Psychoanalytic and socio-cultural perspectives on women in India: violence, safety and survival

"This important book provides a bridge between psychoanalytic perspectives and socio-cultural issues to shine a spotlight on the experiences of women in India today. Women's wellbeing and security has often depended upon their gender positioning while other binaries like rural-urban, class, caste have also played a crucial role globally and especially in India. Historically, women have been subjected to various forms of oppression that includes sex selective abortions, domestic violence, bride burning for dowry, and acid attacks. Threats to women's security have recently increased with progressive polarization and hardening of socio-political and cultural ideologies. This book assesses how women's lives are impacted by these social and cultural conventions and stigma, including ideas around motherhood, religion, intimacy and femininity itself, and the psychological implications these have. Topics include the seduction of religion, motherhood in contemporary times, intimacy and violence, and fundamentalist states of mind in the clinical space. While the book echoes a regional specificity, it simultaneously resonates a backdrop of global change of affairs that has its impact on ideological freedom and the concept of inclusivity in terms of gender, race, culture, politics across the world. For this comprehensive perspective, the effort is to create a platform of authors comprising psychoanalysts, social scientists, scholars from the liberal arts discipline, as well as social activists. In a country where women have been historically subjected to both psychological and physical oppression, this timely and original book will interest a range of scholars interested in gender, mental health and contemporary Indian society, as well as clinicians in the field"--

Intro -- Endorsements -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- A prejudiced time and its women in India -- References -- Part I: Introduction to Women's safety in dogmatic times: COWAP Kolkata -- 1. The paranoid-schizoid climate: When fear and anxiety rules -- On dogma and dogmatic -- The paranoid-schizoid position -- The depressive position -- Containment -- Reverie -- Group and organisational dynamics -- Violence, and women as a threat to men -- Living in a paranoid-schizoid climate -- Gender roles and power -- References -- 2. "Marked unsafe": Women, violence, and the state of risk -- No more Kushmandi? -- Whose safety? -- Bodily rights -- Weaponising rape, imagining the 'birangona' -- Women's safety in 'dogmatic times' -- A state of risk -- The pain of others -- Figuring resistance -- References -- Part II: Revisiting motherhood in contemporary times introduction and commentary -- 3. Revisiting motherhood: The concepts of psychoanalysis and that of the current era -- Maternal representations in pregnancy -- Stern's motherhood constellation -- The woman in relation to her motherhood -- Motherhood having its archetypal origin -- Notion of 'mothering' along different theoretical dimensions of object-relations -- Chodorow's cultural perspective of mothering -- Motherhood in the current century -- Conclusive comments -- References -- Part III: Introduction to the Seduction of Religion -- 4. The role of religious icons and mythological figures in traumatised individuals: A psychoanalytic perspective -- Man, mythology, and religion -- Psychoanalysis and mythology -- Psychoanalysis and religion -- The unconscious life -- Myths in a cultural context -- Briefly on trauma -- Case of Kamala -- Discussion -- References -- 5. Mourning over Karbala: Rethinking ritual actions of Shia women in Kolkata.