Caste Women Research Articles

Layers of Subalternity and Scheduled Castes Hindu Women: A Case Study of District Ghotki

Scheduled Castes Hindu women of Ghotki district are facing layers and layers of subalternity in the male dominate district. They are facing social, economic, political and religious discriminations simultaneously. Overall, caste-based discrimination against Scheduled Castes has become norm of the society. Nobody is bothered to look into their life striking subalternity matters. As religious minority in the district, scheduled caste Hindu women are suffering layers of discrimination in an Islamic society, dominated by 99 percent Muslims with additional burden of conversion. The concept of othering can be best illustrated in the sense of Scheduled Caste women; the practice of ‘untouchability is rampant in the society. In other words, they are being considered as Achhoot in the society. As a result, Scheduled Castes often live-in separate colonies, are being compelled to eat food in separate crockery, and are not allowed to sit with Muslims and upper castes Hindus as well. So, in a sense, the Scheduled Castes women face systematic oppression in both public and private spheres; first in Muslim dominated district, second in the higher caste Hindu community and third in the male dominated structures of their own families. At the bottom of social hierarchy, schedule castes women are not only deprived of social assets but also frequently suffer from the violation of personal dignity and freedom through sexual abuse, alienation, abduction and force conversion and marriages. They are facing class bound subalternity, age bound subalternity, gendered bound subalternity, religion bound Subalternity, and political bound subalternity simultaneously.

Analyzing caste in media production cultures: A case study from South India

This paper sifts through the affective connotations and methodological issues that crop up during conversations about caste with dominant caste (savarna) women working in the Malayalam language film industry in Kerala, India, in the context of a heightened focus on gender in the post #MeToo era. Drawing on arguments from critical whiteness and critical race theories, it argues that caste ought to be viewed not just as an ontological entity but as an epistemological framework which shapes how knowledge about the world and selves are produced and transferred. It also explores the methodological challenges in broaching the topic of caste with women occupying powerful social locations and how in failing to explore caste in seemingly gender-focused studies, the researcher contributes to an epistemology of ignorance, rendering invisible a crucial power differential.

“Whatever Happened toJogtaandJogtin?”: Subjugation of Dalits in Lower-Caste Religious Practices

AbstractThe economics of female sexuality in India are embodied in the caste system, which allocates women of certain caste groups to the domestic sphere and relegates Dalit/lower caste women to religious/sacred prostitution. The dominance of Shudra (often OBC) castes over religious spaces further marginalized Dalits and vulnerable lower-Shudra castes pertaining to the sexual exploitation of men and women within the institution of sacred prostitution. Shudra (OBC) castes’ hold over religious institutions in contemporary society facilitated the hegemony of the Brahminic ideology of caste and patriarchy even in the lower-caste religious practices like worship of female deities such as Yellamma in south India. This article discusses the religious aspects of the oppression of Dalits (outcastes) shaped by lower-caste religiosity through a study of the conditions of Dalit men and women who are dedicated to the temples of village deities and are varyingly called Jogta, Jogtin, Jogini, Potaraju, Matangi/Matamma, Shivashakti, Basavi, and Murali in different regions of south India. The current study is based on the experiences of Joginis and Jogtas from Telangana and Marathwada region of the state of Maharashtra. This article explores the livelihood aspect of the Jogini system, in other words, the economic vulnerabilities shaped by caste hierarchies that result in the perpetuation of the practice of sacred prostitution; how the caste hierarchies refigure in the reorganization of masculinities through the institutions of Jogini and Jogta; and how the question of Dalit self-respect is construed by Joginis and Jogtas within the paradigm of religious institutions.

Violence against Scheduled Caste Women: The Case of Rape across States in India

The present paper is an endeavour to get in the brutal social practices against scheduled caste (SC) women in India utilizing state-level information over the period of nearly two decades, that is, 2001–2019. Besides law enforcement and punishment, there can be other compelling instruments for controlling rape against SC women. The result proposes interstate disparity in rape rate. Rape against SC women may be controlled with higher economic growth, education and expanding expenditure on police. The DEMARU states are still found slacking behind in controlling rape of SC women.

Rejuvenating Economic Empowerment: A Study on Women-led Entrepreneurship in Molasses Production in Manipur

Women in Manipur have exhibited their entrepreneurial spirit by engaging in various occupations to secure their livelihoods. Historically, some women were involved in selling locally-made liquor, although this came with the burden of societal stigma and discrimination. Subsequently, a group of women entrepreneurs ventured into molasses production, paving the way for their own success stories and inspiring others to pursue better earning opportunities. This research delves into the socio-economic landscape of Scheduled Caste (SC) women engaged in molasses production in Kakching, Manipur. The study aims to assess the current status of women's participation in molasses entrepreneurship, evaluate the potential for sustainable economic growth, identify challenges faced by women in successfully conducting their trade, and explore the prospects presented by India's Look East Policies. The study concludes by offering insightful recommendations based on the research findings.

