Gender has been constructed differently in various historical periods.

Dev Raj Dahal, FES, Nepal Office

Men's Liberation

The Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal and Nepalese commitment to various human rights instruments envision the creation of open, just and democratic society based on freedom and social justice. These documents form a part of our political consciousness, upon which liberation claim is made on behalf of Nepalese women. This liberation is more than allocating social welfare benefits. It refers to the freedom, the inclusion of women, and the implementation of basic human rights by means of removing all barriers to their fulfillment. Freedom, however, is not context free. A shift from women's promotion to gender studies has now become a central concern in redefining gender and sex in various discourses and interactions which foretells women's fulfillment, through men's liberation.

Cultural Reconstruction

Gender identity and gender relations are social construction jelled around biological differences of human beings. Identity politics, in this sense, is a conscious attempt of female folk to expunge the prevailing gender dualism and the dilemma as to whether women should confine themselves within "feminine" sphere of private life or enter into public domain of security, politics, economics and culture. Deconstruction of the structural inequality springing from weak voice and visibility and poor representation of women in knowledge, research and discourses equally requires their participation in political communication because it provides a space in which citizens, irrespective of gender distinctions, can define equal status. Politics is the only public space where modernist revolt against fatalism captures democratic spirit and underlines a distinction between what is biological and what is cultural in the construction of women and men. Women's search for freedom and equality does not signal the downfall of our society, rather it marks the erosion of those irrationalities of our society that are incompatible with democratic aspirations.

Integration of gender perspective in the policies of the donors, the government, market institutions and civil society is, therefore, crucial to achieve not only social integration but also easy external adaptation of our national society. Among other things, gender equality dramatizes how the social history of "conformist" culture has given way to a political spirit of rational choice. Democratic equality has become an attractive model for women to achieve their will, a will to achieve gender and inter-generational justice.

Social Movement

The rise of social movements of women evokes poetic power, which animates their democratic plays in the rhythm of a struggle against the shadows of their pasts and a search for future possibilities. Inspired by social and technological change, the organized power of women's movement is generating a faster process of collective action than any comparative period in Nepal's history. Located within civil society, this movement involves the contestation of the dominant knowledge, institutional and cultural patterns. The search for public space, political power, resource and identity is steered towards achieving peaceful transformation at the level of the superstructure of society. Political power is essential to redress inequality and strive for autonomy. It implies an underlying notion of the way political system and culture change in response to such factors as gender equality.

Democratization

Gender has been constructed differently in various historical periods. It underwent transformations with the change in human consciousness and the nature of power and political economy. The images of men and women in the mass media, schools and universities, carried during different periods of history, articulate the fact that ideas and ideologies have also played key roles in socialization, cultural formation and symbolic representation. Any discussion on gender thus invites a global and national sense of responsibility towards addressing the grievances derived from inequality and injustice. Equality of gender is thus crucial to help shape human consciousness and accelerate democratization, non-violent social transformation and peace. To make Nepalese politics more and more democratic requires the involvement of larger groups of people, including women for sovereignty springs from them. Democratization requires the participation of affected parties. Nepalese women are, therefore, looking for a more conscious life, a life that puts the mind open to historical imagination and experience of their present condition.

Empowerment

How is this equality achieved? One is redefining the notion of power. All knowledge is grounded in power relations, including that knowledge, which shapes social life, institutionalizes patriarchy and legitimizes the cultural formation. The other is mutual understanding of roles by both male and female members of society. How power springs up and whom it belongs to depends very much on how its balance is changed. Because, here, power is regarded as a means to the empowerment of male and female. And empowerment is related to various measures of capacity building. In other words, capacity building means providing critical resources for development to those who need them the most. Gender clearly comes into the agenda.

In our context, FES's policy to integrate the concept of gender in most of its activities, especially media, trade unions and democracy and development projects is a response to our national and global imperatives and obligations. The rationale behind it is to make the future of women more and more open and predictable than letting the past determine their future.

