Looking
through the lens of hunger and poverty, there
are seven major areas of discrimination against
women in India: Malnutrition:
India has exceptionally high rates of child
malnutrition, because tradition in India requires
that women eat last and least throughout their
lives, even when pregnant and lactating. |
 |
Malnourished
women give birth to malnourished children, perpetuating
the cycle.
Poor Health: Females receive less health
care than males. Many women die in childbirth of easily
prevented complications. Working conditions and environmental
pollution further impairs women's health.
Lack of education: Families are far
less likely to educate girls than boys, and far more
likely to pull them out of school, either to help out
at home or from fear of violence.
Overwork: Women work longer hours and their work is
more arduous than men's, yet their work is unrecognized.
Men report that "women, like children, eat and
do nothing." Technological progress in agriculture
has had a negative impact on women.
Unskilled: In women's primary employment sector - agriculture
- extension services overlook women.
Mistreatment: In recent years, there
has been an alarming rise in atrocities against women
in India, in terms of rapes, assaults and dowry-related
murders. Fear of violence suppresses the aspirations
of all women. Female infanticide and sex-selective abortions
are additional forms of violence that reflect the devaluing
of females in Indian society.
Powerlessness: While women are guaranteed
equality under the constitution, legal protection has
little effect in the face of prevailing patriarchal
traditions. Women lack power to decide who they will
marry, and are often married off as children. Legal
loopholes are used to deny women inheritance rights.
| Development
of Patriarchy |
Indian society is strongly patriarchal - the
man is the norm and the woman is "the Other".
The male-centered culture of today, however, is a product
of history, and women's situation has surely been better.
Much would suggest that the ancient - pre-Vedic and
Dravidian - Indian civilization was matricentric and
matrilineal, and that women enjoyed a respected position
and a high status in society. They were thought to have
a unique sacred power, which was later considered dangerous
if it could not be checked by patriarchal bondage. Women,
as well as those peoples nowadays considered low in
the Indian purity/pollution hierarchy, came into contact
with and were affected by the sacred powers in nature
through the specialized work they performed. Such factors
may well have given an initial superiority to women
and to these groups in early agricultural and herding/hunting/fishing
societies. But as surplus accumulation grew and men
and warriors gained dominance, the link with sacred
power was reversed: the "dangerous" became
the "polluting" and, eventually, "impure"
and "low".
This
process clearly had its beginning with the largely
Dravidian-based Indus civilization, but it developed
firmly only with the impact of the invading Indo-Europeans
on the indigenous culture. It meant the gradual emergence
of the Brahmans as a group systematizing the notions
of purity and pollution and the developing caste hierarchy,
with themselves at the top. The cultural oppression
of Indian women is therefore structural: it is fully
sanctioned in the ethnic religion of Brahmanism, with
its hierarchical social order, the caste system. The
Otherness of woman manifests itself in her being viewed
as either a goddess or a witch, depending on what
image happens to suit the Indian man. The liberation
of Indian women would have to involve the humanization
of woman - the spreading of the notion that women
are no better and no worse than men are, but that
they are equally human. Indeed, the man cannot be
our norm, nor can the woman - the only norm we all
can identify with is the human.
Of course, a material aspect completes and
reinforces this cultural aspect of the oppression
of women. For women are made economically dependent
on men, and are thereby forced to subordinate to the
will of their father, husband, and son. One great
paradox is the institution of marriage, which means
both security and insecurity for most Indian women.
A girl is forced to marry for economical reasons (she
simply cannot afford to sustain herself on her own),
but cannot expect to feel safe in her husband's home.
She is not allowed to choose her husband, but is merely
an object in an economic transaction where the man
has everything to gain and nothing to lose. A wife
is the possession of her husband, despite of the fact
that he did not buy her - it was her family that bought
him. That is the essence of the Indian dowry.
