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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Battered Women’s Movement Ideals and Judge-Led Social Change in Domestic Violence Courts

Mirchandani, Rekha. 2004. “Battered Women’s Movement Ideals and Judge-Led Social Change in Domestic Violence Courts.” The Good Society  Symposium: Theory of Democratic Professionalism 13(1): 32-37

In this article, the author describes the Battered Women’s Movement and their goal of facilitating social change through legal reform. Through her case study of Salt Lake Domestic Violence Court, she makes two arguments about specialized Domestic Violence Courts. She finds that the language used by the court is influenced by the BMW’s language. Second, she argues that the technocratic and efficiency based justice mechanism promotes the professionalism of the courts.

In describing the BWM, the author points out three main arguments of the movement:

1. Question the cultural notions of masculinity as dominance and femininity as subordination

2. Battering should be criminalized

3. Women should not be held responsible for the battery

The author finds that judges in the Domestic Violence courts in Salt Lake did use the above mentioned arguments.

Technocratic judges usually have administrative roles. One of the roles is to facilitate plea bargaining by counseling perpetrators on their constitutional rights. The author finds that the judges use this position to facilitate individual and social change. Thus, although technocratic roles are traditionally seen to be bureaucratic, the author finds that judges are able to perform meaningful work because of freed up time from administrative tasks.

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Private Concerns in Public Discourse: Women-Initiated Community Responses to Domestic Violence

Bhatla, Nandita and Anuradha Rajan. 2003. “Private Concerns in Public Discourse: Women-Initiated Community Responses to Domestic
Violence.”  Economic and Political Weekly 38(17):1658-1664

In this paper, the authors explore women led community based responses to domestic violence across five sites in India. Three community based initiatives were studied for this study.

1. Shalishi – Traditional system of arbitration utilized by Shramaji Mahila Samiti in West Bengal

2. Nari Adalat/ Mahila Panch in Baroda and Rajkot in Gujarat organized by Mahila Samakhya program

3. Nari Adalat/Sahara Sangh in Saharanpur and Tehri Garhwal in Uttar Pradesh organized by Mahila Samakhya program

All three initiatives have evolved from village level processes of village women’s collectives. Village level sanghas(women’s collectives) are the foundation of the Mahila Samakhya program. One Sahayogini(is a village level organizer from the Mahila Samakhya program) is responsible for 10 villages. Here, she organizes sanghas and helps them work on issues that matter to them. As domestic violence became and important issue, the sanghas formed a new forum known as the Nari Adalat(Women’s Court) to deal with the issue. The Nari Adalat(NA) meets at a centralized place in the village. Women with complaints file an application with the NA and they summon the other side to a meeting. Issues of violence are discussed in public meetings and arbitration is initiated. The village sangha provides basic facts required for the arbitration. The Sahara Sangh acts like a centralized pressure group or think tank which discusses strategies to deal with these cases. The cases are handled by the sanghas themselves.The Shalishi on the other hand, does have centralized sittings, but both these groups include important leaders from the village. The Shalishidhars are women trained to take a woman centric approach in handling these cases.

These initiatives are based on the primary premise that decisions through these initiatives which are embedded in the community, are better enforced. Community sanctions seem to have more power than orders from a court far removed from their lives.Psychological pressure is exerted on the perpetrator.  Moreover, courts are much less accessible to poor women. Since these initiatives are embedded in public spaces, these initiatives have been able to convert individual issues into social problems. These initiatives also help in educating the public on this problem.

A democratic process of arbitration is followed since the process occurs in a neutral setting. Finally these initiatives, since they are women led, provide victims a safe space to share their problems. Poor women, seldom have such forums available.

During the arbitration process, when perpetrators provide reasons for the violence, the facilitators of the NA/MP educate the men that violence is not justified at any point. Thus they are able to question some gender stereotypes, thus changing social norms.

By placing the women’s interest as the starting point for negotiations, the facilitators were pushing the limits of the cultural and normative boundaries of the community. Primarily, they were questioning the notion that violence was a private matter.The feminist agenda of the arbitration process was evident in terms of the kind of voice, issues and concerns that were highlighted.

The authors find that women felt a sense of individual transformationin the case resolution process itself. In the Nari Adalat, the victims were finding a space to exercise their own agency and voice.

Gender Quotas, the Politics of Presence, and the Feminist Project

Kudva, Neema. Kajri Misra. 2008. “Gender Quotas, the Politics of Presence, and the Feminist Project: What Does the Indian Experience Tell Us?” Signs, 34(1): 49-73

In this paper, Kudva and Misra examine the gender quota experiment in India focusing on areas that they suggest have been under-theorized and overlooked by feminist theorists.  “First, the role of multiple institutional loci of change in transforming gender relations where state and civil society actors play mutually constitutive roles; second, the importance of applying the politics of scale to analyze the gender quota experiment and the possibilities it presents.”

