Caste and Women- Leela Dube (sociology of gender) PDF

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Caste and Women in India – M.N(Ed), Dube Leela Caste and Women  This essay explores the relationship between caste and gender refers to a traditional Hindu model of social stratification, which defines people by descent and occupation is defined as ‘a system of graded inequality in which castes are...

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Caste and Women in India – M.N.Srinivas(Ed), Dube Leela Caste and Women  This essay explores the relationship between caste and gender.Caste refers to a traditional Hindu model of social stratification, which defines people by descent and occupation.It is defined as ‘a system of graded inequality in which castes are arranged according to an ascending scale of contempt’.  A suffocating patriarchial shadow hangs over the lines of women throughout India.From all sections, Castes, and classes of society, women are the victim of its repressive, Controlling effects.  The discussion focuses on three interrelated themes such as Occupational continuity, the reproduction of caste, food, and rituals and finally marriage and sexuality. Occupational Continuity  Occupational Continuity in a large measure depends on women.There are significant Continuities in the link between caste and occupation.  The traditional occupations remain the exclusive privilege of particular cases. For an instance a Brahmin still perform the functions of purohit(priest).  It is difficult for weavers and pottery to carry on the complex processes of their craft without the continuous help of the woman and the children of the household, who in turn have well-defined tasks.  The Jajmani relations of exchange among occupational castes, a feature of many rural and semi-urban areas, function once again at the level of family. The untouchable castes in energy region whose women works as midwives, along with the men of their caste, share the essential task of removing pollution of upper and clean castes.  Not the formal education, but the capacity and willingness to do traditional work tends to make a girl useful in the husband’s family.  when men migrate to towns leaving behind their families, the occupational continuity is carried out by women within patrilineal limits and under the impositions and control of caste. Women often remain the principal supporters of the family in the absence of men. Food and Rituals  Practices relating the food form an important mediating relational idiom within the caste matrix.Food constitutes a critical element in the ritual idiom of purity and pollution.Both the exclusiveness of caste as Bounded entities and intercaste relationships and articulated by the idiom of food where women play the key role of principle protagonist in this arena.  Foods are hierarchically classified in terms of intrinsic purity and impurity, vulnerability and resistance to pollution.Women’s practices in relation to food play a critical role in the hierarchical ordering of castes.  Upper caste women are expected to change their lifestyle after they are widowed and are required to obscene strict rules of purity and pollution to give up the consumption of foods that which raise passion and desire.  Responsibilities for the preservation of traditions, maintenance of the sanctity of bounded space,control over ritual, the distribution of food and the task of socialization give women a sense of power over people and situations.  Food is an important element in the social acceptability of Inter caste unions. Women who belong to a caste lower than that of her husband’s caste often cook ordinary food for the family but is not allowed to cook for ancestors.

Marriage and Sexuality  The caste system is premised upon the cultural perception of a fundamental difference in male and female sexuality. The periodical pollution through menstruation and parturition renders women intrinsically less pure than men.  Traditionally women of twice-born castes have been equated with the Shudras who could not be initiated into learning Vedas.  Impurity f women are widowhood.A man is not similarly affected if he becomes widower.Such hierarchy between the sexes is more a feature of Brahmin and Clean Castes.  The Contrast in between the sexes is Culturally expressed by Comparing a woman to an earthen pot which is completely defiled if used by a polluted person, and men are compared to a brass pot which is not easily polluted.  Pollution incurred through food affects both women and men internally, but pollution incurred through sexual intercourse is radically different.’ A Superior seed can fall on an inferior field but an inferior seed cannot fall on superior field.’  The Importance of purity of castes affects a woman in all life-stages.The value attached to virginity is directly linked to the concern with female purity.The prepubertal phase is looked up on as a stage of intrinsic purity and is celebrated in number of ways.  Child marraiges ensure that a girl is married with full rites while still a Virgin and consummation of marraige can wait until she has come of age. The Principles of endogamy and the attendant concern with the maintenance of boundaries of caste impose restraints on young women.  The progeny born of the remarriage of widows and divorcees within the caste are higher than that of children of inter-caste unions.The Gradations among children rest upon caste and the marital status of the mother.  Low caste women are sexually exploited by powerful upper caste men owning land.This kind of assertion of dominance is claimed as a right by upper castes.Just as a goat can be milked at any time a chamar woman is enjoyed anytime at once own discretion and will. Conclusion  Caste is not dead, gender is a live issue. The principles of caste inform the specific nature of sexual asymmetry in Hindu society; the boundaries and hierarchies of caste are articulated by Gender. References  Leela Dube 1996″ Caste and Women” in M.N.Srinivas (ed) Caste: Its Twentiethcentury avatar, New Delhi: Penguin (pp 1-27)...