A Journal of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

have changed, the superstructure will have
to change logically. So, the question of
a separate women’s liberation struggle is
mooted. Patriarchy will be over. Such an
understanding overlooks the complexity
of the relationship between patriarchy and
the ‘base’. Those who see patriarchy’s ideals
as embedded only in the ‘base’ can also
easily have the confidence that once
relations of production change, women
will automatically be liberated. It is crucial
to say in this context that patriarchy
operates hand in glove with both ‘base’
and cultural superstructure. To privilege
one over the other is to disregard their
complex inter-relationship. It is also of
note that if ‘base’ changes, ‘superstructure’
does not entirely transform. Had base and
superstructure shared such a simple
relationship, many issues would have
resolved themselves. Without
understanding the dialectics between base
and superstructure, they cannot be
understood in their entirety. Although,
even if women haven’t achieved absolute
liberation in these socialist nations, their
condition has improved considerably. A
socialist state is more conducive to women’s
progress and liberation compared to
Capitalism.
Carving this Utopia of women’s
liberation is complex also because a
woman’s identity is not solely and
exclusively as a woman. And, it cannot
be. Therefore, her problems also persist
on various levels. Woman is not a ‘class/
category’ in itself. All women do not
encounter the same problems, nor would
they espouse a uniform solution. Yes, all
women have been oppressed in one way
or another. For instance, both rich and
poor women are oppressed, but since they
belong to different classes, they don’t share
a uniform path to welfare. It is possible
that while the rich woman suffers from
patriarchal obligations on the part of her
family and her society, she oppresses the
poor woman herself from her privileged
class position. In other words, the woman
stratifies herself into ‘categories’ based on
caste, religion, class, etc. So, can we say
that despite the surface uniformity of sex
and gender, these stratifications are an
obstruction in applying the concept of
‘universal sisterhood’? Can these differences
in strata be overlooked? Also, ‘sex’ and
‘gender’ are distinct – sex being a biological
construct, and gender a sociological one.
Sex is natural and biological, while gender
isn’t. Historical forces influence and inform
social and cultural codes and values to
construct gender. That is, a woman is
different from a man in her ‘Sex’. The
difference in their ‘gender’, however,
emerges from patriarchy’s need to mark
women as generally distinct from and
specifically inferior to men. From this
perspective, it can be seen how distinct
‘Sex’ and ‘Gender’ are. Patriarchy declares
and disseminates ‘gender’ as natural and
inherent too. Women liberation is, therefore,
138 :: January-March 2012