‘Nowadays, Girls Have Exceeded Their Limits’: A Qualitative Analysis of Dating Violence in Young Adults from Bengaluru, India

This study aimed to understand how college-going young men and women in Bengaluru, India experience violence within dating relationships and their understanding of the role of gender in dating violence.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 undergraduate students aged between 18 and 21 years old. The data were analyzed using the framework of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis.

Five key themes emerged from participants’ accounts: (1) defining abuse, (2) experiencing abuse (3) impact of abuse (4) abuse is gendered and (5) abuse is multifaceted. The first theme identifies how definitions of abuse are ambiguous and context-specific while the second theme discusses how young adults experience abuse as feeling controlled, losing control or self-protection. The third theme highlights how abuse causes distress but can also invoke coping while the fourth theme discusses the unique gender dynamics in abuse. Finally, the fifth theme identifies the perceived role of individual and community-level efforts in preventing abuse.

Violence is experienced as a complex and distressing part of dating relationships. The phenomenological insights gained from the study underscore the need for early identification and have implications for developing dating violence interventions in colleges and for future research in similar contexts.