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When multiple social hierarchies coexist, which one is the binding constraint on women’s outcomes? We argue that the near-universal attribution of gender gaps in developing countries to patriarchal norms neglects a prior question: whether a second, orthogonal hierarchy caste, race, ethnicity independently shapes the constraints women face and may dominate gender norms in explanatory power. Using individual-level data from successive rounds of India’s National Family Health Survey (1992-93 to 2019-21, N > 800,000), we document three  findings. First, gender norms have improved substantially over two decades: women are better educated, marry later, and report greater agency but progress is highly heterogeneous across regions and caste groups, underscoring that  patriarchy  is not a single, static force. Second, and centrally, caste norms proxied by dietary practices, untouchability, and crimes against lower-caste groups are as strong or stronger predictors of gender outcomes as gender norms per se across a wide range of indicators; districts with weaker caste hierarchies show signi cantly better performance on education, marriage age, son preference, and female agency. Third, the celebrated puzzle of falling female labour force participation alongside improving gender attitudes is resolved by demand-side structural change rather than norm deterioration. India’s scale and sub-national diversity make it an ideal laboratory for disentangling compound hierarchies a problem of general relevance wherever gender intersects with race, caste, or ethnicity.