Abstract

Gender is frequently treated as a personal identity or as a demographic variable, something individuals possess and express. Yet everyday social life suggests that gender is also an institutional grammar: a set of patterned expectations that distribute dignity, authority, vulnerability, and responsibility. This paper approaches gender not by proposing a single causal theory of inequality, but by examining the social settings in which gender becomes real—households, schools, workplaces, markets, media, and law. Written in a conceptual rhythm associated with S. N. Balagangadhara’s mode of inquiry, the paper treats “gender” as a category that does work: it organizes recognition, stabilizes moral judgments, and enables institutions to translate diverse human lives into legible forms. The paper argues that many contemporary conflicts around gender in India—ranging from debates about safety and harassment to questions of work, mobility, and family authority—are also conflicts over the institutional rules that define what counts as “proper” masculinity and femininity. By tracing how gender is reproduced through everyday practices of distance and closeness, through bureaucratic classification, and through public narratives of respectability, the paper shows why reforms often succeed on paper while leaving lived experience largely unchanged. The conclusion suggests that meaningful change requires not only legal protections and policy interventions, but a shift in the institutional conditions under which gender is continuously performed and enforced.

Keywords

Gender, Legal, Inequality, Women, India, Masculinity

Citation (APA Format)

Gaur, B. S., & Jyoti. (2025). Gender as an institutional grammar: Rethinking the production of masculinity, femininity, and social order in contemporary India. International Journal of Politics, Law and Management, 4(4), 7–16. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17990185