Welcome speech delivered by the author at a FES sponsored seminar on Gender issues held in Kathmandu on September 26, 2003.

Nepali Media promoting commodification of human body

Gender sensitivity of the media, as also other sectors, may be viewed in a three dimensional perspective—the first issue does the media relate to gender issues positively; is the language, cartoons and general ideology used in the presentations of the gender issues positively; and finally are the women given opportunity in media activities with sympathy. There has been much progress in women’s participation in the media channels, particularly in the electronic media, with the democratic changes of 1990 and since the opening up of the sector to the private sector. Women constituted 12.3% in 1991 and 12.9% of the media personnel in 1991. At that time the sole electronic media were Nepal Radio and the Nepal Television. With the proliferation of FM radios and private TV channels, women’s participation as media workers has increased significantly in 2002 as reflected in the table below.

Similarly, there has been a substantial progress in media coverage of women’s issues.

This positive development, nevertheless, has not been accompanied by a changed attitude towards a need for inducting women in this sector by social consciousness for promoting women, but for commercial gains only as accepted by the management in interviews. Most of them use women for promoting consumer products, thus propagating the capitalist image of women merely as consumers. This promotes commodification of human body. The print media may be considered somewhat better than the electronic media in this context. Nevertheless, most of them are guided by particular political and patriarchal ideology and perceptions. Otherwise, one would not have seen irrelevant naked females even in a government newspaper like the Rising Nepal or the private sector Samachar Patra daily, as a perceived marketing ploy.

The next most important issue is how do media relate to gender issues? Most of the time this issue seems to be perceived in a limited perspective of whether the media covers so-called women’s or women related issues. This is important but the more crucial gender issue in this context is how do they picture male and female in their all presentations? Media is the most important channel which plays crucial role in forming consciousness, attitudes and in behavior in the society. Do they idealize and perpetuate the traditional image of women or tray to grasp the changing positive images of women?

Most often, the articles and arguments made through the media against change in favor of women dwell on the personalities who are raising this issue rather than the merit or demerit of the issue per se. For example, women who are fighting for equal gender rights are pictured as greedy, foreign instigated and with no knowledge of rural or of ordinary women’s lives. Even those people who are struggling for democratic and human rights consider women’s struggle for legal equality irrelevant. What arguments are made on the issue per se, then it is possible to present counter arguments and media should give equal chance to both viewpoints. But when the attack is made on personal grounds, such writings must be rejected, unless specific and verified.

Finally the language, idioms, fables, stories used to make their point in all presentations are mostly gender biased. The mode of news presentation itself is another issue. For example, how is a rape case produced as a social crime for which the society must be ashamed or a sensation to sell the paper, blaming the victim for the crime?

Both male and female are cultural products, with their ideas and behavior shaped by the prevailing ideology, social mores and behavioral standards of patriarchy. The ideology of male and female is ingrained in our subconscious by our upbringing. We use language and figures degrading women subconsciously. A very revealing example of this was the "Chura and Pote" sent by the women demonstrations during the 1990 democratic movement to their male colleagues. Similarly, writings of most respected proponents of change also still clearly reflect their gender bias. For example, take the following passage, "Ahile RAPRAPA bhaneko Kangress ka lagi gharania paribar bata bhitrieki dulahi jasti bhai raheki cha.………….daijo samet laieki dulahi……..randi RAPRAPA…kada bachan bolda budheskalki kanchi ratarat poila jane khatra cha" ( Khagendra Sangroula, Saptahik Jan Astha, Kartik 15, 2052 as recited by Asmita, 2002). This Asmita publication cites numerable example of the use of such idioms and languages by our socalled progressive and not so progressive writers. The writers and media presenters must be aware of their own language and ideology.

Thus, increasing gender consciousness among reporters, writers and news handlers about the content, language and modality or presentation is identified as the major challenge in this sector.

Excerpts from the paper presented by the author at a FES sponsored seminar of Gender Experience—Idea exchange on 26 September 2003, in Kathmandu.

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