Producer and Host: Sneha Visakha
Intro Music: Wehrmut by Godmode
Outro Music: Opheliea’s Blues by Audionautix

Trigger Warning: references to violence against women, sexual harassment, carcerality, and extra-judicial violence

Legal approaches to women’s safety have tended to be highly dominated by discussions around criminal justice and carcerality. In this episode, Sneha Visakha is in conversation with Alok Prasanna Kumar about why tackling violence against women must shift away from criminal approaches to bringing about structural changes towards correcting gendered power imbalance in society – making questions of municipal law, education and social and economic justice mechanisms sites for feminist legal intervention.  They discuss the contrast in the State’s paternalistic protectionism towards women’s safety versus the targeting of young women by the State’s criminal apparatus, changing goals of feminist movements, varied state responses to violence against women belonging to marginalised communities, about carcerality, trauma and why the criminal justice system doesn’t seem to work for women. 

Readings

Making a Feminist City – Planning Safety and Autonomy in the City, Sneha Visakha

Power, An open letter to the Supreme Court changed the way many Indians thought about women’s rights, Sarita Santhoshini, FiftyTwo.in

The Unconstitutionality of the Marital Rape Exemption in India, Agnidipto Tarafder and Adrija Ghosh, Oxford Human Rights Hub

Submission to UNSR on Violence Against Women on Thematic Report on Rape, Sandra Fredman, Anjali Rawat, Aradhana Cherupara Vadekkethil and Meghan Campbell, Oxford Human Rights Hub

Feminism in Legal Education, Catherine Mackinnon; Feminist Legal Theories, Summary

The “Public Secret” of Torture, Its Dimensions and Context, In conversation with Jinee Lokaneeta, Indian Journal of Law and Public Policy

On sexual harassment, why complain, strategic inefficiency, nodding as a non-performative, in the thick of it, complaint and survival, Sara Ahmed, Feminist Killjoys

Book Review: Sheela Reddy’s Mr And Mrs Jinnah: The Marriage That Shook India, LiveMint

Most Harassment of Transgender People is by Police, Times of India

One in Every Three Under-Trial Prisoners in India Is Either SC or ST: Study, The Wire

People of denotified tribes continue to bear the burden of an unjust colonial past, Nikita Sonavane , Srujana Bej , Ameya Bokil, The Indian Express

What to Say to Your Daughter About Campus Sexual Assault, Nicole Bedera, Slate

Books

The History of Doing, An Illustrated Account of Movements of Women’s Rights and Feminism in India (1800 – 1990), Radha Kumar, Zubaan

Nine Degrees of Justice: New Perspectives on Violence Against Women, Bishakha Datta, Zubaan (essays:‘This Thing Called Justice’, Farah Naqvi; ‘If Women Could Risk Pleasure, Shilpa Phadke)

Public Secrets of Law: Rape Trials in India, Pratiksha Baxi

Are Prisons Obsolete? Angela Y. Davis

The Truth Machines: Policing, Violence, and Scientific Interrogations in India, Jinee Lokaneeta

Videos

‘The Rapist is You’ A powerful feminist protest performance on the streets of Chile, Las Tesis, Scroll