Women and the Silence Around Domestic Violence

Author: Anmol Mathur, Student, Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA, India

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Abstract This article aims at addressing and understanding the inequalities and atrocities that a woman faces in the wake of the widespread practice of domestic violence. It seeks to analyse the stigma and societal norms that further such a practice, rather than curbing it. The article deals with the same in a three-fold manner. Firstly, it acknowledges the prevalence of domestic abuse even in contemporary India. The stigma and causes around it are scrutinised in the light of the justifications women, as victims, themselves offer, and from where these justifications stem out from. Secondly, the article discourses to the issue of “gendered-abuse” and reveals how domestic abuse is coercive control and massively due to the patriarchal structures of the society. It also reads the effects of domestic violence on the health of women and children. Thirdly, and most importantly it focuses on the laws and the inadequacy of the justice system, coupled with the need for a social change. It also wishes to analyse the same with the very experiences of victims of domestic abuse.

Keywords: Domestic Violence, Patriarchy, Abuse.

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