Dr Asangba Tzüdir
170 Years to Gender Parity?…33% Reservation…?
This year’s International Women’s Day is being celebrated under the theme “Be Bold for Change” calling to action for accelerating gender parity by creating a more gender-inclusive world. It comes at a time when millions of women and groups around the world have already been taking a firm stand against inequality and injustice. Last year, organizations and individuals around the world supported the “Pledge for Parity” campaign and committed to help women and girls achieve their ambitions; challenge conscious and unconscious bias; call for gender-balanced leadership; value women and men's contributions equally; and create inclusive flexible cultures. From awareness creating efforts to concrete action, organizations rallied to pledge support to help forge gender parity.
The World Economic Forum in its Global Gender Gap Report 2016 predicts that gender gap in the workplace won't close entirely until 2186 which is 170 years from now, a time too long to wait for change to see. This is where International Women’s Day becomes very significant which serves as an integral catalyst in the struggle for gender parity, of injustice and violence on women. Therefore, it is not just a day to celebrate womanhood but for every human being to reflect on the condition of women the world over today. This calls for a collective responsibility from every women and men to take bold pragmatic action towards ensuring gender parity.
Looking at the Naga context, gender parity is largely ‘overshadowed’ by issues related to 33% reservation for women which is one reason why discourses on women and gender have failed to gather the desired momentum and more so it finds suppressed under a staunch patriarchal system which further reduces the struggle for women’s rights, justice and equality to nothing beyond 33% reservation. Under patriarchy, women are not allowed to inherit land; political participation is out rightly denied (unless they are ‘summoned’); customary laws and traditional practices do not ensure adequate justice to women especially in cases of violence and physical abuse including rape.
Discourse on gender finds itself placed in a faulty premise when it comes to issues of justice and equality. It is an irony that Naga women have to fight for their ‘political rights’ through reservation and within a patriarchal setting 33% reservation seems to be the only door through which women can fight for representation as a reserved category. Forget about the talk of equality and equal representation, the struggle for 33% reservation is also opposed under the guise of Article 371 A without giving due merit to the issue at hand.
he latest revelation from Naga Mothers’ Association aptly defines the present ‘Naga gender condition’ that discourses on gender and women’s rights are suppressed by violence which is used as a tool to hijack the place of women. In a shocking revelation, the Naga Mothers’ Association members who were at the forefront of 33% reservation of seats for women in Urban Local Bodies in Nagaland said that they received death and rape threats for their stance. This in itself is more damaging than physical abuse and rape. Such violent form of threat rapes both the ‘self-determining’ conscience as well as the ‘voice’ of women.
The way forward to address gender issues is to search for the ‘voice’- the voice of rights, justice and equality that comes out of the hearts and minds of every Naga woman. For this, the Naga Mothers' Association; the Nagaland State Commission for Women; and the various tribal women Associations need to come together and play a more pro-active role in order to address the voice of women and also give voice to the voiceless. The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day should bolden the Naga women’s struggle to speak out against the silence of violence, unjustified control, domination, subjugation, misrepresentation, denial in political participation and the many inequalities and injustices.
On the larger whole, an alternative discourse on gender as a counter discourse is desired to deconstruct male centric oral traditions and worldviews legitimated by patriarchy and voice out women concerns. Such counter discourse needs to begin from the grassroots by addressing the various inequalities. An instance of inequality is the lower daily wage rate for women defined on the basis of masculinity.
Above all, in the pursuit of ensuring gender ‘parity’ and a just society, the framework of ‘rights’ should be based on mutual respect and inter-dependence and most importantly on capabilities because women have reached a stage where they don’t need to be emancipated but properly ‘represented.’
(Dr. Asangba Tzüdir contributes a weekly guest editorial to The Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
