Systemic Violence Against Women in India: A Challenge for Gender Equity

The paper observes that one of the major constraints towards accomplishing gender equity and equal participation of women in various developmental matters is violence against women. A typical liberal stand used to combat such violence involves offering and inviting solutions and ramifications after analysing the problem from the outside. Thus, violence is criminalized and gender specific policies are constituted to help women seek justice and an equitable social life. The paper argues that these approaches mistake retributive justice, or affirmative action, for the transformation of both the personal ethics of an individual and the collective ethics of a society. Also, by transferring the responsibility of equity and justice on the state and the judiciary, the systemic complicity that makes violence a possibility is largely ignored. The paper takes a systems theory perspective and shows that gender inequity and injustice is invariably woven within the existing fabric of the Indian society and a policy-oriented formulaic approach will continue to evade its relationship to the complex socio-cultural networks and codes of being, that influence all forms of social communication. The use of systems theoretical framework allows us to make an enquiry that goes beyond the individual and focuses on the overall pathology that governs social communication about different gender roles and expectations. The paper thus attempts to formulate an alternate view of violence against women and the inequity that accompanies it. Finally, the paper proposes that any effort towards guaranteeing an equitable social atmosphere to women must involve a radical change in the understanding of the problem itself.