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A study of the impact of caste and class on conceptions of gender, this book focuses on the lower castes/classes of South India. Examining the lives and work of untouchable women in a village in Tamil Nadu, the author explores the recently articulated critique of feminism that race, caste, and class may be more important factors than gender in a persons consciousness. She finds that in South India, caste and class construct gender, at the same time that gender constructs class and caste. This book examines two subordinated groupsuntouchables and womenin a village in Tamilnadu, South India. The lives and work of untouchable women in this village provide a unique analytical focus that clarifies the ways in which three axes of identitygender, caste, and classare constructed in South India. Karin Kapadia argues that subordinated groups do not internalize the values of their masters but instead reject them in innumerable subtle ways. Kapadia contends that elites who hold economic power do not dominate the symbolic means of production. Looking at the everyday practices, rituals, and cultural discourses of Tamil low castes, she shows how their cultural values repudiate the norms of Brahminical elites. She also demonstrates that caste and class processes cannot be fully addressed without considering their interrelationship with gender.