mark Quinn, said: ‘The sculpture makes the ultimate statement about disability – that it can be as beautiful and valid as any other.’

 

• My argument is that in fact ‘disability’ as a social category is problematic, though beautiful but extremely complex. The statue is not only a symbol of courage and bravery but it is also a symbol of sensuality and motherhood. I learned that she is an artist in her own right, having created an inspiring series of photographic self-portraits with her child. This statue is a picture of resistance in a way. Where this sculpture seems to defy ideal ideals, it reminds me of the ‘damaged’ part of me. Representation of the disabled body in a way is opposed to ideas of beauty.

 

• In a society in India where any deviation from the commonly accepted basic is seen as a marked deviation, the disfigured body becomes a symbol of imperfection. ‘Influences of such historical rendering are found in North Indian Punjabi culture, where girls are allowed to interact with their cousins, they are not allowed to sleep in the same room. On the other hand, there is no such restriction on girls with disabilities’ (Ghai 2003: 72). This reflects what Harlan Hahn (Thomson 1997, 25) calls ‘asexual objectification’, and also evidences a disregard for the dangers of sexual violation to which girls with disabilities are exposed. The assumption that sexuality and disability are mutually exclusive also denies that people with disfigured bodies experience sexual desires and refuses to recognize them
• As sex specific despite their differences.

 

• Indian feminist scholars have looked at the embodiment with the influence of caste, class, and historical phases such as colonization; However, the disfigured body

 

• Not considered as having analytical results. As Niranjana (1997: 106) points out, the focus on the body has been a symbolic one where the body is treated as a sign or code that is significant to the extent that it speaks of a social reality other than itself. doing. In suggesting to talk about the body representing symbolic social meanings, as an image of society or a metaphor for society, the question remains whether these approaches can accept the materiality of bodies. are, not just the form in which they constitute/represent a culture, but how they constitute the lived reality of individuals.

 

• Although this analysis raises issues of cultural spaces and the female body, there is no mention of the disabled body. This omission reflects a historical practice that continues to render disabled people invisible, similar to the invisibility experienced by blacks in a white racist society. It is ironic that united feminists concerned with the issue of difference in their efforts to empower the powerless, and resolved to change social inequalities, have not raised issues related to the meaning of harm for women with disabilities. While the movement’s failure to accept women with disabilities can be understood as reflecting the patriarchal character of a society that it accepts and aims to include, at least in India, the feminist movement has Defiance, which claims objectivity through its theoretical deconstruction of the oppressive social. Guessing, makes little sense.

 

• What is particularly painful is that Indian feminist thought fails to recognize that the problematization of women’s issues applies equally to the issues of women with disabilities. In theory, some women with disabilities may benefit from the activities of some women’s groups, but no documentation of specific examples exists. On the other hand, there is ample evidence that women with disabilities are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. However, when the national Indian media gave widespread coverage to a story about a woman with cerebral palsy being abused by her father, women’s groups responded only superficially. Furthermore, Indian feminist scholars have not attempted to develop appropriate theoretical responses to the situation of women with disabilities.

 

• Historically, only

An example that sparked a backlash from Indian women’s groups was when 14 mentally challenged girls were forced to undergo hysterectomies on 5 February 1994 at the Sassoon General Hospital in Pune, (a city in the state of Maharashtra). There was an example. Reported in major newspapers on 24 February. Following these press reports came the intervention of women’s groups. In pursuing the case, I found that the institution serving a large rural community had placed developmentally disabled girls under institutional care. However, girls were not allowed to wear pajamas with drawstrings and sanitary napkins with belts, as it was claimed that they could use these cords to commit suicide. Records regarding the stay have not been kept very carefully, so it is difficult to provide precise details. Importantly, the absence of protective gear such as pyjamas, undergarments and sanitary napkins made managing bodily functions such as menstruation difficult. To deal with the problem of menstrual hygiene, the hospital decided to perform a hysterectomy. In-spite of this

 

• Patriarchal lack of women’s necessities, in the same institution boys were issued full pajamas with drawstrings that could be looped more easily than any sanitary napkin. However, the risk of suicide was not clearly observed in his case. Sadly, this example has not been translated into a broader effort to open a dialogue about the forced sterilization of women with developmental disabilities. This failure indicates that Indian feminists still do not see women with disabilities as an important and sustainable constituency. However, there are efforts (The Hindu, January 01, 2005) in which calls for a ban on forced hysterectomy for mentally and physically challenged girls were made by the NCW and CBR Network, an NGO. They have demanded a special charter to protect the rights of marginalized persons with disabilities f 145 life with a separate provision for safeguarding the rights of women with disabilities.

