Page 182 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 9: Gender and Stratification

civic life. Women have become “individuals” like men, but they are gendered individuals through Notes
their connection with domesticity. Women are still in patriarchal family systems, they are also
members of social class and affected by such class (caste) stratification. Thus, they belong to
different, but to overlapping, stratification hierarchies. Their occupations cannot be meaningfully
combined into a single scale. However, gender and stratification can no longer be kept in separate
compartments. “Stratification is now gendered and gender is stratified.”

9.2 Gender as a Basis of Stratification

“Gender regimes” refer to inequalities of gender in family, work and state related activities.
Gender is reproduced within such a complex of institutions through “male reason” and the
dichotomy of “maleness” and “femaleness”. Connell writes : “A gender regime is a cluster of
practices, ideological and material, which in a given social context, acts to construct various
images of masculinity and feminity and thereby to consolidate forms of gender inequality.” For
Indian women, N. Kabeer observes that gender hierarchies have implications for the production
of knowledge and the allocation of resources. Hence, a need for the “deconstruction” of conventional
concepts. Kabeer says: “Ideology is gendered as well as sexed.” Class mediates the way in which
biological difference is translated into gender inequality. Hence, gender factor in the stratification
theory is essential, supporting Mann’s point of view. Even status which women extract from their
own achievements, such as education and salaried jobs, is not fully recognized and are attributed
to the husbands and their families or to the parents of the upwardly mobile women. Women thus
enjoy only derived status despite their own individualistic gains and achievements. And all women
do not enjoy equal status, they are differentiated among themselves based on their status among
female members in the family.
The idea of purush jati and stree jati is quite there among the members of our society. Nita Kumar
suggests four ways to deal with the question of women : (1) to make women the object of human
“gaze”, (2) to see women as males, (3) to focus on the patriarchical, ideological, discursive structures,
and (4) to look at the hidden, subversive ways in which women exercise their agency. Kumar
questions the understanding of “women as subjects”. She pleads for replacement of the masculine,
rational, free subject by a feminine entity in all walks of life. For inferior and subordinate status of
women, our value system, loopholes in the Constitution and law, violence, aggression and crimes
against women are also responsible. Dowry, child marriage and prohibition of widow remarriage
continue to lower down the position of women in Indian society. Patriarchy and caste-class
hierarchy have combined with a consequence of gendering of social life.
Education and employment among women of the urban middle classes have raised their socio-
economic status. More than employment, women are demanding autonomy by seeking their
identity as persons/members of society equal to male members. More representation in jobs and
reservation in civic bodies, state legislatives and Lok Sabha are being sought. Demand for
representation in PRIs and civic bodies has been accepted under the 73rd and 74th constitutional
amendments, respectively. For state legislatures and Lok Sabha, the demand has been in doldrums
for quite some time.

Marxist and Patriarchy thoughts differ on the question of women consisting a class.
Patriarchy makes men systematically privileged and demonstrates gender relations
a form of stratification in society.

Some women have also taken up entrepreneurship and other independent economic activities. In
most cases, however, they remain secondary earners. Real empowerment, equal to men, is yet to

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