Women as the “Second Sex” in India: History, Hierarchy, and the Limits of Gender Reform

-Ramphal Kataria

Visibility Without Power: Why Women’s Empowerment in India Remains Incomplete

Abstract

Despite constitutional guarantees, policy initiatives, and expanding access to education, women in India continue to experience structural inequality across social, economic, and political domains. This paper situates contemporary gender disparities within a longue durée historical framework, tracing the evolution of women’s status from ancient societies through the medieval, colonial, and post-Independence periods. Drawing upon feminist theory, political economy, caste analysis, and demographic evidence, it interrogates how patriarchal control over women’s labour, sexuality, and reproduction has remained central to social hierarchy. The paper further argues that modern policy interventions—most notably the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao programme—address symptoms rather than the structural foundations of inequality. This first part establishes the historical and theoretical foundations necessary to evaluate whether recent gender reforms represent substantive transformation or symbolic accommodation.

Historical Foundations and Theoretical Framing

1. Introduction: Women as a Social Category

Gender inequality is neither accidental nor episodic; it is historically produced and institutionally sustained. Across societies, women have been positioned not as autonomous subjects but as relational beings—defined through marriage, motherhood, and kinship. As The Second Sex observed in her foundational work:

“Humanity is male, and man defines woman not in herself but relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being.”

This insight is particularly instructive in the Indian context, where women’s social worth has long been mediated by caste, community honour, and reproductive function. The persistence of dowry, son preference, sex-selective abortion, and declining female labour participation are not contradictions of modernity but its gendered outcomes.

Post-Independence India adopted a progressive constitutional framework guaranteeing equality, dignity, and non-discrimination. Yet, the distance between formal equality and substantive equality remains vast. The question this paper poses is not whether women’s status has improved—clearly, it has—but whether the foundational hierarchy that produces women as the “second sex” has been dismantled.

2. Women in Ancient Indian Societies: Limited Agency within Patriarchy

Early Vedic literature presents a complex and often romanticised picture of women’s status. Textual references to women philosophers such as Gargi and Maitreyi suggest participation in intellectual discourse, while hymns attributed to women poets indicate limited recognition of female voices. However, these instances must be read as exceptions within a patriarchal order, not evidence of gender equality.

Inheritance, lineage, and ritual authority remained overwhelmingly male-dominated. Even where women accessed education, it did not translate into control over property or political power. As feminist historians caution, reverence for feminine principles did not undermine male dominance over material resources.

Uma Chakravarti’s conceptualisation of Brahmanical patriarchy is central here. She argues that caste purity depended upon strict regulation of women’s sexuality, ensuring endogamy and lineage continuity.¹ Women’s bodies thus became the site where social hierarchy was reproduced.

*“Control over women’s sexuality was the core mechanism through which caste system sustained itself.”*¹

The celebrated imagery of goddesses coexisted with the everyday subordination of women—an ideological contradiction that continues to structure Indian gender relations.

3. Transition to the Post-Vedic Order: Codification of Control

The post-Vedic period witnessed increasing textual codification of women’s subordination. Legal-religious texts institutionalised dependency, prescribing lifelong guardianship—by father, husband, and son. Widowhood was marked by austerity and social exclusion, while women’s access to education narrowed significantly.

These developments were not merely cultural but political-economic responses to agrarian expansion, property consolidation, and caste stratification. As Engels argued in a broader comparative context, the emergence of private property and inheritance systems intensified patriarchal control over women.²

Thus, the erosion of women’s autonomy was structurally aligned with the consolidation of social hierarchy.

4. Medieval India: Honour, Segregation, and Unequal Labour

The medieval period intensified gender segregation, particularly among upper castes. Practices such as purdah, child marriage, and restrictions on widow remarriage became entrenched, framed as markers of honour and community identity. These practices must be understood not simply as cultural traditions but as mechanisms of social control in a period marked by political instability and inter-group conflict.

Women from lower-caste, Adivasi, and peasant communities occupied a different position. Their labour in agriculture, artisanal production, and domestic service was indispensable, yet socially devalued. Visibility in economic activity did not confer dignity or bargaining power.

This contradiction—women’s labour without rights—remains a defining feature of Indian political economy.

5. Colonial Intervention and the Gendered Logic of Reform

Colonial rule introduced legal reforms addressing certain extreme practices such as sati and child marriage. However, these reforms were selective, often serving imperial moral authority rather than women’s emancipation. British administrators portrayed Indian women as victims of tradition, while simultaneously reinforcing patriarchal family structures through personal laws.

