Understanding Compulsory Struggle, Silence & Female Agency in Maya Sharma’s Loving Women

Being Lesbian in Unprivileged India Through the Lens of Adrienne Rich’s “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”

Bibliographic Data

ID19490266
AuthorsNeerja Nagpal (University of Delhi), Reena Singh (0000-0001-9269-4684, Amity University), Arun Guleria (Himachal Pradesh University)
Year2026
Volume7
Issue13s
Publication date2026-05-30
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueShodhKosh: Journal of Visual and Performing Arts (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2582-7472 • E-ISSN: 2582-7472
PublisherGranthaalayah Publications and Printers (PUBLISHER • IN)
DOI10.29121/shodhkosh.v7.i13s.2026.8481
OpenAlexW7162955161
LanguageEN
References cited18

This paper examines Maya Sharma’s Loving Women: Being Lesbian in Unprivileged India through Adrienne Rich’s theory of compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence. It argues that Sharma’s testimonial narratives reveal how lesbian existence among underprivileged Indian women is silenced by heteronormative marriage, caste and class hierarchies, economic dependency, and familial control. Rich’s concept of compulsory heterosexuality provides the central theoretical framework for analysing how women’s desires, bodies, and intimate choices are regulated by social institutions. However, Sharma’s text extends Rich’s theory by situating lesbian existence within the material realities of poverty, caste, labour, social shame, and survival in India. The paper further explores how women in Sharma’s narratives create agency through companionship, refusal, emotional solidarity, testimony, and everyday resistance. It concludes that Loving Women does not merely illustrate Rich’s theory but transforms it by placing lesbian existence within a queer-subaltern Indian context

Caste · Heterosexuality · Kinship · Lesbian · Narrative · Silence · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · South Asian Cinema and Culture · South Asian Studies and Diaspora

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