 

• While national policy documents on women’s empowerment have emphasized on mainstreaming women’s concerns for self-development, the contradiction of a hierarchy within a hierarchy is evident as the lower class and caste, tribal and certain groups of women has been discussed about. Minorities, wrapped in ‘welfare’
• It reflects the skewed attitude of mainstream feminists, who exclude women with disabilities from their attention while sensitively exploring distress as a major component of a woman’s life experience. There have been changes in the last decade as issues of women with disabilities have been included in women’s movements. There have been some gains in inclusion as well as participation in the decision making of some organisations.

 

• Initially women with disabilities were mainly talking to change people, but a conference gave other women with disabilities an opportunity to talk about their lives and understand that disabled are feminists who need to work together to bring about change. are ready for. the life of his brotherhood. The 2008 Women’s Studies Conference went a step further and discussed disability issues in a plenary session, but still had only two female delegates with disabilities among nearly 500 women. Thus, while feminists in India fight against oppression to recognize issues of disability, it is still not fully aware of them. Although the convention was ‘accessible’, access was defined in a limited way. The toilets were either too far away or not accessible. In another conference in Mumbai where women with disabilities were present in large numbers, many workshops were held in inaccessible places where lifts were not accessible. Inclusion certainly means more than making nominal arrangements for those of us on the fringes.

 

• For the first time, Mainstream Journal of Gender Studies procured a special issue on Disability, Gender and Society (May/August 2008, Vol. 15, No. 2, published by Sage). Although much more work needs to be done, it is a welcome starting point. While there are sensitive women who have heard the voices of their disabled relatives, colleagues and friends, a certain semioticism prevails within wider feminist discourse and practice. For the voices of women with disabilities to be truly heard, the women’s movement must acknowledge the social, economic, communication as well as architectural barriers that prevent women with disabilities from sharing their stories.

 

• And engage in a public discourse. It is time that the women’s movement interrogates ableism. This is seen in women in a service that is not physically accessible or that believes that access is only a wheelchair ramp and nothing else. For example, for women who are hearing impaired or visually impaired, accessibility may mean using sign language or Braille formats.

 

• Enablement is also reflected in the kind of language that non-disabled feminists use when referring to disabled feminists, for example, ‘You’re so brave’ or ‘It’s really wonderful that you can come out and

able to come to this. conference. Much is needed, however, because women’s studies departments have not included issues of disability. It could be argued that I’m weaving in where there would be potential for real dialogue between feminists and women’s groups and women with disabilities. Not that I am discounting the possibilities of resistance, which can be attributed simply to a strong will to survive regardless of identity. With this in mind, I can argue that women with disabilities have formed support groups and are in the process of challenging dominant constructs of disability.

 

• Also the Indian Association for Women’s Studies created the Fund, which helped create a module on gender and disability. It also went to the University Grants Commission and in a way the module was accepted although it would take a long time for women’s studies departments to address disability as well as the lack of discussion among women with disabilities to collectively advance the concerns of disabilities. No groups exist for women, and thus to influence both the disability movement and the women’s movement. Right now the voices of women with disabilities are confined to academic settings, where a double victimization hypothesis has been exposed. This hypothesis takes the view that disabled women experience a double disadvantage, as they are worse off socially, economically, psychologically, and politically than disabled men or non-disabled women. Disability adds to their already marginal position as women.

 

• Many feminist thinkers in the field of disability have objected to this ‘double harm’ approach because its literature does not empower women with disabilities. Morris says, ‘I always feel uncomfortable reading about my life and concerns when they are presented in these words’. When Lonsdale (1990) writes, ‘The status of ‘disabled’ for women combines with their condition of being female to create a unique kind of oppression, I feel burdened by loss, I feel victimized. , , Such writings do not empower me. We need to find a way to make our experiences visible, to share them with each other and with non-disabled people, so that – while drawing attention to the difficulties we face in our lives – our desire to assert our will lessens. don’t be
• Self-worth (1996: 2).

 

• While Morris is absolutely correct in her stance, the problem is that even the hypothesis of double harm fails to generate concrete action as a result of feminist discourse, and practice does not go beyond tokenism and rhetoric. The struggle in India is very similar to the fight that feminism, a cognizance of differences among women, engaged in as a political movement. It took a constant fight for mainstream feminism to accept the dangers it contained.

 

• The adoption of the universal category of ‘woman’ – and the exclusion of those on the periphery and marginalised, by default. For those outside of mainstream feminism, says Elizabeth Weed (1989, 24), women’s experience has never been problematic. The common ground of sisterhood, long touted as the ideal of white feminism, was always more utopian than representative slogan. Worse, it was coercive in its unrecognized universalism, its unrecognized exclusions.

