Women in Nepali Democracy

Krishna B. Bhattachan, Ph.D.

After the "territorial integration" of Nepal in 1769, we Nepalese experienced exclusionary democracy twice. Once upon a time it was in 1950-60 and twice upon a time it was during 1990-2002. After October 4th of 2002, we are back to square one, or "back to Mangalman."

If we look from gender perspective, it hardly matters whether we have had autocracy or "democracy," because joon jogi aye pani kanai chireka! or old wine in a new bottle with a different label.

As a State Nepal ratified CEDAW, that is, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), in 1991 but it never satisfied because of another CEDAW, that is, Calculated Efforts to Drive Away Women (CEDAW).

Therefore, in general, there is no democracy for all women at the public sphere. For some women, specially those who are following anthropologist Lynn Bennett," Scared Sisters and Dangerous Wives," there has been no democracy at the private sphere, whereas for non-sacred sisters and non-dangerous wives there has been a partial democracy at private sphere.

Gender issues of the past and present remain to be mostly the same. Most of the gender issues have been kept in the deep freeze of state, society and market. So the issues are always fresh.

Nepalese women are not a homogenous group. They form a heterogeneous group. Therefore, practice of democracy at private sphere and forms and intensity of discrimination and inequality at private and public spheres vary enormously from one group of women to another.

All women are victims of gender discrimination. Some women are single victim; some are multiple victims--double victims, triple victims, quadruple victims and so on.

Bahun-Chhetri women are single victim;

Hill Dalit women are double victims- one of gender discrimination and other of caste-based untouchability;

Madhesi Dalit are triple victims-one of gender discrimination, second of caste-based untouchability and the third of regional discrimination as being Madhesi;

So-called "high caste" and Muslim Madhesi women are also triple victims of gender, linguistic and regional discrimination.

Mountain and Hill Indigenous women are pentagon victims- gender, ethnicity, language, religion and culture;

Madhesi indigenous women are hexagon victims of gender, ethnicity, language, religion, culture and region;

In terms of poverty -

All women suffer from "feminization of poverty";

Dalit women suffer from "Dalitization of poverty";

Indigenous women suffer from "indigenization of poverty";

Madhesi women suffer from "regionaliztion of poverty";

Rural women suffer from "ruralization of poverty";

Nepalese women's status or positions and roles or functions are not generally based on ascription an/or achievement as imagined by sociologists. Instead, it is mostly based on prescription by patriarchy rooted in religion and culture.

Some Bahun-Chhetri and Newar women have relatively better access to public sphere;

Some Indigenous women have relatively better access to control over resources at the private sphere and have better mobility; but this is more true to non-Hinduized or non-Sanskritized than Hinduized or Sanskritized families;

In practice, Bahun-Chhetri women are "temporary untouchables" whereas Dalit women (and also men) are permanently untouchables. The Chaupadi system in the mid and far-western Hills resembles to solo "concentration camp."

Among women, at the bottom of the bottom are the trafficked women, who have no control over their own body.

It is for sure that democracy would exist as a myth -

as long as women's identity and rights are denied,

as long as women are treated like second-class citizens,

as long as women are dominated, subjugated and exploited or oppressed, suppressed, depressed, compressed and monopolized;

on the bases of -

gender,

caste and ethnicity,

language,

religion,

culture, and

region.

Women's rights movement would be more powerful, more effective and more meaningful –

If it could spread its wings to embrace women belonging to Dalits, Madhesi, indigenous nationalities, religious and linguistic groups;

If women's rights movements from national to grassroots level merge;

If women's rights movement could supplement and complement by raising issues of women belonging to Dalits, Madhesi, indigenous nationalities, religious and linguistic groups; and

If women's rights movement could forge alliances with other movements, namely, Dalit movement, Madhesi movement, indigenous people's movement, equal language rights movement and movement for secularism.

If the past is present and present is past for women, neither past and present should be the future, nor future should be just like the past and present.

All Nepalese women and men should focus on the following agenda of social transformation:

I. Structural Elements

Federalism

Ethnic, linguistic and regional autonomy and sub-autonomy within autonomy

Proportional representation

Special Measures or Affirmative Action

II. Process related Elements

Round Table Conference

Right to self-determination

Referendum

Constituent Assembly

The continuing rule of the game is unfair towards women. They have always been forced to become losers because of foul play and wrong decisions of referees who are biased against women. Loser has no other possibility than to win and winner has no other possibility than to lose. We know that this is the game in which neither one should lose, but both should win.

