Applying chaturvarnya’s worth-based logic to women would require female priests and soldiers.

Evidence

If it is to be nominal, then it is useless; and then the protagonists of chaturvarnya must admit that their system does not apply to women. If it is real, are the protagonists of chaturvarnya prepared to follow the logical consequences of applying it to women? They must be prepared to have women priests and women soldiers. Hindu society has grown accustomed to women teachers and women barristers. It may grow accustomed to women brewers and women butchers. But he would be a bold person who would say that it will allow women priests and women soldiers. But that will be the logical outcome of applying chaturvarnya to women. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 922

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• QUESTION: Ambedkar’s reductio on women exposes an internal contradiction — worth chasing how later caste-reform movements handled the women question.

Related

• Ambedkar saw women’s bodies as the gateways upholding caste (similarity 0.81)
• Chaturvarnya is impracticable, harmful, and a miserable failure. (similarity 0.80)
• Establishing worth-based chaturvarnya requires first dismantling the birth-based caste system. (similarity 0.80)
• Gandhi’s birth-to-worth varna reform is practically unenforceable and fails women (similarity 0.80)
• Ambedkar exposed the practical impossibility of Gandhi’s worth-based varna idea (similarity 0.79)
• Ambedkar located caste reproduction in control of women’s sexuality (similarity 0.78)