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Catherine Mackinnon's Theory Of Violence Against Women

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In India, violence against women occurs daily in some or the other form. For some Indian women the possibility of violence occurs throughout their lives, especially with changes in marital status. For many years this kind of violence and oppression is seen in most of the house. Even though women’s organizations, feminists and researchers have initiated paradigm shifts in understanding and ending VAW (Violence Against Women) in India, it remains one of the worst forms of oppression faced by women. Such violence impedes women’s development and well-being and is a violation of their human rights (Johnson & Johnson, 2001) Domestic Violence, Mental Stress, Dowry, Sati, Dowry Death, Verbal abuse etc are all forms of oppression faced by women and …show more content…

Catherine MacKinnon develops her theory of gender as a theory of sexuality. Very roughly: the social meaning of sex (gender) is created by sexual objectification of women whereby women are viewed and treated as objects for satisfying men's desires (MacKinnon) MacKinnon recognizes gender to be a socially built inequality of authority and dominance in which men are governing and women subsidiary. She claims that male’s power and female’s submissiveness both are conditioned and constructed by the society in which we live. Sexual objectification of women has remained the primary focus of male and their dominance. Women’s submissiveness, silence and the power to rule her are all social performance to stay and bind oneself in that wall of society whereas for men, their skill and power is recognised from their knowledge; men as authoritative and dominant is a socially acceptable phenomenon as they are meant to be universally more powerful and this is how a society functions. Sexual objectification of women is a social condition as women are meant to be subordinate and submissive to men as to be guarded by the social process. MacKinnon mentions in her book “Objectivity is the methodological stance of which objectification is the social process. Sexual objectification is the primary process of the subjection of women. It unites act with word, construction with expression, perception with enforcement, myth with reality. Man fucks woman; subject verb object.” (MacKinnon,

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