ARENA OF REGULATION
Sixteen Statements That Reflect Who Can Hurt
a Woman in India
Sanjay Singh
1
& Yogita Aggarwal
2
Received: 23 November 2019 /Revised: 2 February 2020 /Accepted: 14 February 2020
# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract
Although the prevalence of a traditional negative attitude toward women is widely
discussed in Indian culture, a scholarly tool to assess the same has been lacking. We
developed a psychometric tool (the Traditional Attitudes toward Indian Women (TAIW)
scale, Singh and Aggarwal 2019) to measure traditional negative attitudes toward women
in the Indian cultural context and report its relevance for predicting violent attitudes
toward women. The present paper offers a detailed discussion on the sixteen items of
TAIW scale while positioning them in the relevant literature. The discussion is structured
around the four broad dimensions (i.e., Perceived Feminine Frivolity and Selfishness;
Extra-familial Patriarchal Attitudes; Within-Family Patriarchal Attitudes; Perceived Fem-
inine Weakness) of the scale as identified in the parent study. The insights offered by the
different statements, along with their implications for gender-based violence, have been
discussed.
Keywords Culture
.
Gender
.
Scale
.
Women
Introduction
Despite representing around 50% of the world population, women around the globe face varying
levels of physical, social, and psychological violence. For instance, one in every three women in
the world experiences physical/sexual abuse at some point in her life (United Nations Statistics
Division 2015). A cross-national data spanning 81 countries from Africa, America, Eastern
Mediterranean, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Western Pacific regions suggested a 30% mean
prevalence rate of physical and sexual assaults over women by their partners (Krahé 2018).
Human Arenas
https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-020-00099-6
* Sanjay Singh
sanjay.singh3210@gmail.com
1
Department of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Indian Institute of
Management Sirmaur, Paonta Sahib, HP 173025, India
2
Department of Psychology, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India