The Contribution of Akka Mahadevi and Mirabai to Bhakti Literature: A Comparative Study from the 21st-Century Perspective

This study aims to demonstrate the contribution of Akka Mahadevi and Mirabai to the Bhakti literature. This paper will explore the contribution of two classical female Hindu poet-saints by analyzing their selected poetry, a comparative analysis of Mahadevi’s devotion to Lord Shiva, and Mirabai’s devotion to Lord Krishna. These two famous women poets in the Middle Ages acted like social reformers and radical change makers in society; breaking the patriarchal norms, and erasing the distinction of caste, class, and language barriers to democratize spirituality through their artistic emotion of devotion and lyrical composition. The only possibility of self-expression available to women in a patriarchal society remained through spirituality. The spiritual imagery used in rebel saints' music reflects their societal estrangement. The argument in this study is divided into two parts, while Akka Mahadevi is aimed to define and describe the nature of devotion to Siva; and Mirabai is concerned with a woman’s ability to speak authoritatively by the nature of devotion to Lord Krishna. This study will emphasize how these two poets overcame the caste, class, and social disparity women faced in the Middle Ages by contextualizing the history and literary point of view by analyzing their poetry.

Caste and Masculinity: The Complexity of Gender Dynamics among Different Communities in Tamil Karisal Literature

The conceptualisation of masculinity in the traditional sense has been viewed as a complex mix of attitudes, behaviours, and abilities (powers) possessed by diverse groups of individuals. It is supposed that neither these sets nor the individuals who compose them have remained consistent across time and among societies. In this paper, I will be exploring the varying degrees of masculinity that is exhibited by men of different communities portrayed in Tamil Karisal literature. Gender relations are also defined along the lines of Caste and status. ‘Karisal’ meaning ‘black soil’ encompasses the arid regions of Southern Tamil Nadu and Karisal literature depicts the lives of the people living in such regions. Traditional traits of masculinity such as being valiant, dominant, and knowledgeable is more expected from the upper caste men whereas such traits are not encouraged among men belonging to the marginalised sections of the rural Karisal landscape. This paper will also look at how gender relations exist between the men and women of both dominant and lower castes in the Karisal region. It can also be noted how virtues associated with femineity such as chastity, subordination and obedience are expected from upper caste women who do not cross household boundaries but Dalit women, out of economic necessities, are made to work as agricultural labourers in the fields and are prone to being harassed by men of all castes. For this study, the texts for analysis are short stories from Along with the Sun (2020) compiled by Ki. Rajanarayanan and the novel Koogai (2015) written by Cho Dharman.

Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Family Planning among Currently Married PAHARI Cast Women in Nepal

Family planning contributes to improving health and ensuring access to adequate food, clothing, housing, and educational opportunities for people. This study simply tried to analyze the “Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of family planning among PAHARI cast women” with respect to socio-economic condition of the sample size of the population in the study area. The study found that knowledge of at least one modern method of family planning is almost universal among currently married PAHARI cast women. This study found more than 98 percent PAHARI has knowledge of at least one family planning method but the users are only 62.7 per cent of any method and the modern method family planning users are only 60 per cent. These finding figures clear the low-use patterns of family planning devices in the study population of the study area.

Political participation of scheduled caste women through SHGS in west Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh

The concept of women empowerment is the outcome of several important critiques and debates generated by the women’s movement throughout the world, particularly by the third world feminists. Empowerment of women means the materialization of the relocation of power challenging the patriarchal ideology which justifies the male dominance. ‘Becoming powerful’ is the literal meaning of the term empowerment. Empowerment can be achieved through transformation of the structures or institutions that reinforce and perpetuate gender discrimination. Empowerment is a process that enables women to gain access to and control of available political, social and economic resources as well as the required information. It is also defined as the process by which the powerless gain greater control over the circumstances and control both resource and ideology that governs their lives. Women’s participation in the village based formal or non-formal organizations has made significant changes in their social status and position in the family. It permits them to participate in rural development for their own upliftment. It also gives them an opportunity to work in groups for common interest, associate with the on-going development programmes, articulate their needs and assume leadership in the national development process. In order to ascertain the political awareness and involvement of the members of the SHG in political affairs, the respondents were asked certain questions to access their political awareness which had an influence in exercising their political right.

