India’s supreme court docket has issued a handbook for judges urging them to shun phrases like seductress, vamp, spinster and harlot when speaking about ladies.

Archaic phrases that disparage ladies and perpetuate gender stereotypes can nonetheless be routinely heard in Indian courts lengthy after falling into disuse in different international locations. It is just not uncommon for a spouse to be described as chaste or ladylike, and sexual harassment is routinely trivialised as “Eve-teasing”.

The supreme court docket mentioned its Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes was aimed toward making certain that “legal reasoning and writing is free of harmful notions about women”.

“If harmful stereotypes are relied on by judges, it can lead to a distortion of the objective and impartial application of the law. This will perpetuate discrimination and exclusion,” the chief justice of India, Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, wrote within the handbook.

Chandrachud alluded to some of the sexist eventualities that may play out in courtrooms: when judges ask an alleged rapist if he’s ready to marry the sufferer on the premise that being a married lady will reduce her dishonour and bestow respectability on her.

“Marriage is not a remedy to the violence of rape,” he wrote within the handbook.

He additionally criticised cultural assumptions that lay behind rulings that indicate ladies have inherent traits, for instance that every one ladies need kids or are extra emotional than males.

Given that these assumptions nonetheless prevail in Indian society, it stays to be seen how profitable the language drive can be in altering issues.

As not too long ago as 2020, a Karnataka excessive court docket choose dominated that it was “unbecoming of a woman to fall asleep after being raped”.

In 2018, a Kerala excessive court docket choose referred to as a 24-year-old lady who had defied her mother and father to marry a Muslim, “weak and vulnerable, capable of being exploited in many ways”. The choose dominated in favour of her mother and father who wished their daughter returned to their care and management.

Vrinda Bhandari, senior advocate within the supreme court docket, mentioned she hoped the handbook’s recommendation would have a downstream impact on wider Indian society.

Ranjana Kumari, head of the Centre for Social Research in Delhi, referred to as the handbook “long overdue”, however welcomed it. Kumari mentioned she was glad that Chandrachud had underlined the truth that phrases weren’t simply phrases however that they influenced judgments.

“Language is a tool through which we shape perceptions and behaviour. When lawyers use words like slut or whore, it is part of victim-shaming and will affect a woman’s legal fate,” she mentioned.