Breaking through, speaking up

Indian women today are facing increasing and diverse kinds of violence. Perhaps its severest form is the murder of the unborn girl child, ta...

Indian women today are facing increasing and diverse kinds of violence. Perhaps its severest form is the murder of the unborn girl child, taking place in increasing numbers in several parts of the country. If the female foetus escapes this fate and manages to be born, she might not yet have escaped her tryst with violence. She could face any of the innumerable forms of violence being perpetrated on women today 8212; from sexual violation to wife-beating to being killed for simply saying no to a man.

There is also the oft-debated question of whether violence against women is truly rising or simply being reported more. Where domestic violence is concerned, its prevalence and intensity has been hard to ascertain because most women are reluctant to admit to it and many in fact share the view that wife beating is often justified. Nor are families over-eager to report rape or sexual harassment, forms of violence that destroy women8217;s bodily, psychological and social integrity. But a more significant reason is that such violation is considered to bring dishonour to their male relatives. Male honour by extension becomes family honour.

Dowry-related violence is the only form of violence that is publicly acknowledged as a problem and considered actionable. This may be so because it is the only form of violence in which the man and his family are considered culpable. In all other forms of violence, women themselves are made out to be complicit. Whether it is the husband who beats a 8216;disobedient8217; wife or a girl who is raped because she invites attention by her attire or body language, or simply someone who exercises her choice in marrying somebody considered inappropriate by local society, the woman is somehow complicit. The female victims are rarely given the benefit of doubt, let alone much sympathy, with the violence frequently rationalised as punishment for infringing perceived social norms. Some scholars have argued that dowry harassment complaints actually mask other kinds of intra-familial power struggles and are not always about dowry, alerting us to the fact that women are trying to redress grievances through the only means available to them.

The scale and variety of contemporary violence towards women suggests two things. One lies in the male reaction to the narrowing of the gender gap in education and income earning, leading to an enhancement of women8217;s capabilities. The other, a derivative of the first, is the greater agency of women resulting from such capabilities. More women today are educating themselves or being educated and many are voluntarily and independently entering the labour market. In urban areas today a girl child has exactly the same opportunity for education as a boy child.

Several social indicators from National Sample Survey NSS and other sources of data reveal that women are catching up with men and narrowing the gap in educational attainment and labour force participation. For example, while the number of rural women in full-time work increased by 1.2 per cent per annum, urban women in full-time work increased by 3.7 per cent per year between 8217;83 to 8217;99.

How are men adjusting to this narrowing of the gender gap and to women8217;s increasing power derived from paid incomes? Do they feel insecure and threatened in their culturally defined role of bread-winners and protectors 8212; roles that trap men equally into rigid gender stereotypes? Evidence shows that when men are unable to adjust to the new reality of more empowered women they take to alcoholism and abuse. Their unwillingness to share tasks and allow greater voice in decision-making leads to conflicts in the family. The same appears to be true of intimate relationships as evidenced by revenge motives of jilted males. It is very likely that as the gender gap narrows women will face greater violence in the short run until men learn to accept them as more equal.

The second part of the explanation, to be found in women8217;s greater agency is a consequence of empowerment through greater access to education and employment in a democratic, modernising and rapidly globalising society. Alternative choices offered by the media and other sources of communication have removed the insulation that earlier cocooned them, especially if they were house-bound. Actions of the state, such as the mandatory representation of women in panchayats, have opened out a broader world even for rural women. Schemes like self-help groups and involvement with NGO work have given women opportunities for leadership and skill development. Reserved seats for girl students in technical education in some southern states have brought women into earlier strictly male specialisations such as automobile engineering. The message is that women are no longer willing to be 8216;invisible8217;.

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But will the patriarchal state and the paternalistic male give space to women8217;s agency? Again, much of the evidence from both rural and urban India, shows that the struggle for women to have their voices heard is nothing if not uphill. In very interesting work on 8216;runaway8217; marriages and marriages that contradict accepted intra-caste norms in Haryana, sociological historian Prem Chowdhry shows that both state and society do not allow the woman to assert her choice or her claim regarding a marriage partner as voluntary. Parents collude with the state to declare the girl a minor to prove that she cannot legally marry, even though she may be of legally marriageable age. Her partner is also at the receiving end and is made out to be an abductor and/or a rapist. In other cases of locally unacceptable marriages 8212; for example, those between prohibited clan categories 8212; the couple8217;s rights under national laws are subordinated to local customs.

In one case, a marriage between a girl and a boy of two different clans 8212; marriage between whom is prohibited 8212; was declared incestuous and impermissible. The girl, being educated, chose to speak to the media and approach a woman8217;s organisation for help. While the sentence was mitigated somewhat as a result, the couple was thrown out of the village and their families socially boycotted. That the woman had the courage to speak up is testimony that women are eager to break through the veil of subordination.

The writer teaches sociology at IIT, Delhi