Cultural Traits and Patriarchy in India

Cultural traits can refer to the familiar systems and institutions present throughout human societies including religion, family structures, gender roles and norms, methods and meanings of education, language, and politics or governmental systems. Anthropologists frequently engage in the act of comparing and contrasting cultural traits and practices to show how societies are either similar or different from one another. Although an objective analysis potentially provides an unbiased social scientific perspective, anthropologists also risk ethical relativism when drawing conclusions about the effectiveness or pervasiveness of various cultural traits and practices such as patriarchal institutions. Patriarchy is in fact one of the most pernicious and ubiquitous cultural traits. In fact, there are a host of sub-traits that are linked to patriarchal power and social norms including the division of labor and the social status stratification of labor in multiple societies. Differences between the gendered division of labor in traditional agrarian societies like those in rural India and the gendered division of labor in "modern" and technologically advanced societies like the United States are superficial. In other words, the same gendered divisions of labor exist in both societies because both India and the United States have patriarchal cultural traits.

Division of labor is itself a universal cultural trait, and is not simply limited to gendered division of labor but also age-based, socio-economic class or status-based, and in some cases, race-based. Indeed, in both the United States and in India, division of labor reflects status on multiple dimensions. Women, the under-skilled, the undereducated, and either the young or the old assume low status work, whereas men and other high-status individuals perform work that has greater economic value (Bird and Codding). Dividing labor according to status position ensures that the dominant classes of people control who has access to the most desirable positions in that society. Moreover, dividing labor according to status position reinforces social stratification. If only highly educated men have access to high status positions, then the highly educated men will also serve as the gatekeepers barring entry to those very same positions. In the information-based and service-based economies of the United States, the gendered division of labor is more pronounced in terms of pay scale and the glass ceiling. In India, which is still a commodities-based and agricultural-based society, division of labor is also pronounced in terms of gender and pay but also of status. Therefore, the types of labor are different in these two cultures but the overall trait of gendered division of labor and the social structures that division represents are parallel. In both India and the United States, division of labor reflects the cultural trait of patriarchy.

In the rural communities in India, division of labor is starkly along gender lines but in the United States the differences are more spread out among different geographic areas. An analysis of patriarchal division of labor in the Indian subcontinent reveals that, "in some mountain regions in India women undertake 4.6 to 5.7 times the agricultural work men carry out. In Nepal, the range is skewed even more with women carrying out 6.3 to 6.6 times the agricultural work that men carry out," (1). Given that men in these societies frequently leave their homes to work in urban centers, the gendered division of labor becomes even more pronounced. Patriarchy in India means that men are visible in cities, working on pathways that potentially lead to higher status positions in private or public sector organizations. Women, on the other hand, remain invisible as unpaid or underpaid laborers engaging in subsistence agriculture or domestic servitude. Kaur found similar results in an analysis of patriarchal divisions of labor in the Punjab region of India. In the United States, on the other hand, such a pattern might have existed for a short period of time during the Industrial Revolution, when large numbers of rural dwellers shifted to the cities for work. The majority of American factory workers during the late 19th century might have been men, but rural regions of the United States in the 21st century do not at all resemble their counterparts in India. In India, women remain confined to domestic and other low status positions to a greater degree than in the United States. Furthermore, in the United States there is a far less obvious division of labor between rural and urban populations.

The domestic sphere is the realm where division of labor is often most seriously pronounced. Whereas both India and the United States reveal divisions of labor in the domestic sphere with women taking on most or all of the unpaid domestic duties, the social norms in the United States do permit for male participation in the domestic sphere more so than in India. As Kaur found, men rarely participate at all in domestic labor, considering domestic duties as the sole province of women. In the United States, this has also been the case and is only now starting to change. The fact that advertising for cleaning products and baby items more frequently features women than men proves that the domestic division of labor in the United States continues to reflect patriarchal values, roles, and norms. Domestic work is considered to be low status work, leading to the dominant group (men) eschewing that work. In both Indian and American societies, men are considered to be "heads of household," the "breadwinners" of the family, and the source of authority related to major decisions. Moreover, the cultural trait of patriarchy manifests as heterosexual marriages with strict roles for each gender. Marriage equality in the United States presents the first major subversion of patriarchal social norms. There is no parallel in India, where the traditional heterosexual marriage is also considered the only normative family structure. Women are considered useful and valuable insofar as they bear children. Finally, there is one major difference between the United States and India in that the latter continues patriarchal customs such as dowry. The American model prevents the overt valuation of women as commodities in such a way.

Both India and the United States witnessed a gendered division of labor in the sense that women would work in specific job sectors like textiles versus males who would work in gender specific industries like mining. Likewise, women serve in service or helper roles more often than men. These service or helper roles are undervalued and considered "feminine," which is to say, they are considered to be of a lower social status than "masculine" roles like supervisors and bosses. For example, a secretary is presumed to be a female and not a male. The profession of nursing has only recently begun to reframe itself as a profession parallel to, and not supportive of, the role of the physician. Nursing has typically been a female-dominated profession, as had education. On the other hand, men in both countries and cultures have traditionally dominated the science and engineering sectors.