Data:

This essay is based on field work conducted by both authors in India at different points of time and by examining literature on women’s experience in Panchayati Raj.

Theorizing the gender quota experiment in India:

Drawing from feminist theorists, the authors describe Fraser’s argument that obstacles to parity of participation in the context of globalization are three fold – recognition, redistribution and representation. Often, theorists arguing for gender equality in politics have looked at identity politics alone. In this paper, the authors seek to examine how gender quotas look beyond recognition-redistribution in a globalized world that affects the sub-national and local processes.

Secondly there are questions whether women represent women’s issues if they get elected. One position states that ethnic identities and community affiliations have greater potential for sustained action. Feminists suggest that more number of women in power, opens up space for gender consciousness. Scholars have documented gendered and casteist practices in political institutions in India. The language used in writing and speaking, segregated seating, meeting timings and locations unsuitable for women and people from lower castes,  excluding women from meetings and positions, are all ways in which discrimination is practiced. The authors state that current quota literature focuses on individuals who are able to navigate through the system. Most scholars expect positive change over time, while being cognizant of the barriers that women face. However, the authors find that literature has overlooked institution focused feminist political theorizing by focusing only on individuals. In most cases, their agency is heavily influenced by their class and caste positions. Even when NGOs seek to change institutional processes, they are often within the realms of the NGO rather than a large scale policy change.

The authors find that analysis of institutional design, often seen in decentralization literature is absent from gender quota literature.  The scarcity of resources, the state’s hesitation in sharing power and lack of authority are issues of redistribution which can affect women’s political participation. The current focus on capacities of elected women representatives without looking at issues of redistribution and recognition may be problematic. The authors call for a collective strategy for economic and gender justice by bringing in PR reforms.

Then the authors focus on two main issues – the institutional loci of change and the politics of scale. Often feminist theorizing has concentrated on social movements and civil society organizing. However gender quotas in India has been introduced by the state. Pressure from women’s movement was absent in this case. Gender quotas were mandated centrally by gender quotas. However, it was the state of Karnataka that first experimented gender quotas. Thus the loci of change oscillated between the central and the subnational state governments. NGOs, generally kept away from the PR, however later they were included in training representatives. The authors then provide the example of Mahila Samakhya as an organization which was an example of NGO- state collaboration. Being a state program, MS has to maintain a balance where it can engage in alliance building, protests, dialogue while not succumbing to state co-option.

The authors then theorize about the politics of scale. While gender quotas were first suggested by the central government, it was first implemented by Karnataka, a state government. The central government then mandated it across. However, quotas have not been implemented at the central level. Formulating collective strategies, while respecting similarities and differences at the local level, requires a scaled politics, which may be a difficult proposition.

Thus the essay highlights four main points:

1. The possibilities that local state functions of planning and service delivery present for a political agenda that seeks to correct both maldistribution and misrecognition;.
2. The importance of paying attention to organizational design and practices, which are both location specific and deeply gendered, in order to remove constraints on women’s participation;
3. The importance of understanding that the locus of change and innovation in policy experiments shifts and oscillates between the national, the subnational, and the local state, requiring feminist activists to respond equally nimbly;
4. The crucial role that scaled politics has played in the ways in which these opportunities are understood and seized by researchers, reformers, and activists

 

A Limited Women’s Empowerment: Politics, the State, and Development in Northwest India

Madhok, Sumi.2003.“A Limited Women’s Empowerment: Politics, the State, and Development in Northwest India.” Women’s Studies Quarterly31(3/4): 154-173.

In this paper, Sumi Madhok analyzes the nature and limits of collaborative politics between feminists and state led development agencies by focusing on the experiences of the Women’s Development Programme(WDP) sponsored by the state government of Rajasthan in India. Madhok writes about institutionalized feminism where the state’s development program uses the conceptual language of feminist development theorists, but does not employ the explanatory frameworks to identify and create solutions regarding women’s subordination.

Case Study:

The WDP, when it started, was a program which borrowed from feminist conceptual frameworks, international women’s development frames and the state’s own development goals. The program itself was different from other programs, where it refrained from considering women as mere beneficiaries of the state and conceived of development embedded in women’s self-empowerment. However, the author feels that the program has made a radical shift from its initial notions of empowerment whereby the program is now used to strengthen the delivery mechanisms of the state’s development activities.

This article focuses on three aspects – objectives of WDP, the experiences of the agents of change sathins, who are the women community workers and the conflicts between the state and the sathins. The WDP program was launched in 1984 in six districts in Rajasthan. The objective of the program stated, “should consist of a shift in attitude from one of compassion and welfare to that of treatment of women as equal partners with men in the family, in the social situation and economic activity, in education and culture.” The WDP took forward the empowerment agenda by supporting the creation of women’s groups at the village level and by fostering partnerships with NGOs, activists and academicians, especially to train community workers. Information Development and Resource Agency (IDARA) was the institutional set up that coordinated the technical support and training for WDP. The sathins formed the local layer of workers in this institution. The program had the standard Women In Development framework along with the more radical perspective, brought in by other organizations. Moreover, initially a large part of the funding was from UNICEF, thereby making this a low priority item for the state and consequentially, lesser interference.

