PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

The insidious trauma of intimate partner violence affects women in the global context. This study intends to analyse the intimate partner violence and resistance of women in the select Malayalam movies The Great Indian Kitchen (2021) and Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey (2022). Previous literature encapsulates the exploitation of women under patriarchal dominance in the global context. The research gap that the study wants to explore is the element of self-defence instinct and endurance in women to question the atrocity of domestic violence and patriarchal terrorism. In pursuing the argument, the authors discuss the daughters-in-law’s ability to resist gender stereotypes through silence and separation to enhance their autonomy. This study uses a detailed qualitative textual analysis method to underscore the rising voice of female characters against the dominance of hetero-patriarchal society in the select Malayalam movies The Great Indian Kitchen (2021) and Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey (2022). As an analytical framework, the researchers draw upon Evan Stark’s theory of Coercive Control and Hagelin’s Concept of Resistant Vulnerability to demonstrate the gender disparities and power politics of patriarchy in familial relations. The results underline the resistance of the daughters-in-law to the coerciveness of the patriarchy through agency. This article limits its focus only on the suppression of educated married women, especially daughters-in-law, and not on other female characters who are suffering under patriarchy.

• Alenezi, M. (2022). Hester’s resistance against the patriarchal society: A postcolonial reading of the Scarlet Letter. Ars Aeterna, 14(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.2478/aa-2022-0001

• Alex, G. J., & Justin, B. (2022). Slamming the door: Reinventing kitchen narratives in contemporary Indian movies. SARE: Southeast Asian Review of English, 59(2), 7-19. https://doi.org/10.22452/sare.vol59no2.3

• Anuar, N. A. N., & Asl, M. P. (2022). Gender, resistance, and identity: Women’s rewriting of the self in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 30(3), 1201-1221. https://doi.org/10.47836/pjssh.30.3.15

• Augustine, S., & Issac, S. V. (2023). Shifting between place and space: The transforming power of women in selected films. Assonance, 23, 548-554.

• Baby, J. (Director). (2021). The Great Indian Kitchen [Film]. Mankind Cinemas, Symmetry Cinemas, Cinema Cooks.

• Butler, J. (2016). Rethinking vulnerability and resistance. In J. Butler, Z. Gambetti, & L. Sabsay (Eds.), Vulnerability in resistance (pp. 12-27). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822373490-002

• Butler, J., Gambetti, Z., & Sabsay, S. (2016). Introduction. In J. Butler, Z. Gambetti, & L. Sabsay (Eds.), Vulnerability in resistance (pp. 1-11). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822373490-001

• Cantueso-Urbano, E. (2022). Growing resilient in Irish Magdalene Laundries: An analysis of the justice for Magdalenes’ Oral History Project (2013) and Kathy O’Beirne’s Autobiography Kathy’s story: A childhood hell inside the Magdalen Laundries (2005). In M. I. Romero-Ruiz & P. Cuder-Domínguez (Eds.), Cultural representations of gender vulnerability and resistance: A Mediterranean approach to the Anglosphere (pp. 15-32). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95508-3_2

• Das, V. (Director). (2022). Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey [Film]. Cheers Entertainment.

• Dehingia, N., Dey, A. K., McDougal, L., McAuley, J., Singh, A., & Raj, A. (2022). Help seeking behavior by women experiencing intimate partner violence in India: A machine learning approach to identifying risk factors. PloS One, 17(2), Article e0262538. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262538

• Eagly, A. H., & Valerie, J. S. (1984). Gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(4), 735-754. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.46.4.735

• Flood, M., Dragiewicz, M., & Pease, B. (2021). Resistance and backlash to gender equality. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 56, 393-408. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajs4.137

• Hagelin, S. (2013). Reel vulnerability: Power, pain, and gender in contemporary American film and television. Rutgers University Press.

• Hallagan, D. (2012). Patriarchy and militarism. Verbum, 10(1), Article 15.

• Havrilla, E. (2017). Defining vulnerability. Madridge Journal of Nursing, 2(1), 63-68. https://doi.org/10.18689/mjn-1000111

• Hydén, M. (2005). ‘I must have been an idiot to let it go on’: Agency and positioning in battered women’s narratives of leaving. Feminism & Psychology, 15(2), 169-188. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353505051725

• James-Hawkins, L., Cheong, Y. F., Naved, R. T., & Yount, K. M. (2018). Gender norms, violence in childhood, and men’s coercive control in marriage: A multilevel analysis of young men in Bangladesh. Psychology of Violence, 8(5), 580-595. https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000152

• Jeyaseelan, V., Kumar, S., Jeyaseelan, L., Shankar, V., Yadav, B. K., & Bangdiwala, S. I. (2015). Dowry demand and harassment: Prevalence and risk factors in India. Journal of Biosocial Science, 47(6), 727-745. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021932014000571

• Johnson, A. G. (2005). The gender knot: Unraveling our patriarchal legacy. Temple University Press.

