Dr Sreeparna Chattopadhyay: Sexual Coercion & Rape in Marriage

Dr. Sreeparna Chattopadhyay is an Indian researcher, temporarily based in the Netherlands. She's currently building a course commissioned by the WHO on Gender, Intersectionality and Health Systems. She has an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of Anthropology and the Population Studies Training Centre at Brown University and a B.A. in Economics (Honours) from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay. Her research in the last fifteen years has focused on the ways in which gender disadvantages interact with socioeconomic inequities, shaping women’s life trajectories including impacts on health, education and exposure to violence. Her work has been supported by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. In 2018, she was invited to present her research in a seminar on marital rape organized by the School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, sponsored by the Vera Campbell Foundation. Her research has been published in several reputed international and national journals and has also been covered by the national press in India, as well as internationally by the BBC. Beyond traditional academia, Sreeparna has experience working in research and policy for the government and for non-profit organisations in India and abroad and writes often for the popular media. In this conversation, we spoke about Sreeparna's research on sexual coercion and rape in marriage, specifically about health systems' response to marital rape in India and more broadly sexual coercion and gendered violence in India. Research Discussed: Chattopadhyay, Sreeparna. "The responses of health systems to marital sexual violence–A perspective from Southern India." Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma 28, no. 1 (2019): 47-67.