( the author can be reached at kchan@wlink.com.np )

Empowering or Equality Promoting ?

Dr. Meena Achaya

Women’s needs and problems are too colossal to be addressed by individual programs. They have to be addressed in all spheres, hence the concept of main-streaming. Since women’s problems were viewed as some-thing different from the overall society under WID and WAD, specific programs for women were advocated. Under the mainstreaming approach, the emphasis is on all poli-cies, programs/projects, sector-specific or otherwise. They must be gender/ class/caste/ethnicity-sensitive and must try to redress the disadvantages faced by women of each group in each of the sphere. It does not mean that the basic needs-related programs are to be neglected. But it means that they are not adequate. Basic needs-related programs can be very effective if implemented in addition to programs which meet women’s strategic needs, as defined below. In addition, capacity building and compensating programs are also a must so that women can benefit from gender-neutral programs on an equal footing with men. Further, women’s specific needs related to their reproduc-tive and mothering functions and combating various forms of violence against them must also be addressed. To capture these complexities in program analysis some analytical concepts may be useful as discussed below:

Basic and strategic needs:

Although such needs overlap and many programs can fulfill both kinds of needs, it is useful to separate them for analytical purposes. Basic needs include access to minimum environment for survival such as access to income, drinking water, health facilities, education, and free-dom from violence etc. Strategic needs include her need for changes in division of labor, power structures, freedom of mobility and choice of livelihood options, control over resources etc. Programs directed to meet-ing women’s strategic needs must incorporate efforts to change the oppressive socio-economic and political structures, acts, rules, regulation and oppressive ideology of all kinds.

Relief-oriented, gender reinforcing or equality pro-moting programs: Relief-oriented programs address only disadvantages arising out of temporary disasters, such as floods, earthquake, drought, violence etc. Such programs deal only with the results of structural problems and do not question the traditional gender roles. For example, the widow pension, does not address the basic issue of ensuring property rights of women, but treats only the results. Similarly, the micro-credit programs, widely in vogue, have been designed to fit the traditional roles of women. They do not empower women or provide a better ground for equality directly, but indirectly they do strengthen women’s self-confidence and capacity for collective action.

Many programs could also be gender reinforcing whereby the gender roles are not questioned and there is no attempt made to change them. Gender reinforcing schemes assist women in their traditionally accepted standard gender functions, e.g., maternity and child care programs, family planning, access to drinking water, nurse training, home-based employment schemes etc. In home-based employment schemes, the logic is that women will have to adjust with their household responsibilities. But, nobody questions why they have to adjust and why men do not need to adjust.

Equality promoting programs, on the other hand, are targeted for canceling the handicaps that women have because they are women or because they have children, e.g., uniforms for school girls, provision of neighborhood schools or girls’ toilets in schools or working women’s hostels. The above categories are not water-tight, but are useful for a meaningful gender analysis of the programs and budgetary allocations.

Stepwise criteria that could be adopted for the appraisal of programs are:

Women’s involvement: Since participation is a necessary condition for empowerment, women’s involvement at various stages of program imple-mentation itself should be taken as a positive change. But to decide whether it is empowering as well, we need to examine the degree and quality of their involvement, which includes their role in the decision making process, planning, programming, control over the use of resources etc.

Women’s employment opportunities:

Does the program increase work opportunities for the poorer sections of the population, particularly women/men from the poorer households? This will help to fulfill their basic needs. Once again the quality of employ-ment and the issue of gender discrimination or equity in employment conditions need to be examined to decide whether they are reinforcing gender roles or not. Only equitable access of women to decision making roles may be considered empowering.

Impact on women’s workload:

Does the project activity reduce women’s drudgery and workload? Additional roles for women, without an effort to change the traditional gender roles and technology at home; generally increases workload of women, while relieving men even from their traditional responsi-bilities as well. This makes the gender roles more inequitable.

Whether Empowering or Equality Promoting:

Programs empowering for women are expected to enable women to participate more in decisions making process both within and outside their households. They are also expected to generate direct benefit from the activities in terms of income, health, education, access to resources etc, and promote equality.

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