Sexual violence against Dalit women in India: speech, silence and intersectional resistance

Aisha K. Gill and Sundeep Mangat

Chapter 28 in Research Handbook on Gender, Violence and Law, 2026, pp 456-471 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explores how Dalit women's experiences are shaped by India's sexual violence discourses in the context of the family, community and state. Twenty-eight qualitative interviews were conducted in Delhi, India with Dalit women who had been raped by men. The chapter draws on intersectionality; Foucault's notions of resistance, regulation and subjectivity; and Goffman's work on stigma. It examines the words the women used to name and/or describe their rape, what they did not say about their rape and what contributed to their silence; it also explores secrecy and cultural censorship around sex and sexual violence in the Indian context. The chapter contextualizes the women's silences, differentiates between their being silenced and being silent and discusses the role of silence as resistance. The findings suggest that these Dalit women's subjectivities were shaped by practices of regulation exercised through patriarchal discourses of protection, honour and shame.

Keywords: Dalit Women; Intersectionality; Caste in India; Honour; Sexual Violence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035319398
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035319404.00039 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22689_28

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().