BA (H) Sociology

Generic Elective 04
Gender and Violence
Course Objective:

Gender violence is routine and spectacular, structural, symbolic as well as situated.

This course attempts to provide an understanding of the logic of gendered violence
and its varied expressions and ramifications across historical and contemporary
contexts. Through theoretically informed intersectional debates that does not equate
gender to women only but rather explores experiences of violence on masculine as
well as queer bodies students would be sensitized to varied locations of violence. The
course will provide awareness about the numerous institutionalised-legal struggles as
well as everyday resistances against gender violence to equip the students for making
pragmatic, ethical and effective choices while resisting or intervening in the context
of gendered violence.

Course Learning Outcomes:

1. Analyze how the social construction of gender across cultures is fundamental to
several experiences of violence.
2. Engage with different theoretical perspectives and their critiques in the
comprehending- individual, social, cultural, political, or economic experiences of
violence.
3. Critique the dominant western white feminist theories and articulations of
liberation, freedom, emancipation and justice through critically informed ideas and
responses from non-western contexts.
4. Re-think and re-formulate ideas on various structures of struggles and strategies to
counter gendered violence.

Course Outline:

Unit 1. Conceptual Frameworks for understanding Gender and Violence:

Theories & Critiques (6 weeks)

1.1. Deconstructing Gender and Gendered Violence

1.2. Embodiments of Violence: Multiplicities & Responses

Unit 2. Intersectional Debates (6 weeks)

2.1. Power & Violence: Individuals & Community

2.2. Nation-States, (In) Security & Sexual Violence
2.3. Invisibilized Vulnerabilities

Unit 3. Human Rights & Legal Discourses on Gender Violence: Local and
Global Experiences (3 weeks)

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Course Content:

Unit 1. Conceptual Frameworks for understanding Gender and Violence:

Theories & Critiques (6 weeks)

1.1. Deconstructing Gender and Gendered Violence

Sally Engle Merry. 2009. Gender Violence: Cultural Perspective. Wiley-Blackwell.

(Chapter-1-Introduction)

Ann J. Canhill. 2001. Rethinking Rape. Cornell University Press. (Chapter-3)

1.2 Embodiments of Violence: Multiplicities & Responses

Thapar-Björkert, Suruchi, Lotta Samelius, and Gurchathen S. Sanghera. “Exploring

Symbolic Violence in the Everyday: Misrecognition, Condescension, Consent and
Complicity.” Feminist Review 112, no. 1 (February 2016): 144–62.

Gwen Hunnicutt. Varieties of Patriarchy and Violence Against Women: Resurrecting

“Patriarchy” as a Theoretical Tool. Violence Against Women. Volume 15 (5) May
2009.pp 553-573.

Lila Abu-Lughod. 2015. Do Muslim Women need Saving? Harvard University Press.
Introduction

Unit 2. Exploring intersectional debates: (5 weeks)

2.1. Power & Violence: Individuals & Community

Vasanth Kannabiran and Kalpana Kannabiran, Caste and Gender: Understanding

Dynamics of Power and Violence, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 26, No. 37
(Sep. 14, 1991), pp. 2130-2133.

Durfee, Alesha. 2011. “I’m Not a Victim, She’s an Abuser”: Masculinity,

Victimization, and Protection Orders.” Gender & Society 25 (3): 316–34.

Loy, Pamela Hewitt, and Lea P. Stewart. 'The Extent and Effects of the Sexual
Harassment of Working Women'. Sociological Focus 17(1) (1984): 31-43.

2.2. Nation-States, (In) Security & Sexual Violence

Nayanika Mookherjee. 2015. The Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence,

Public Memories, and the Bangladesh War of 1971. Durham University Press.
Introduction & Chapter-5

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Namrata Gaikwad. 2009. Revolting bodies, hysterical state: women protesting the
Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1958). Contemporary South Asia. Vol. 17, No. 3,
September 2009, 299–311

2.3. Invisibilized Vulnerabilities

Sumit Dutta, Shamshad Khan & Robert Lorway (2019). Following the divine: An
ethnographic study of structural violence among transgender jogappas in South
India, Culture, Health & Sexuality.

Gear, S. (2007). Behind the bars of masculinity: Male rape and homophobia in and
about South African men’s prisons. Sexualities, 10(2), 209–227

Unit 3. Human Rights & Legal Discourses on Gender Violence: Local and
Global Experiences (3 weeks)

Merry, Sally Engle. 2003. Rights talk and Experience of Law: Implementing
Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence. Human Rights Quarterly. 25.
Pp 343-381

Naqvi, Farah. This Thing called Justice: Engaging Laws on Violence against Women
In India, in Bishakha Dutta (ed.), Nine Degrees of Justice: New Perspectives on
Violence Against Women in India. Delhi: Zuban, 2010.

