Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Volume 15, Issue 1_suppl, Page S8-S18, August 2023.
Gupta (2016) in The gender of caste: Representing Dalits in print points out that media and print are responsible for creating the stereotypical images of Dalit women. They are always represented by their caste identities and not as individuals. Female bodies are represented as closely knit to their caste identities; the characteristic of the caste becomes the representation of the bodies of Dalit women. On the one hand, Dalit women are represented by the upper caste as wicked, cunning, house breakers, immoral, ugly and polluted, and on the other hand, they are represented as weak and passive victims who need care and help to come out of their misery. But it is not the case when the Dalit women represent themselves. So, the question here arises: How are caste and gender related? What is the role of caste in the manipulation of the identity of Dalit women? How is caste identity related to the question of gender and the creation of stereotypes in the context of Dalit women? What are the structures which are working in the formation of stereotypes which are directly or indirectly related to such representations? This paper explores the complex relationship between representation, caste and gender concerning the representation of Dalit women through the analysis of Joseph Macwan’s The Stepchild.