Most
societies have had some form of dowry in connection
with the marriage. Usually the girl's family is given
presents of some value as a compensation for "losing"
the daughter to her husband's family. In modern Indian
society, with exception for tribal communities (which
are far from integrated into the caste system), this
trend is reversed. The girl, because of her low (cultural)
status, is considered such a great burden to a household
that her family has to pay to be able to marry her
off. Thereby a girl child does indeed become a (material)
burden to her parents. Boys, who are already favored
for cultural reasons, are so for material reasons
as well. Sometimes poor parents feel forced to kill
a newborn daughter, because they cannot afford to
pay her dowry. Parents who are better off can visit
the doctor for a sex-determination test and have an
abortion if the fetus is female. Many parents who
can afford this would also be able to afford a daughter,
but they choose an abortion because they prefer a
boy.
Another
horrible effect of the Indian dowry are the so-called
bride burnings, which are staged "kitchen accidents"
where a husband or a mother-in-law pours oil on the
new bride and puts her on fire, after he has received
her dowry. No one can prove that it was murder, and
the man is free to marry again and receive more dowries.
This is the most extreme form of violence a woman
can be subjected to in her husband's home, but not
the only form. It is deplorable how often the mother-in-law
and other female relatives of the husband are harassing
the wife. She runs the risk of becoming a slave in
her new home, and there is no one to protect her from
being battered and raped if the perpetrator is her
own patron and master - her own husband. Further,
she cannot expect her husband to be faithful to her,
and there are many examples of wives being infected
with a venereal disease, even HIV, by an adulterous
husband.
| Poor
Education and Underpayment |
The low status of women and girls - due to cultural
traditions and to the material cost they represent
to their families because of these traditions - result
in a reluctance to invest time and money in their
health and education, and in a general depreciation
of the value of their work and performances. This
results in bad health, insufficient awareness, low
income, low self-esteem, and low status - and the
vicious circle is thereby closed. When the food is
distributed within the family, the male family members
are prioritized - they get more and better food. If
the food supply is short, the men are not supposed
to eat less. Instead, the mother and the daughter
will have to do the sacrifice, and starve. In general,
women are expected to be self-sacrificing, and unfortunately
it has become somewhat of an ideal among Indian women
to wear a martyr's crown. They take pride in giving
their lives for others - that is, for men. It gives
women a sense of being better than men are, morally
superior to them. But this suits the men just fine.
When woman fell for flattery she became a slave.
Parents
often cannot afford to give all their children a proper
education. Once again, sons are favored and girls
are sacrificed. Girls get a poorer education than
boys, and therefore become less aware of the world
around them. This lack of awareness is not helped
by the fact that women are trapped in their homes
and do not get out to see the world - and other women
- around them. Many people argue that since women
are going to stay in the house all their life they
do not need education, and consequently it would be
wasted on them. This, of course, is a conservative
point of view, which only appeals to those, mostly
men, who are satisfied with the situation of today
where women have no opportunities in life and cannot
realize their dreams of self-fulfillment. These people
fail to see that women are potential resources, locked
up in a social structure that will not allow them
to be of use. If set free, women would enrich and
improve the official Indian society. If not, a national
tragedy will go on and on.
Women's
lack of education and awareness makes them vulnerable
as labor, too. They get the worst, heaviest, and filthiest
jobs, and they get paid only about half the already
low salary of a man doing the same job. Especially
today, when men have the itch for radios, television
sets, and other expensive gadgets, women are forced
to work extra. All too often they get abused, sometimes
even raped, by the men they work for. Women labor
has a very exposed position, especially since the
police are seldom on the side of the poor and abused
women. The local police are infamous for their cruelty
and oppression of the people, and women are at risk
of being raped by the police, too, when trying to
report earlier abuse. Rich people, for instance employers
of cheap women labor, can commit terrible crimes without
being punished. They simply pay off the police. Such
lawlessness mostly afflicts Dalit women, who cannot
expect equality before the law, since Brahmanism does
not fundamentally accept human equality.
