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How law and society define the status of women

January 18, 2015 09:00 pm | Updated 09:00 pm IST

GENDER AND OUR TIMES (from left) Prabha Sridevan, Ramesh Gopalakrishnan, Ammu Joseph and U. Vasuki. Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

GENDER AND OUR TIMES (from left) Prabha Sridevan, Ramesh Gopalakrishnan, Ammu Joseph and U. Vasuki. Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

The female body through the course of time has been many things — inspiration for art, revered as a deity, exalted for its beauty — but also controlled, tied down and subjugated to the whims of man. Unfortunately, modern progress has yet to set right the way a woman and her body are perceived, which is why the session ‘Feminine Form: Site of Violence’  was so relevant.

“Women are treated as territories to be conquered, and the owners — perhaps — shamed by its rape,” said Prabha Sridevan in her opening statement. Rape is the only crime in the Indian Penal Code, Sridevan said, that is linked to many layers. Despite being a crime that denies the autonomy, agency and integrity of a woman’s body, it’s the only one that instantly blames the victim. The standard “she asked for it” accusation makes going to court a no-win situation, and tendencies to blame the rape survivor first, and circumstances later, make rape seem lesser than the crime it actually is.

The lone gentleman on the panel, Ramesh Gopalakrishnan spoke of how violence is inherent in nature. The solution, he opined, is to not try and eradicate but sublimate it through art and literature, something he believes is missing in India today.

It isn’t the feminine form alone that is subjected to violence, believed journalist Ammu Joseph; the woman’s mind is affected as well. In addition to the physical, there is gender-based psychological and economic violence that needs to be addressed as well.

In addition to sites of violence, women’s bodies today are also becoming sites of resistance to this violence.

U. Vasuki, women’s rights activist, pointed out that an attack on the feminine form has repercussions on the psyche, the biggest being its associations with “shame and honour”. The classic ‘who will marry your daughter now?’ rhetoric that is thrown around deters people from pursuing justice in a rape case.

Having worked with women’s organisations, Vasuki says that often it is the local community and sometimes even the police who make justice harder to come by for the survivors.

The solution the panel agreed was to consider violence as a global, human problem and not just a woman’s. A social reform movement wouldn’t hurt, Vasuki added, but the statement that got the crowd cheering was when she said, “Show me a rape-resistant dress, a rape-resistant place, or time,” bringing home the reality that the feminine form is not what needs to be controlled, but the global epidemic of violence. 

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