1 Conceptualizing Sex, Patriarchy, Gender, Transgender and Sexual Division of Labour

Sancharini Mitra

1.  Introduction

The concepts of sex, patriarchy, transgender and sexual division of labour are complex categories of analysis that can bring out the nuances of gender dynamics. The module therefore explores key arguments ranging from early debates on sex and gender by feminists like Simone de Beauvoir or Raewyn Connell, to the more recent and complex questions on sexuality, LGBTQ, etc. The module also tries to understand the concept of patriarchy, how it operates in manifold ways to exert control over not simply women, but also men, and also the multifaceted interrelations it has with the caste system – an important axis of stratification in India, apart from class or religion. Moreover it examines the intricacies of sexual division of labour and how it impacts upon gender politics.

2.  Conceptualizing sex and gender

In sociological parlance, the term ‘sex’ is used to denote the biological differences between women and men, while ‘gender’ indicates the socio-cultural attributes that society associates with each sex. Similarly, while the terms ‘male’ and ‘female’ are used to denote biological differences, ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ are socially constructed gendered attributes which are assumed to be ‘natural’ to each sex. For example, ‘maternity’ is a biological phenomenon, but the roles and attitudes that are assumed to be fitting a mother, are social constructions (Bruce and Yearley 2006). As Connell defines it, ‘Gender is the structure of social relations that centres on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes.’

Contemporary sociology of the body has been influenced much by feminist theories. The propounding works of Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex, 1972) describes how the female body is regulated by patriarchal norms and structures. Beauvoir has pointed out that ‘one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’ through various socio-psychological processes that ‘construct’ one as fundamentally female (or male). She explained the differences between biologically determined sex and the social construct of gender. Feminist social theories on the body tend to analyze how the ‘essential’ socio-cultural differences between women and men, which we consider to be ‘natural’, or take for granted, are in fact socially constructed (Turner 2007).

As Judith Butler states, ‘The category of “sex”, from the start, is normative’. ‘Sex’, as a norm, not only regulates but also produces ‘the bodies it governs’. Sex is not a static fact of the body, but rather a fluid process through which ‘regulatory norms’ are materialized and reiterated. This concept of ‘materialization’ is further linked with the notion of ‘gender performativity’. The ‘regulatory norms of sex’, by means of materializing the body and sexual differences, ultimately strengthens normative heterosexuality (Butler 1993). Thus one acquires the social identity of either masculine or feminine. Through various regulatory forces (for e.g. socialization), one learns her/ his gender identity, as also shaped by class, caste, ethnicity, religion, race etc. These gender identities, in turn, get stereotyped as ‘typical’ to a particular sex. For e.g. a woman being caring, loving, emotional, passive, submissive, docile, dependent etc; while the man has to hide emotions and be active, tough, strong, practical, dominating etc (Lind 2007).

2.1. Masculinities and femininities

Feminist scholars have addressed the issue of gender in the context of the construction of masculinities and femininities, understanding gender inequality and analyzing power relations. Till the 1980s, the feminist scholarship was primarily engaged with the analysis of femininity (which was mostly a kind of hegemonic femininity), looking at the question of female subordination by men. The questions of alternative female sexuality (where women do not prescribe to traditional gender roles), masculinities, etc were completely overlooked.

However, in post ’80s, feminists started reorienting the lens for analysing the complex dimensions of gender identities. Masculinity studies, Queer studies, LGBT studies etc gradually came up as major concerns. Connell’s study of ‘hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity’ is one of the major works to deal with social construction of gender identity that leads to perpetual gender inequality across the world. Hegemonic masculinity, according to her, is geared towards gratifying the needs and desires of men, resulting in the enforcement of patriarchal structures. ‘Emphasizing femininity’, on the other hand, is a type of hegemonic femininity that accommodates the interests of men through the subordination of women. Scholars also argue that such constructions of masculinities and femininities are again entrenched in different social institutions like marriage, family, state etc (ibid).

2.2. Who is a transgender?

Building from the previous argument, one needs to break away from the binaries of masculinity and femininity, and transcend to the more nuanced understanding of masculinities, femininities and the alternate sexualities (the LGBTQs). One needs to look through a gender lens to address the multiple gender identities with which different groups of people identify themselves.

