Following reports of sexual violence, including in Delhi, many women and girls took to the streets to demand safe public spaces, improved public transport, and accountability. Alongside their assertion of women’s rights, freedom and dignity, the playful slogans (such as “Ek Kachori, Do Samosa, Inn Mardon Ka Kya Bharosa?”) raised during the protests have caught wider attention. Following such incidents, state and social responses often seek to restrict women’s mobility. After the alleged gangrape of a minor girl by three men posing as police officers at a park in Delhi last month, for instance, classes at DU’s Lady Shri Ram College were moved online. But how do protesting women challenge this rulebook and refuse to engage in a trade-off it implies: accept restrictions in exchange for protection. How does this reflect on the idea of patriarchal bargain? Patriarchal bargainPatriarchy is a social system characterised by a hierarchical structure that prioritises male authority and dominance. It is evident in the fact that in patriarchal societies, property, residence and descent are traced through the male line, and women are kept subordinated to men.But feminist scholar Deniz Kandiyoti argues that the term patriarchy often evokes an overly monolithic conception of male dominance. She explains that different forms of patriarchal systems present women with distinct “rules of the game”. Women strategise within these constraints of a given context that reveal and define the blueprint of what Kandiyoti calls the ‘patriarchal bargain’.These bargains help women maximise security and optimise life options, and influence both the potential for and specific forms of women’s active or passive resistance in the face of their oppression. She illustrates it with the two contrasting systems of male dominance present in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia. How women navigate constraints in different contexts Citing examples from Kenya and Upper Volta, Kandiyoti argues that by resisting attempts to devalue their labour, women sought to protect and expand the areas of autonomy available to them in the face of the insecurities associated with African polygyny. Story continues below this adShe contrasts this with women’s accommodations to the system she calls classic patriarchy, found in a geographical area that includes North Africa, the Muslim Middle East (including Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran), and South and East Asia (specifically, India and China).The patrilineage practiced in this system “totally appropriates both women’s labor and progeny and renders their work and contribution to production invisible”. Women seek to maximise their security through various strategies: as they grow older, by gaining control over younger women, or through manipulation of the affections of their sons and husbands. This amounts to women’s participation in sustaining the system because compliance offered them a sense of security. Changing nature of resistance?But the onset of new market forces and capital penetration of rural areas undermined the material bases of classic patriarchy. This breakdown emancipated young men from the control of their fathers and deprived older women of their authority over daughter-in-law. Kandiyoti writes that this breakdown prompted many women to resort to the patriarchal bargain: protection in exchange for submissiveness and propriety. She illustrates it with the example of Iran, where many women supported Khomeini’s exhortations to keep women at home in exchange for “the security, stability and presumed respect this order promised them”.Story continues below this adBut Kandiyoti also draws attention to the fact that these strategies of passive resistance produced by the breakdown of a system are shaped by the different social locations of women. In light of this broader understanding of the patriarchal bargain, what does the protest in Delhi say? Following reports of sexual violence, women are asserting themselves in the public spaces, demanding safety, and refusing to accept restrictions. Do their protests, slogans (“Ek Kachori, Do Samosa, Inn Mardon Ka Kya Bharosa?”, “Ek Aloo, Do Pyaaz, Bhaad Mein Jaye Mard Samaj“), and demands represent a form of patriarchal bargain or go beyond it? Send your comments to ashiya.parveen@indianexpress.com.Click Here to read the UPSC Essentials magazine for August 2026. Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter and stay updated with the news cues from the past week.Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X.