Political participation of scheduled caste women through SHGS in west Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh

Political participation of scheduled caste women through SHGS in west Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh

‘Being Invisible, They Seemed Dead Already’: Afterlives of the Dead Wife in A Passage to India

Abstract Gail Minault has argued that the absence of Muslim women from colonial narratives on India is typically attributed to the women’s veiling practices. The colonizers contended that they couldn’t possibly write about that which they could not see. We find resonances of that outlook in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, which, as this article will argue, is constructed upon and around the narrative invisibilization of Muslim women in general, and Dr Aziz’s dead wife in particular. Through a close reading of the dead wife’s photographic and mnemonic trace in the novel, the article shall observe how her character (or the lack thereof) emerges as the grounds upon which Aziz’s relationship is defined with the English characters. It shall then take cognisance of the dead wife’s invisibilization beyond Forster, and examine how and why her story has hitherto escaped serious critical enquiry among postcolonial (and) feminist scholars who have worked extensively on Forster’s novel. Even though Indian feminist (and) post-colonial theory has presented to us a nuanced understanding of women’s subalternity at the hands of the white and the brown man, there appears to be a widespread essentialization at play, which absorbs the lived realities of non-Hindu and non-upper caste women. With sole focus on the figure of the Indian Muslim woman in the project of decolonization, this article will examine how the principles and structures of invisibilization are perpetuated from the logic of colonial bondage to the myth of post-colonial freedom(s).

Sectoral wage gaps and gender in rural India†

AbstractUsing detailed monthly household panel data from rural India, I analyze sectoral wage gaps for men and women. I show that the wage gap across the non‐farm and farm sectors is much higher for women than for men. Relative to men, women also work less time in non‐farm wage employment than in farm wage employment. Taken together, these findings suggest that constraints are preventing women from reallocating their time to more remunerative wage employment opportunities. Women are less likely to work outside of their own village in the non‐farm sector, yet the wage gap is driven by higher caste and married women. These results are consistent with a lack of local non‐farm employment opportunities interacting with barriers to labor mobility for women but not men.

Decomposing the gap in intimate partner violence between Scheduled Caste and General category women in India: An analysis of NFHS-5 data

Scheduled Caste (SC) women, one of India's most oppressed and neglected population groups, are the most vulnerable to intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV, on the other hand, is less common among women in the General category. No study has been conducted to measure the gap in IPV between these two groups. This study is an attempt to fill this gap. This study aims to comprehensively explore the factors that underlie and explain the gap in IPV between SC and General women. Information on 10,168 ever-married SC and 9695 ever-married General women aged 15–49 from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey was analyzed. The Fairlie decomposition (Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition modified for binary outcomes) was used in this study to explain the gap in ever experience of IPV prevalence between SC and General women. About 37.3% and 24.4% of ever-married SC and General women in India suffered either physical or mental or sexual violence from their husbands. The large part of the gap in IPV between SC and General women was due to differences in husbands' alcohol consumption (26.33% gap), wealth index (24.48% gap), controlling behavior by husband (24%) and parental IPV (15.87% gap). With the introduction of appropriate interventions and programs, these gaps can be reduced. Interventions aimed at reducing alcoholism should be emphasized.

Exploring the Potential of mHealth to Improve Maternal Health in Rural Bihar

In India women suffer from poor maternal health sometime leading to maternal death. The condition is severe in Empowered Action Group states like Bihar. Caste and gender-based biases are responsible for it. Health informatics tools like mHealth is essential for disseminating useful maternal health-related information among rural women since its affordable and portable. A household survey was conducted in Malpur village, Dalsinghsarai block, Samastipur district, Bihar. Purposive random sampling was conducted. Mixed method was used for data collection and analysis. Results show that rural women have severe dependence on their immediate family members for information related to maternal health. ASHAs/AWWs too fail to generate information to lower caste women. Thus, mHealth becomes instrumental in generating maternal health education. The study contends that mHealth is promising in propagating need-based information to women in their own language, thereby becoming a harbinger of health promotion.

Intimate Partner Violence among Scheduled Caste Women in India: A Cross-sectional Study

ABSTRACT Scheduled Caste (SC) women, one of the most oppressed and neglected groups in India, have the highest prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV), yet no study has analyzed correlates of IPV within this group, or analyzed them using nationally representative data. This study is an attempt to fill this gap. Information on 11,076 married SC women from the National Family Health Survey-4 was analyzed. Cross-sectional study design was followed. Binary logistic regression was applied to examine the factors associated with IPV. About 40% of married SC women in India suffered physical, mental, or sexual violence from their husbands. Alcohol consumption by husband (OR = 2.99, 95% CI = 2.62–3.41), employment status (OR = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.07–1.48), parity especially having 4 or more children (OR = 2.36, 95% CI = 1.82–3.06; OR = 2.10, 95% CI = 1.61–2.73) were associated with higher odds of IPV. Women from southern, eastern, and central regions of India were more likely to experience IPV. We conclude that there is a need to recognize the diverse experiences of vulnerable subgroups within SC women and undertake suitably designed targeted interventions to lower the high levels of IPV prevalent among these women.

