Hyperbolic Heist(s): The Problematic Discourse of Gendered Safety in India

• In Event: Gender and Mobility in Pakistan and India

Abstract

In the wake of protests and critical amendments in the law following the gang rape and murder of a young woman on the streets of New Delhi in December 2012, a new discourse of gendered safety appears to have emerged in India that I will argue has overshadowed any conversation on gender discrimination. This paper will engage with the conversations now taking place in urban India and examine the ways in which issues are being deflected by various individuals and groups that purport to speak for and/or on behalf of women. It will make connections with the feminist movement in India, interrogating the idea of the 'new' in this contemporary discourse and reflecting on why questions of consent are now more unspeakable than ever. It will attempt to examine the ways in which multiple voices coming from different ideological positions get themselves heard in this 'safety conversation', making it both deeply contested and impossibly complicated, and the implications this has for women in India laying claim to citizenship, mobility and public space in the city.

Author

• Shilpa Phadke, Tata Institute of Social Science