View Point (Spotlight Weekly)

Gender: A challenging issue in Nepal - II

By Dr.Niranjan Prasad Upadhyay

Studies on gender violence : Most domestic violence involves male anger directed against their women partners. This gender difference appears to be rooted in the way boys and men are socialized -- biological factors do not seem to account for the dramatic differences in behavior in this regard between men and women. Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to gender-based violence. Some husbands become more violent during the wife's pregnancy, even kicking or hitting their wives in the belly. These women run twice the risk of miscarriage and four times the risk of having a low birth-weight baby.

Although boys may have a lower tolerance for frustration, and a tendency towards rough-and-tumble play, these tendencies are dwarfed by the importance of male socialization and peer pressure into gender roles. The prevalence of domestic violence in a given society, therefore, is the result of tacit acceptance by that society. The way men view themselves as men, and the way they view women, will determine whether they use violence or coercion against women. UNFPA recognizes that ending gender-based violence will mean changing cultural concepts about masculinity, and that process must actively engage men, whether they are policy-makers, parents, spouses or young boys.

Usually, gender-based violence is sustained by silence; women’s voices must be heard. UNFPA puts every effort into enabling women to speak out against gender-based violence, and to get help when they are victims of it. The Fund is also committed to keeping gender-based violence in the spotlight as a major health and human rights concern. Cross-cultural studies of wife abuse have found that nearly a fifth of peasant and small-scale societies are essentially free of family violence. The existence of such cultures proves that male violence against women is not the inevitable result of male biology or sexuality, but more a matter of how society views masculinity.

The cumulative impact of the abortion of females was powerfully demonstrated by Nobel prize-winner Amartya Sen’s groundbreaking work on the "missing women". The results indicated that male-to-female ratios in China, South Asia, and North Africa were higher than normal. Sen concluded that if these regions had normal sex ratios, there would be more than 60 million more females alive today.

Closely related to gender-based violence is discrimination that can be life threatening. In poor communities, little girls are often neglected and even denied food, education, and medical care. Data from developing countries indicate that the mortality rate among girls aged 1 to 4 is higher than that among boys in the same age group.

Gender discrimination concerning to literacy is not merely the result of lack of resources. It is determined basically by a social value system and a household decision-making process that sees marriage as the ultimate career for women, with not much focus on their education. Moreover, a large amount resource allocation decisions are made by men. In reality, women are controlled in making choices relating to their own bodies. Study indicates that for 71 percent of women, the decision to seek care for problems/complications related to pregnancy was made by their husbands and in 17 percent cases, by other family members. Only 12 percent of women reported independent decision-making.

Gender issues in South Asia

By and large, in working class homes in south Asia, girls do not play with pots and pans, they are made to cleaning real pots and pans, and real homes, looking after real babies while they are still very young; where as boys are sent to school or made to work outside the home. In fact, this kind of differential treatment, the interests of girls and boys are channelized differently and they develop different capabilities, attitudes, aspirations, and dreams. In Nepalese context, families, even mothers, often regard girls as a burden, despite the fact that from a very early age they help with household and agricultural work. Boys are sent to school, but girls are kept at home to tend to the younger children. Family must pay dowry to the husband’s family at the time of her marriage.

Generally, both men and female children are exposed to traditional masculine, feminine activities from their very childhood. Girls are asked to help their mothers with household chores, boys to accompany their fathers outside. In communities where the sexes are segregated, girls and boys live in two distinct spaces and are exposed to very different activities. It is through these processes that children imbibe the meaning of masculine and feminine, and internalize them unconsciously.

Gender researchers have highlighted that women living in the more orthodox Hindu communities who are largely confined to domestic and subsistence production display a much less significant role in major household economy decision than those in the Tibeto-Burman communities where women participate actively in the market economy. Furthermore, gender specialist, Strishakti (1995) observes that men are predominantly interacting with the outside world, while women’s major sphere of operation is within the households. It is said that Nepali girls and women work more than boys and men, spending 25 per cent to 50 per cent more time on household’s tasks, economic and agricultural activities.

Nepalese sociologists pinpoint that at the community level, males play significant role than females. Males are considered as the chiefs of the family. If children and women make some mistakes, males should be responsible for their mistakes. Similarly, the local shopkeepers do not give goods on credit to the females without consensus of the male partners. Psychologists have urged that women who are more liberal, intellectual, and open to new experiences have a firmer handshake and make a more favorable impression than women who are less open. More open men have a slightly less firm handshake and make a somewhat poorer impression than less open men.

American mental health researcher Danna J. has forwarded the diversified pictures of the Nepalese women pertaining to depression. She further adds that depressed Nepalese women have no reproductive choice and limited ability to be financially independent. At the same time, suicide rates are high among women in Nepal.

The pressures created by women’s multiple roles, gender discrimination and poverty, hunger, malnutrition, over work, domestic violence and sexual abuse combine to account for women’s vulnerability to depression. As well, unhappy relationship and an increase in arguments can bring on depression. The depression is extremely variable from person to person; it may be fleeting or permanent, mild or severe, acute or chronic. Depression is more common in women than in men.

(The concluding part of the article by Dr. Upadhyay who is a joint secretary at the Public Service Commission)

Gender Violence throughout a Woman's Life

Phase	Type of Violence
Prenatal	Sex-selective abortions, battering during pregnancy, coerced pregnancy (rape during war)
Infancy	Female infanticide, emotional and physical abuse, differential access to food and medical care
Childhood	Genital cutting; incest and sexual abuse; differential access to food, medical care, and education; child prostitution
Adolescence	Dating and courtship violence, economically coerced sex, sexual abuse in the workplace, rape, sexual harassment, forced prostitution
Reproductive	Abuse of women by intimate partners, marital rape, dowry abuse and murders, partner homicide, psychological abuse, sexual abuse in the workplace, sexual harassment, rape, abuse of women with disabilities
Old Age	Abuse of widows, elder abuse (which affects mostly women)

Chart-1: Source: Heise, L. 1994. Violence Against Women: The Hidden Health Burden. World Bank Discussion Paper. Washington. D.C. The World Bank