Drawing upon feminist scholarship, this study offers insights into how respectable consumption exacerbates precarity and contributes to normalization of sexual violence in Delhi, India. It helps to uncover andro centricity of respect that has been under-examined in marketing theory. This research identifies androcentric discourse of izzat  or respect as a key discursive apparatus that enframes sexual violence against women. In this discourse, women are carriers of family traditions and respect or honour. Moreover, norms of consumption get situated within discourse of izzat and alterity is created from women who do not follow these norms. Such women, labelled as unrespectable, live under conditions of heightened precarity and are blamed for the sexual violence they face. Therefore, this work offers insights into normalisation of sexual violence that have not been understood in marketing theory.

Author(s)
Rohit Varman
Paromita Goswami
Devi Vijay