Violence Against Women in Haryana: An Analysis of Popular Discourses

Abstract

This paper focuses on the violence against women prevalent in the society of Haryana in both explicit forms, such as physical violence, and implicit forms, such as discursive violence in the form of anti-women discourses. Such discourses are significant because phallogocentric language limits women’s ability to voice themselves and makes them susceptible to patriarchal dominance. The paper highlights that many sayings—sometimes even attributed to social reformers who advocated for women’s emancipation—are used to justify women’s exploitation. The idea that development in science and technology can empower women proved to be a myth because, before it could empower women, patriarchal society captured it almost completely. With the dawn of the IT revolution, people became acquainted with a new dimension of space, i.e., virtual space. However, this space is a replica of physical space, and the patriarchy of physical space is a dominant ideology in this space as well.