Ask a Teacher

Sexual Division of Labour

In most families: women do all work inside the home such as cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, tailoring, looking after children, etc., and men do all the work outside the home. It is not that men cannot do housework; they simply think that it is for women to attend to these things. When these jobs are paid for, men are ready to take up these works In urban areas, poor women work as domestic helper in middle class homes, while middle class women work in offices. In fact the majority of women do some sort of paid work in addition to domestic labour. But their work is not valued and does not get recognition. The result of this division of labour is that although women constitute half of the humanity, their role in public life, especially politics, is minimal in most societies. Earlier, only men were allowed to participate in public affairs, vote and contest for public offices. Gradually the gender issue was raised in politics. Women in different parts of the world organised and agitated for equal rights. There were agitations in different countries for the extension of voting rights to women. These agitations demanded enhancing the political and legal status of women and improving their educational and care opportunities. More radical women’s movements aimed at equality in personal and family life as well. These movements are called feminist movements.

In our country, women still lag much behind men despite some improvement since Independence. Ours is still a male dominated, Patriarchal society. Women face disadvantage, discrimination and oppression in various ways:

The literacy rate among women is only 54 per cent compared with 76 per cent among men. Similarly, a smaller proportion of girl students go for higher studies.

The percentage of women in highly paid jobs is still very small. At many workplaces, women are paid less than men for the same job. An Indian woman usually works more hour than an average man on a daily basis.The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 provides that equal wages should be paid to equal work.

Many Indian parents prefer to have a male child. A girl child is killed before her birth in many cases. This has led to an eschewed sex ratio in India.

There are many reports of harassment against women; both on the domestic front and outside the home.

Women’s political representation

In India the proportion of women in legislature has been very low. For example, the percentage of elected women members in Lok Sabha has crossed 10 per cent of its total strength for the first time in 2009. Their share in the state assemblies is less than 5 per cent. To solve this problem is to make it legally binding to have a fair proportion of women in the elected bodies. This is what the Panchayati Raj has done in India. One-third of seats in local government bodies – in panchayats and municipalities – are now reserved for women. Now there are more than 10 lakh elected women representatives in rural and urban local bodies.

Women’s organisations and activists have been demanding a similar reservation of at least one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies for women. A bill with this proposal has been pending before the Parliament for more than a decade. But there is no consensus over this among all the political parties. The bill has not been passed.

Religion, communalism and politics

Religion also plays an important role in politics. In some countries, politicians promote the cause of the majority religious group at the cost of the minorities. This produces a dangerous trend of majority tyranny.

Communalism refers to When one religion is pitted against another; by the political class, this is called communalism or communal politics.

Communalism can take various forms in politics:

The most common expression of communalism is in everyday beliefs. These routinely involve religious prejudices, stereotypes of religious communities and belief in the superiority of one’s religion over other religions.

A communal mind often leads to a quest for political dominance of one’s own religious community. For those belonging to majority community, this takes the form of majoritarian dominance.

Political mobilisation on religious lines is another frequent form of communalism.

Communalism takes its most ugly form of communal violence, riots and massacre. India and Pakistan suffered some of the worst communal riots at the time of the Partition.

Secular state

The Constitution of India declares that India is a secular state. Unlike some of the neighbouring countries, there is no official religion for the Indian state.

The constitution gives the people the freedom to practice a religion of their choice. The Constitution prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion.

The Indian constitution, however, allows the state to intervene in the matters of religion whenever there is a need to ensure equality within religious communities.

Caste and Politics

Caste system was based on exclusion of and discrimination against the ‘outcaste’ groups. They were subjected to the inhuman practice of untouchability. Partly due to their efforts and partly due to other socio-economic changes, castes and caste system in modern India have undergone great changes. The Constitution of India prohibited any caste-based discrimination and laid the foundations of policies to reverse the injustices of the caste system.

Caste in Politics

Most of the political parties keep the caste calculation in mind while fielding a candidate from a particular constituency.

Each caste group is trying to get a bigger pie of the political power by asserting its identity in various ways.

Since there are so many castes, hence various caste groups have also evolved their own coalition to get leverage in political bargaining.

The caste groups can be broadly divided into ‘backward’ and ‘forward’.

Exclusive attention to caste can produce negative results. Caste divisions often lead to social conflict and even violence.