In contrast to the rest of the world, working women in India face a greater degree of intimate partner violence owing to factors like their husbands earning less or being uneducated
That the home, ironically, is one of the most unsafe places for Indian women has long been established — several surveys have shown an alarmingly high prevalence of intimate partner violence. The National Family Health Survey 5, for instance, revealed that one in three women in India experiences some form of violence at the hands of their husband/partner. What is worrying is that one of the remedies usually suggested to bring down IPV — educating women and making them economically independent — seems to be leaving Indian women more vulnerable to domestic violence. In sharp contrast to the rest of the world, working women in India face a greater degree of IPV owing to factors like their husbands earning less or being uneducated. Given the high rates of IPV in states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka where literacy levels are robust, it is clear that India also bucks the global trend of education having a positive impact on IPV. In a patriarchal society, an educated, working woman might be more vulnerable to domestic violence on account of threatening to upend lopsided gender-identity norms, eclipsing a man’s identity as a principal literate entity and breadwinner. Research also shows that relative improvement in women’s economic status could cause their husbands to use violence as a tool to extract financial resources from them. Women’s empowerment sans complementary interventions is thus unlikely to resolve the problem of IPV.
Among these interventions, regular gender sensitisation of men at an early age is one of the steps that has been found to have a long-term impact on reducing IPV. Easy access to sympathetic legal redressal, too, helps in reducing the burden of domestic violence. The fear of social stigma is the primary reason that leads to working women — much like their unemployed counterparts — putting up with IPV. This is one of the main motivators behind a mind-boggling 41% of women in India justifying IPV. Curiously, a study by a women’s NGO found another contradiction. Many educated women fear that they would be judged adversely if they do not leave their marital homes after speaking up against IPV. This is an indictment of how flawed and fraught the discourse on women’s emancipation is.
Source: Telegraph India, 10/02/25
