When we talk about feminism in India, it is tempting to frame the struggle as simply about breaking the glass ceiling and changing patriarchal norms. But what happens when the ceiling is not just made of gender, but also of caste — the rigid, hereditary hierarchy of jāti (caste group) that permeates everyday life in India? The truth is that gender and caste do not operate in parallel; they intertwine. Failing to recognise that intersection is not just an oversight — as a recent article in The Wire pointed out, “studying gender without caste does the subject a disservice.”
Take, for instance, the burden of so-called purity on upper-caste women: the article explains how “the burden of maintaining the ‘purity’ of caste falls unequally on women” — that is, when a woman of a dominant caste marries outside her caste or interacts socially across caste lines, the reaction is far more intense. In contrast, a man of the same caste may violate those boundaries and face little or no collective outrage. This shows how patriarchy and caste-hierarchy reinforce one another: caste prescribes social order, patriarchy prescribes gender order, and the two converging create unique, layered burdens on women.
For women at the margins — the Dalit women, the Adivasi women, or women from other socially stigmatised castes—gendered violence, economic exclusion and educational disadvantage cannot be separated from caste. As one literature review summarises, gender interacts with caste, class, religion and other identities to shape distinct social positions. In other words: a Dalit woman is subject not simply to “woman oppression” plus “caste oppression”; she is subject to a distinct form of oppression that emerges at the intersection of being both (and more). Many feminist narratives rooted in upper-caste frameworks fail to capture this.
In the Indian context, the word “patriarchy” often masks the role of what has been called Brahmanical patriarchy — the merging of caste-based hierarchy and gender oppression in specific cultural form. For example, gender norms about purity, honour (izzat in Urdu/Hindi), mobility, and sexuality often carry caste-meaning as well. A woman’s freedom to move, choose a partner or work outside the home may be framed as a breach of not only gender norms, but also of caste-bound community norms of endogamy and “honour”. Thus, when a woman marries “across caste”, the reaction is not just gendered control but also caste-based remediation. The Wire article cites rural India cases of upper-caste women eloping with men from lower castes and being punished — sometimes fatally — by kin in the name of restoring caste honour.
And there is another layer: in urban, aspirational settings where gender and class are more openly debated, caste remains the elephant in the room. A study of young lower-middle-class women in Delhi found that while they readily talked about class and gender, they were “relatively silent about caste, even though it plays out in subtle ways in the workplace and more generally in their everyday lives”. This silence underscores how caste is deeply embedded and often unacknowledged — yet it shapes who is hired, who is promoted, who is visible and who is invisible.
What does this mean for feminist movements and social justice in India? It means we must adopt an antarvishleshan (inner-analysis) of caste-gender intersectionality: acknowledge that an upper-caste woman’s experience of sexism is different from a Dalit woman’s; that policy interventions targeting “women’s empowerment” without caste-sensitivity risk privileging relatively privileged women; and that justice frameworks must account for multiple axes of discrimination simultaneously.
Some key cultural touchpoints: Women from marginalised castes may face sexual violence that is both gender-based and caste-based — for instance, as a form of enforcing caste boundaries. They may face social exclusion in education, labour, health, and public space because of the double burden. A report on “epistemic caste discrimination” describes how dominant knowledge systems marginalise the perspectives of Dalit and Adivasi women in education and research.
So next time we deploy the word “women”, we need to ask: which women? Which castes, classes, geographies? Whose voices are silent? The term “gender equality” sounds progressive, but without the caste lens it can become brittle, unable to respond to the lived realities of millions of Indian women for whom caste + gender + class + region combine into a unique landscape of exclusion.
In short, intersectionality isn’t just a buzz-word. It’s a critical tool if we are to dismantle not only patriarchy, but the caste-inflected patriarchy that colludes with it in India. Only then can we begin to write a feminism for the Indian subcontinent that truly sees the diversity of women’s lives — because till caste is not just acknowledged but actively analysed in every gender intervention, we are selling short the ambition of liberation.
Ah, my Indian sisters — if there’s one thing Spicy Auntie wants carved into the granite walls of every feminist classroom, it’s this: there is no gender without caste. None. You can’t sprinkle feminism over a pot of privilege and call it justice. Intersectionality isn’t some fancy Western academic word; it’s the daily reality of millions of Indian women whose struggles are shaped not just by patriarchy, but by Brahmanical patriarchy — that cruel mix of gender and caste that dictates who gets to speak, love, learn, and live freely.
When we talk about “empowerment,” who are we talking about? The woman CEO breaking into the boardroom — or the Dalit woman sweeping its floor? Both deserve liberation, but the ladders they’re climbing aren’t the same. One is climbing glass, the other, barbed wire. And that’s why intersectionality — this beautiful, necessary lens — is one of the pillars of our vision here at Spicy Auntie Confidential. Because we refuse to flatten womanhood into a single story. We see the full mosaic: caste, class, sexuality, disability, region, and faith — all the messy, gorgeous complexity that makes being a woman in India (and Asia-Pacific) what it is.
Intersectionality reminds us that liberation is not a “one size fits all” saree. A Brahmin woman’s fight against patriarchal control over her sexuality is real — but a Dalit woman’s fight for safety from sexual violence is also real, and compounded by centuries of systemic dehumanization. When one talks about purity and honour (izzat), the other fights to reclaim her very humanity. So, when someone says “all women,” Auntie politely raises an eyebrow and says, “Define all, darling.”
And let’s be honest — some feminists still get defensive when caste enters the room. But feminism without caste-awareness is like chai without spice: bland, elitist, and missing the heat of truth. Our blog’s feminism is not just about smashing patriarchy; it’s about dismantling the whole pyramid of privilege that props it up. Because until the women at the bottom of that pyramid rise — those cleaning homes, tilling fields, and facing daily indignities — none of us are truly free.
So here’s Auntie’s manifesto in one spicy sentence: real feminism smells of sweat, ink, and rebellion — and it always, always speaks in many tongues and castes. Intersectionality isn’t a theory for us; it’s the map of the world we actually live in.