For e.g. the ‘berdache’ or the ‘two-souled people’ of the South Western part of North America, or the Hijra community of India, who have male bodies, but whose social standing is partially close to women. The ‘Banci’ of traditional Javanese society, again, are physically males, who dress up as women and have sex with straight men. There are plenty more other examples of how societies accommodate certain people who cannot be fitted into the typical gender binaries. However, each group, cited in the examples, is different from the other. In the recent times, the Gay culture of North America has had a profound influence on the sexual culture of other societies. For e.g. in contemporary Indonesia, other than the ‘Banci’ community, there has emerged a new sexual category – ‘gay’ men, belonging to a more affluent social context and having strong ties with North American gay culture.

Apart from the heterosexual male and female categories, lesbians and gays are now accepted as concrete categories of analysis. However, how to categorize a transgender is still a matter of debate. They are perceived as those who ‘live across gender boundaries’ (Connell 2009).

It is very recently that transgender, transsexualism, transvestism, intersex, and other such terms have been considered to be serious matters for conducting sociological studies. Previously, those topics were considered to be the matter of concern of medicine and psychology. Since the mid 1980s, the transvestites and transsexuals started using the term ‘transgender’ among themselves. Although sociological literature on transgender is pretty small as compared to other topics, the emergence of ‘transgender studies’ as a specialized arena of study itself is an indicator of its growing importance and acceptance among scholars. However, before delving into the history of transgender as a term, one needs to find out the meaning and origin of the terms ‘transsexual’ and ‘transvestite’ in the medical field. Initially both terms were pressed into one umbrella term – homosexuality.

Later, the term ‘transvestite’ appeared in the writings of Hirschfeld in 1910 to refer to men who enjoy dressing up, behaving as or/and wishing to be a person of the opposite sex, which might not necessarily involve homosexuality. However they viewed transvestites through the lens of medical science and perceived them as ‘anomalies’. In 1923, Hirschfeld coined the term ‘transsexuals’ to denote people who are not simply satisfied with cross-dressing, but willing to undergo sex-change operation. From 1960s onwards, the terms ‘sex reassignment’ and ‘transsexualism’ gained wide legitimacy in sociological literature. By the late ’80s, some transsexuals and transvestites started using ‘transgender’ as an all-encompassing umbrella term to refer to people of either of the two identities. ‘Transgender’ gradually started incorporating other ‘gender variant’ groups like ‘drag queens/kings’, ‘intersexed people’ etc and, by the ’90s, came to be known as the transgender ‘community’ (King and Ekins 2007) Stryker notes that transgender studies tend to look at “forms of embodiment and subjectivity that do not readily reduce to heteronormativity, yet that largely fall outside the analytic framework of sexual identity that so dominates queer theory.” Henceforth, it is transgender studies that promise to accomplish “a radical queer potential.1”

3.  Gender difference, gender inequality and gender oppression

While elaborating on gender, one also needs to look at a basic question which feminist theories dwell upon – ‘and what about the women?’ There are five answers to this question, as formulated by different strands of feminist thought, among which, three basic categories are gender difference, gender inequality and gender oppression.

Gender difference is the premise on which Cultural Feminism is grounded. Cultural feminists’ major argument is that the location and the experiences of women are quite different from that of men. The gender difference theorization addresses ‘the essentialist argument’ in ways of looking at the difference of experiences of women and men. According to such theorists, these differences stem from three factors – biology, social institutions (most notably family) where women and men are bound to perform differential roles, and finally, the phenomenological need of one to produce the ‘other’ in an act of defining one’s self.

Gender inequality is the idea which the liberal feminists put forth in order to explain the position of women in society. They argue that women’s location is not simply different from, but also unequal to that of men. They argue that the position of women, across class, occupation, religion, ethnicity or any such factor, is less privileged than men in terms of the material resources, power, status etc that they acquire. Inequality, according to them, results not from biological differences, but from societal assumptions that women and men to be differentially fitted for certain roles; therefore they are differentially remunerated as well.

