Feminism

Also called: Feminist · Topic: Equality and Social Justice · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 3 "Gender, Religion and Caste"; Class 11, Ch 3 "Equality"

Meaning

Feminism is the political belief that women and men should have equal rights. It says most inequality between them is made by society, not by nature, so society can change it.

It matters because it explains why the Constitution and the law treat women differently in some cases, such as maternity leave, crèches and seat reservation. It also asks the state to act inside the home, on housework, family power and domestic violence.

Explanation

Core ideas: patriarchy and the sex–gender distinction

• Patriarchy is a social, economic and cultural system. It values men more than women and gives men power over women.
• Patriarchy defends itself by saying "natural" differences between the sexes justify this power gap.

• Feminism challenges that defence. It says most of the gap is built by society.

• Sex–gender distinction:

• Sex is biology. Gender is the role society gives to each sex.
• Example: only women can bear children. That does not mean only women should raise them. Raising children is a gender role, not a fact of biology.
• Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949), wrote: "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman". She meant that society shapes what it means to be a woman.

Public/private divide and the double burden

• Public/private divide: patriarchy splits life into two parts.
• The public sphere covers work, politics and decisions. It is given to men.

• The private sphere covers home and care. It is given to women.

• Double burden: in reality, most women also work outside the home, so the split does not hold.

• Women still do almost all the housework and care work.
• So they do two shifts of work: one paid and one unpaid.

• They still have little say in public decisions.

• "The personal is political": feminists reject the public/private divide.

• Housework, power inside the family and violence at home are all shaped by power and by law.
• So they are political matters, not just private life.

Waves and thinkers

Phase	Thinkers / ideas	Main demand
Early liberal feminism	Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792); J.S. Mill and Harriet Taylor, The Subjection of Women (1869)	Reason and equal rights for women: education, property, the vote (suffrage)
First wave (19th–early 20th century)	Suffrage movements	The vote, university degrees, the right to work
Second wave (1960s–70s)	De Beauvoir's ideas; "the personal is political"	Equality at work, reproductive rights, gender roles in family life
Intersectional turn	Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989)	Seeing disadvantages that overlap

• Intersectionality: a person's identities, such as caste, gender and class, overlap. Together they create a distinct disadvantage. This is more than just adding one disadvantage to another.
• Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term in 1989.

• Indian example: Dalit women face caste and patriarchy at the same time. Gopal Guru's essay "Dalit Women Talk Differently" (1995) argued that two groups left out Dalit women's voices: feminism led by upper castes, and Dalit politics led by men.

• Indian pioneers:

• Savitribai Phule started girls' schools in Pune. With Jyotirao Phule, she fought caste and gender oppression.
• Pandita Ramabai worked for widows and for women's education.
• Tarabai Shinde wrote Stri Purush Tulana ("A Comparison of Women and Men", 1882). It attacked the double standards society held for women and men.

Limits: equal rights may need different treatment

• In the 19th century, women first asked for the same rights as men: the vote, degrees and jobs.
• Once they won these rights, they found they also needed special provisions, such as maternity leave and crèches (day-care for workers' young children), to actually use them.
• So treating people equally can mean treating them differently. This does not break the equality principle.
• Testing arguments (NCERT Exercise Q6, on women's right to vote):
• Some arguments rest on usefulness or stereotypes, such as "women will make politics purer" or "mothers will vote for children's welfare". These do not fit the equality principle.
• Only arguments based on equal agency (a person's equal right to make their own choices) fit it. Example: "government decisions affect women too, so women must have a say in them".

In the Constitution and practice

• Constitutional base:
• Article 15(3) lets the state make special provisions for women and children. This is substantive equality (equality in real results, not just the same rules for all) in action.

• Article 39(d) is a Directive Principle of State Policy (DPSP). DPSPs are goals the state should follow, but courts cannot enforce them. Art. 39(d) calls for equal pay for equal work for men and women.

• Equal pay in law:

• The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 put Art. 39(d) into law.
• The Code on Wages, 2019 has now merged it with three other laws: the Payment of Wages Act 1936, the Minimum Wages Act 1948 and the Payment of Bonus Act 1965 [3].
• All four Labour Codes took effect on 21 November 2025 [5].

• Section 3 of the Code on Wages, 2019 bans discrimination on the basis of gender, including transgender identity. It covers recruitment, wages and conditions of work for the same or similar work [3].

• Maternity and care:

• The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 raised paid maternity leave to 26 weeks.
• It requires a crèche in establishments with 50 or more employees.

