Concubine, mistress, dutiful wife: Supreme Court's guide on what not to call women

Acknowledging the gender biases in legal language, the Supreme Court on Wednesday (16 August) released “Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes.” Words such as prostitute, hooker, whore, dutiful/good/faithful wife, housewife, keep, mistress, slut, faggot have been flagged by the apex court in this guidebook that aims to stamp out stereotypical language. Launching the handbook earlier today, Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, as per LiveLaw, said: “This is to assist judges and the legal community to identify, understand, and combat stereotypes about women in legal discourse. It contains a glossary of gender unjust terms and suggests alternative words and phrases which may be used while drafting pleadings as well as orders and judgements. It is for lawyers as well as judges”. Pointing out stereotypical words and phrases used in past court judgments, the CJI said, “These words are improper and have been used for women in court judgments. This handbook’s objective is not to criticise those judgments or doubt them. This is just to underline how gender stereotypes are perpetuated inadvertently,” reported NDTV. What words and phrases have been flagged by the booklet? How have sexism and misogyny affected court judgements? Let’s take a closer look. Bastard, fallen woman, mistress and more The handbook lays out “incorrect” stereotypes promoting language and suggests “preferred” alternative language in its stead. The judges and lawyers have been asked to avoid words like “adultress”, “child prostitute”, “chaste woman”, “carnal intercourse” and so on. It also calls attention to “common reasoning patterns that are based on gender stereotypes (particularly about women)” and elaborates on why they are “incorrect”. [caption id=“attachment_13004772” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Some of the words flagged by the Supreme Court that perpetuate gender biases.[/caption] On how stereotypes affect judicial decision-making, the handbook states, “Like any person, a judge may also unconsciously hold or rely on stereotypes. If a judge relies on preconceived assumptions about people or groups when deciding cases or writing judgements, the harm caused can be enormous.” According to the handbook, harmful stereotypes relied on by judges can lead to a “distortion of the objective and impartial application of the law. This will perpetuate discrimination and exclusion.”

Gender Stereotypes based on “inherent characteristics”. pic.twitter.com/xRLcfEhKIZ

— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) August 16, 2023

In March, CJI Chandrachud had signalled that the preparation for a handbook addressing gender stereotypes is underway. He said at the time that the legal glossary was devised by a committee chaired by Calcutta High Court judge Moushumi Bhattacharya, reported LiveLaw.  Women judges and Supreme Court The Supreme Court has had no woman CJI so far. India may get its first female chief justice in Justice B V Nagarathna who is in line to take over the post for over a month in 2027. As per ThePrint’s report in 2019, it took 68 years for the apex court to get its first directly appointed woman judge, Justice Indu Malhotra. She was directly elevated from the Bar to the Supreme Court as a judge in 2018. Malhotra was the seventh woman judge since Independence to reach the Supreme Court. The first woman judge, Justice Fathima Beevi, was appointed in 1989, around 39 years after the Supreme Court assumed its present form in 1950, reported PTI. Representation of women in the top court is still abysmal. Currently, out of 32 sitting judges, including the CJI, there are only three women judges in the Supreme Court. Sexism also continues to haunt the Indian judiciary, with even senior lawyers being subjected to stereotypical remarks or incidents. In March 2019, senior advocate Indira Jaising had mentioned in a piece in The Wire that she was once called by a senior male lawyer “that woman” while he referred to his male colleagues as “my learned friend”. Kiruba Munusamy, a Dalit lawyer practising in the Supreme Court, wrote for ThePrint in 2019 that a senior counsel in the apex court did not take her to the court as she was “keeping my hair open”. She also opened up about remarks on her “short haircut” previously made by a judge in the Madras High Court. Sexist remarks in judicial judgements In 2021, Madhya Pradesh High Court set a bail condition for the accused in a molestation case to get a rakhi tied from the survivor. Taking objection to the verdict, the apex court quashed the bail condition and asked judges to avoid perpetuating misogynistic and patriarchal stereotypes through their remarks on dress, behaviour, past conduct or morals of a survivor of gender violence, reported Times of India (TOI). A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and S Ravindra Bhat also listed stereotypical words and opinions that judges should desist from, including saying that “women are physically weak and need protection”, “men are the “head” of the household and should take all the decisions relating to family”, “good women are sexually chaste” and so on, as per The Leaflet. Courts in India have often come under fire for judges’ sexist remarks or verdicts. In June 2020, a Karnataka High Court judge said while granting anticipatory bail to the accused that it is “unbecoming of Indian women” to go to sleep after being “ravished” (raped). The Bombay High Court remarked in 2012 while hearing a divorce plea that a “wife should be like Goddess Sita who followed her husband Lord Ram into the forest and stayed there for 14 years”, reported Hindustan Times (HT). As per The Leaflet, in another case of divorce, a court once said, “A wife should be minister in purpose, slave in duty, Lakshmi in appearance, Earth in patience, mother in love and prostitute in bed.” The apex court judges in a verdict have referred to a woman in a live-in relationship as a “keep”. Why does the legal language matter? Amrita S Nair, the founder of The Silent Sexism Project, argued in her Leaflet piece in 2020 that statements like “‘unbecoming of Indian women” “gatekeep the lived experiences of victims and may even impair impartial investigations due to preconceived notions of criminality”. She said that when judges declare certain behaviours as “unbecoming”, they “lay down a principle that there is a particular code of conduct that has to be followed after one has been sexually assaulted and if you do not adhere to it, you are less of a victim or simply have not suffered enough”. As former Additional Solicitor General of India Jaising wrote for The Wire, “Words and phrases in judgments that connote a subordinate role to woman in a relationship, objectify them as property, and merely for the man’s sexual pleasure, should not only be condemned and expunged, but barred from being used. This is the only way of creating a gender-sensitive bar and bench.” With inputs from agencies