Bruised, battered, bleeding

The Dangers of Mobilising Abused Goddesses for 'Women's Empowerment

Bibliographic Data

ID4741356
AuthorsAyesha Vemuri (McGill University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume22
Issue1
Pages81-108
Publication date2021-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFeminist Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-7001 • E-ISSN: 1741-2773
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1464700119886238
OpenAlexW2982931918
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited29

In September 2013, images of bruised, bleeding and battered Hindu goddesses went viral on social media networks. Saraswati (the goddess of knowledge), Lakshmi (the goddess of wealth) and Durga (the goddess of strength and power) appear as victims of domestic abuse in the Abused Goddesses advertising campaign against domestic violence. In this article, I analyse the Abused Goddesses campaign and the conversations it generated. I argue that it reiterates both a form of Hindu nationalistic discourse as well as longstanding patriarchal, orientalist and neocolonialist perspectives about sexual violence in India. I examine the discourse generated by the Abused Goddesses campaign on social and mainstream media in order to trace how these images were circulated, perceived and engaged with by Indian and international audiences. While the campaign went viral on social media, I argue that its virality offers insufficient conditions for substantial social change around gender violence, including consciousness raising. Through analysis of the campaign and the ways in which it has been commented on, I demonstrate how the representation of domestic violence through the calendar art imagery of abused goddesses ultimately reaffirms classist, casteist, racist, sexist and orientalist discourses about Indian women and the violence they face

Art · Domestic violence · Empowerment · Hinduism · Literature · Mainstream · Media studies · Orientalism · Poison control · Political science · Sociology · Suicide prevention · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Religious studies · Social Psychology · South Asian Cinema and Culture

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