Gender, Violence, Intersectionality and Social Exclusion
This domain tests the forms, drivers and legal responses to gender-based violence, and the intersectional analysis of who is excluded. Questions often test whether you treat violence as physical acts alone or as a continuum linked to structural power.
Core concepts
- Continuum of violence: everyday harassment, intimate-partner violence, dowry violence, honour crimes, caste and communal violence, conflict-related violence, trafficking and online abuse are linked by gendered power.
- Intersectionality: Crenshaw's 1989 term for how race, caste, class, disability, sexuality and gender interact; not additive.
- Matrix of domination: Patricia Hill Collins's framework for intersecting systems of oppression.
- Structural violence: Galtung's term for harm built into institutions and social arrangements.
- Social exclusion: denial of access to resources, voice and safety.
- Law and services: DV Act 2005, POCSO 2012, POSH 2013, criminal-law amendments, one-stop centres and survivor-centric approaches.
Worked example
A Dalit woman faces domestic violence and caste-based public humiliation. Is this best analysed as 'domestic violence plus caste discrimination'? Reasoning: no. An additive model misses how caste and gender co-produce the experience and the barriers to redress. Intersectional analysis asks how her caste position shapes police response, community pressure and access to shelter.
Traps that cost marks
- Using an additive rather than intersectional model.
- Defining violence only as physical assault.
- Ignoring institutional and online forms of violence.