Page 215 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes Feminist Quantitative Research Method
In this empirical method, status of women is compared with the status of men in key dimensions.
According to Kersti Yllo (1980), such dimensions could be economic, educational, political and legal
(see also, Ahuja Ram, 1992: 164-68). The individual items are combined into indexes for each of the
four dimensions and for the total index. These indexes provide rank order from ‘most’ to ‘least’
egalitarian.
Empirical Quantitative and Qualitative Questionnaire Method

In this method, questions are asked from the respondents on selected items pertaining to behaviour,
privileges enjoyed, and interpersonal relations in and outside the family. The quantitative data are
used for qualitative analysis. This approach does not preclude the exploration of lancets hypotheses
and theories central to feminist analysis.
Besides the above methods, three ideological propositions on women’s rights are also used in assessing
women’s present status. These are: liberal feminism, Marxist feminism and radical feminism. The
liberal feminism believes in gender equality, that is, equal rights to men and women. It rejects
subordination of one sex by the other, or treating women as sex objects instead of as human beings.
However, this ideology does not challenge the division of labour on sex basis. It holds that woman is
best suited for family roles and man for outside roles. Marxist feminism marks a departure from an
earlier ideology which rejected feminism as bourgeoisie. Marx’s definition of the proletariat inevitably
marginalizes an interest in women. Engles’s approach in explaining women’s oppression as a world-
historical effect of property has also been considerably refined today. Engles held that female
subordination is the result of emergence of private property and ownership of means of production.
Unlike men, women’s work has a ‘use’ value but not ‘exchange’ value. Therefore, men hold more
power than women, or the oppression of women is due to the unpaid homework. The ideology of
radical feminism though believes in sexual equality but it rejects traditional division of labour. It holds
that the gender roles are not only the result of biological factors but also the product of culture. It
believes in free sex and collective childcare. Thus, when in the nineteenth century, the Marxists gave
a deterministic orientation to the discussion of women’s question (that women’s oppression is specific
to a capitalist mode of production), now they give a more humanistic explanation. Besides, current
feminism (Marxist or radical) emerged out of the New Left and the student movements of the 1960s.
In the background of these approaches and ideologies, it may be maintained that the status of women
in India has changed a lot from early 1950s onwards. Both structural and cultural changes have not
only provided equality of opportunities to women in education, employment and political
participation, but have also reduced the exploitation of women, and oriented women to develop
their own organizations which take keen interest in their problems. Besides, the need for linkages
between research, national policy, and programmes oriented to women has come to be increasingly
realized. Several commissions have been appointed by the central and the state governments to study
the causes of low status of women and to protect their rights in various fields. Two such important
commissions were appointed by the Central Government in 1971 and 1992. The National Commission
for Women (NCW) was set up on January 31, 1992 to look into women-related issues, to probe into
the status of women, to study various legislations and point out loopholes and gaps, and to look into
the causes of discrimination and violence against women and analyze possible remedies.
This author’s contention is that Indian woman today is still not economically emancipated from man.
In social, psychological and moral dimensions also, her situation is not identical with that of man.
The way she carries on her job, profession, and domestic work, and her devotion to all these depends
on the context supplied by the total pattern of her life. When she begins her adult life, she does not
have behind her the same past as has a man. She is evaluated by the society with a different perspective.
A large majority of women fail to achieve the liberation since they do not escape from the traditional
feminine world. They get neither from society nor from their husbands the assistance needed to
become in concrete fact the equals of men. No wonder, they are still the victims of male victimizers.

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