“That’s how Biology works; men produce and women reproduce” or, “Muslims are inherently cruel” or “Dalits are born as Dalits because of their karma in the past”. Do you believe such statements are not passed (any longer)? Get out of your privileged comfort zones. Such stereotypes for long have been used to oppress the vulnerable, to reinforce dominant hegemonies, toxic gender roles and behaviors. It’s time to break the biological deterministic attitude which has already been challenged by many feminists. Patriarchy for long has been using this “logic” to sustain itself. Traditionalists everywhere accept patriarchy as biologically determined. In this article, I seek to speak against Biological Determinism in the context of contemporary India focusing exclusively on the concept of ‘Division of Labour’ where biological determinism exceeds the spheres of sex and gender.

When I say contemporary India, I am referring to a society which has ingrained discrimination. Some parameters of discrimination are caste, class, region, religion, race, ethnicity and many more multiple, interlinked systems of oppression. These parameters are ascribed in nature, they are based on birth .i.e., they cannot change even if the achieved status changes. 

What is ‘Biological Determinism’?

According to Encyclopedia.com, “Biological determinism refers to the idea that all human behavior is innate, determined by genes, brain size, or other biological attributes. This theory stands in contrast to the notion that human behavior is determined by culture or other social forces. Inherent to biological determinism is the denial of free will: individuals have no internal control over their behavior and dispositions, and thus are devoid of responsibility for their actions.” 

Through the definition, it becomes clear how human behavior is associated only with biology which is “natural” and not with societal factors which are “cultural”. Here is where the problem resides – for when behaviors come to be associated with natural factors, behaviors are also normalized; the scope for improvement in human behaviors are shortened. The socio-cultural identities and factors of hierarchy formation are obscured. This process of Biological Determinism and of erasure of social factors forms the base for the division of labor. For example, Gerda Lerner (American Historian and Feminist Author) summarises the traditionalist argument: “All known societies subscribe to such a “division of labour” which has been based on a primary biological difference between the sexes”. Feminists have very strongly opposed the biological determinism in spheres of sex and gender. However, very few attempts have been made to question the biological deterministic attitude in various other spheres of caste, religion, region, race and ethnicity. I aim to look at this concept of ‘Division of Labour’  within the praxis of sex and caste through a gender lens.  

The challenge to ‘Biological Determinism’

“Sex, is based on anatomy i.e. on the body parts.” remains to be “an established truth”. That’s how a body with a penis comes to be marked as a male and that with a vagina, a female. (However, feminist studies show that sex is also a social construct!) Feminists argued that because the biological functions are distinct, doesn’t mean that there must “naturally” be different social roles or a “sex-based division of labour”. Labelling the differences to be “natural” kills the possibility of blaming anyone for discrimination, male dominance or sexual inequality. Therefore, what is seen is that on the name of “natural”, society sanctions normalization of discrimination. 

For traditionalists, (and also for the “liberal” “seculars” today,) the chief task of a woman is to be a “good wife and mother”. Unfortunately, the chief tasks of women, and the recognition and value to these tasks are “given” by men. Kumkum Roy’s work on ‘Where goddesses are worshipped’ (1995) marks out the socio-religious sanction granted to this attitude. She while studying on the vedas and upanishads through a gender lens writes: “Perhaps the most central and common identity envisaged for women was wifehood. In fact, the nature of wifehood was elaborated at length. As we have seen, the ideal process for becoming a wife involved a certain denial of a woman’s personhood, implicit in the notion of Kanyadana. Besides, the wife was increasingly defined as the bharya (she who has to borne, e.g., Brhadaranyaka Upanishad part 3.4.1) and less frequently as the jaya (the procreative woman) or the Patni (the feminine equivalent of the term pati or husband).”

This biological deterministic explanation comes down unbroken from the stone age to present times and it believes that man is born superior, portraying men as having “greater strength” and therefore becoming providers and protectors of and for women. However, research done on hunting and gathering societies, however, disapproves this traditionalist explanation of patriarchy. For example, Uma Chakrawarti’s (1993) work on Brahmanical Patriarchy also talks of the Bhimbhetka paintings which indicate that in both prehistoric and mesolithic period, women’s role in production and reproduction was regarded as valuable and that there was no rigid sexual division of labour “as has sometimes been postulated”. Modern anthropological data on tribal societies regard these societies as the most egalitarian societies where women were ‘separate but equal’. 

