Feminists must treat these choices with respect, work towards changing the circumstances that shape them, engage in dialogue and be open to the destabilisation of our own norms. We must deal with this troubling recognition in our politics. Values liberals consider desirable are not dominant in society, so the freedom to choose often simply reasserts existing problematic values - thus, for example, a woman may choose to abort a fetus because it is female. Here, we see the contradiction between two core beliefs of feminism - the belief in the autonomy of women versus the hegemony of dominant values that constrain the freedom to choose. And often, women choose options that go against normative feminist values. Women do make choices but not in circumstances of their own making. But why are miniskirts projected as choice as opposed to say, veils? For feminism, this is a key issue - are women victims needing protection or active agents engaging with power? The notion of choice is not enough to answer this because such freedom of choice is always exercised within strict boundaries that are non-negotiable - class, race, caste and gender-based.
In contrast to patriarchal norms, the liberal discourse emphasises free choices for women. One issue about rape centres on women's dress. In the way young women and men in the recent protests are writing and singing about this, you can see this understanding has wide currency now. It is not a fate worse than death but it is traumatic, like any act of physical violence, and it should be punished as such. If you take rape out of patriarchal discourses of honour, it is an act of violence that violates bodily integrity. Speaking with Amrita Nandy, Menon discussed the role and energy of feminism today, how rape and dress are analysed by convention versus feminism - and how feminism eventually liberates women, even from being feminists: You write about rape usually being analysed within a patriarchal discourse of honour - how is rape understood outside that frame? Feminists have long tried to build an understanding that desexualises rape - in law and everyday life. Academic Nivedita Menon has researched this in Seeing Like A Feminist.
With violence against Indian women on the rise, the debate over feminist politics and its relevance has acquired new importance.
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