‘Her own and her children's share’: luck, misogyny and imaginative resistance in twentieth-century Irish folklore

AbstractIn twentieth-century Irish folklore, luck had much to do with women. While women were rarely seen as legitimate possessors of good fortune, luck was frequently perceived as being communicated through women's bodies and lost as a result of their actions. A caul, an intact amniotic membrane over a newborn's head and by-product of a pregnant woman's body, was believed to convey luck and health to either the mother or the child but not to both. The emphasis in this tradition on women's corporeality cast women and their maternal by-products as appropriable familial and communal resources. This and additional lore reveal that women were constructed as dangerous, ‘object-like others’ whose mere presence could threaten men's safety. Twentieth-century Ireland's folk and political cultures each operated within frameworks of supporting ideological systems. Despite being easily distinguishable in articulation, these cultures were frequently in concert with one another, especially relating to prescriptive gender roles. In numerous instances, lore about luck bolstered legislative, social and religious policies of the Irish Free State and the early Irish Republic regarding women. However, narrow divergences allowed women limited space to contest gender hierarchy in folk communities. Some women found opportunities for subversion in the very cultural fabric that restricted them, resorting to imaginative resistance to reject and counter misogynist discourse and assert female subjectivity.

Abused but “Not Insulted”: Understanding Intersectionality in Symbolic Violence in India

The fourth round of the Indian National Family Health Survey shows that the proportion of women who felt that wife-beating was justified exceeded the proportion of men who felt so in India. We find that more than one-fourth of the women in India who have experienced spousal bodily violence say that they never felt insulted by the action of their husbands. We hypothesise that this absence of the feeling of insult despite facing physical violence indicates the presence of symbolic violence. This form of violence manifests through symbolic channels and cannot take place without the complicity of the victim. Feminist writing in India has argued that gender needs to be considered at its intersection with class and caste to understand how the control of female sexuality relates to the organisation of production, sanctioned and legitimised by ideologies. We run instrumental variable probit regression of the likelihood of having felt insulted on the woman’s economic class and social group affiliation. We find that once the experience of facing spousal physical violence and other background characteristics are controlled for, women from non-poor households are significantly less likely to have felt insulted, as compared to poor women. Furthermore, compared to women from most other social groups along the intersections of class and caste, non-poor upper caste women are less likely to report insult.

Women's empowerment, extended families and male migration in Nepal: Insights from mixed methods analysis

•Combining qualitative and quantitative methods sheds new light on women's empowerment processes.•Upper caste Nepali women are disempowered by patriarchy; lower caste women by poverty and patriarchy.•Non-migrant husbands mediate the disempowering effects of living with in-laws.•Control over time, not just hours worked, is an important component of empowerment.

Lavani The Folk Dance Of Maharashtra: A Study In Aesthetic

Maharashtra is land of culture and history, its history reveals the great Maratha ruled this land and these great men had affinity with the arts and dance culture of Maharashtra. No other form of dance culture and literature remains limited to particular area or region. In the course of time art and culture becomes part of remaining part of world. Same is the case of Lavani it came from different part but becomes the popular and folk dance of Maharashtra. At the beginning it was performed by the lower caste women but time has changed its role it became very popular form of literature of social reforms. Beside sensuality, beauty and shringar it appealed the masses to change the attitude of caste and other issues. During the time of Peshwas Lavani came to the doorstep of palace and castle. Time has modified into two forms Fadachi and Baithkichi Lavani both are existed on today in the society and still enjoyed by the masses. The main purpose of this paper is to comment on the Lavani as folk dance of Maharashtra from the aesthetic point of view.

Reading Dalit Autobiographies in English: A Top Ten List

Dalit autobiography has joined protest poetry as a leading genre of Dalit Literature since the nineteen seventies. Finding their inspiration in the social and political activism of B. R. Ambedkar (1891-1956), leader of the India’s anti-caste movement and a founding father of the Republic, low caste men and women have documented their struggles and victories in the face of ongoing violence and deprivation. Surveying ten life narratives translated into English from Marathi, Hindi, and Kannada, the essay treats works by Ambedkar, Daya Pawar, Sharankumar Limbale, Baby Kamble, Laxman Gaikwad, Siddhalingaiah, Omprakash Valmiki, Urmila Pawar, Vasant Moon and Namdeo Nimgade. Tracing the origins of Dalit autobiography in the writings of Siddharth College and Milind College students in the 1950s, protest writers in the 1960s, and the Dalit Panthers and their followers in the 1970s, the survey identifies recurring themes of social exclusion, poverty, patriarchy, survival and assertion in the realms of politics, employment, education, and religion. These intimate testimonials share a radical vision of social transformation across caste, class, gender, linguistic and geographic boundaries and provide a needed corrective to mainstream portraits of modern Indian social history.