Essays On Gender And Governance - United Nations Development ...

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The Impact of Gender Inequality on Governance departments and other branches of the bureaucracy. Women’s civic duties, especially if they were wives of civil servants, were defined so as to underscore their status as wives and mothers in subordination to men (Robinson, 2000). There was little formal recognition of women’s role as productive workers, even though the regime’s economic policies opened up new employment opportunities for women (Sen, 1998). This hegemonic state ideology of women’s subordination overrode the diversity in practice of the status accorded to women in different ethnic communities of Indonesia. Mobility is essential to participate effectively in activities that constitute citizenship. The capacity for mobility plays a key role in determining women’s location in politics, because it determines access to resources and opportunities, and the actual ability to engage in mobilisation. For women, the meanings and valencies assigned to mobility are linked with the perimeters of domestication and other factors (such as caste and ethnicity) that are imbricated with gender. In Nepal, for instance, upper caste women, who have been able to take advantage of the mobility generated through access to the processes of modernisation, dominate the political arena. In contrast, Nepali women from other caste strata among ethnic and tribal groups of the hills, who are mobile for economic purposes and because of cultural permissions, are nonetheless discouraged from explicit political activity (Shtrii Shakti, 2002:48- 49). Female mobility appears most permissible when the activity concerned is likely to benefit the family and carried out within its purview, even if the physical bounds per se are stretched, or when domesticity permeates an aspect of the activity requiring mobility. For example, in Pakistan women may travel away from their homes to participate in religious celebrations, bereavement or family celebrations such as births and weddings (Shirkat Gah, 2002:199- 200). The forum of participation still fits within the bounds of the domestic and the reason falls within the parameters of acceptable female behaviour, such as extra-domestic movement for religious purposes or to maintain kin ties. Women, of course, may use such allowances to engage in socially subversive and/or political activity. The accumulation of and access to material resources are also linked intimately with the demarcations of the private and public. 66
The Impact of Gender Inequality on Governance Gender-discriminatory inheritance laws across much of South Asia, usually falling under personal or religious legal systems and largely interpreted to grant women a lesser share than men, undermine women’s capacity to maintain themselves independently outside marriage or other male-centred family formations. Stagnation in the interpretation and application of such laws often means that there is no provision to accommodate changing social and economic realities, including where women themselves are compelled to take on the responsibility for accumulating and redistributing essential material resources. In Bangladesh, for instance, Islamic law presumes that a son will look after his ageing mother and is therefore entitled to twice the inheritance of his sisters. However, social and economic changes mean that daughters rather than sons are now often solely responsible for taking care of aged parents, but they continue to inherit only half the share of a man (UNDP, 1999:26). Discriminatory allotments may apply even in situations of class privilege (where there are ample material resources to ensure equal inheritances regardless of gender) or where women’s material and labour investments in family property would entitle them to a share commensurate with their investments. Such laws also compromise women in the context of political participation. Since women are, in general, less likely to be financially autonomous than men, they are less likely to have independent monetary resources for electioneering, and are further disadvantaged when inheritance laws deny them access to family capital to support their work. 5 In addition, the example of Sri Lanka given earlier contravenes any automatic positive correlation between more liberal inheritance laws and women’s access to positions of public decision making. Literacy’s Worth Women (and often men) at all social and economic levels have often identified literacy and education as critical prerequisites to any type of effective engagement in public or political space. 6 Poor 5 For the example of Pakistan, see Shahla Zia and Farzana Bari (1999:88). This report draws on several sources, including prior studies on women’s political participation by Shirkat Gah. 6 All the country reports in Tambiah, ed. (2002) attest to this. 67
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Gender and Governance India
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Martha Nussbaum Amrita Basu Yasmin
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Foreword The present volume is an o
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Gender and Governance: An Introduct
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