The author brings out the differences between the WID and the GAD approaches even when they do not belong to water tight compartments. Both approaches believe in engaging with women’s groups. However the WID approach is about investing in skills and employment by which women’s bargaining power in the market is enhanced. On the other hand, the GAD approach was not confined to skills alone, but was invested in feminist approaches of women’s empowerment.

The sathins were trained using exercise modeled on the concept of empowerment devised by Paulo Freire, which was built on the collective knowledge shared by the group based on their own reflections of their life experiences. Morever the sathins were familiarized with the state institutions. The training also examined notions of marital rape, property rights, control over one’s body and income attitudes towards caste and religious differences and so on. Returning to their villages the sathins began challenging norms in their villages along with groups of women. However, they had to face a number of challenges in the village. Villagers continued to see them with suspicion, as if they were agents of the state and even questioned their morality, due to their unconventional actions.

The author says that currently the program has been cleaned of its radical nature and sathins have the responsibility of monitoring the development targets of the state. This happened because of three things. UNICEF removed its funding. With the dependency on state funding, there was increased pressure to “show” outcomes and development targets. Secondly, there was a incident where sathins organized group demonstrations in protest of the Roop Kanwar’s sati. There was another incident, where the sathins participated in a conference, where they identified themselves as representing a women’s group rather than as state representative. Five sathins were dismissed because of this event. The last two events, especially the dismissal brought to forefront the independent positioning of the sathins with respect to the state and their status within the WDP. It was clear that the state wanted control over the program and marking the end of the radical nature of the program. WDP now increasingly turned to the WID approach of credit and income generating activities. The sathins continued to protest against the state responses and even filed a case against the arbitrary dismissal of the sathins. They won the case in the Supreme Court , after a long legal struggle of almost ten years.

Democratization, Women’s Movements and Gender Equitable States : Viterna

Citation:

Viterna, Jocelyn and Kathleen.M.Fallon.2008.”Democratization, Women’s Movements and Gender Equiatbale States: A Framework for Comparison.” American Sociological Review 73(4):668-689

Viterna, Jocelyn and Kathleen.M.Fallon.2008.”Democratization, Women’s Movements and Gender Equiatbale States: A Framework for Comparison.” American Sociological Review 73(4):668-689

Theoretically, one would anticipate that a democratic transition would create more gender equitable states. However, scholars have written about how democratization did not improve women’s political influence within the state even when women were engaged in the democratic transition processes. Thus, this article seeks to develop a theoretical framework to evaluate gendered variation across democratizing states. This framework places women’s movement at the centre and uses social movement theories to analyze gendered variations in states that have transitioned to democracy.

Theoretical arguments

The authors have identified four political factors to examine the influence of women’s movements within the state in a new democracy. They are 1) the democratic transition itself, (2) the legacy of previous women’s mobilizations, (3) the actions and ideologies of political parties, and (4) international influences. Women’s movements have been analyzed by examining their strategies and frames. Based on these factors, the authors put forward the following propositions:

The authors expect that “women’s movements will achieve more  feminist states when  the democratic  transition presents concrete opportunities  for renegotiating state structures and widespread   public  interest in rethinking pre-democratic political  ideologies.”

Second, the authors reason that “that women’s movements will achieve more  feminist gains in states where  these master  frames are both broadly accepted  by the public and easily aligned with feminist demands.”

Third, the authors “argue that the timing, strategies, and frames of these pre-transition mobilizations help explain variation in the successes of later women’s movements as they target new democratic states.”

Fourth, the authors suggest that “political party ideologies also contribute to the dynamics of women’s mobilizations.” Literature further states that left parties are more likely to work towards reducing gender inequalities and socialist parties are likely to encourage gender equality, and women’s political and economic participation.

The authors assess gendered state outcomes by examining, “changes in institutional foundations, including the new democratic state’s constitutions, laws passed since democratization, the formal organizational structures established to address gender inequalities and the system for placing individuals into power.” Additionally, they examine the extent of women’s representation in state structures such as the parliament, and whether the state is receptive to demands made by women’s movements.

Cases

The authors analyze gendered state outcomes in four cases: South Africa, Argentina, Ghana and El Salvador. In these four cases, South Africa and Argentina have strengthened laws for women and increased women’s representation in comparison to Ghana and El Salvador. In conclusion, the authors state that the completeness of the democratic transition and the women’s pre-transition mobilizations best explains the variation in gendered state outcomes. When the transition ideology aligns with feminist frames, an existing women’s movement will be best able to influence the state to design policies favorable to women. The ideologies of political parties and international influences, though helpful in some cases was not seen as the consistent factor leading to gendered state outcomes.