 

• Indian women with disabilities experienced this exclusion when feminist theory and practice in India continued to ignore their experiential realities of discrimination, ignorance and neglect. Feminists reinforced the construction of women with disabilities as being outside the hegemony of normalcy. As a result, much needed political action has not moved forward. The resistance offered by women with disabilities has only led to a superficial acceptance of differences, with an underlying assumption that the core issue is gender. Therefore, the stated need is to raise gender issues, perhaps adequately enough to address the lives of all women regardless of their backgrounds and differences. At least this recognition is responsible for the emergence of a discourse about difference; But I cannot ignore the fact that this dialogue has not made much, if any, impact in increasing social policy recognition of the concerns of women with disabilities or in enhancing their quality of life. A more fundamental, according to Nivedita Menon (2000), reason for the total absence of disability as an issue in the Indian women’s movement – and the relative lateness of its emergence in Western women’s movements – may be that feminists around the world have generally But considered ‘women’ as a category which is self-evident. In a way it has been internal colonization. That is, an unsupported assumption that all women, regardless of their differences from one another, have apparently shared concerns.

 

• This abstraction of ‘women’ emerged from a feminist position presenting ‘difference’ as a challenge to the abstract category of ‘citizenship’, which assumed masculinity to be the norm. By the late 1970s, ‘sisterhood is global’ seemed to be an undeniable feminist truth. women of color and women

Challenges from other stigmatized and marginalized groups characterized the category of ‘women’ as a further abstraction, which in turn idealized the white, middle-class, heterosexual woman (without disability). In India, such a challenge has come from feminists from minority communities. The allegation is that the women’s movement has idealized the Hindu upper caste woman, and this criticism has emerged most clearly in the debate on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC). The debates were in relation to the demand for a common set of personal laws that would apply to all religious communities in India. The opposition came from the belief that the emerging homogeneity would inevitably represent the voice of the majority (which in this case was Hindu women), thereby marginalizing women from minority groups.

 

• Menon, an outspoken activist in the women’s movement and a political scientist by profession, feels that the invisibility of disability within feminism is due to the mechanisms that have made women invisible in general in the larger society. But as a feminist who feels troubled by the neglect of disability issues, she thinks the movement has the potential to grow and change. another reason for

 

• The failure to represent women with disabilities is that there are too many issues and too few resources within the Indian women’s movement. As a result, the action has shifted toward dramatic patterns that resonate in the lives of capable and ordinary women, rather than the minority who fail to exercise a voice or agency.

 

• Despite the current reality of exclusion of women with disabilities within the Indian women’s movement, I would argue that simply deciding to include them is not enough. The problem cannot be solved so easily by merely adding women with disabilities as another category to the list of matters or issues to be addressed. Offering a feminist account of girls with disabilities is problematic because it requires their inclusion in the discourse. However, writing a subject (for example, women with disabilities) in an ongoing dialogue requires a certain exercise of power.
• In one way or another, to shape it, and to breathe life into it. This cannot be accomplished without knowing how she can build herself up.

 

• Thus this process requires some reflexivity. Authentically and adequately exploring possibilities requires that the process have an interactive character. It is important that feminist discourse and practice engage in a substantive dialogue with both women with disabilities and the disability movement, so that a more inclusive theory and practice emerges. To quote Marion Corker (1999, p. 639), it is often argued that theories are too complex for ex post facto explanation to be used by people with disabilities, rather that they can lead to confusion and paralysis of analysis. Are. There is always a danger, if overemphasis is placed on the complexity of life, and if the need to understand more fully is put before the need to act more effectively, because people with disabilities are not part of a strong social movement. can be turned into interested spectators instead of active participants. , Theories that minimize or simplify the experience of people with disabilities, particularly those that fail to conceptualize an interactive relationship between disability and impairment, can have the same effect.

 

• The solution to these problems may come from following the example of Leonard (1997) in creating a communication paradigm rooted in discursive strategies rather than structure. Failure to create these spaces, even unconsciously, does not reduce the asymmetry of power relations. Feminist discourse has evolved without women with disabilities having a hand in shaping it. What can be done now about feminists’ inattention to girls and women with disabilities, and how would feminist discursive attention be seen and read if they were initially involved in its development? Do we need a different feminist theory for women with disabilities? As Rosemary Garland Thomson observed (1997, p. 24), feminist theory can challenge the persistent assumption that disability is a self-evident condition of physical inadequacy and personal misfortune that concerns only a minority of women. Feminist disability practices would uphold the right of women to define their physical differences and their femininity rather than conform to societal interpretations of their bodies. Such practices may address some of the specific issues currently addressed by feminists, which may look different when viewed through the lens of a disability perspective.