• These provisions are now part of the Code on Social Security, 2020.

• Political voice: the 106th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2023 reserves one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women. It takes effect after the delimitation (redrawing of constituencies) that follows the next census.

• Women in the armed forces:
• In Secretary, Ministry of Defence v. Babita Puniya (2020), the Supreme Court ruled that women officers in the Army must get permanent commission. This means a full career, not a fixed short-service term. The Court rejected arguments based on stereotypes about women's physical ability.
• The National Defence Academy (NDA) opened to women in 2021 after a Supreme Court order. The first batch of women cadets joined in August 2022 with the 148th course [6].

• 126 women cadets joined NDA between the 148th and 153rd courses [6].

• Evidence of the gap today:

• Time Use Survey (TUS) 2024, run by MoSPI with fieldwork from January to December 2024: 83.1% of women and 26.4% of men did unpaid domestic services for household members on a normal day [2].
• Among people aged 15–59 who did such work, women spent about 305 minutes a day and men about 86 minutes [2].
• Women's time fell from about 315 minutes (TUS 2019) to 305 minutes (2024). This suggests a slight shift from unpaid to paid work [2].
• TUS matters because it counts work that the national accounts leave out, such as unpaid housework and care [2].
• Female labour force participation rate (LFPR) is the share of women who work or are looking for work. The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) measures it. Female LFPR was 40.0% in calendar year 2025, and rural female LFPR was 45.9% [4].
• Urban female LFPR was 25.8% in 2024, up from 25.5% in 2023 [4]. The rural–urban gap shows how strong the home-based role still is in cities.

Don't confuse with

• Sex vs gender: sex is biology, such as bearing children. Gender is the role society assigns, such as raising children. Feminism attacks gender roles, not biology.
• Formal equality vs substantive equality: formal equality gives everyone the same rules, like the 19th-century demand for the same vote and jobs. Substantive equality may need different treatment, like maternity leave or Art. 15(3), so that equal rights become real.
• Intersectionality vs adding disadvantages: intersectionality says overlapping identities create a distinct disadvantage. It is more than caste disadvantage plus gender disadvantage added together.
• Patriarchy vs feminism: patriarchy is the system that gives men power and calls it "natural". Feminism is the doctrine that challenges it and says it can be changed.

Prelims Hooks

• The Subjection of Women (1869) was written by J.S. Mill with Harriet Taylor. Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman came out earlier, in 1792. Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) is the root of the sex–gender distinction.
• Kimberlé Crenshaw coined intersectionality in 1989. Gopal Guru's "Dalit Women Talk Differently" appeared in 1995. Tarabai Shinde wrote Stri Purush Tulana in 1882.
• Art. 39(d), equal pay for equal work, is a DPSP, not a Fundamental Right.
• The Code on Wages, 2019 merges four laws: the Payment of Wages Act 1936, Minimum Wages Act 1948, Payment of Bonus Act 1965 and Equal Remuneration Act 1976 [3]. All four Labour Codes took effect on 21 November 2025 [5].
• Trap: Section 3 of the Code on Wages bans pay discrimination on gender, including transgender identity. It does not cover only men and women [3].
• Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017: 26 weeks of leave, and crèches where there are 50 or more employees. Babita Puniya (2020) gave Army women officers permanent commission. The first women's batch joined NDA in August 2022 (148th course) [6].

Mains Points

• Formal vs substantive equality: maternity leave, crèches and the 106th Amendment's one-third seat reservation show that equal rights may need differential treatment. This matches the idea behind Articles 15(3) and 39(d).
• Unpaid care work and low female LFPR:
• Women spend about 305 minutes a day on unpaid domestic work, against 86 minutes for men (TUS 2024) [2].
• This helps explain low female LFPR, especially the 25.8% urban rate in 2024 [4].

• Policy options: paternity and shared parental leave, public crèches and care infrastructure, and counting care work in national accounts.

• Intersectionality and "the personal is political" in policy:

• Dalit, Adivasi and poor rural women face combined disadvantages that single-axis policy (policy that looks at only one identity, such as gender alone) misses. One debate is that the 106th Amendment has no OBC sub-quota inside the women's quota.
• The state now acts on domestic violence, workplace harassment and care, so the public/private divide is breaking down. The trade-off is privacy and family autonomy against protection.

Related concepts

• Patriarchy
• Sex-gender distinction
• Double burden
• Intersectionality

Read more

• Feminism: patriarchy and gender equality