Women Speak Online

The Life of Women in Nepal

Nepalese society is anything but homogeneous and unified. Despite having a population of only 25 million, the social fabric comprises hundreds, possibly thousands, of distinct ethnic communities, groups and castes. Often hailing from small isolated mountain villages, each community has their own customs and folklore, defining religious affiliation, identification with one or other of the scores of spoken languages, and each observing distinct patterns of living and personal rituals.

The diversity is so great that to walk in the streets of a large city like Kathmandu one cannot help feeling overwhelmed by the kaleidoscope of peoples with diverse facial features, skin colour, hair and dressing styles. Some distinctly Chinese, or Tibetan in appearance, others more like fair Northern Indians, some very dark skinned with strong Indo Dravidian features, others exhibiting central Asian Aryan features such as long aquiline noses, and others still with Middle Eastern features and even Southern European in appearance.

While these people are all Nepalese they are as likely to identify with their own community as much as, if not more than, with the concept of the nation as a whole. Nepali society is like a honeycomb comprising a matrix of cells where there is often very limited social mobility, and where people from one group may feel they have little in common with members of another group.

Owing to this diversity, any generalisation about the life of women is apt to be false as often as it may be true. Several observations however do seem to stand out. Most apparent, Nepal is overwhelmingly patriarchal. Even though women are often most visibly engaged in many aspects of life, men occupy, and expect to occupy almost all key positions whether as head of the household or business or public office.

This expectation or presumption of senior rank extends into areas where one might otherwise expect to find women as leaders such as primary teaching, and nursing for example. Even here the school principal or medical in charge will invariably be male even when women appear to be all but running the place. Recently it has become possible for younger women to take up the job of driving small three wheeler microbuses in the capital. Nevertheless they usually have a young male, possibly a brother, sitting next to them.

In the rural areas where 80% of Nepal’s people live, gender roles are even more distinct and rigid. Here, the economy is almost entirely dominated by agriculture and mostly of a subsistence nature. Teams of women and girls can be seen setting out at 4am for a day’s toil; to chop firewood in the forest, cut and carry mountains of fodder for their cows, tend fields, fetch water in heavy pots perched on slender hips, and at dusk collect equally mountainous quantities of pine needles and other dry leaves as bedding for their precious cows. Meanwhile men can be seen sipping chai at tea stalls after pocketing the proceeds from a couple of milk cans, while boys amuse themselves with the ubiquitous carom board game.

In this setting, women and girls are the machines to keep home, tend fields and gardens, cook, wash, care for children and somehow also satisfy their men folk. A wit once remarked that in the rural Himalayas, men’s approach to agriculture is much the same as their attitude to sex and reproduction. “Men plough the furrow and sow the seed; everything else is women’s work”.

It seems that rural girls are born with a sickle in their hand, and couples may commonly produce a long succession of daughters until they get the much sought after son. Reflecting their lowly status, women and girls are afforded little or no privacy, even the essential act of bathing has to be conducted at the local stream or tap in the glare of men and boys either passing by or watching from the bank.

Multi-generation rural households that usually include older and invariably conservative members tend to limit the possibility for cultural change despite more progressive influences from the popular media. Another powerful factor limiting women is the ancient custom of parents selecting partners for their children and the common practise of sending girls away from their home village for marriage.

In the context of this rigid social code, parents often see little advantage in keeping girls at school beyond the bare minimum and may be reluctant to invest in their girl children even to the extent of providing them the most limited food and clothing. Boys on the other hand are universally seen as supporters of the family capable of going away to earn much needed cash incomes in some distant city or country and are often pampered.

The result of these patterns is a growing demographic imbalance through ever increasing rural depopulation especially among working age males. Many villages seem to comprise mostly older couples and younger mothers and their children. Ultimately urban life albeit in degraded environments is attractive to many young people in preference to rural toil and the cultural cul-de-sac that leaves so many women in such a pitiful condition.

In the absence of rural development, the more cosmopolitan urban centres where there is wider choice of employment, and with their higher likelihood of nuclear family households, is undoubtedly the anvil on which the new Nepal and modern roles for women is being forged.

Aparna Bhatta is both a US citizen and a Nepalese health professional. She is also President of Nepal based community development organisation ‘Self Reliant Center’.