Religion as the foundational basis

Often, religion is solely blamed for such traditionalist views as if it was only religion’s monopoly to spread such beliefs. No doubt the caste system is sanctioned by the Hindu religion and as Babasaheb rightly told, “Caste is a division of labourers and not labour”. Religion (I mean Hindu religion specifically), especially in India has of course been used to propagate the illogical logic of biological determinism, to create and maintain inequalities in society through caste purity. However, along with religion, many pseudo-scientist theories (as Bhasin and Khan have called them) also propagated the same ideology. The roots of such attitudes can, of course, be traced to various religions of the world, almost all! Many of them believed that because women menstruate and bear children, they are incapacitated and hence, disabled. For example, Aristotle propagated similar ideology, as for him, males were active and women passive. Female for Aristotle was “mutilated male” (someone who does not have a soul). He said, “the courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in obeying.” And we all know how famous Aristotle remains in the academia despite holding such beliefs!

Religion sanctioned biological determinism also on the name of ‘karma in the past life’. It is disheartening that even legally, biological determinism could not be thrown away because it got sanction from the highest authority, that of religion, which was both social and sacred. In India, the Hindu religion continues to oppress the vulnerable, the Dalit community specifically and Dalit women from the lowest strata of the society. Religion does this by exclusion, by naming them as “untouchables” and denying them their basic rights. 

Dalit women and “biological determinism”

Dalit women who continue to be not seen as human enough, have forever been challenging biological determinism for they have historically been denied to be “good, pure, passive, submissive” women who even if want to, cannot be considered good mothers for their children for they also have to work, serve the brahmin households and society leaving their children unfed at home, for their husbands cannot earn enough for family’s survival, they cannot be considered as “pure” wives to their husbands for their bodies are never “pure enough” to be treated with dignity by the caste groups, neither is marriage to be a sacred institution for them. Dalit women face gender and caste-based oppression not just from the caste groups but also from their own groups. Through their lives and experiences, it can be witnessed how biological determinism is a facade and it is actually a tool of oppression against marginalized genders, castes, religions and classes. Mahatma Phule for the first time questioned biological determinism not just on the basis of gender but also on the basis caste (Radha Kumar, 1997)

Psychologists  justifying ‘biological determinism’

Infact, even Modern Psychology perpetuates similar views. It claims that woman’s biology determines their psychology, and, therefore, their abilities and roles. Sigmund Freud, for example, stated that for women, “anotomy is destiny“. His normal human was a male and female was a deviant human being lacking a penis, whose entire psychological structure supposedly centred around the struggle to compensate for this deficiency. Popularised Freudian doctrine then became the prescriptive text for educators, social workers and the general public. 

Hence, looking at ‘biological determinism‘ through a gender perspective actually demonstrates how the logic of ‘biological determinism’ has been historically used as tool oppression, subordination, exclusion and marginalization of the vulnerable sections like women, and those considered to be from “lower” castes and from religious minorities, from tribes and from the disabled community, from LGBTQIA+ community as well. Biological determinism serves in the favor of the dominant groups – of the “upper” castes and classes, of the savarna men who embody hegemonic masculinity, of the abled-bodied ones. This tool of oppression cannot be an explanation to the inequalities that are deeply embedded in the society and it must be overthrown.

References:

https://www.encyclopedia.com/science-and-technology/biology-and-genetics/biology-general/biological-determinism

Kamla Bhasin, Nighat Said Khan. 1986. Some Questions on Feminism and it’s Relevance in South Asia. New Delhi: Kali for women.

‘Kumkum Roy. 1995. Where Goddess are worshipped. New Delhi: Kali for women.(From ‘Women and the Hindu Right’ edited by Tanika Sarkar and Urvashi Butalia.) 

Uma Chakravarty. 1993. Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy. Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. 28, No. 14 (Apr. 3, 1993), pp. 579-585

Radha Kumar. 1997. ‘The History of Doing‘. New Delhi: Kali for women.

Author – Namrata Mishra