• Johnson, M. P. (1995). Patriarchal terrorism and common couple violence: Two forms of violence against women. Journal of Marriage and Family, 57(2), 283-294. https://doi.org/10.2307/353683

• Johnson, M. P., & Ferraro, K. J. (2000). Research on domestic violence in the 1990s: Making distinctions. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(4), 948-963. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00948.x

• Johnson, M. P., & Leone, J. M. (2005). The differential effects of intimate terrorism and situational couple violence: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. Journal of Family Issues, 26(3), 322-349. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X04270345

• Kanougiya, S., Sivakami, M., Daruwalla, N., & Osrin, D. (2022). Prevalence, pattern, and predictors of formal help-seeking for intimate partner violence against women: Findings from India’s cross-sectional National Family Health Surveys-3 (2005–2006) and 4 (2015–2016). BMC Public Health, 22, Article 2386. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14650-3

• Khan, A., & Hussain, R. (2008). Violence against women in Pakistan: Perceptions and experiences of domestic violence. Asian Studies Review, 32(2), 239-253. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357820802062181

• Krishnaja, T. S., & Jose, S. (2022). Traversing familial interlocks: Debunking gendered space in Thappad and The Great Indian Kitchen. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 41(3), 418-431. https://doi.org/10.1080/10509208.2022.2131342

• Martin, D. (1981). Battered wives. Volcano Press.

• Mas’udah, S. (2020). Resistance of women victims of domestic violence in dual-career family: A case from Indonesian society. Journal of Family Studies, 28(4), 1580-1597. https://doi.org/10.1080/13229400.2020.1852952

• Mshweshwe, L. (2020). Understanding domestic violence: Masculinity, culture, traditions. Heliyon, 6(10), Article e05334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05334

• Navarro-Tejero, A. (2022). A trans journey towards resistance: Vulnerability and resilience in the dystopian narrative of Manjula Padmanabhan. In M. I. Romero-Ruiz & P. Cuder-Domínguez (Eds.), Cultural representations of gender vulnerability and resistance: A Mediterranean approach to the Anglosphere (pp. 207-226). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95508-3_12

• Pepin, J. R. (2016). Nobody’s business? White male privilege in media coverage of intimate partner violence. Sociological Spectrum, 36(3), 123-141. https://doi.org/10.1080/02732173.2015.1108886

• Raj, A., Livramento, K. N., Santana, M. C., Gupta, J., & Silverman, J. G. (2006). Victims of intimate partner violence more likely to report abuse from in-laws. Violence Against Women, 12(10), 936-949. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801206292935

• Rajah, V., & Osborn, M. (2022). Understanding the body and embodiment in the context of women’s resistance to intimate partner violence: A scoping review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 23(5), 1461-1477. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838021995941

• Rothenberg, B. (2003). “We don’t have time for social change” cultural compromise and the battered woman syndrome. Gender & Society, 17(5), 771-787. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243203255633

• Sharp, S. (2014). Resisting religious coercive control. Violence Against Women, 20(12), 1407-1427. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801214557956

• Smith, P. H., Thornton, G. E., DeVellis, R., Earp, J., & Coker, A. L. (2002). A population-based study of the prevalence and distinctiveness of battering, physical assault, and sexual assault in intimate relationships. Violence Against Women, 8(10), 1208-1232. https://doi.org/10.1177/107780120200801004

• Stark, E. (2009). Coercive control: The entrapment of women in personal life. Oxford University Press.

• Stark, E. (2012). Looking beyond domestic violence: Policing coercive control. Journal of Police Crisis Negotiations, 12(2), 199-217. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332586.2012.725016

• Suri, S., Mona, & Sarkar, D. (2022). Domestic violence and women’s health in India: Insights from NFHS-4. Observer Research Foundation.

• United Nations Children’s Fund. (2000). Domestic violence against women and girls. Innocenti Digest. https://www.unicef.ca/sites/default/files/imce_uploads/DISCOVER/OUR%20WORK/ADVOCACY/DOMESTIC/POLICY%20ADVOCACY/DOCS/digest6e.pdf

• Walker, L. E. (1979). The battered woman. Harper & Row.

• Zakarriya, J. (2019). Vulnerability, resistance and sexuality in revolutionary Egypt. Women’s Studies International Forum, 77, Article 102291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2019.102291