Women’s Movements and State Policy Reform Aimed at Domestic Violence Against Women: A Comparison of the U.S. and India

Bush, Diane Mitsch. 1992. “Women’s Movements and State Policy Reform Aimed at Domestic Violence against Women: A
Comparison of the Consequences of Movement Mobilization in the U.S. and India.” Gender and Society 6(4):587-608

In this article the author compares the Anti Dowry Movement Movement in India and the Battered Women’s Movement in the US to analyze how ideology and structure of  two sex- gender systems shaped social movement mobilization and state response to movements.

In this article, the author sees gender as a fundamental basis for social movement organization. If the success of women’s movement was only about accessing state mechanisms, it would not reorder the inherent gender inequality within these institutions. The author contends that policy implementation occurs within a state mechanism which is relatively autonomous from sex-gender systems. She argues that a state mechanism which is autonomous of sex-gender system will include women’s demands, without necessarily transforming social relations.

The data for this paper is drawn from interviews of two successive Shelter directors in the US and by observation of meetings in these Shelters. In India, the author conducted interview with five grassroots activists from two organizations.

Battered Women’s Movement defined battering as a result of gender power structure rather than as a private problem of deviant families. Even though the BVM framed the problem as one of gender inequality, the policy was framed as one of family violence, where there was NO mention of gender inequality within the family.

In India, the incidence of dowry deaths and their recognition in Mahila  Dakshata  Samiti’s  1977  report on dowry murders led to nation wide protests. Particularly Tarvindar Kaur’s murder, led to the enforcement of the Dowry Prohibition Act and the Section 304B on dowry deaths. Here too, the authorities refused to see the woman’s welfare different from family welfare.

Analysis

In both countries, the BWM and the ADVM challenged the notion that family was a private sphere which required no state intervention and criminalized domestic violence. In the US, battering was associated with alcoholism, drugs or stress. The gender power relations were underplayed. The rhetoric was more so about sex role socialization and deviant people.

The author suggests that the ADVM has been more successful in maintaining control over the construction of domestic violence. The press continued to focus on women’s subordination in the family. I am not sure if this assumption is right.

The author argues that most domestic violence laws implicate individual men for their problems and holds the family as an intact unit. In India, the author argues the absence of a uniform civil code demonstrates that the constitutional equality provided is a moot point. Love, not power determines how laws are enacted.

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