Intersecting Oppression: Gender and Violence in Selected Indian Novels

Abstract

This paper examines the complex and intersecting forms of gendered violence across Indian and Western socio-cultural contexts by analysing Manish Jha’s film Matrubhoomi: A Nation Without Women (2003), Angela Carter’s novel The Passion of New Eve (1977), and Githa Hariharan’s I Have Become the Tide (2019). Rejecting the narrow understanding of violence as merely physical, the study conceptualizes violence as a multidimensional phenomenon encompassing emotional, psychological, sexual, socio-economic, and structural forms of oppression. The authors argue that while women are disproportionately subjected to gender-based violence due to patriarchal power structures and honour codes imposed on female bodies, men—especially those marginalized by caste and class—also experience violence, albeit in different manifestations.

Through a feminist and gender-sensitive lens, the paper analyses how Matrubhoomi presents an extreme dystopia rooted in female foeticide, where the female body becomes a contested site of ownership, honour, and revenge. Kalki’s repeated sexual exploitation and dehumanization expose the convergence of caste, patriarchy, and violence. In I Have Become the Tide, the focus shifts to contemporary India, highlighting how caste-based discrimination produces psychological violence against men while simultaneously perpetuating sexual violence against women as a tool of domination. Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve further complicates gender binaries by depicting how power, when reversed, reproduces similar structures of violence, questioning the possibility of gendered utopias.

The paper argues that violence is intrinsically linked to power and that patriarchy harms all genders, though women remain its primary victims. By comparing dystopian, contemporary, and speculative narratives, the study demonstrates that neither male-dominated nor female-dominated societies can escape violence unless power structures themselves are dismantled. Ultimately, the article asserts that freedom from violence is a fundamental human right and that feminist critique is indispensable for understanding and challenging the systemic nature of gendered oppression across cultures.