Recently there has been quite a huge public outcry, mostly in Kathmandu media and civil society, but also in districts, on violence against women (VAW). News of rape, domestic violence, dowry, accusations of witchcraft, trafficking of women and preference of sons have been appearing regularly in the public sphere.
Such incidents have provoked a public firestorm in Nepal and raised urgent questions about how to improve women’s security and protection. The challenge has been what to do about it.
Partly due to limited understanding of gender relations, there seems to be widespread understanding that simply regarding women and girls as inferior is sufficient to open the door for men and boys to do anything they please. This is rather a conservative understanding of VAW. Gender roles and norms are not static. [break]
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Nepal has not only seen significant changes in gender relations and norms over the last decades, but also economic crisis coupled with ideas of modernity and consumption has put significant pressure on large number of men who are left under or un-employed. Addressing the issues requires a rigorous sociological analysis of gender relations, how it has been changing over the last few decades, and men’s perceptions of this change.
Evidence
Although a systematic study on VAW is not available in Nepal, a number of assessments indicate that this is a major issue. Perhaps, one of the most authoritative data on VAW comes from Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) 2011, which suggested that among women aged 15-49, 22 percent had experienced physical violence, and 12 percent had experienced sexual violence at least once since age 15.
The most commonly reported perpetrator of physical violence among married women is the current husband (84 percent). Former husbands and in-laws are cited by 7 percent and 6 percent, respectively. Among never-married women who have experienced physical violence since age 15, the most common perpetrators are siblings (38 percent), fathers or stepfathers (36 percent), and mothers or stepmothers (30 percent).
Nepal Police’s central cell for women and children collects data on different forms of VAW, categorised as ‘rape’, ‘attempt to rape’, ‘trafficking’, abortion’, polygamy’, ‘child marriage’ and ‘domestic violence’, based on formal complains lodged. According to its website, there has been a significant increase in the number of registered cases on VAW in the last one and half decades (from 2053/54 to 2068/69 BS). Domestic violence increased sharply from 337 to 2250. Rape increased from 112 to 555, attempt to rape from 34 to 156. Polygamy increased steadily from 101 to 249 in this period. Trafficking decreased for a few years, going down to 40 in 2058/59 and then increased again slowly to 117 in 2053/54.
According to a Nepal Government’s report from November 2012, about 48 percent of women have experienced gender based violence in their lifetime, and over 25 percent in the last 12 months. Nearly three-quarters report that the perpetrators were intimate partners, including husbands. Interestingly, the vast majority of women who took part in this study disapproved of wife-beating on the grounds of dissatisfaction with household work (93 percent), refusal to have sex (95 percent), enquiring if the husband has other girlfriends (95 percent) or disobeying the husband (81 percent).
However, over half (55 percent) thought that wife-beating was justified if the wife had been unfaithful. We could go on and continue with more statistics that reveal interesting gender dynamics, but it is clear that VAW is a major issue in Nepal.
Make men visible
In VAW, we are confronted with a paradoxical situation. While men are certainly present in the discussion on VAW, they have rarely been an explicit focus of analysis or intervention. In Nepal, as elsewhere, the context in which young men struggle to achieve their personal goals is not their own making, and it has changed significantly in the last decades. Cultural and ethnic differences as well as changing gender ideologies in the context of wider social transformation makes it hard to make generalizations on what it means to be a man.
In the 20th century, the notion of kamaune (i.e. earning and bring money home) has become core concerns for men across all the communities in Nepal. For instance, dominant Bahun values of renunciation, austerity and purity are sidelined even among Bahuns in favor of masculine competence that is expected to realize one’s role as a heterosexual householder, with ‘sexuality’ and ‘providing’ as its twin pillars.
The idealized version of Bahun purity runs into tension with the demands of contemporary practices of masculine performance that may include eating (buffalo) meat, drinking, smoking, courtship, going to cinema, visiting restaurants, and watching pornography.
Anthropologist Laura Ahearn’s work has shown that amongst the hill ethnic groups who were recruited in the Army, those who went to school were ridiculed over those who dropped out and joined the military as soon as they were old enough. The high caste Bahun and Chettris were seen as weaklings, despite their religious superiority and sometimes economic status. Unlike Magar men, they could not fight. The idea of physical strength and bravery was central to Magar idea of masculinity then. She found that earlier non-soldiers were labelled and ridiculed for being dhakre—those who carried loads in their bamboo-basket.
When schooling became a requirement for enlisting in Army and increasingly for other types of salaried jobs, ideas regarding masculinity underwent a change. In my own work, I have found that ideas of masculinities associated with education, salaried employment or recruitment in Army have undergone changes. While educational qualifications reconfigured masculinities, these qualifications have not automatically led to employment or success.
Young men’s most difficult move into the terrain of masculine competition has been trying to find well-paying employment. This requires years of study, making contacts, moving around and re-defining self. Unable to find employment, young men often find themselves ‘faltu’ or involved in what they call ‘time-pass’ playing ‘carom-board’ or other activities.
Others may engage themselves in petty business, assist local contractors, political parties, or youth or social clubs. As consumer goods increasingly make it to interior parts of Nepal, young men are under constant pressure to catch up with consumption, but many are unable to do so within the economic and socio-cultural constraints of village life. This has intensified out-migration as young men have sought work outside of Nepal by going to India or bidesh as new lahures. While this costs a lot and may not always reward financially, young men often appear desperate to avoid being labeled ‘faltu’ and eager to take part in possibilities of modern consumption away from constrained village life.
Men in Nepal are under intense pressure and face social and economic insecurities—they cannot find jobs and often feel threatened by educated and empowered girls and women. In addition to perceived threat from women’s increased position, gender inequality has an added caste and ethnic dimension in Nepal.
It is possible that traditionally upper class or locally dominant ethnic groups are deeply concerned about the economic, political and social assertion of low castes, working class and marginal ethnic groups, and the threat this poses to their historical privileges. Dominant groups may use violence to claim their disappearing socio-economic or symbolic power.
Conclusion
While it is generally acknowledged that VAW is embedded in ‘patriarchy’ and the masculine domination it sanctions, initiatives and interventions have largely looked at it as women’s issue. Furthermore, most initiatives and analyses appear to be guided by the simplistic idea that men are the perpetuators and women the victims.
While it is certainly true that men are often the perpetrators and women the victims of gender based violence, this binary approach does not reflect the socially constructed and relational aspects of gender. Also, it does not enable understanding of why some men are not involved in violence while many are, and ignores the fact that women themselves frequently commit violence on other women.
Most interventions have focused women with the aim of empowering them, while men have been either left out or been seen as perpetrators to be dealt with legally. Further, an overwhelming focus within the debate on VAW has been on the physical and sexual acts of violence without locating them in the context of symbolic violence. Understanding men’s perception and engaging them in debate and practice is likely to offer more constructive pathways to addressing VAW. Not all men are violent, and men are often visible in condemning or resisting VAW.
The author is a Lecturer in South Asia and International Development at the University of Edinburgh
jeevan.sharma@ed.ac.uk
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