Lastly, gender oppression is the ground on which the psychoanalytic and radical feminists have based their arguments. They argue that women are not only different from, or unequal to men, but are actively exploited, abused, restrained, oppressed by men, which results from an unequal power relation between women and men. This oppression and domination works in its most potent form through patriarchy, which privileges men over women in society. Patriarchy, these theorists argue, is not a result of factors like biology, sex roles, etc, but rather a direct deliberate intention to perpetuate the status quo of women’s oppression by men. (Lengermann and Niebrugge 2011).

4. Patriarchy

In simple words, patriarchy means the societal mechanisms (including cultural beliefs, established norms, institutional practices etc) that allow, maintain and reiterate the domination of women, and even younger men, by older or more powerful men (Levy 2007). Patriarchal rule, in its every essence, is repressive. Feminist writings shed light on three major ways in which patriarchy manifests itself – first, the way in which it acts as an ideology; secondly within the space of the household where male domination of women takes place in the way women are bound to exchange their physical, emotional, sexual and domestic labour for their upkeep; and thirdly, as Marxist feminists point out, the interplay of capitalism and patriarchy in the coercion of women (Abercrombie, Hill and Turner 1994).

According to Marxist feminists, patriarchy is a set of ‘power processes between women and men.’ Their approach involves linking these power processes with class and gender aspects. To them, the term ‘patriarchal’ would be an adjective to define a power relationship between men and women, where men tend to extract the surplus labour of women in a household setting. They also argue that women are not simply exploited by class processes but also actively oppressed by patriarchal policies sanctioned by the state (Fraad, Resnick and Wolff 1994).

Sylvia Walby, in her book ‘Theorizing Patriarchy’ (1990), identified six different structures in which patriarchy functions: paid employment, household production, culture, sexuality, violence and the state. She argues that firstly, though women have entered the job markets, inequality still persists between women and men in terms of wage gap, lesser access of women to greater rewarding jobs etc. Secondly, divorced women with less/no experience with the labour market, and especially those with children, are seen to be facing struggles to maintain a decent standard of living after breaking out of their marriages; this is quite contrary to the feminists’ idea of breaking out of patriarchal families by means of dissolving marriages. This happens because a divorced ‘middle class’, ‘middle aged woman’, without adequate experience of the labour market, loses out on the economic support of an earning husband. Culture, thirdly, helps in ingraining ideas regarding masculinity and femininity, and thereby creating the very foundation of patriarchal ideologies and structures. Walby also talks about male dominance by control of women’s sexuality, male violence (harassment, abuse, rape, wife beating etc) against women, and the state’s legitimate coercion through which patriarchy is perpetuated. Next she draws upon the ‘dual systems theory’ whereby she shows how one needs to look at the nexus between patriarchy and capitalism in order to understand the complex dynamics of gender relations. She argues that patriarchy works in a two-fold fashion, ranging from a strong private patriarchy within the family, and then moving onwards to a kind of public patriarchy, in the backdrop of exploitative capitalist class relations, market and the state. While private patriarchy subjugates women within the family, public patriarchy does not directly forbid women to enter the ‘public’ sphere, but control them within that space. Analyzing the contemporary British society, she argues that women might no longer be shackled by patriarchal relations within the private spaces of the household, but now they are left in the public sphere to be exploited to an even greater extent (Walby 1990).

Kumkum Sangari argues, on the other hand, that patriarchy functions in manifold ways in the Indian context. She coins the term ‘multiple patriarchies’ to identify the functioning of patriarchy through a plurality of religions, laws and customs. She raises a question – ‘are there separate patriarchies governing women of each caste and each religion?’2 She argues that, there cannot not be seen only a single patriarchal arrangement, but an overlap and intersection of multiple patriarchal arrangements, based on class, caste, religion, region and other such dynamics which lead to the hierarchical and repressive relations between women and men.

