(a) What is science? Do you think that the methods used in natural sciences can be applied to sociology? Give reasons for your…

Sociology operates at the intersection of rigorous empirical inquiry, structural dynamics of social reproduction, and the evolving spaces of collective action.

Scientific Method and its Application to Sociology

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable, empirical, and falsifiable explanations about the world. Early classical theorists championed a positivist paradigm: Auguste Comte argued for a "social physics," while Émile Durkheim treated social facts as "things" governed by discoverable causal laws (Erklären), applying quantitative methods analogous to the natural sciences.

However, natural science methods cannot be applied wholesale to sociology due to ontological differences between the natural and social worlds. Humans possess consciousness, agency, and reflexivity; their actions are guided by subjective meanings. Max Weber demonstrated that sociology requires Verstehen (interpretative understanding) of subjective motives rather than purely external causal mechanics. Furthermore, Peter Winch and Hans-Georg Gadamer argued that social life is linguistically mediated and rule-governed, rendering the deterministic models of natural sciences inadequate. Additionally, complete value-neutrality is elusive because researchers are embedded within the social structures they study, and human subjects react to being observed (Hawthorne effect). Consequently, while natural science techniques like statistical modelling and comparative methods enrich sociological investigation, they must be combined with qualitative, reflexive, and interpretative approaches.

Gender-Based Domestic Division of Labour and Formal Employment

Gender-based domestic division of labour refers to the normative, asymmetrical allocation of unpaid care work, house chores, and emotional labour based on socially constructed gender roles. Functionalists like Talcott Parsons rationalised this as a complementary separation between male "instrumental" and female "expressive" roles. In contrast, Marxist-feminist theorists conceptualise domestic work as unremunerated "reproductive labour" essential for the maintenance and reproduction of the capitalist labour force.

While the entry of women into formal employment has disrupted the exclusive male breadwinner model, it has not substantially dismantled the domestic division of labour. Instead, it has produced what Arlie Hochschild terms the "second shift," wherein women bear the dual burden of paid professional work and primary domestic responsibility.

In India, empirical evidence underscores this structural inertia. The NSSO Time Use Survey (2019) revealed that Indian women spend an average of 299 minutes daily on unpaid domestic services compared to just 97 minutes by men. In urban IT-sector dual-earner households, women continue to shoulder the unseen "mental load" of household management and childcare, even when outsourcing physical tasks to lower-caste, working-class domestic workers. Similarly, female workers in the gig economy—such as platform-based salon workers or drivers—face severe "time poverty" as their flexible schedules are subordinated to domestic care duties. Thus, formal employment increases women's economic autonomy but fails to transform patriarchal domestic arrangements in the absence of cultural realignment and institutional childcare support.

Social Movements in the Digital Era

Manuel Castells conceptualises contemporary social mobilisations through the framework of the "network society," where digital platforms enable decentralised, horizontal, and rapid communication. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg term this dynamic "connective action," characterized by personalized content-sharing rather than rigid organizational affiliation.

Digital platforms democratize access to the public sphere, as demonstrated by #MeTooIndia in challenging structural sexual harassment, and the 2020–21 Farmers' Protest, where digital channels (such as Kisan Ekta Morcha) bypassed legacy media gatekeepers to construct counter-narratives and mobilize transnational solidarity.

However, the efficacy of digital social movements remains dialectical. Critics note the emergence of "slacktivism" or "clicktivism," where online engagement does not translate into sustained ground mobilisations or institutional reforms. Furthermore, algorithmic censorship, platform monopolies, state-led surveillance, and structural digital divides across gender, caste, and class restrict equitable participation.

Sociology must therefore retain methodological pluralism to navigate complex human subjectivities, recognize that structural inequalities like domestic labour resist purely economic solutions, and assess digital mobilisations by interrogating both their communicative power and infrastructural constraints.