A remote village girl is more conscious of her "body" than Kathmandu’s fashion models

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, last month, requested me to provide my comments on a paper written by a very distinguished lady, Dr. Meena Acharya, who is not only respected by Nepal’s academic sector but also commands respect and honor among the ordinary citizens of this country. I couldn’t resist my temptation to furnish my modest remarks on the paper of a lady who can compete any internationally acclaimed, both male and female, personality on the field of Economics. She is a very highly competent but yet a modest senior economist of this country. I must thank the FES, ( Dev Raj Dahal, P.Kharel and Navraj Dahal) which provided this unique but yet challenging opportunity to push my ideas in front of a lady for whom I possess immense respect.

The portion of her paper I commented on September 26 is printed itself in this issues’ second page. I wish my readers find some time to go through that piece penned by Dr. Acharya.

The comment as follows:

# The cost of sending children, girls specially, to schools in the Nepali mountains, remote and inaccessible villages and even in the Terai plains, do create financial burden for the mainly subsistence-farming families. Of those who go to schools, may drop out after the first one or two years. Reports available suggest that many rural subsistence households see little benefit in educating their girls who would eventually be working in agriculture caring for the children and doing household chores. Subsistence farming families were more likely to send boys than girls to school.

My question is then: What the government or for that matter the women NGOs/INGOs plus the media have done so far to convince the poor families of the benefits of providing education to the girls? B- it is clear that acute financial situation is the real villain and thus what the government and the other advocacy groups, at the local and the central level, have done to enhance the financial status of those poor families? C- what the media have done in this regard? D- And what about the all pervasive paper tiger, the NPC? E- what the officials in the education and finance ministries been doing in this regard?

# School going girls in some districts of the Western region of the country don’t enroll in the schools for the schools don’t have toilets.

At best, they avoid drinking water at time of their morning lunch so that they don’t have to answer the call of the nature.

My question: Whose duty is it to construct the toilet?

the school management? B-the local VDC or the DDC? C-the State? D- the mushrooming NGOs/INGOs that claim to have been working for the girls, the women and etc. e- do the media men have any role?

# In Rauthat district, the home constituency of Shri Madhav Kumar Nepal, a lady is severely beaten alleged by the villagers as a witch-craft. With due respect to Shri Madhavjee, he preferred not to speak even a single word favoring the lady or for that matter denouncing the savage acts perpetrated on the poor lady of his own voters.

My question: Why Mr. Madhav Nepal preferred to keep quiet on this ghastly incident? b -was his silence on the matter befitting to his being a staunch communist that dismisses such events on superstitious grounds? c-why on such events the leaders and the men of the establishment acquire a different posture that more often than not encourages the villagers, illiterate and semi literate, to create such ugly scenes? d- where have gone the attention of the local leaders/the local government, if any, plus the socalled women related NGOs/INGOs? e-such cases appear on a regular basis in newspapers but then the recurrence of such events have not come down and hence who is to be blamed? E-how the mainstream media should take up the matter?

( A girl was being raped by her master in Biratnagar uninterruptedly for well over two years. The local influential congress leaders’, we are told, are providing the rapist, with political shield).

# Devmaya, a lady from the Western region had a very happy life with her husband till her husband got another wife. The newly entered bride later created hell for the first lady. The husband joins his consort’s hands and when enough becomes enough, Devmaya, quits the once her lovely house and appears in Kathmandu. When she becomes unable to sustain her life further as a respected woman, she then reluctantly joins the world’s oldest profession—the prostitution.

My question therefore is: Should Devmaya have fought for her rights in the family and secured her place in the household? B- is it not a case where one woman comes very hard against other woman and that too in one family? C- what the state administration been doing when the husband brought another wife which is illegal as per laws of the land? D- is Devmaya and other scores of such Devmaya’s been contacted so far by our leaders advocating women’s empowerment even after such stories get printed in newspapers? E- who will now come to the rescue of Devmaya: the State, the women empowerment advocacy groups or her own family? Has the media any role in it?

Thanks the research compilations of the Sancharika sisters that such cases come to the open. Sancharika brings the issue out. Sorry! You don’t continue its follow up. Should I expect that you in the Sancharika go deep into the matter thereby forcing the concerned agencies to take up the matter seriously?

Awareness is on the rise: The world population, academics, women activists and the media, became aware of the unequal status of women, a global phenomenon indeed, only after the UN declared, 1975-85, as women’s decade. Since then at least to me the condition of the feminine gender in extreme poverty, their regular burden of work to which they willingly or even unwillingly are subjected to, both in and out of the family jobs, and their contribution, I should say, in a big way to the national development, have become subject of research works all over the world, including Nepal.