The feminists try to draw attention to the repression perpetuated by patriarchal norms and structures. As V. Geetha argues, one needs to understand that gender and patriarchy are not isolated categories in themselves, but have interlinkages with caste, class and religion. The ‘honour’ of men and their communities (be it caste-based or religious) is assumed to be engraved on the women’s bodies. Therefore, guarding the women’s virtue and ‘chastity’ are seen as equal to safeguarding the male honour and, thereby, preserving their caste and religious identities. Thus a woman’s sexuality gets controlled by the nexus of patriarchy, caste, class and religion. Especially in the case of caste or religion based riots, the assertion of community identity, exertion of power, or repression and opposition – all fervently revolve around the bodies of its women (Geetha 2002).

Uma Chakravarti, again points out the intersections of patriarchy and the caste system in India. She argues that the caste system is central to the structure of marriage, sexuality and reproduction, and is therefore the basis of gender based subordination. Patriarchal codes guarantee that the caste system thrives on endogamy, keeping women as the ‘gateways of caste’. This she terms as ‘Brahmanical patriarchy’.

4.1. Patriarchy and power

While analyzing the dynamics of gender and patriarchy, one needs to elaborate on how gender relations are inherently vested with power, involving domination by one and the subjugation of the other. As Michel Foucault argues, power permeates everywhere; it is widely dispersed into all kinds of relations, and that would include gender relations as well. Power works subtly and discursively through the way we categorize people, and thereby marginalizing certain sections of society. Power acts in ways of disciplining, regulating and ‘normalizing’ the body, and the ways in which identities are formed. This understanding inspired many feminist and LGBT studies. Thus power is an essential dimension of gender that needs to be discussed.

‘Power’ was fundamental to the Women’s Liberation’s understanding of patriarchy itself. Power can be seen in the media portrayals of women as coy, weak and inferior; or the naturalized perception that men should exert control over women’s body and sexuality. But Women’s liberation also acknowledges that patriarchy is not simply about direct bodily control of women by men. There is much more complexity to it than that. Patriarchal biases and ideology are ingrained in various social structures, including the institution of state. For e.g. when a woman reports of being raped, the woman’s sexual history, marital status, location in class-caste nexus, location of the woman at the time when she was violated, whether her dress was ‘proper’ or not, etc – all are scrutinized, instead of putting the offender immediately on trial. Such biases are, in effect, psychologically damaging, as well as discouraging, for the woman who brings such charges.

In case of homosexuality, again, power is exercised in extreme forms through criminalization, economic and cultural discrimination, persecution, violence etc. Gay liberation theorists often associate repression of gay men with that of lesbians, and women in a broader spectrum. This laid the foundation of understanding gendered power relations among men, analysing hegemonic and subjugated masculinities. This in time led to the growth of research on men and masculinities (Connell 2009).

Socialization has a profound influence on the ways in which gender roles and expectations come to be acquired. Socialization happens not only within families, but also in educational institutions, among peer groups etc. The seeming biological differences between women and men are transformed into gender roles to be played out as per societal expectations and norms. Attributes (active, dominant, aggressive etc) associated with masculinity are naturally given power and status, while those associated with femininity (Care work, emotions, docility etc) are considered inferior, non-rational. The gender politics is so discursive and entrenched in our psyche that since birth itself, one tends to assign femaleness the as lack or absence of male attributes. If a male or a female fails to perform the expected role of masculinity or femininity, respectively, they are considered to be deviating from their normative heterosexual roles (F.Paechter 1998).

5.  Gender and caste

Gender is a term which cannot be conceptualized in an isolated manner. It has to be understood in terms of its interlinkages with other axes of stratification in society, including class, caste, religion etc. In the following section, the interrelation between gender and the caste system will be highlighted upon.

As M. N. Srinivas has stated, ‘caste is a hereditary, endogamous, usually localized group, having traditional associations with an occupation and a particular position in the local hierarchy of castes.’ He argues that caste relations involve the concepts of purity and pollution, and ‘generally maximum commensality occurs within the caste.’

The caste system is repressive in terms of its control of female bodies by ways of maintaining caste endogamy (practice of marriage between two individuals within the same caste group). Through endogamy, the upholders of caste system ensure ways of retaining power over the physical or emotional labour of women, as well as their sexuality. Concepts like purity and pollution also lead to the regulation of social mobility of women (Desai and Krishnaraj 1987).

