Growing Up Unwanted: Girls’ Experiences of Gender Discrimination and Violence in Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

This paper examines the cultural reproduction of daughter aversion from a generational perspective by following ten girls into adulthood in district Madurai in Tamil Nadu. Children as much as adults are embedded in the micro-contexts of everyday lives in which gendered practices are reproduced, and they are acutely aware of the differential treatment meted out to them. Using standpoint, intersectionality and political economy, the paper argues that cultural reproduction of daughter aversion is not only intergenerational but also, intra-generational, and occurring through the different stages in the life course of young girls. From a policy perspective, as long as generations of girls are unable to break out of the vicious cycle of disempowerment and vulnerability, prospects of tackling daughter elimination are bleak.