Women And Development
Impediments Abound

By Uttam Maharjan

MANY efforts have been made to improve the lot of women but no tangible results have come out yet. The status of women—social, economic and political—has not come up to a satisfactory level; rather, in some cases it has further festered.

Women have been exploited for centuries and voices have been raised for women’s rights, especially since World War II. However, the 1970s turned out to be a turning point in the history of women’s development.

The 1975-85 decade was declared the Women’s Decade by the United Nations. During this decade, studies and research were made to get insight into the true status of women. In Nepal, too some programmes like the Small Farmers Development Project were initiated and loans granted to women under their collective security so that they could improve their economic lot and stand on their own feet. But no remarkable progress could be achieved in the direction of improving women’s lot.

Recognising the role women could play in socio-politico-economic development and realising the need for empowering them, the first World Conference on Women was held in Mexico in 1975. Since then, three such conferences have been held, the most prominent being the Fourth Conference held in Beijing in 1995. The Beijing Declaration with 12 critical areas of concern passed by the conference may still be taken as a landmark document encompassing women’s social, economic and political empowerment.

The convention regarding elimination of all forms of discrimination against women was passed in 1979. As per the convention, every country is bound to ensure that no person or institution will discriminate against women and to bring about gender equality be eliminating discriminatory provision in laws and social practices.

In fact, Women are not so weak as they are thought to be. They have successfully engaged themselves in various fields like sports, arts, politics and even space exploration. As a matter of fact, in an agrarian country like Nepal women work much more than men do. Still, their work is not recognised as economic work. So their work has remained unaccounted for in the GDP.

In the past, physical make-up was used to point out women’s weakness and men’s supremacy in society. In course of time, new concepts began to emerge such as women in development (WID), women and development (WAD) and gender and development (GAD).

The WID approach, which was at the centre of discussion in the late 1960s, conceives of helping women gain nutritional knowledge and population education, thus reinforcing their role in society.

The WAD approach, which emerged in the early 1980s, envisions that women are already in the development process; only their contribution are not properly recognised.

The GAD approach, sometimes called the men-women and development approach, emerged in the late 1980s. This approach focuses on the productive and reproductive role of women and the integration of men and women in the mainstream of development. This approach treats gender-related issues in a holistic perspective and helps integrate gender-sensitive issues and relationships into development strategies.

Nowadays, women’s empowerment is one of the prominent issues all over the world. As a matter of fact, empowerment is a springboard for enabling women to exercise their rights. However, in the absence of rights women’s empowerment cannot be enhanced to a satisfactory extent. Women’s empowerment and rights are, thus, interrelated to each other.

The Nepalese women have been facing a multitude of problems that act as an impediment to their development. Illiteracy, poverty, domestic violence, sexual assault and abuse, torture, rape, trafficking, forced prostitution, child marriage, inconsistent marriage, polygamy on the part of men and so on are a great obstacle to women’s development. Besides, women have greater workloads to carry than their male counterparts.

To uplift the status of women, the government has initiated some programmes like women’s awakening and income generation. These programmes are designed to make women economically independent, socially active and politically conscious by imparting them technical knowledge, entrepreneurial stills and management training.

One of the greatest obstacles to women’s development is conventional thinking along the male-dominated patriarchal lines. Now the time has come to dismantle the inegalitarian patriarchal social monolith and build upon its rubble an egalitarian society. For this, education and awareness may be considered the most important factors. So it is imperative that every women get education and become conscious of her rights. In fact, education is a force that makes women aware of their rights, position and role in society. So long as women do not become aware of rights, their status will not change for the better.

Therefore, the government, civil society, non-governmental organisations and intellectuals alike should make concerted efforts to empower women by granting them rights and sensitising them to such rights. After all, the participation of women in the mainstream of development would certainly pay dividends as over 50 per cent of the total population of the country consists of women. Women have also potential that may be utilised for nation-building. To think that women lag behind in talent and skills vis-a-vis their male counterparts is highly erroneous. What is important is to redefine the role of women in society and harness their potential in various development sectors. This would undoubtedly meet the growing manpower requirements of the country.

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