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Kathmandu Wednesday February 27, 2002 Falgun 15, 2058.
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Education and women’s uplift
By PADMA DEVKOTA
Woman, her cultural make and her political longings have
featured significantly in academic and intellectual discussions of the latter half of the
twentieth century. Today, gender issues cover a larger ground than that of the narrower
political feminism. Both these approaches have pinpointed some commonalties in the
problems of women all over the world and have even proposed socio-linguistic,
psychological and other solutions to these problems. All the theorizing and intellectual
debates essentially underscore the necessity of awakening to the realities of a
woman’s existence, the acceptance of female potentials and the need for a concerted
effort to achieve women’s rights.
Feminism as a political movement is a historical reaction in
the West to a patriarchal tradition that dominated "the weaker sex." The same
tradition exploited children too. British coal mines once hired both women and children as
cheap labour not because they worked less than men did but because they were considered to
be physically weaker than them. Similarly, feminism is a reaction to a notion that goes
all the way back to Aristotle’s Greece: the notion of women as inferior beings, like
cattle, with an inferior soul. It is also a reaction to the Western belief that women were
fragile and sentimental beings who were intellectually weaker than men. This, and not the
lack of education, seemed to explain why they could not write any serious work or take
part in intellectual discussions. It is a reaction to the tradition that treated them as
mere wombs, dolls and playthings while whimsically adoring them as angels or denouncing
them as witches.
Not all societies have treated women in the same way. Madan
Mani Dixit’s Bhumi Sukta argues the existence of an ancient matriarchal civilization,
which changed over the years. However, this is hardly a consolation when we look at the
present day situation in Nepal. Here in the capital, women and children hammer away at
solid rock to earn their living. Many girls still do not go to school because of their
parents. Women-trafficking is still an unchecked and booming business. The weak dowry
still ends the life of many a new bride in one way or the other. Many women still believe
that they should not read holy scriptures such as the Chandi. Like Hiramaya Thing, they
are still beaten to death by their own family that believes them to be witches or, like
Marani Devi, they survive the physical ordeal and the social ignominy with a bitterness
that is life-long. The list could go on and on.
These are specific instances of social evils with special
focus on women. The focus could shift to children, to men, to the social and economic low
class such as the Dalits and the Kamaiyas, and to many other sectors of marginalized human
existence. Fortunately, Nepal has never been hit with the double force of "being
Black and female" in the southern cotton fields of America. This too is hardly any
consolation for the women of Nepal. Similarly, although racism exists in Nepal too, it has
never existed to the extent that a whole nation is segregated in ghettoes and made to wear
badges on their breast whenever they go out. People in Nepal have never been thought of as
animals without a soul on the basis of the colour of their skin.
Our problem is quite different. Our religious indoctrination
has made the beyond more real than the here and the now even as our religious practices
have deteriorated over the ages because of our intellectual dependence on the ersatz
intellectuals we have chosen as our priests. We have never really tolerated the priestess
except at home where she would be under good control. Our religious beliefs and
superstitions have spilled over abundantly into our daily practices to provide norms of
social conduct. We choose to dictate, to memorize, to repeat rather than to experiment, to
adopt, to change. Once the spiritual side is taken care of, we are too complacent as
individuals to worry about mundane affairs that require intellectual adventures, which are
opposed anyway to the great metaphysical nothing beyond. We rule over ourselves with
sentiments and feelings and lord it over our women and children with the same and call it
love.
Our reality is quite different. Our men are just as exploited
as our women and sometimes even more so because of illiteracy and ignorance. Our national
battle cannot be only against male domination since it has also to be against corruption
and exploitation of all kinds. For this, we need an education that will awaken us to the
need for not just women’s uplift but also that of men and children.
Interestingly, almost half a century ago, educationists such
as Sardar Rudraraj Pandey, Kaiser Bahadur K.C., and Dr. Hugh B. Wood who jointly edited
Education in Nepal: A Report of the Nepal National Education Committee, a Nepali
publication of the College of Education in 1956, were well aware of the need for
women’s education. They write,
"It is meaningless to dream of any sort of development
in a country where there is no women’s education. Man too remains half-educated as
long as his woman is not educated. In Nepal, it is more important to emphasize
woman’s education than man’s education. All evils such as family quarrels, bad
feelings between bothers, and social superstitious practices exist because of the absence
of women’s education" (72). They argue that in a country where more women than
men are born, women’s education must receive top priority. Aware too that the
condition of education was depressing to the women of their time, they were nonetheless
unable to escape their traditional male/female binary thinking when they discussed the
development of an educational system that would "develop the soul (ātmā) of women
so that their mind will incline towards family life, upbringing of children, fine arts and
music" (72). They are very explicit in their insistence that exercise for the boy and
song and dance for the girl should be made compulsory.
Today, the situation is different. Many women are educated
and even well-placed in various decision-making positions. The division between man’s
work and woman’s work is beginning to break down. Woman in her role as mechanic, taxi
driver, rickshaw puller, manager, parliamentarian, etc. fills the news. With this gradual
emergence of women in various spheres of social activity, despite all optimism, we still
have to ask several questions. First, to what extent has the male/female binary thought
been broken down among the vast majority of illiterate and semi-educated population of
Nepal? Second, how shall we define exploitation of women? Third, are the political slogans
of the educated females really directed towards consciousness raising or towards
individual self-promotion as women in the third world?
The answer to the first question, I believe, is quite
obvious. The nation has a long way to go in terms of breaking down conservative concepts
of male superiority over the female. The urban-rurban-rural gradation of human awareness
yet feels too real in Nepal. To break this down, consciousness-raising programs by
feminists and humanists must supplement a well-considered education.
However, one has also to understand what it is that one is
attacking. To do so, exploitation of women (or, is it male domination we are talking of?)
has to be defined in clearer and more rational terms than mere slogans can provide. Does
it mean traditional forced labour in the kitchen and the cowsheds, exploitation of the
nude female body in media advertisements, lack of equal educational and other
opportunities, male control of female freedom of self-expression or of movement, or all of
these? And such clear statements have to be made in the context of the Nepali national
culture and its visions of the future.
Since many NGOs have sprouted and starved for innovative
approaches to the problem of women in Nepal, one is led to ask the third question. One
need express no surprise when a human being seeks to take advantage of a favourable
situation. If it was once a double curse to be a Black and a woman in the United States,
it is a double blessing to be a feminist and a citizen of a third world for many women
from a good social and economic background today. Could it be because of this that
women’s right to parental property receives more serious media coverage than their
right to work and education? The first seeks dependence, the latter independence. The
first says women too have wants; the second says women too have human potentials. At
present, the nation needs (men and) women who have more potentials than wants.
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