Women’s Economic Security and Property Rights: Some Current Issues

Abstract

While it has long been recognised within the gender discourse that the perpetuation of unequal property structures stems from the need for patriarchal institutions to exercise power over land both as a productive resource and as well as a store of wealth, the legal literature on property rights generally leaves the gender characteristics of property rights undefined, thus failing to recognise that intrahousehold inequalities in property rights impinge upon the distribution of rights and responsibilities within and also without the household. The paper tracks down how property rights issue has largely been neglected in gender discourse and charts out how the issue could be reinstated at the centre of women’s movement.