Policy Dialogues on Inequality: gender
The UNDP Regional Centre in Colombo organised a policy dialogue on inequality in honour of Frances Stewart. Frances Stewart's guru status has been achieved through the elaboration of the concept of "horizontal inequalities". Prashan Thalayasingam, colleague at CEPA made an excellent presentation on the inequality and conflict panel at the dialogue, and I agreed, somewhat rashly to serve on the panel about gender and inequality.
In my discussion on the gender and inequality panel, I tried first to look at gender inequality in the same framework as horizontal inequalities. Using some of the concepts of the horizontal inequality discourse I made the following observations.
Gender differences are socially significant. They have meaning for women and for men i.e. for the members of the two gender groups. The inequality influences behaviours and wellbeing in a significant way. The inequality is particularly marked in the differential access to resources. Women typically have less access to assets than men, and possibly even more importantly, have less control over resources than men. In the Sri Lankan plantation sector for instance where women have been wage earners for over a century, the lackof control of their earnings in a male dominant family structure, has brought no change in unequal gender relations in their families.
Perceptions of identity are also gendered. Women and men perceive themselves as belonging to male or female group; and there are certain normative characteristics attached to the male and female identity. Most women in South Asia live within a patriarchal structure, where their primary function is reproductive. The sexual division of household labour is deeply ingrained. Women’s sphere generally includes decision making on household matters, education of children and health. Men make other major decisions such as buying and selling of assets. Gendered perceptions don't only affect women, they also affect men. Dr Jani de Silva's work with male combatants and the concepts of masculinity highlight some of the challenges the combatants face in maintaining the highly 'masculine' image of a soldier/fighter.
The patriarchal structure uses gender relations and women’s entitlements in defining the identity of ethnic, class or caste groups Women are brought into the public domain as mothers, sisters, and daughters and their entitlements subject to community and ethnic norms and arbitrated by family, kinship and custom. We see this today, in the overall policy direction of the GOSL – the Mahinda Chinthanaya, where ‘motherhood’ is exalted. The role that ‘rape’ plays in armed conflict is because by violating women, the protagonists are seen to acquire superiority over the other.
Women (and men) have shared experiences within their group BUT there are strong intragroup differentials – based on ethnicity, class, caste etc – that diffuse strong identification with a gender group.
Group boundaries are strong – so it is not easy/usual for women to become men or vice versa. But the markers of gender inequality are changeable, and are changing. In an earlier session Harsha de Silva remarked on how mobile telephony is being taken up by women and men alike, which will change the gender markers of access to the external world, that in the past was the prereogative of men.
Socio-economic differences exist, and these do lead to articulation of grievances. In many societies there is also political exclusion. BUT this does not lead to more conflict or organized political violence.
Next, I proposed some hypothesese as to why gender inequality does not lead to organised political violence.
.
Hypothesis 1: the strong intragroup differentials based on ethnicity, class, caste etc and the ability, over time, to change the markers of gender inequality diffuses the potential of conflict along gender lines
Hypothesis 2: because women’s gender identity becomes the cultural markers for wider group identity, this subsumes the struggle for women’s rights. Interestingly, the two conflicts in Sri Lanka the JVP conflict in the south and the North East conflict, spawned two ‘Mothers Fronts’ that advocated for peace in both the South and the North. But neither Front was able to transform itself into a force that could challenge patriarchal attitudes of Sinhala Buddhist or Tamil Hindu groups and bring greater empowerment for women
Hypothesis 3: Gender inequality and the social tensions that are engendered gets played out a very micro level, and as such is very much invisible. There is the issue of domestic violence, that is a manifestation of gender inequality at the household level, and in which women more often than men are the victims. Recognition and support at the policy level for this kind of conflict is grossly inadequate, in Sri Lanka at least.
Hypothesis 4: Gender inequality is unable to mobilize support to address it. I had this thought when I was thinking about Afghanistan. For many years before the American’s ‘liberated’ Afghanistan, the Taleban’s appalling treatment of women was known in the west. But western liberation needed more than gender inequality to institute regime change.
So if there isn’t that potential danger of gender inequality erupting in our faces and creating social instability, the question is, do we need to do something about it? Or can we carry on, business as usual?
I would argue that there are wider social objectives for addressing gender inequality. In many countries women are at least half the population, form a majority of the world’s poor, etc – and it’s important that they are not excluded. This is their right.
There are also more instrumental reasons – e.g. the State of the World’s Children, UNICEF report2007, (surveyed 30 countries) categorically said that there would be 13m fewer malnourished children in South Asia if women had an equal say in the family. So gender equality has impacts that reach beyond the women themselves.
In some of the earlier discussions the point was made that even though gender inequality does not lead to conflict, the impact of conflict on gender relations needs to be considered.
There are some people that suggest that in the highly patriarchal and conservative societies of the North and East, the war has resulted in some strategic shifts in the markers of gender inequality. Most visible is the entry of women, apparently weak and powerless, as fighters. Another argument is that the formation of the Mothers’ Front created a new construction of gender in relation to the exigencies of war that was not a mere extension of everyday roles. Another shift of women’s traditional to strategic roles occurred when women moved out of the domestic sphere and took on male roles in the absence of male family members; women consequently acquired more self-confidence and greater mobility and decision making powers within the family.
