In his new book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg discusses the concept of ‘keystone habits’. These constitute a set of primary habits, like making your bed when you get up in the morning or exercising on a regular basis, which have positive spillover effects on all aspects of life. Much like individuals can develop keystone habits, so can societies and institutions. Duhigg presents the case of CEO Paul O’Neal who transformed the fortunes of Alcoa, the American aluminum giant, by focusing on the keystone habit of worker safety. If the company could provide safe working conditions for its employees, O’Neal rightly guessed, the spillover from this positive change would also help remove other glitches eating into Alcoa’s profits.
The question I have been constantly asking myself in the wake of the latest protests against violence on women and the murder of Dailekh-based journalist Dekendra Thapa, is this: What is the one (or more) keystone habit, which, if pushed and promoted, could induce a positive spillover effect in all aspects of Nepali society? Could controlling gender-based violence be it?[break]
Sworup Nhsuu
A successful campaign to curb violence on women will have to be centered on mass awareness, of men and women, girls and boys alike. Since uneducated and undereducated females are more likely to be victims of gender-based violence, increasing their education level will have to be another cornerstone of the campaign. Greater education for women will in turn mean higher family income, healthier families and an economy less dependent on the backbreaking work of Nepalis abroad. These are just a few of the many likely benefits of educating women.
Similarly, a successful awareness campaign will have to have the support of the male half. If effective strategies can be devised to make men aware of women’s important role in building healthier families and societies, this could have many positive spillover effects. For instance, a husband who whiles away his evenings watching TV or drinking with his friends could be persuaded to help his wife with the cooking. The husbands who cook, research suggests, make for healthier households for children to grow up in. In 10 or 20 years, these children are likely to develop into well-balanced adults and responsible citizens.
The secret, then, is to set a virtuous cycle in motion by identifying keystone habits. This might sound a little farfetched. How can a husband who is used to abusing his wife be persuaded to start respecting her by seemingly simple adverts on gender equality? The secret, again, is to identify the keystone habits of men, changing which can help change their outlook on women. It could be as simple as making it compulsory for every man to address his female colleague or coworker as ‘Miss’ or ‘Madam’ or by similar honorific in other languages. (Just an idea.)
Or it could be a law that strictly forbids men from taking the seats designated for women in public transport. If a man takes the seat, let him be fined Rs 1,000 on the spot. What will be the result of this kind of policy? I don’t know for sure. But what I am getting at here is that if there is an unmistakable message that there will be consequences of encroaching on women’s space in public transport, it might make men respect women’s space in other areas of life as well. After all, who would have thought that a Black woman like Rosa Parks’ refusal to leave her seat for a white passenger would spark the American Civil Rights Movement that would eventually overturn all discriminatory laws against Black/Afro Americans?
In other words, even seemingly small gestures can have great consequences. During the ongoing Occupy Baluwatar movement, one gets to see all the participants sporting little white butterflies. When one sees them for the first time, he/she is forced to ask: What does that symbolize? Maybe some social scientist will someday find that it was those butterflies which made many people go to Baluwatar. Or it could be that these small papery things have had only marginal effect on the overall movement, and all the effort that went into replicating them by thousands was not worth it. In Malcolm Gladwell’s words, the secret is to make the idea or image ‘sticky’ enough so that it reaches the ‘tipping point’ —a point when everybody starts talking about it.
Maybe the idea of violence against women could be made sticky enough, and there are signs that might already be the case. This could in time spark an unprecedented social revolution that goes far beyond minimizing violence against women. As those taking part in the ongoing movements against violence on women and the murder of journalist Thapa are discovering, it is very hard to get justice in this country without overhauling the entire state apparatus long used to turning a deaf ear to people’s complaints.
The Occupy Baluwatar and the greater movement against violence on women it has sparked could be a catalyst for that much-needed change.
The writer is the op-ed editor at Republica.
biswas.baral@gmail.co
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