Indian nationalist discourse responded by positioning women as symbols of cultural authenticity. As Partha Chatterjee famously argued, nationalism created a division between the “inner” spiritual domain (assigned to women) and the “outer” material world (claimed by men).³

Education for women expanded during this period, but largely to produce morally upright wives and mothers rather than economically independent individuals. Reform thus preserved patriarchy even as it modernised its appearance.

6. Caste, Community, and Differential Burdens

Gender oppression in India cannot be analysed independently of caste and community. Dalit and Adivasi women experience a triple burden—of gender, caste, and class—manifesting in higher labour participation but greater exposure to violence and exploitation.

Religious minority women, particularly Muslim women, face additional constraints arising from social marginalisation and politicised personal laws. These intersecting hierarchies complicate any singular narrative of “Indian women’s progress.”

As feminist scholars emphasise, gender justice cannot be achieved without addressing caste hierarchy and economic inequality simultaneously.⁴

7. Post-Independence Promise and Ambedkar’s Warning

Independent India marked a decisive legal rupture with the past. The Constitution guarantees equality before law (Articles 14–16), permits affirmative action (Article 15(3)), and recognises dignity as intrinsic to life (Article 21). Yet, as B. R. Ambedkar warned in the Constituent Assembly:

“Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy.”

Ambedkar recognised that law alone cannot dismantle entrenched social hierarchies. Without redistribution of resources, transformation of family structures, and economic independence, women would remain formally equal but substantively subordinate.

8. Theoretical Anchors: Feminism and Political Economy

This paper draws upon feminist political economy to argue that women’s subordination is sustained through unpaid care work, exclusion from property ownership, and control over reproductive labour. As A Vindication of the Rights of Woman asserted over two centuries ago:

“I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.”

Similarly, Amartya Sen’s concept of “missing women” exposed how demographic distortions reflect structural deprivation rather than biological chance.⁵

These theoretical insights frame the later evaluation of contemporary gender policies, including Beti Bachao Beti Padhao.

Education, Labour, Demography, and the Political Economy of Gender

9. Women’s Education: Expansion Without Emancipation

Few indicators are cited more frequently in discussions of women’s progress than literacy and educational enrolment. India has witnessed a steady rise in female literacy since Independence, accelerating after the 1990s with expanded schooling infrastructure, incentives for girls, and targeted schemes. Yet education has not translated into commensurate gains in autonomy, employment, or bargaining power within the household.

This paradox—education without emancipation—is central to understanding why gender inequality persists despite measurable progress.

As Amartya Sen has argued, capabilities matter only when individuals can convert them into substantive freedoms.⁶ In India, structural constraints—early marriage, unpaid care work, safety concerns, and labour-market discrimination—severely limit this conversion.

10. State-wise Female Literacy: Uneven and Stratified Progress

Table 1

Female Literacy Rates by State (1981–2025)

State	1981	1991	2001	2011	2022	2025*
Kerala	81.6	89.8	90.9	93.9	95.1	96+
Himachal Pradesh	51.2	63.9	76.5	83.8	88.1	89+
Tamil Nadu	54.4	62.7	73.5	80.3	86.0	87+
Maharashtra	55.8	64.9	76.9	82.9	86.8	88
Haryana	43.9	55.9	67.9	76.6	82.8	84
Gujarat	52.2	61.3	70.0	79.3	85.1	86
Uttar Pradesh	33.3	40.7	56.3	69.7	76.6	78
Bihar	32.0	37.5	47.0	63.8	74.3	76
Rajasthan	30.1	38.6	60.4	67.1	73.2	75
India	29.8	39.3	53.7	65.5	74.0	76–77

*2025 figures are projected using NSSO, UDISE+, and Census trend interpolation.
Source: Census of India; NSSO; Women and Men in India (MoSPI).

Interpretation

Three patterns stand out:

1. Regional divergence persists: Southern and hill states outperform the Hindi heartland.

2. Catch-up without convergence: Low-performing states have improved but have not closed the gap.

3. Literacy ≠ liberation: High-literacy states also report high dowry prevalence and low female labour participation.

Thus, education alone does not dismantle patriarchy; it often coexists with it.

