Sunday 13 July 2014

Rape and its Politics : 'Linguistic Constructions' of Gender Discourses



Nirbhaya Gang rape incident has completed one year. It has been a remarkable year for the journey of gender discourses in India. In recent past, we have rarely seen such a diversified debate on various aspects and issues of sexual violence against women. Main stream media and other alternative public spheres have also enthusiastically and overwhelmingly participated in these discussions and debates and one has to admit that on several occasions, these spheres gave decisive directions to the discourse of sexual violence. With that, importance of last year also resides in the fact that different connotations of these debates have constructed and developed a certain kind of language, evaluation of which is largely ignored. This 'linguistic construction' is so important that many relevant conclusions on the politics of gender discourses can be drawn from it.