Understanding Violence against Women
Maithreyi Krishnaraj

Violence can be visible or invisible or camouflaged in
moral terms. It is always a coercive instrument to uphold
or enforce cultural codes of honour. The articles in this
special issue have discussed different forms of atrocities
against women.

Violence accompanies power. It is committed to prove or feel a
sense of power maintained as an instrument of coercion.
Any individual or group facing the threat of coercion or
being disciplined to act in a manner required by another individual
or group is subject to violence. Though physical violence is
pervasive against women, it can take other forms which generate
an atmosphere of threat or reprisal. There are crimes specifically
directed against women like rape, sexual harassment, sexual
abuse, sexual exploitation, prostitution, domestic violence and
pornography. The forms may vary between cultures and settings,
but what is near universal is male violence far exceeds female violence.
During most wars and conflict situations, atrocities against
women are ways of asserting power over the enemy – to show the
other side cannot protect their women. We have our Partition
stories, and more recently, the Godhra carnage. Dalit subjugation
routinely takes the same form – by aiming at their women.
Violence is almost always a coercive instrument to uphold or
enforce cultural codes of honour. It can also be a show of resistance.
There are frequent reports about male members of families killing
the girl or boy who has violated norms of caste marriage or
contracting tabooed alliances like sagotra marriage. Upholding
honour is both an individual and community concern. Breaches
of caste hierarchy invoke stringent penalties on offenders –
atrocities on dalits are retaliatory measures for their exercising
what democratic rights bestow on them. Such upholding of
so-called honour also relates to gender roles within marriage.
Women have been the victims of patriarchal sexual practices
through exploitation by landlords during caste riots, in marital rape,
in state policies concerning reproduction, and of course, through
wife battering. Feudal practices existed where landed gentry demanded
“first night privileges”. Domestic violence is part of this
scenario of upholding socially sanctioned norms and practices.
An important aspect of the norm is male privilege to women’s
bodies within marriage. Rather than being exceptional it is symptomatic
of the sexuality of everyday life as women live it in the
context of marriage and family. Is violence a function of complex
patriarchal structures and, therefore, an uneven experience
which affects women in different ways? Or is violence an essential
aspect of a problematic of masculinity – a general masculine way of
being for which one can construct a common grammar? Husbands
(from narratives reproduced here as well as in many places) appear
to represent their familial, economic and social status and
power as well as their sense of themselves as husbands and men
by controlling their wives. Masculinity expresses itself in the
context of marriage through sexual demands.

More here .. with a great list of RESOURCES.