Inside the Cage of Morality: A Gender Perspective

Abstract

Fundamental to human society are certain existential principles that decide peace, stability and order. Most important among them is morality. Although morality is an all-encompassing term for right conduct and way of life, it most importantly connotes a divide based on sex. Sex segregates human beings into two classes, namely male and female. The conduct and behaviour of members of each of these classes is distinct enough to form distinct sexual roles. Looking from a historical angle, from time immemorial, men were the food gatherers who produced subsistence and protected the females; at the same time, the responsibility for bearing children and their upbringing was vested with the females. As societies became modern, overlapping functional roles have evolved. For instance, women entered the job market and became supplementary wage earners, overriding the male sovereignty as the sole breadwinners. Women became full-time agricultural labourers, opposed to their limited involvement in supporting the male. Similarly, care and protection of children has become a joint responsibility of the adult male, although childbearing as a biological function is still vested with the female. Advancements in education helped create a worldview that favoured considering women as equal counterparts with men. Despite all these complementarities, differences do exist that dictate distances in interactions, manner of self-expression, social constructs and identity. As a result, the differences between the male and the female are drawn so far apart that infringement will invite repudiation and punishment. The sexual differences and consequent do's and don'ts constitute a large volume of morality. It forms a cage that imprisons the person as he grows up and continues till the end of life. An attempt is made here to examine morality as springing from sexual differentiation and how it serves to imprison a person, similar to a cage.