Gender Discrimination in the Family: 

(i) It is unfortunate that in our country most of the families have the head or male members (even in some cases elderly females members also).

The family treats women and men differently. In most households, the father is considered the head of the family and hence, the centre of authority. Women generally perform kitchen work, childcare and other domestic chores. Regardless of whether a woman is in paid employment outside the home or not, domestic work is considered a woman's area or sphere. Since household work is unpaid, it is not considered as important as paid work, which is generally done by men.

(ii) Even though there is a gradual increase in the number of women being employed outside the home in wage work, the image of a male as the 'bread winner' continues to persist. Though women spend a great deal of their time on household work and childcare it is treated as unproductive labour. The distribution of work-roles in the family based on sex is called gender division of labour. While a woman's place is primarily within the home and hence private, a man's place of activity is mainly outside the home and is public.

(iii) This gender division of labour also gives rise to an unequal division of power between males and females within the household. The male is generally the head of the family. Authority and property are usually transferred in the male line. As a result of the power, which a man who is generally the oldest among the male members of a family enjoys, he achieves and maintains dominance over females and younger male members. This arrangement of relationships, which upholds male superiority and female subordination (submissiveness), is called Patriarchy. In a male dominated family set up, women are expected to merge (combine) their identity with that of a male member, be it the father or the husband. Though women play a primary role in the survival and maintenance of the household, their position in household decision-making is almost always secondary. In patriarchal families inheritance rights are traced and passed on through the male line and women may not have a share at all or an equal share in the family property.

(iv) In India, nearly 30 percent of the households survive on the earnings of women. Such households are referred to as female headed households. However, this headship generally refers to the responsibility a woman assumes for running the family and not to the power she exercises over other members, especially her husband. Even where the wife takes the sole responsibility for household maintenance, it is not uncommon to see her being subject to physical or/and mental violence. This is what is meant by unequal gender relations within the family.

(v) In many ways family socialization upholds gender discrimination. Daughters and sons are brought up to perform different roles and acquire (learn) different qualities. Marriage and motherhood are prescribed as the ultimate goals for daughters whereas, for sons, a career is given the greatest importance. Family resources are not equally distributed among daughters and sons. One prominent example is the readiness of many families to spend any amount of money on providing the best education for sons and not daughters. The argument is that resources spent on a son's education bring back returns to the family, but the daughter takes away family resources, including dowry when she moves to another family upon marriage. It is this kind of thinking, which has led to an increase in such practices as female foeticide, female infanticide and dowry.

(vi) The family is thus the first source of discrimination. It is in the family that daughters and sons are socialized for playing different roles in society. This role of allocation (distribution) is not based on ability but on sex. Such a pattern of preparing daughters and sons for playing different roles is known as gender-biased socialization. Since an individual's first contacts are with his or her family, the seeds of gender inequality are sown in the family and are transferred to other institutions in society.