Uma Chakravarti , as argued before, elaborates on this further. Through her concept of ‘Brahmanical patriarchy’ she points out that there are Brahmanical codes for women, the degree of stringency of which differs according to the status of the caste group in the hierarchy of castes. The most stringent control of sexuality can be seen in case of upper caste women where the ideology of ‘chaste wives’ or ‘Pativrata’ women are incorporated, upheld and valorized, while other forms of oppression are experienced by women of lower caste groups (Chakravarty 2003).

Linked with the notion of endogamy, lies the concepts of Anuloma and Pratiloma marriages. When a boy marries a girl of a lower caste, it is socio-culturally approved; a Pratiloma marriage on the other hand involves a woman of ‘ritually pure’ caste group marrying a man of a comparatively lower caste group, which is generally not socially sanctioned. Pratiloma marriages can lead to excommunication, or even death, since they are considered to be a form of transgressing the social norms. This comes from the preconceived notion that women are protectors of their own ‘purity’ – that her social position cannot be lowered by means of marrying a man from the lower caste; though she can raise her social standing by marrying someone of the upper castes.

Caste system also establishes and reiterates sexual division of labour. Some tasks are allotted for women, while certain other works are presumed to be meant for men. As Desai and Krishnaraj cite the example of agriculture in India, we can see that there is a clear sexual division of labour. Greater numbers of women engage themselves in water regulation, winnowing, weeding the field, thrashing the grains etc, but not ploughing. Generally women belonging to lower caste groups can be seen engaged in agricultural labour. However, if caste-based upward mobility happens, women are instantly prevented to do work outside home (Desai and Krishnaraj 1987).

6.  Sexual division of labour

Sexual division of labour is the term used to explain the gendered division of work roles and duties between men and women. Often, explaining sexual division of labour is based on the biological differences between men and women. However, feminists have pointed out that the basis of such division of labour is, in reality, the effective functioning of patriarchy, which relegates women to the private sphere of domesticity, while enabling men to venture out into the public sphere, in the backdrop of a modern capitalist society (Abercrombie, Hill and Turner 1994).

Before the Industrial Revolution happened, all forms of economic production were centred around home, and all household members (including servants as well) were supposed to engage in such activities. The distinction between workplace and residence was blurred. The term ‘house work’ would have, at that time, made little sense, as all kinds of work – economic or domestic – were performed at home. After the Industrial Revolution, however, the workplace was severed from the place of residence. Throughout the 19th century, numerous factories started emerging which required manual labour. This led to a separation of the private and the public spheres, as men tended to seek work in those factories, while women stayed at home and took care of the family. This separation of the private and the public, in due course of time, naturalized the assumption that women are the ‘natural’ caregivers, frail, weak, emotional, and therefore fitted to perform roles within the household; while men are ‘naturally’ strong and therefore fit for doing work outside and earn a living. Thus sexual division of labour emerged since the dawn of capitalism. The economic value of men and women’s work also differed as women’s work was basically unpaid domestic labour, while men’s labour was paid (Adams 2007).

Because of its universality, sexual division of labour is considered to be based simply on biological differences. However, apart from the fact that only women can biologically give birth, there are numerous socio-cultural attributes with regard to the roles of women and men that have been imposed across societies. These gender roles and expectations, and different assumptions as to what masculinity and femininity constitute, vary across time and space.

Even in paid work, women are mostly employed in the service sector (especially occupations which require care work), unlike men who are concentrated more in manufacturing or other such jobs. Even if they are employed in similar jobs as men, women are most likely to form part of menial, casualized labour with insecure positions and lesser pay. Women engage in part-time work also because their contribution to the labour market is considered to be an extension of their domestic work of taking care of children and the household.

All these stem from the assumption that women are ‘naturally’ caring and loving and, therefore, suitable for care-work, while men are suitable for jobs which demand greater physical labour.

However, with the decrease of the number of heavy industries and the increasing number of working women, the situation has changed. Previous male-only jobs (such as primary school-teachers in the U.S.) are now being taken up by women to a certain extent. Other than that, medicine, law etc are also practised by women, which were considered to be strictly male-only professions (Bruce and Yearley 2006).

