"I don't want to be touched all the time" - Street Harassment and the Indian Woman Item Type Thesis or dissertation Authors Khan, Sumana Citation Khan, S. (2020) "I don't want to be touched all the time" Street harassment and the Indian woman. PhD thesis. University of Derby. Available at: URL (Accessed: date). Publisher University of Derby Rights N/A; Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Download date 30/09/2021 03:32:37 Item License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10545/625509 UNIVERSITY OF DERBY “I DON’T WANT TO BE TOUCHED ALL THE TIME” STREET HARASSMENT AND THE INDIAN WOMAN A QUALITATIVE EXPLORATION THROUGH INTERPRETATIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS AND DISPOSITIVE ANALYSIS SUMANA KHAN DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 2019 Sensitivity: Internal Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................. 1 1.1. Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and Street Harassment .......................... 2 1.2. Positioning street harassment as a form of VAWG ..................................................... 7 1.3. What this research means to me – Personal reflexivity ............................................. 10 1.4. Aim of this research ............................................................................................. 14 1.5. Summary ............................................................................................................. 15 Chapter 2: Literature Review – Street Harassment .......................................................... 16 2.1. A historical perspective of VAWG and Street Harassment research development ........ 16 2.2. Legal studies of street harassment in American jurisprudence ................................... 22 2.3. Social discourse studies ........................................................................................ 33 2.4. Psychological studies ............................................................................................ 39 2.5. Global studies on street harassment ........................................................................ 46 2.6. Street harassment studies specific to India ............................................................... 52 2.7. Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 58 Chapter 3: Theorising Street Harassment ....................................................................... 61 SOCIOCULTURAL STUDY ......................................................................................... 75 Chapter 4: Introduction - Women’s representations in Bollywood – a brief overview ......... 76 4.1. Sociocultural changes in India from the 1990s ......................................................... 78 Chapter 5: Literature review – Portrayals of women in Bollywood ................................... 81 Chapter 6: Methodology and Method ............................................................................ 94 6.1. Rationale for selecting dispositive analysis as the methodology ................................. 95 6.1.1. Tailoring dispositive analysis methodology for the Sociocultural Study ............... 97 6.2. Reflexivity .......................................................................................................... 99 6.3. Method ............................................................................................................. 100 6.3.1. Plot summaries of shortlisted movies ............................................................. 102 6.3.2. Data Preparation ........................................................................................ 103 i Sensitivity: Internal Chapter 7: Dispositive analysis of the films ................................................................. 106 7.1. Construction of the sanskari woman ..................................................................... 106 7.2. Construction of the vamp .................................................................................... 116 7.3. Construction of the sanskari feminist .................................................................... 127 7.4. Implications of the findings ................................................................................. 140 EXPERIENTIAL STUDY ............................................................................................ 146 Chapter 8: Introduction to street harassment in India or ‘eve teasing’ ............................. 147 Chapter 9: Methodology and Method .......................................................................... 151 9.1. Rationale for selecting Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis ........................... 151 9.2. Method ............................................................................................................. 154 9.2.1. Participant recruitment ................................................................................. 155 9.2.2. Designing the interview schedule .................................................................. 161 9.2.3. Ethical considerations .................................................................................. 161 9.2.4. Conducting the interviews ............................................................................ 162 9.2.5. Data transcription and analysis ...................................................................... 166 Chapter 10: Interpretative Analysis of ‘Single Women’ interviews ................................. 173 10.1. Superordinate Theme 1: Navigating and negotiating identity ............................ 174 10.1.1. Subordinate theme: Switching between the Self and the Collective ................. 174 10.1.2. Subordinate theme: Transformation of the self ............................................. 181 10.1.3. Subordinate theme: Identity Conflicts ......................................................... 189 10.2. Superordinate Theme 2: Disempowered status ................................................ 195 10.2.1. Subordinate theme: Coping with infantalisation .......................................... 195 10.2.2. Subordinate theme: Compromised sense of agency ...................................... 200 10.2.3. Subordinate theme: Harassment as an isolated battle ................................... 205 10.3. Superordinate Theme 3: Psychological distress ............................................... 209 10.3.1. Subordinate theme: Heightened sense of fear – hypervigilance and paranoia . 209 10.3.2. Subordinate theme: War-like situation ........................................................ 215 10.3.3. Subordinate theme: Emotional stress in family relationships due to normalised threat of harassment.................................................................................................. 222 10.4. Chapter Summary ........................................................................................ 227 Chapter 11: Interpretative Analysis of ‘Mothers’ interviews .......................................... 229 11.1. Superordinate Theme 1: Harassment as an inescapable existential component of womanhood ............................................................................................................. 230 11.1.1. Subordinate theme: Harassment as a rite of passage into adulthood for women 230 11.1.2. Subordinate theme: Coping with harassment as mothers .............................. 237 ii Sensitivity: Internal 11.1.3. Subordinate theme: Passing on the baton – preparing daughters to navigate environment of harassment ........................................................................................ 244 11.2. Superordinate Theme 2: Prisoners of a man’s world ........................................ 251 11.2.1. Subordinate theme: Protecting agency - coping with multiple levels of emotional isolation 251 11.2.2. Subordinate theme: Women’s agency defined by men ................................... 257 11.2.3. Subordinate theme: Breaking the cycle - Parenting of sons as key to social change 263 11.3. Chapter Summary ........................................................................................ 268 Chapter 12: Implications of the findings of the Experiential Study ................................. 270 Chapter 13: Overall Discussion .................................................................................. 282 13.1. Future research directions ............................................................................. 287 13.2. Limitations of the current research ................................................................. 290 13.3. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 291 Chapter 14: References .............................................................................................. 292 Chapter 15: Appendices ............................................................................................. 314 Appendix 1 – Invitation to participate in the research.................................................... 314 Appendix 2 – Participant Information Sheet ................................................................ 315 Appendix 3: Informed Consent Form .......................................................................... 326 Appendix 4: Interview Schedule ................................................................................. 328 Appendix 5: Debrief Form ........................................................................................