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Gender, Sexuality, and Caste-Based Occupations: A Case Study of the Bedia Community of North India

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Gender Equality

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ((ENUNSDG))

Definition

“Gender” and “caste” when entwined together are often seen to produce a body of knowledge that floods one with notions of “purity” and “pollution” finding space in the much revered Hindu Shastras (with reference to the views emanating from Yajnavalkya, Satapatha Brahmana, Apastamba Dharmasutra to name a few). One would find the sexual purity of a woman and the factors that can bring impurity and pollution to a caste group in strong conjunction with one another. From a “menstruating virgin” to “widowhood,” the degree of successful regulation of a woman’s sexuality is seen as an indicator of the virility of the male members of the family and a mark of aggressive masculinity without which a man is considered a “na-mard,” a colloquial term in North India for being unmanly.

Caste may be defined “as a small and named group of persons characterized by endogamy, hereditary membership, and a specific style of life which sometimes includes the pursuit by tradition of a particular...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Work, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India

    Risha Baruah

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  1. Risha Baruah
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Correspondence to Risha Baruah .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. FTZ-ALS, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences FTZ-ALS, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

  2. Ctr Neurosci & Cell Biology, 1 Floor, Univ Coimbra, Edf Fac Medicina, Coimbra, Portugal

    Anabela Marisa Azul

  3. Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo University Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo, Brazil

    Luciana Brandli

  4. Istinye University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Pinar Gökcin Özuyar

  5. International Centre for Thriving, University of Chester, Chester, UK

    Tony Wall

Section Editor information

  1. Environmental Science and Management, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

    Melissa Haeffner

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Baruah, R. (2019). Gender, Sexuality, and Caste-Based Occupations: A Case Study of the Bedia Community of North India. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P., Wall, T. (eds) Gender Equality. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_10-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_10-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70060-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-70060-1

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