Ambedkar saw women’s bodies as the gateways upholding caste

Evidence

Ambedkar argues in “Castes in India”, his 1916 essay, that women are the gateways of the caste system and that control over them through child marriages, enforced widowhood and sati (being burnt on a dead husband’s pyre) are methods to keep a check on women’s sexuality. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 491

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: A gendered dimension of caste annihilation relevant to queer and feminist readings of caste.

Related

• Ambedkar located caste reproduction in control of women’s sexuality (similarity 0.94)
• Ambedkar saw control of women’s sexuality as a method of caste reproduction. (similarity 0.94)
• Applying chaturvarnya’s worth-based logic to women would require female priests and soldiers. (similarity 0.81)
• Ambedkar exposed the practical impossibility of Gandhi’s worth-based varna idea (similarity 0.79)
• Gandhi’s birth-to-worth varna reform is practically unenforceable and fails women (similarity 0.79)
• Ambedkar declared caste inequality must be rooted out, not merely untouchability (similarity 0.78)