Nine Important Concepts of the Gender Issues

Feminist theorists have always been working to construct some con­cepts which help us understand the gender issues. In this effort, no integrative approach, however, has been made to give precise meaning to a particular concept.

The disagreements are also large. With the emergence of these concepts the gender issues are increasingly getting a shape.

There are a few lady social anthropologists who are working at the task of formulating concepts on the strength of empirical data generated by them. Gerda Lerner (The Creation of Patriarchy, OUP) has made an attempt to make a precise collection of some common definitions.

(i) Subordination of Women:

The phrase ‘subordination of women‘ is used in place of ‘oppression of women’. Subordination does not have the connotation of evil in­tent on the part of the dominant; it allows for the possibility of collu­sion between him and the subordinate.

“It includes the possibility of voluntary acceptance of subordinate status in exchange for protection and privilege a condition which characterizes so much of the histori­cal experience of women.”

Subordination of women, thus, means forceful subordination. It has a historical postulation too that women have been subjugated all through the periods of history.

(ii) Feminism:

This is the term commonly and quite indiscriminately used. Some of its currently prevalent definitions are: (a) a doctrine advocating social and political rights for women equal to those of men; (b) an organized movement for the attainment of these rights; (c) the assertion of the claims of women as a group and the body of theory women have cre­ated; and (d) belief in the necessity of large-scale social change in order to increase the power of women.

(iii) Women’s Rights:

This indicates a movement the women’s rights movement. It is con­cerned with winning for women equality with men in all spheres of life and also giving them access to all rights and opportunities enjoyed by men in society.

Thus, the women’s rights movement is akin to the civil rights movement. The 19th century women’s rights and suffrage movement is an example of this kind.

(iv) Women’s Emancipation

This implies freedom from oppressive restrictions imposed by sex; it stands for self-determination and autonomy.

Freedom from oppres­sive restrictions imposed by sex means freedom from biological and social restrictions. Self-determination means being free to decide one’s own destiny, to define one’s social role, and to make decisions con­cerning one’s body.

Autonomy means earning one’s own status, not being born into it or marrying it; it means financial independence; freedom to choose one’s lifestyle and sexual preference-all of which implies a radical transformation of existing institutions, values and theories.

(v) Women’s Liberation:

This is the most commonly used term. It conjures up political libera­tion movements of other groups, such as colonials and racial minorities. It implies victimization and a subjective consciousness in a group striving to correct a wrong.

(vi) Gender:

The literal meaning of gender is to beget, to generate. In other words, it means social and cultural generation.

However, with the emergence of women’s studies and the rise of feminist writings and research, it in­cludes biological as well as social and cultural meanings. Thus, a woman has a biological distinctiveness and also some social-cultural discrimination against men.

(vii) Patriarchy:

The word is most commonly used by feminists. In its narrow mean­ing, patriarchy refers to “the system, historically derived from Greek and Roman laws, in which the male head of the household had abso­lute legal and economic power over his dependent female and male family members”.

People using the term that way often imply a lim­ited historicity for it: patriarchy began in classical antiquity and ended in the 19th century with the granting of civil rights to men and mar­ried women in particular.

However, in feminist literature, patriarchy is used in its wider meaning. It has its manifestation in the institution of male dominance over women and children in the family and the extension of male dominance over women in society in general.

It implies that men hold power in all the important institutions of society and that women are deprived of access to such power.

It does not imply that women are either totally powerless or totally deprived of rights, influence and re­sources.

One of the most challenging tasks of women’s history is to trace with precision the various forms and modes in which patriarchy appears historically, the shifts and challenges in its structure and func­tions, and the adaptations it makes to female pressures and demands.

(viii) Sexism:

It defines the ideology of male supremacy or superiority and the be­liefs that support and sustain it. Sexism and patriarchy mutually rein­force one another.

(ix) Women’s Culture:

It is the ground upon which women, stand in their resistance to patri­archal domination and their assertion and their own creativity in shaping society. “The term implies an assertion of equality and an awareness of sisterhood. Women’s culture is never a sub-culture.

Women live their social existence within the general culture. When­ever they are confined by patriarchal restraint or segregation into separateness, they transform this restraint into complementarily and redefine it. Thus, women live a duality as members of the general cul­ture and as partakers of women’s culture.”

(ix) Feminist Consciousness

When women gradually become aware of their movement they attain varying degrees of feminist consciousness. It means: (1) the awareness of wrong; (2) the development of a sense of sisterhood; (3) the autono­mous definition by women of their goals and strategies for changing their condition; and (4) the development of an alternative vision of the future.

We have tentatively defined some of the currently used concepts in feminist literature.

These concepts boil down to the fact that the phenomenon of sex-gender is essentially a system of male dominance made possible by men’s control of women’s productive and reproduc­tive labour, where reproduction is broadly construed to include sexuality, family life, and kinship formation, as well as the birthing which biologically reproduces the species.

All in all, the term ‘sex-gender’ indicates discrimination against women, that is, their inferiorization and subordination.