132 SOCIAL SCIENTIST at Rs 300 per'month. Clerks here, and nurses in government hospitals are to a great extent unionized. Employment is on the strength of qualification and through 'contacts'. Nurses in private hospitals are usually drawn from those who for some reason have not obtained the full qualifications. They are heavily exploited through lower pay, overwork in the absence of organized shift systems, and often insulting treatment from patients. The nursing profession in India does not have the social status of a profession. City jobs are limited, but nurses are unwilling to apply for village jobs, giving the lack of personal protection against assaults and ill-treatment as a cemral reason. Portrait in Miniature The picture in Poona is typical of Indian cities: female employment is limited to a few industries, where the potential for 'growth is^ not very great. In the traditional areas of manual work, employment of women in 'social production' does not break the boundaries of caste and community. Just as in capitalist countries the traditional division of labour between the sexes is essentially preserved and accommodated within a changed industrial structure, so in Indian cities, the feudal division of labour is virtually undisturbed. Thus we have the beedi worker whose independent earning capacity does not protect her from bigamy by the man; the Waddar widow who is not accommodated for in the division of work; the Mahar woman who is performing the same duty in the city that she was doing in the village. Certainly, the participation in social labour imparts to these women a confidence, a militancy and a freedom from the illusions of female fragility which differentiates them from middle-class women. But ultimately she is socially dependent on her husband, the care of children is wholly her responsibility, and within the home she serves her husband whether or not she also works outside, and, though she may occasionally curse out of fatigue and frustration, the idea that she should demand that he shares these domestic tasks is alien to her. And the situation shows signs of worsening, as the number of opportunities for women to work outside the domestic sphere is hardly growing. The recent striking fall in the proportion of women in the labour force in various activities is the result of the general economic stagnation and recession. At such times, women are the first to be retrenched in capitalist countries also, for the reasons earlier outlined. In India, where capitalist development itself is an abortive, distorted and dependent process, the problem is exaggerated. A premature mechanization of the ^household industries', which account for a large section of women workers producing by semi-traditional methods, has hit female employment- hard. Such mechanization, 'premature' in relation to the present growth needs of the Indian economy, is itself the consequence of the still dominant presence of foreign capital. Thus the influence of advanced capitalist countries today acts both economically and ideologically in a manner detrimental to the progress of women's emancipation in India.