Gender Based Violence as a Continuum: Thappad to Darlings
- Domestic violence encompasses physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person.
- Liz Kelly’s ‘Continuum Thinking’ provides a conceptual framework to understand the common character underneath all normalised forms of Sexual and Gender Based Experiences.
- The experiences of survivors are compounded by the other identities they hold apart from gender, like class, caste, race, disability, etc.
- Intimate Partner Violence is not limited to heterosexual couples and extends to queer relationships.
A Brief Glance
Trigger Warning: This article will be discussing themes of Sexual and Gender Based Violence.
The United Nations defines domestic abuse (also called “domestic violence” or “intimate partner violence”) as a pattern of behaviour in any relationship that is used to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner. The abuse can be “physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person”.
A useful tool to analyse the theoretical dimension is the conceptual framework of a continuum of sexual violence given by Liz Kelly. ‘Continuum’, as per the Oxford English Dictionary, means both ‘a basic common character that underlies many different events’ and ‘a continuous series of elements or events that pass into one another and cannot readily be distinguished’. The concept and her research initially intended to blur the distinction between ‘typical’ and ‘deviant’ incidents of gender based violence. Usually the cases showcasing ‘deviant’ behaviour were medicalised and treated as an abnormality rather than part of a larger systematic violence. Liz Kelly’s conceptualisation helps place the ‘aberrant’ acts on one end of the same continuum which also includes other forms of ‘acceptable’, ‘tolerable’ and normalised forms of Sexual and Gender Based Violence. It is not to say, though, that placing acts of violence on a continuum is placing them in a hierarchical order of ‘seriousness’.
Let’s see what exactly such continuum thinking entails with two Bollywood movies that touch upon domestic abuse: Darlings (2022) and Thappad (2020).
‘Just a slap, then?’
The normalisation of certain forms of domestic abuse, including physical violence, finds a reflection in Thappad when Vikram slaps his wife Amrita in front of all the guests at the party, and no one objects to it. Moreover, a shaken Amrita is surrounded by women of her own family after the incident, telling her that “ye ghar ki baat hai” (it is a family matter) and later her own mother tells her that such stuff happens in couples. Vikram doesn’t apologise to Amrita after the incident. Her brother Karan also tries to call it a small episode and asks his sister to move on from it. When Amrita takes her request to Netra, a successful lawyer, she initially downplays Amrita’s concern by saying, “just one slap, then?”. It is revealed that Netra’s husband undermines her achievements and forces himself upon her. Amrita is able to stand her ground and assert that he slapped her for the first time, but he had no right to. Netra also ends up walking away from her marriage.
Psychological Manipulation
Though Darlings features repeated physical abuse, it is interwoven with psychological manipulation inflicted upon Badrunissa (Alia Bhatt) by her husband Hamza (Vijay Verma). Hamza’s violent acts are interspersed by and alternated with a hyper-display of affection, convincing his wife to stay, and creating a circular pattern. He demeans her and her mother, attempting to isolate his wife from everyone else. He also exhibits possessive and controlling behaviour when he gets suspicious of his wife having an affair.
Is Anyone Immune?
As long as a systemic and structural disadvantage exists for gender minorities, they remain vulnerable to Sexual and Gender Based Violence. A case in point is Netra, who despite her education, success and privilege, faces marital rape.
Enter Alcohol: The Scapegoat
One theme common in both Darlings and Thappad is the deflection of responsibility by the perpetrator. Badrunissa, for the initial part of the movie, stays under the impression that Hamza beats her because of his drinking problem. Similarly, when Vikram slaps Amrita, he tries to label his actions a consequence of drinking combined with frustration related to his job. Interesting to note is the fact that Hamza still ends up being violent towards a pregnant Badrunissa when he wasn’t under the influence of alcohol. Vikram, too, is made to realise later that even when drunk, he did not hit a man but felt it was acceptable to do the same to his wife. At the root of such violence ultimately lie the gender dynamics and the socialisation process.
Variations and Intersectionality
However, even though continuum thinking links different forms of abuse on the same plane and there are some commonalities in the experiences of the survivors, it is also marked by a great variation due to intersectionality. For example, Sunita (the maid in Thappad) is also assaulted by her husband, but unlike Amrita or Netra, she does not have the resources to get legal aid and escape the abuse. Apart from gender, the abuse is also compounded by other identities like class, caste and disability, among others.
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in Queer Relationships
Something both Darlings and Thappad end up overlooking is that Intimate Partner Violence is not unique to heterosexual relationships alone. In fact, any person, regardless of gender, can be a perpetrator of IPV and the same applies to the survivor as well. In queer relationships too, the violence can be in the form of violence to objects, exercising financial control over their partner, emotional withdrawal, etc. Due to the structural factors that put queer individuals at a disadvantage in many societies, they find it difficult to seek institutional remedies.
Final Thoughts
Domestic violence or IPV is not a ‘personal’ or ‘family’ matter. It is deeply political and entwined with the power structure associated with gender. Such an offshoot of a heteropatriarchal system can only be treated at the level of society. Legal measures themselves do not suffice in overturning something so ingrained in the social fabric. It has to be tackled at the societal level, which also includes individual initiatives—conscious and sensitive socialisation, education, and empowerment.
Support Resources
Call: Women Helpline – 181
WhatsApp – https://daftee.org/
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