Marked Flesh, Managed Lives: Caste, Gender, and the Politics of the Body in One Part Woman and Coming Out as Dalit

  • Unique Paper ID: 192754
  • PageNo: 3261-3274
  • Abstract:
  • This study examines how caste and gender intersect to construct the body as a site of oppression, resistance, and identity in contemporary Indian writing. Through a comparative analysis of Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman (2013) and Yashica Dutt’s Coming Out as Dalit (2019), the research shows that the caste-gendered body is not simply marked by dual systems of discrimination but is produced through their mutual constitution. Where Murugan’s rural narrative exposes the reproductive violence enacted on lower-caste women’s bodies, Dutt’s urban memoir reveals the aesthetic surveillance that polices Dalit bodies in professional spaces. The study applies intersectionality theory alongside frameworks of body politics to address a persistent gap in scholarship: the tendency to treat caste and gender as parallel rather than co-constitutive forces. Close textual analysis reveals how both authors deploy the body as a narrative strategy to make visible what dominant social orders render invisible. The research argues that these texts demand a reading method attentive to the corporeal dimensions of social hierarchy, where skin, hair, fertility, and physical presence become battlegrounds for dignity and selfhood.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{192754,
        author = {Ashutosh Patro and Dr. K.P. Sousa and Ms. Shital K. Aher},
        title = {Marked Flesh, Managed Lives: Caste, Gender, and the Politics of the Body in One Part Woman and Coming Out as Dalit},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {9},
        pages = {3261-3274},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=192754},
        abstract = {This study examines how caste and gender intersect to construct the body as a site of oppression, resistance, and identity in contemporary Indian writing. Through a comparative analysis of Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman (2013) and Yashica Dutt’s Coming Out as Dalit (2019), the research shows that the caste-gendered body is not simply marked by dual systems of discrimination but is produced through their mutual constitution. Where Murugan’s rural narrative exposes the reproductive violence enacted on lower-caste women’s bodies, Dutt’s urban memoir reveals the aesthetic surveillance that polices Dalit bodies in professional spaces. The study applies intersectionality theory alongside frameworks of body politics to address a persistent gap in scholarship: the tendency to treat caste and gender as parallel rather than co-constitutive forces. Close textual analysis reveals how both authors deploy the body as a narrative strategy to make visible what dominant social orders render invisible. The research argues that these texts demand a reading method attentive to the corporeal dimensions of social hierarchy, where skin, hair, fertility, and physical presence become battlegrounds for dignity and selfhood.},
        keywords = {Caste-body, intersectionality, Dalit literature, gender oppression, body politics, reproductive violence, passing, testimonial narrative.},
        month = {February},
        }

Cite This Article

Patro, A., & Sousa, D. K., & Aher, M. S. K. (2026). Marked Flesh, Managed Lives: Caste, Gender, and the Politics of the Body in One Part Woman and Coming Out as Dalit. International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology (IJIRT), 12(9), 3261–3274.

Related Articles