The structure of family in Nepal albeit favored the male child at the expense of the female. However, the old taboos, traditions and, I should add the bias, is slowly but somewhat steadily been changing for the better. Thanks the efforts of women advocacy groups, the media and very pleasingly of late the State itself, the state of the women is taking a new and vibrant shape. This bodes well for the nation and its development.

The media in Nepal is in no way lagging behind in supporting the causes of the feminine gender. We feel pained when this gender is abused, exploited or is denied its due right in the development, political and the social sectors. We feel elated when we come to know the success stories bagged by this sector in question. However, at times, the Nepali media does injustice while reporting rape, eave-teasing, and molestation cases committed on them. This is unacceptable.

That the Nepali media is now equipped with professional womenfolk gets reflected from the ever growing strength of this sector in the media, both print and electronic, including the FM stations. Some even consider the reporting made by women far better and superior to what their male copunterparts usually make. How does this happen, I have failed to understand. My own experience has been that the women, girls in the University, I mean the unmarried ones, whom I interviewed were more concerned on the prevalent state of the nation; its sliding economy and the country’s ailing and confusing politics that the other camp. Today’s women is an aggressive lot who wishes to secure thewir legitimate rights in the society, and the State.

During the course of securing interviews, I once came across with a lady, a widow in effect. After this meeting which followed the interview, I could understand as to what a widow’s life means in our yet conservative society. I am happy to tell you that the lady now is a distinguished personality who is very much active in bringing about a change in the life-styles of any one who is single-woman. She is working for those who have been betrayed both by the society and the nature and more recently by the government-Maoists clashes.

The distinguished woman, who incidentally became the first one to appear in our interview column, 5-Questions, is none other than Dr. Meena Acharya, as asset of the nation, to put it straight. Others then followed but the number of women appearing in this particular column is still not encouraging, as it should have been. We do have potential but then the other camp at times exhibits its unwillingness to appear in these columns.

However, I wish to differ on some of the points, rather allegations, raised by Dr. Acharya.

Dr. Acharya maintains that there has been a positive development in the media sector (regarding the number of females joining the media but she alleges that it hasn’t been accompanied by a changed attitude. She alleges it a "commercial compulsion" that has encouraged the media sector to employ women. I do agree it could be that. Undoubtedly any commercial enterprise would wish to sell its products. However, the fact is also that as to why the women, about whom Dr. Acharya is referring to, more pleasingly than not prefer to go to any extent in exposing their body-personality? It is their own temptation apparently that has encouraged the commercial entrepreneurs to exploit the women-folks engaged in fashion/modeling business. I wish to remind the case of the girl who does not wish to enroll herself in the school for fear of getting her private parts exposed because of the absence of the toilets. And here Dr. Acharya laments for those who willingly wish to expose their private parts for monetary gains. The Kathmandu fashion models should learn a lesson from the village girl. One should expose her body that could be digested by her family and the society members. It’s the girls who have to decide to what extent they should expose their bodies.

Rest assured Dr. Acharya the media has changed itself over the years. We don’t have any bias while reporting the gender issues. For us, both male and female were the pillars of the nation and both command equal respects in the society. It will be more positive in the future, I hope. The traditional image of women will vanish in the coming years as literacy rate goes up and up.

Yes! There is apprehension that a section of the elite women-folks housed in NGOs/INGOs know less about the ground realities of the oppressed, depressed and the exploited women in the remote villages. But they do talk about them in Kathmandu 5 Star hotels by even not showing their presence in the areas where they should have been prior to presenting the working papers. This apprehension has got to be erased. We, however, value the research works of those who are on the spot which have been revealing the truth and been suggesting on how to elevate the ranks of the women in politics, economy and in the society etc.

Yes! I do agree that Nepali media at times presents a "rape" case disgustingly. In effect, our own reporting on such cases does more damage than good to the victim(s) by default. The damage thus done on the victim is colossal.

"Chura-Pote" while, as per Acharya’s own admission speaks a sort of hatred or incompetence in the given context of the 1990 movement, but for us, these two ornaments possess immense value in their own rights. These two in effect are a widely accepted as symbol of a woman who is already a married one and thus, traditionally, the society is forces to view the woman in a different manner. Nothing to panic Dr. Acharya! The women, if they so desire, are free to reject those two special ornaments. Achtung! Consequences might be troublesome!

Much has got to be done, as Dr. Acharya opines, in increasing gender consciousness among reporters, writers and news handlers about the content, language and modality of presentation. I do agree with Dr. Acharya. After all we in the media too are in the learning process. Let’s hope that things will keep changing favoring the feminine gender.

Thanks for your patience.

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