Two Oppressions, One Person
Any honest conversation about women's empowerment in India must grapple with caste. For Dalit women, the experience of oppression is not simply gender discrimination plus caste discrimination — it is a unique and compounded form of exclusion that cannot be addressed by targeting either axis alone.
MASUM's work has always recognised this intersectionality. From its inception, it has engaged women across caste lines while specifically ensuring that Dalit and other marginalised women are centred in leadership and decision-making.
Economic Exclusion and Caste
Dalit women are disproportionately concentrated in the most exploitative forms of labour — manual scavenging, seasonal agricultural work, domestic service. Their wages are lower, their bargaining power is negligible, and their rights are routinely violated.
SHGs in MASUM's programme areas have been particularly transformative for Dalit women because they provide economic agency independent of caste-determined occupational hierarchies. When a Dalit woman runs a small business, she is not just earning money — she is refusing the economic script that caste wrote for her.
Violence at the Intersection
Dalit women face disproportionate rates of sexual and caste-based violence, and are least likely to receive justice when they report it. Police inaction, social ostracism, and the power imbalance between perpetrators and survivors all conspire against accountability.
MASUM's violence prevention work addresses this directly, building community solidarity across caste lines and supporting Dalit survivors through legal processes that often seem designed to exhaust rather than assist them.
Leadership That Reflects Reality
Perhaps the most powerful statement MASUM makes about caste and gender is in its own staffing. Field workers, programme facilitators, and leadership team members include significant representation from Dalit and other marginalised communities. The organisation is not just talking about inclusion — it is practising it.