Page 97 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes into classes according to economic differences of market capacity that give rise to different
life chances. Capital was one source of market capacity, but skill and education formed
another. While property owners and owners of means of production were a class, as Marx
had emphasized, those whose skills were scarce in the market and commanded high salaries
also constituted a separate class.
• Gender is a socially constructed definition of women and men. It is not the same as sex
(biological characteristics of women and men) and it is not the same as women. Gender is
determined by the conception of tasks, functions and roles attributed to women and men in
society and in public and private life.
• Gender determines what is expected, allowed and valued in a woman or a man in a given
context. In most societies there are differences and inequalities between women and men in
responsibilities assigned, activities undertaken, access to and control over resources, as well
as decision-making opportunities.
• New occupations have been introduced which reduce caste barriers and the jajmani system
has been slowly losing its grip, caste remains one of the more enduring Institutions in India
(Gupta 1991; Srinivas 1996). In this caste hierarchy, the two groups that have been most
marginalized are the Dalits and the Adivasis. The dalits, originally called “untouchables”
and later renamed ‘Harijan, “children of God’ by Mahatma Gandhi, are also referred to as
the Scheduled Caste, and adivasis or tribals, are also referred to as the Scheduled Tribe
population.
• Hindu religion is only one among many in circumscribing women’s freedom and making a
virtue of submission to male authority. It is seems unlikely that in itself this code of conduct
would bind women any more than the Hindu code of conduct forces modern Hindu men to
engage in asceticism, celibacy and renunciation of worldly pleasures in middle age. However,
a caste based stratification system in which public adherence to these symbols and rituals
confers high status on a caste may create tremendous social pressures on women to confirm
(Liddle and Joshi 1989) and for men to ensure compliance from their wives (Derne 1994).
• Gender inequality in food intake, medical care, income, access to employment and education,
and control over productive resources is well recognized in the literature (Desai, 1994).
Consequently empirical research on gender-performance faces a formidable methodological
challenge. How do we distinguish between behaviours that occur in response to a desire to
visibly perform gender and thereby differentiate one’s family and caste from those below
one in the hierarchy from behaviours that are rooted in economic and institutional choices
facing families in a highly unequal society. For example, when parents choose to educate a
son while withdrawing a daughter from school are they doing it because they want to signal
their adherence to a particular code of conduct befitting their family and caste or is it simply
a rational response to a labour market in which women earn far less than men ?
• Caste permeates all aspects of Indian life. However, gender is one of the primary axis on
which caste stratification rests, particularly in modern India with hierarchies of caste often
articulated through gender. Using unique data collected by the authors for 40,000 households
all over India, this report distinguishes between public and private performance of gender to
show that belonging to a Brahmin caste has a substantial effect on the public behaviour of
women but little impact on their behaviour inside the household. Brahmin families are far
more likely to show a nod of deference to the dictums of obedience and chastity in their
public behaviours by insisting on limiting premarital contact between the bride and the
groom, limiting women’s visits to their natal families, insisting on women not going out
alone in public and following a dress code which includes veiling.

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