Nirmala Banerjee argues that there is a common assumption that women should be barred from doing work that demands greater physical strength because they are frail and delicate, need to be protected, and also since it might cause hazards during their reproductive stage. However, the fact is that there is hardly a society where poor women are excused from engaging in manual labour. Especially in the context of India, women are often involved in works like carrying heavy construction materials, or containers of water over long distances that involve rigorous manual labour. Not even pregnant women are exempted from performing such hard work.

One by one she debunks the myths regarding the normalization of sexual division of labour. She shows how socially approved prejudices mould people’s perceptions to doubt ‘women’s commitment to the labour market, their capacity to handle complicated machinery, to make quick decisions or even to undertake steady regular work’. She points out how gender-based discrimination happens in the job market. For example, when similar jobs are to be done, women’s wages are much lesser than that of men. Also, women are restricted to a certain number of jobs which are menial and casualized (Banerjee 1985).

7.  Summary

The aforementioned themes try to analyze the ongoing debates pertaining to the politics of gender. While looking at the differences between sex and gender it addresses masculinities, femininities, in general, and transgender, in particular, as important categories of analysis. It looks at various dimensions of gender, like, the way in which different strands of feminist thoughts address the gender question, pointing at difference, inequality and oppression. It also addresses patriarchy as deep-seated in structures and norms of society and how it inherently constitutes power relations. Linked to the understanding of patriarchy, caste becomes an important category to analyze such power relations in the context of India. By looking at the works of various scholars, this module shows how patriarchy and caste operate hand in hand in perpetuating gender based inequality and oppression. Finally it questions sexual division of labour as a ‘natural’ phenomenon, and points out how prejudices and biases against women affect their positions in both the private and the public spheres.

Bibliography

• Abercrombie, Nicholas, Stephen Hill, and Bryan S. Turner. The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. Third Edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1994.
• Adams, Michele. “Divisions of Household Labour.” In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by George Ritzer, 1202-1206. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2007.
• Banerjee, Nirmala. “Women’s Work and Discrimination.” In Women in Poverty: Tyranny of the Household (Investigative Essays on Women’s Work), edited by Devaki Jain and Nirmala Banerjee, 146-167. New Delhi: Shakti Books, 1985.
• Bruce, Steve, and Steven Yearley. The Sage Dictionary of Sociology. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2006.
• Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York: Routledge, 1993.
• Chakravarty, Uma. “Gendering Caste Through a Feminist Lens.” Stree, 2003.
• Connell, Raewyn. Gender In World Perspective. Second Edition. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009.
• Desai, Neera, and Maithreyi Krishnaraj. Women and Society in India. Delhi: Ajanta Publications (India), 1987.
• F.Paechter, Carrie. Educating the Other: Gender, Power and Schooling. London: The Falmer Press, 1998.
• Fraad, Harriet, Stephen Resnick, and Richard Wolff. Bringing It All Back Home: Class, Gender and Power in the Modern Household. London: Pluto Press, 1994.
• Geetha, V. Gender. Calcutta: Stree, 2002.
• King, Dave, and Richard Ekins. “Transgender, Transvestism, and Transsexualism.” In Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by George Ritzer, 5045-5051. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2007.
• Lengermann, Patricia Madoo, and Gillian Niebrugge. “Contemporary Feminist Theory.” In Sociological Theory, by George Ritzer, 454-498. New York: McGraw Hill Companies, 2011.
• Levy, Donal P. “Patriarchy.” In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by George Ritzer, 3377-3379. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
• Lind, Amy. “Femininities/ Masculinities.” In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, 1662-1665.
• Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2007.
• Sangari, Kumkum. “Politics of Diversity: Religious Communities and Multiple Patriarchies.” Economic and Political Weekly, 1995: 3381-3389.
• Turner, Bryan S. “Body and Society.” In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by George Ritzer, 335-338. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2007. 
• Walby, Sylvia. Theorizing Patriarchy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990.
• Wiegman, Robyn. “The Desire for Gender.” In A Companion to Lesbian, Gay,Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies, edited by George E. Haggerty and Molly McGarry, 217-236. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2007.