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Not All Sisters Are Sisters
When Women Look Down on Women: How Caste, Class, and Gender Intersect to Define a Woman’s Place in Society
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Why is it that even today, in conversations between women, we find one woman referring to another as merely his wife? Why do upper-caste women dismiss or look down upon lower-caste women, even though both face the weight of patriarchy? And why have women, despite centuries of subordination, rarely come together as a unified force to say “we,” the way other oppressed groups do?
These questions are not rhetorical. They are essential.
They invite us to pause and reflect — not just on society’s overt structures of power, but on the quiet, everyday ways in which inequality is preserved. Even among women.
The Root of the Problem: Beyond Caste, Into Gender
India’s caste system is one of the oldest and most complex forms of social stratification in the world. It separates people into hierarchical groups, affecting every aspect of life — from marriage and occupation to basic human dignity.
But if we momentarily set aside caste, what emerges is a more universal, even more…