11. Higher Education and the Gender Paradox

Female enrolment in higher education crossed 2 crore by 2021–22, with women constituting nearly 49% of total enrolment. This numerical parity, however, masks deep inequalities:

Concentration in humanities, education, and care-related disciplines

Underrepresentation in STEM and technical fields

Weak transition from education to paid employment

As A Room of One’s Own insightfully noted, intellectual access without economic independence leaves women structurally vulnerable.

“Intellectual freedom depends upon material things.”

12. Women’s Work: Paid, Unpaid, and Invisible

India presents a global anomaly: rising female education alongside declining female labour force participation (FLFP). Women’s FLFP has fallen from around 32% in the early 2000s to below 25% in recent years.

The principal explanation lies in the care economy.

Women perform over three-fourths of unpaid domestic and care work, including childcare, elder care, and household labour.⁷ This work subsidises the economy but remains unrecognised, unpaid, and unsupported by public infrastructure.

Nancy Fraser describes this as a “crisis of care”, where capitalism relies on women’s unpaid labour while systematically eroding the conditions that sustain it.⁸

13. Control Over Reproduction and the Logic of Son Preference

The most revealing indicator of women’s subordinate status is not education or employment, but control over reproduction. The decline in the Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) during the late 20th century exposed the deep entrenchment of son preference.

Table 2

State-wise Sex Ratio at Birth (Girls per 1,000 Boys)

State	2001	2011	2015	2021	2024–25*
Haryana	819	834	871	916	930+
Punjab	798	846	862	900	910
Rajasthan	909	888	894	911	920
Uttar Pradesh	916	902	902	917	925
Maharashtra	913	894	905	913	920
Gujarat	883	890	904	907	915
Kerala	958	959	964	966	970
India	919	918	919	929	930–933

*Latest available CRS/SRS trends, provisional.
Source: Census of India; Sample Registration System; Civil Registration System.

Structural Explanation

The deterioration of SRB was not a moral failure but a rational household response to:

Patrilineal inheritance

Dowry inflation

Absence of social security

Declining fertility

As Sen argued in his seminal essay on “missing women,” demographic imbalance reflects systematic deprivation, not individual prejudice.⁵

14. Violence Against Women: The Continuum of Control

Crimes against women must be understood as part of a continuum of control, linking domestic violence, sexual assault, and honour-based restrictions. Rising crime statistics partly reflect improved reporting, but they also reveal the persistence of patriarchal entitlement.

Legal protections—ranging from the IPC to special legislations—exist, yet enforcement remains uneven. Dalit, Adivasi, and minority women face compounded barriers to justice, including police apathy and social retaliation.

Law, in such contexts, often functions symbolically rather than substantively.

15. Setting the Stage for BBBP

By 2014–15, India faced a paradoxical moment:

Rising female education

Expanding institutional deliveries

Yet distorted sex ratios and declining work participation

It is against this backdrop that the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao programme was launched in January 2015. Its promise was to correct demographic imbalance and alter social attitudes toward daughters.

Violence, Law, Policy, and the Limits of Symbolic Empowerment

16. Violence Against Women: Crime, Control, and Continuity

Violence against women in India must be understood not merely as criminal deviance but as a systemic instrument of social regulation. Domestic violence, sexual assault, dowry deaths, honour killings, and caste-based sexual violence form a continuum through which patriarchal authority is enforced and reproduced.

While official crime statistics indicate rising incidence, feminist scholars caution against simplistic interpretations. Increased reporting reflects partial institutional access, yet the persistence of violence underscores the failure of deterrence and prevention.

Table 3

Selected Crimes Against Women in India (1991–2024)

Category	1991	2001	2011	2021	2024*
Rape	9,793	16,075	24,206	31,677	↑
Cruelty by husband/ in-laws	15,949	49,170	99,135	123,442	↑
Dowry deaths	5,157	6,851	8,618	6,757	↔
Assault to outrage modesty	20,611	34,124	42,968	89,200	↑
Kidnapping/abduction of women	12,300	14,646	35,565	101,707	↑

*2024 indicates trend based on NCRB provisional releases.
Source: National Crime Records Bureau.

The pattern reveals that private spaces—homes, families, marriages—remain the most dangerous sites for women. Violence thus functions as a corrective mechanism when women transgress expected roles.

As The Feminine Mystique argued in a different context, patriarchal societies respond to women’s autonomy not with accommodation but with coercion.

17. Law and Gender Justice: Between Promise and Practice

India possesses one of the most extensive legal frameworks for women’s protection:

Dowry Prohibition Act (1961)

Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005)

Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act (2013)

Criminal law amendments post-2013

Yet the distance between law on the books and law in action remains wide.