| Organization
and Struggle |
By now it is becoming an established strategy within
development work to concentrate on women when investing
in the future of a poor community. The reasons for
this are many, but basically three. First, since women
are worst off economically and socially, an investment
in them will make a big change in their lives and
the society as a whole. Second, an investment in a
woman is by consequence an investment in her whole
family and the local community around her. Investing
in a man, on the other hand, is much more likely to
equal investing in gambling, drinking, and even worse
forms of human and financial waste. Third, women are
able and responsible organizers, and when they join
together they form a strong and effective tool for
well thought-out change. Whereas men often organize
to seek personal gains, women organize to solve problems.
This is the common experience of most development
workers.
Women
in India are organized on different levels, forming
a network of women. Like the feminist movement in
the West, an elite founded the Indian movement; most
of its ideological leaders are from the English-educated
ruling class. But unlike Western feminists, whose
first-hand experience of economic and personal injustice
influenced the movement to focus largely on such middle-class
issues as job discrimination and equal pay for equal
work, most Indian feminist leaders have come to the
realization that their effort is meaningless unless
it attempts to change the life of the 80 % of Indian
women whose most basic concerns - access to clean
water, animal fodder, and cooking fuel - remain alien
to their own privileged world. This means that the
women's struggle in India is basically organized at
grass-roots level, and is not simply a struggle for
women's rights but for the rights of all Indians to
a tolerable existence.
There
are basically three problems that Indian women face:
(1) a low status in society, which affects the self-esteem
of women negatively and is expressed in violence against
women; (2) a lack of awareness, due to insufficient
education and organization; and (3) an economic dependence
on men, whether it is the father, the husband, or
the son. The organizing of women is in itself the
best weapon against a lack of self-confidence, and
the best tool for an awareness of women's common experiences
and problems. United the women stand strong against
direct oppression, and can deal with violence against
them. The organized women are not afraid to stand
up for their rights and those of other's, and are
a force for thugs to reckon with. I have personally
experienced what a group of angry Dalit women can
do to an illegal liquor factory, and how powerless
organized crime is at the face of organized social
concern. When women organize themselves they start
dealing with the other two basic problems - education
and economy. Here follows a quite representative example
of how it can be done.
| The
Solution - an Example |
At the Village Community Development Society (VCDS)
in Tamil Nadu the women's movement (formed 1985) organize
36 women in every village within the V.R.P. District.
These women are educated about their rights and trained
to exercise them. Whenever there is a conference about
issues involving the women's movement, the village
representatives are sent there to pick up new ideas.
A sewing-school is run, and older girls are attending
them for a period of 10 months to get "life-education".
The formal school is not adapted to the reality and
experiences of the children, and therefore VCDS are
running non-formal evening-schools in the villages.
To children who go to formal school the non-formal
school is a complement, and to children who do not
go to school it is their only chance to get educated.
The sewing-school students often continue to work
within the women's movement as non-formal teachers.
VCDS's goal is to have trained 3600 women by the year
2000. They also publish a magazine called Pen ("woman"
in Tamil) to inform women and heighten their awareness.
To
improve the economy of women and their families, VCDS
introduced cooperative saving. Money is thereby accumulated
even among the financially poor in the villages: they
can make heavier investments through pooling of resources.
By the year 2000, hopefully, the movement is ready
to start an official bank. Attempts were made to start
an export unit, but no financial support was given
from funding organizations, which expressed the opinion
that a women's movement should be focusing on women
and not on business. Hence they did not realize that
jobs and incomes for women, controlled by women, help
women. New attempts will be made. The Indian state's
funding and efforts are even more unreliable. The
state promises loans to start self-employment and
labor unions, but the money is never seen. Therefore,
self-financing through a bank is the best solution
- self-support is the best support. These income-generating
programs are central to the liberation of women, and
for widows it can be a matter of survival.
