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Social Stratification

Notes The sexual division explained by the Marxist thought has less to do with the actual patterns of
social interaction or social relationship. From this perspective arose an important question of
whether or not female domestic has always had difficulties in formulating a coherent theory of
action which could not relate the analysis of objective class position and of system contradictions
of class formation.
However, a proper stratification analysis on patriarchy has been ignored which according to
Mann (1986) created a crisis in stratification theory.
In almost all cultures, patriarchy legitimizes the unequal access of men and women to resources,
opportunities and rewards. Patriarchy and its institutions reinforce status inequality between men
and women. According to Sylvia Walby (1994), in patriarchy both differential distribution of
power and mechanism of production are included.
Cross-cultural studies done on sexual division of labour focus on a wide range of women’s
productive activities in society and the status implications of these on women’s status.

9.1 Gender and Stratification

To begin with, males assert the biological inferiority of women even today. Female disorderliness
is brought under control by education, producing modesty and humility, by honest work and the
subordination of the wife to her husband. Married women are deprived of certain forms of
independence, even regarding their dowries and possessions. They are confined to the domestic
sphere. These are the views even today held and practised considerably in most societies. One
hardly finds any description, for example, in a work like The Making of the English Working Class by
E.P. Thompson. His class analysis refers more or less exclusively to men. Even in the recent work
of Eric Hobsbawn one finds reference to experiences of middle-class women. Only very recently,
the idea of “home”/”home making” has come up in a positive sense recognizing contribution of
women. The notice of “housewife” has also emerged that she looks home and children, performing
a very important task, and her husband goes out to earn money, as his duty towards his wife and
children.
Domestic patriarchy has come with the concept of home and home making. Women’s right to
proper recognition of her work at home has been recognized to a great extent all over the world.
Now women go out for work, have their savings, and a control over what they earn. Most men are
not hostile towards women’s work. Despite these very notable changes, the man’s work determines
where the couple lives, and how much of their lives are organized. R.W. Connell calls such a
situation “gender regimes”, and Harriet Bradley gives it the name “gendered work-cultures”.
Some types of work are believed to be “appropriate” for women; and women are debarred from
various types of occupations by informal barriers and restrictions.
Marriage is a gendered and unequal division of labour. In Indian society, husband starts controlling
his wife’s activities, and also starts imposing upon her some of his own activities. Helping the
wife by the husband is considered an inferior task. The modern technology has certainly reduced
the manual load on women, but even then gendered division of work persists. Women, despite
part-time or full-time work; are not able to get equal footing with men because men do not
participate equally in parenthood and domestic labour.
Michael Mann emphatically states that gender divisions are considered as important, but not
really integrated into the core of stratification theory, namely, social class, status and political
power. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, individual, family and household, division of labour
between the sexes, social classes and the nation-states are mediated by each of them. No doubt,
patriarchy has taken a new form due to modern industry, interchangeability of men-women
occupations, equal democratic rights and adult suffrage, and even then “neo-patriarchy” has
emerged due to newly found control mechanisms by men over women in industry, politics and

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