Barriers include:

Police reluctance to register FIRs

Judicial delays

Social pressure to compromise

Economic dependence of complainants

For Dalit, Adivasi, and minority women, the law often becomes inaccessible or hostile. As legal feminist scholarship notes, formal equality without social power produces “paper rights”.⁹

18. The Launch of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (2015): Context and Design

The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) programme was launched on 22 January 2015 against the backdrop of:

Alarmingly low Sex Ratio at Birth (918)

Public concern over sex-selective abortion

International embarrassment for a rising economy

BBBP was conceptualised as a convergence programme, integrating:

Advocacy and behavioural change

Enforcement of the PC&PNDT Act

Promotion of girls’ education

Importantly, it did not create new legal entitlements or cash rights for women, relying instead on persuasion, symbolism, and administrative coordination.

19. Assessing BBBP (2015–2025): What Changed?

A decade later, BBBP shows measurable demographic and institutional gains.

Table 4

Key Indicators Before and After BBBP

Indicator	2014–15	2024–25
Sex Ratio at Birth	918	930–933
Institutional deliveries	61%	97%+
Girls’ secondary GER	75.5%	80%+
Out-of-school girls	High	>1 lakh re-enrolled

These gains are significant. However, improvement in SRB has been uneven and reversible, often strongest in districts with sustained administrative attention rather than structural reform.

20. BBBP: Programme or Paradigm Shift?

A critical assessment suggests that BBBP functions primarily as:

A normative intervention, not a redistributive one

A communication-driven programme, not a rights-based scheme

It does not:

Guarantee inheritance rights

Ensure childcare infrastructure

Provide income security

Address unpaid care burden

As feminist political economists argue, behavioural change campaigns cannot substitute for material restructuring of gender relations.¹⁰

BBBP improved outcomes where state capacity already existed, but did not fundamentally alter women’s bargaining position within families or markets.

21. Comparative Perspective: India, Global South, and the West

A comparative lens clarifies the limits of India’s approach.

Dimension	India	Global South	Western Welfare States
Legal equality	High	Mixed	High
Economic participation	Low	Moderate	High
Care infrastructure	Weak	Weak	Strong
Social security	Limited	Limited	Extensive
Gender safety	Low	Low	Higher

As Invisible Women demonstrates, gender bias is universal, but welfare states mitigate inequality through redistribution. India’s reliance on moral appeals rather than social investment limits transformative potential.

22. Women, Choice, and the Question of Autonomy

The ultimate test of equality lies in choice:

Choice of education

Choice of work

Choice of marriage

Choice over reproduction

Despite progress, women’s choices in India remain conditional and constrained. Family, caste, religion, and community continue to exercise veto power.

As Women, Race & Class reminds us, gender liberation without economic justice remains incomplete.

23. Are Indian Women Still the “Second Sex”?

The evidence suggests that women in India remain:

Better educated but less empowered

More visible yet less secure

Celebrated symbolically but constrained materially

BBBP represents an important moral correction, but morality without material change has limits.

As A Vindication of the Rights of Woman argued:

“It is justice, not charity, that women require.”

24. Conclusion: From Protection to Power

India’s gender reforms have moved women from invisibility to visibility, but not from dependence to power. The challenge ahead is not awareness but redistribution:

Redistribution of care

Redistribution of property

Redistribution of time and income

Until women possess economic security, reproductive autonomy, and enforceable rights, they will remain citizens in form but not in substance.

BBBP must therefore be read not as an endpoint, but as a diagnostic moment—revealing how far India has come, and how far it still must go.

Footnotes

1. Chakravarti, U (1993): “Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy,” Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 28, No 14.

2. Engels, F (1884): The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

3. Beauvoir, S de (1949): The Second Sex.

4. Chatterjee, P (1993): The Nation and Its Fragments, Princeton University Press.

5. Rege, S (1998): “Dalit Women Talk Differently,” EPW, Vol 33, No 44.

6. Sen, A (1990): “More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing,” New York Review of Books.

7. Sen, A (1999): Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press.

8. National Statistical Office (2023): Time Use Survey, India.

9. Fraser, N (2016): “Contradictions of Capital and Care,” New Left Review.

10. Agnes, F (2011): Law and Gender Inequality, Oxford University Press.

11. Folbre, N (2001): The Invisible Heart, New Press.

12. Ambedkar, B R (1916): Castes in India.