References

Compulsory Readings:

Ann J. Canhill. 2001. Rethinking Rape. Cornell University Press. (Chapter-3)

Durfee, Alesha. 2011. “I’m Not a Victim, She’s an Abuser”: Masculinity,

Victimization, and Protection Orders.” Gender & Society 25 (3): 316–34.

Gear, S. (2007). Behind the bars of masculinity: Male rape and homophobia in and
about South African men’s prisons. Sexualities, 10(2), 209–227

Merry, Sally Engle. 2003. Rights talk and Experience of Law: Implementing
Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence. Human Rights Quarterly. 25.
Pp 343-381

Gwen Hunnicutt. Varieties of Patriarchy and Violence Against Women:

Resurrecting “Patriarchy” as a Theoretical Tool. Violence Against Women. Volume
15 (5) May 2009.pp 553-573.

Lila Abu-Lughod. 2015. Do Muslim Women need Saving? Harvard University Press.
Introduction

Loy, Pamela Hewitt, and Lea P. Stewart. 'The Extent and Effects of the Sexual
Harassment of Working Women'. Sociological Focus 17(1) (1984): 31-43.

142
Namrata Gaikwad. 2009. Revolting bodies, hysterical state: women protesting the
Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1958). Contemporary South Asia. Vol. 17, No. 3,
September 2009, 299–311

Naqvi, Farah. This Thing called Justice: Engaging Laws on Violence against Women
In India, in Bishakha Dutta (ed.), Nine Degrees of Justice: New Perspectives on
Violence Against Women in India. Delhi: Zuban, 2010.

Nayanika Mookherjee. 2015. The Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence, Public

Memories, and the Bangladesh War of 1971. Durham University Press. Introduction
& Chapter-5

Sally Engle Merry. 2009. Gender Violence: Cultural Perspective. Wiley-Blackwell.

(Chapter-1-Introduction)

Sumit Dutta, Shamshad Khan & Robert Lorway (2019). Following the divine: An
ethnographic study of structural violence among transgender jogappas in South
India, Culture, Health & Sexuality.

Thapar-Björkert, Suruchi, Lotta Samelius, and Gurchathen S. Sanghera. “Exploring

Symbolic Violence in the Everyday: Misrecognition, Condescension, Consent and
Complicity.” Feminist Review 112, no. 1 (February 2016): 144–62.

Vasanth Kannabiran and Kalpana Kannabiran, Caste and Gender: Understanding

Dynamics of Power and Violence, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 26, No. 37
(Sep. 14, 1991), pp. 2130-2133.

Additional Reading List:

Testimonies of Gendered violence: Recommended for student presentations

Agnes, Flavia, 'My Story, Our Story: Building Broken Lives' Mumbai: Majlis. 1984.

Butalia, Urvashi. The Other Side of Silence. Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2000. Chapter 4, Pp. 104 - 171

Sharma, Kriti. Mapping Violence in the lives of Adivasi Women: A Study from
Jharkhand. Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. 53, Issue No. 42, 20 Oct, 2018

AIDMM Report 2018. Voices Against Caste Impunity: Narratives of Dalit Women in
India. pp 21-26.

Patton,Tracey Owens. Hey girl, am I more than my hair?: African American women
and their struggles with beauty, body image, and hair. NWSA journal, 24-51, 2006

Wood, E. J. 'Variation in Sexual Violence during War'. Politics & Society. 34.3
(2006): 307-342.

Audio-Visual Material:

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Recommended Films & Documentary Movies to be screened and discussed

Izzatnagri Ki Asabhya Betiyan (India)

Lisa Jackson’s The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo (DR Congo)

Jasmila Zbani’s Esma’s Secret (Bosnia)

A Girl in the River: The Price for Forgiveness (Pakistan)

Anne Aghion My Neighbour, My Killer (Rwanda)

Emmanuel Jal War Child (Sudan)

Callum Macrae The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka)

Teaching-Learning Process:

1. The course will be imparted through classroom lectures, discussion and students
presentation mode.

2. A number of ethnographic studies and cross-cultural case studies have been

specifically incorporated in the syllabus in order to facilitate students
presentations that encourages a dialogic pedagogy of learning and practice
amongst students and the teacher.

3. Acknowledging the impossibility of offering an exhaustive reading list of various

historical, contemporary and empirical sites of gendered violence, the course
strongly recommends screening, discussion and analysis of visuals in the class in
the form of movies, documentaries, photographs or videos.

Assessment Methods:
Assessment of this paper can be done through class tests, class presentations,
assignments and appropriate project works.

Key words:

Gender, Gendered Violence, Violence against Women, Freedom, Dignity, Justice,

Everyday Resistance, Rape Culture, Patriarchy, Power, Domination, Vulnerable
Masculinities, Queer bodies, Culture of Silence, Structural Violence, Human Rights,
Law.

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