 

• One thing that despite being within the realm of feminist thought, seems to be different from it

 

• The Disability Perspective The issue of caring for mothers of children with disabilities in India. As I elaborate, ‘although the stress of disability affects both parents, it is usually the mother who bears the brunt of the child’s disability’ (Ghai 2000, p. 47). Instances abound where women have been divorced, abandoned, or abused because they have given birth to a disabled child. Considering the preference for sons, here also a

In the case of a girl the fault of the mother is more serious. The notion of maternal omnipotence holds mothers responsible for providing care.

 

• Home care is usually the only option; Often there is no question of choice. Indian feminists who have debated the ethics of care, and who are now in the process of starting a debate on equality in care (Davar 1999, p. 207), have not taken into account the conditions in which people with disabilities, and especially girls, are placed. Within the traditional Indian system, the mother has been a source of support for children, especially girls with disabilities (Ghai 2001, p. 21). In the absence of social and community support, women with disabilities are largely dependent on the care provided by mothers, who undoubtedly carry an additional burden. While it is entirely appropriate to engage with their experiences of harassment in care, attempts to destabilize traditional perceptions in the absence of adequate alternative provisions may work against women with disabilities. In such a context, it would be worthwhile to engage with the careful note by Anita Silvers (1995, p. 52) that ‘far from dismantling the patriarchal system, substituting an ethics of caring for an ethics of equality may lead to an even more oppressive patriarchy’ There is a danger of ,

 

• Another important area where feminist questioning will be invaluable relates to the area of independent living advocated by disability theorists in the West. In the absence of education, employment, infrastructure and a social security system, autonomy remains a formidable goal for women in India, and more so for women with disabilities. Any issue related to disability should be resolved in the context of the family and community. Indian feminists, with their own understanding of Indian reality, are equipped to develop alternatives that can be merged within the uniquely Indian context of the familial and the social.

 

• One possible solution would be to apply the idea of Susan Bordo (1990, p. 138) that concrete pre
• Experiences of exclusion should neither be based on theory nor provide an ideological response. Rather, as new narratives emerge, the primary task is to tell the story of diverse women’s experiences in as truthful a way as possible. The only requirement is to listen, to become aware of one’s own biases, prejudices and ignorance, so that Minnie can ‘close the narrow circle of self’, a process of drawing the boundaries of what Bruce Pratt (in Bordeaux 1990, p. 138) calls. launch. As Bordeaux points out, ‘no matter how attentive a scholar is to the axes that constitute social identity, some axes will be ignored and some will be selected’ (Bordeaux 1990, p. 140).

 

• It is an inescapable fact of the human incarnation, as Friedrich Nietzsche first pointed out: ‘the eye. , , In which the active and interpretive powers, through which seeing alone becomes something to be seen, are believed to be lacking. There is only the attitude of seeing, only the attitude of knowing’ (Nietzsche 1969, 119). knowing perspective is never really

 

• Pure. Our political, social and personal interests always influence it. Even in acting on our willingness to embrace our differences, we are inescapably focused.

 

• Thus, what is needed is not only a strong commitment to creating spaces where diverse voices can share their realities and be heard, but also an active integration of differences between and within women . However, for this possibility to become a reality, feminist discourse will need to move beyond mere ambivalent recognition. What is needed is the idea of a multiple constraints that prevent the expression of difference. This task is a difficult and complex one, especially when asymmetry serves as a mere device to conceal analogous understanding. Hope is essential in the struggle for change. It involves recognition of the unacceptable nature of current conditions and relationships. It arises from within a social context characterized by unacceptable inequalities and discrimination. It is of paramount importance that hope is based on an informed understanding of past social conditions and relationships (Barton 2001: 3‒4).

 

 

 

 

• Merely identifying a difference does not assure that we will adequately represent the difference. Furthermore, the constant focus on difference can create and create others who are unheard and therefore unrecognized. Thus the distinction is dangerous – and every new context demands that we re-examine the distinction.

 

• Although an important question is what Sharon Lamb (1999) refers to a general tendency in people to blame others for what is not right in the world of disability, looking at the question in light of the reality that a The accusatory approach does not seem to help, given that it is not possible to both accuse and encourage the other to take responsibility for their actions at the same time.

 

• As Lamb suggests, as much as we may assign a defect and a condition of defect to clarity of vision, it may be impossible to deal with the complexities that make up the day-to-day lives of people with disabilities and that limit them in it. Support from View. The lamb also talks about the zero/sum position which reinforces the blame.

Being locked in this situation means we cannot explore questions such as: How far are individuals in control of their life situations? At which point the person concerned (the accused) could have had the option of taking a different road to a different decision.

More about this source textSource text required for additional translation information