Litigate sans prejudice

The Supreme Court recently released a handbook aimed at eliminating preconceived gender stereotypes in the vocabulary used by members of the legal fraternity. The 30-page Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes hopes to free the judiciary and the legal community from unmindful application of sexist language in judgments, orders and court pleadings. The egregious patriarchal terminologies booted out include seductress, career woman, spinster, housewife, dutiful wife, prostitute, and faggot, among others. Instead of these gender-unjust terms, alternative words have been suggested which include woman, unmarried woman, homemaker, and sex worker, to name a few. Similarly, faggot has been dropped in favour of a term accurately describing the individual’s sexual orientation, which is in line with the handbook incorporating terms championed by the queer community.

Specific phrases that were insensitively used in the past such as eve-teasing, affair, and bastard have now been replaced with street sexual harassment, relationship outside of marriage, and non-marital child respectively. Announcing the publication, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said he hoped the handbook would mark a significant milestone in the journey towards a more equitable society. The compilation identifies common stereotypes about women and depicts how the inaccuracies of such clichés can impact the application of law. He went on to underscore that predetermined stereotypes in judicial decision-making contravenes the duty of judges to assess each case based on its merits impartially and independently.

The release of the handbook has come not a day sooner as the legal and public discourse in India was in urgent need of a makeover, vis-a-vis the portrayal of women, as well members of the queer community/sexual minorities. The implicit manner in which several cases of sexual assault end up in victim shaming, thanks to a mindset where it has been hammered into our heads that a woman dressed in a non-conservative attire, or indulging in smoking or drinking is inadvertently ‘asking for it’. The idea of consent and bodily autonomy of a woman is non-existent in several cases, as survivors of assault are more often than not tagged with labels, based purely on their sexual histories that might have nothing to do with the case at hand.

In some preposterous episodes that transpired in India, women and young girls have even been asked to accept their assailants and abusers as a brother, or worse, marry them in order to rid themselves of the trauma of rape, and in some ways, ‘hold on to the female honour’. Needless to say, such judgments are indicative of the archaic mindset of those delivering the verdict, and they have a trickle-down effect on the thinking of ordinary people who regard such verdicts as the word of the gospel.

Tamil Nadu has actually been progressive on many such fronts, having had the proud distinction of championing the rights of women, as well as marginalised communities for eons together. One might recall that it was just last year that the Tamil Nadu Government Gazette published a glossary of LGBTQIA+ Tamil-English terms through a government order, which was aimed at addressing members of the queer community respectfully. Apart from the legal fraternity, even ordinary citizens could do well to imbibe the suggestions of this new handbook in letter and spirit.