In my discussion on the gender and inequality panel, I tried first to look at gender inequality in the same framework as horizontal inequalities. Using some of the concepts of the horizontal inequality discourse I made the following observations.
Gender differences are socially significant. They have meaning for women and for men i.e. for the members of the two gender groups. The inequality influences behaviours and wellbeing in a significant way. The inequality is particularly marked in the differential access to resources. Women typically have less access to assets than men, and possibly even more importantly, have less control over resources than men. In the Sri Lankan plantation sector for instance where women have been wage earners for over a century, the lackof control of their earnings in a male dominant family structure, has brought no change in unequal gender relations in their families.
Perceptions of identity are also gendered. Women and men perceive themselves as belonging to male or female group; and there are certain normative characteristics attached to the male and female identity. Most women in South Asia live within a patriarchal structure, where their primary function is reproductive. The sexual division of household labour is deeply ingrained. Women’s sphere generally includes decision making on household matters, education of children and health. Men make other major decisions such as buying and selling of assets. Gendered perceptions don't only affect women, they also affect men. Dr Jani de Silva's work with male combatants and the concepts of masculinity highlight some of the challenges the combatants face in maintaining the highly 'masculine' image of a soldier/fighter.
The patriarchal structure uses gender relations and women’s entitlements in defining the identity of ethnic, class or caste groups Women are brought into the public domain as mothers, sisters, and daughters and their entitlements subject to community and ethnic norms and arbitrated by family, kinship and custom. We see this today, in the overall policy direction of the GOSL – the Mahinda Chinthanaya, where ‘motherhood’ is exalted. The role that ‘rape’ plays in armed conflict is because by violating women, the protagonists are seen to acquire superiority over the other.
Women (and men) have shared experiences within their group BUT there are strong intragroup differentials – based on ethnicity, class, caste etc – that diffuse strong identification with a gender group.
Group boundaries are strong – so it is not easy/usual for women to become men or vice versa. But the markers of gender inequality are changeable, and are changing. In an earlier session Harsha de Silva remarked on how mobile telephony is being taken up by women and men alike, which will change the gender markers of access to the external world, that in the past was the prereogative of men.
Socio-economic differences exist, and these do lead to articulation of grievances. In many societies there is also political exclusion. BUT this does not lead to more conflict or organized political violence.
Next, I proposed some hypothesese as to why gender inequality does not lead to organised political violence.
.
Hypothesis 1: the strong intragroup differentials based on ethnicity, class, caste etc and the ability, over time, to change the markers of gender inequality diffuses the potential of conflict along gender lines
Hypothesis 2: because women’s gender identity becomes the cultural markers for wider group identity, this subsumes the struggle for women’s rights. Interestingly, the two conflicts in Sri Lanka the JVP conflict in the south and the North East conflict, spawned two ‘Mothers Fronts’ that advocated for peace in both the South and the North. But neither Front was able to transform itself into a force that could challenge patriarchal attitudes of Sinhala Buddhist or Tamil Hindu groups and bring greater empowerment for women
Hypothesis 3: Gender inequality and the social tensions that are engendered gets played out a very micro level, and as such is very much invisible. There is the issue of domestic violence, that is a manifestation of gender inequality at the household level, and in which women more often than men are the victims. Recognition and support at the policy level for this kind of conflict is grossly inadequate, in Sri Lanka at least.
Hypothesis 4: Gender inequality is unable to mobilize support to address it. I had this thought when I was thinking about Afghanistan. For many years before the American’s ‘liberated’ Afghanistan, the Taleban’s appalling treatment of women was known in the west. But western liberation needed more than gender inequality to institute regime change.
So if there isn’t that potential danger of gender inequality erupting in our faces and creating social instability, the question is, do we need to do something about it? Or can we carry on, business as usual?
I would argue that there are wider social objectives for addressing gender inequality. In many countries women are at least half the population, form a majority of the world’s poor, etc – and it’s important that they are not excluded. This is their right.
There are also more instrumental reasons – e.g. the State of the World’s Children, UNICEF report2007, (surveyed 30 countries) categorically said that there would be 13m fewer malnourished children in South Asia if women had an equal say in the family. So gender equality has impacts that reach beyond the women themselves.
In some of the earlier discussions the point was made that even though gender inequality does not lead to conflict, the impact of conflict on gender relations needs to be considered.
There are some people that suggest that in the highly patriarchal and conservative societies of the North and East, the war has resulted in some strategic shifts in the markers of gender inequality. Most visible is the entry of women, apparently weak and powerless, as fighters. Another argument is that the formation of the Mothers’ Front created a new construction of gender in relation to the exigencies of war that was not a mere extension of everyday roles. Another shift of women’s traditional to strategic roles occurred when women moved out of the domestic sphere and took on male roles in the absence of male family members; women consequently acquired more self-confidence and greater mobility and decision making powers within the family.
Displacement has also disrupted established gendered practices. Even though internally displaced women have common concerns, there are inevitably differences in caste and attitudes toward social practices such as dowry and virginity. The mixing of different displaced groups from different paths of the north, have made the caste system less rigid.
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