The first question always asked after a baby is born is if it’s a girl or a boy. And there begins a way of life that is either feminine or masculine. Each of the path has very different milestones and destinations.
Discrimination by gender begins very early and has profound and detrimental impacts on the physical, mental and economic wellbeing of girls and women. We may be so accustomed to this oppression that we think it is “natural.”
If we examine the mental images we carry with us, men and boys are perceived as heads of the family, breadwinners, decision-makers, powerful, logical, rational, strong, leaders; while women are often portrayed as emotional, irrational, hysterical, housewives, caretakers and servants or wicked seductresses. But these gender norms are not genetic or biologically essential to being “male” or “female” and mostly do not reflect reality.
Let’s not confuse sex with gender. Sex is the physical reproductive capacity one is born with. Gender is the accumulation of socially-constructed norms and customs, unwritten rules and cultural constraints – to which our innocent infants will be subjected throughout their entire lives.
These gender roles are changeable. However, since they are rooted in patriarchal traditions, old beliefs and superstitions passed on through generations, they are also often unchallenged. Tragically, gender stereotypes have fatal consequences for the opportunities and rights of men and women in the family and in society today.
A baseline survey conducted by Shiree, a livelihood programme funded by DFID and SDC in partnership with the Government of Bangladesh, working with over 300,000 extremely poor households across the country, showed that one-third of all parents believe that boys are more important than girls in relation to food and education, while the rest believe they are equally important. The perceived secondary importance of girls and women happens even if they are also breadwinners.
A mother will often feed her husband and sons larger, more nutritious portions before she eats herself, thus passing on the protein, minerals and vitamins she desperately needs to stay healthy. This deprivation can be seriously debilitating if she’s pregnant, lactating or still only an adolescent girl. With this kind of vicious cycle, it is no wonder that Bangladesh has the most undernourished women in Asia (Finucane, et al., 2011).
Beyond health and nutrition, a girl child faces life-limiting struggles, prejudices and abuse. Once they reach puberty they are at the centre of the storm. Adolescent girls are likely to face day-to-day verbal harassment from young men as they walk to and from school or work. This is often referred to as “eve teasing”, but this term takes away the seriousness of the matter. Harassment, often escalating into further abuse, abduction and rape, has led to a very high number of suicides among adolescent girls.
If a girl feels unsafe in her own town, she likely has no one to talk to. In society sexual harassment and violence is often considered “normal” male behaviour and not treated with the same seriousness as other criminal offences. Abuses often become the “fault” of the girl or woman, and lacking access to justice, she is victimised not once but twice.
Another violation is the shockingly high number of child marriage incidents – despite legislation, two-thirds of women aged 20-24 are still married before the age of 18 (Plan, 2013). Poverty combined with gender discrimination against girls produces a scenario where, with the pressure of dowry hovering, “the problem” is “solved” by marrying a girl off early. Girl brides are very likely to become pregnant early, which risks creating a number of severe maternal and child health problems.
Once a girl is a wife and mother, she will likely never return to school or the job market. She becomes confined to the walls of her home with no mobility beyond her village, unskilled and poorly educated. Consequently, her child is likely to become malnourished, increasing the likelihood of passing poverty and vulnerability from one generation to another.
Furthermore, extreme poor women often face abandonment from their husbands. The Shiree baseline survey showed that 30% of extremely poor families are female-headed, 22% of these include abandoned or divorced women. The men often leave their wives and children either to be with another wife, or simply from the stress of poverty and incapacity to provide for his family.
Yet, all their lives, women are socialised into depending on male breadwinners and guardians. A woman we talked to in Korail slum explained: “My husband is my world, he’s the tree of life, the pillars of our home, the head of the family, without him we are nothing.”
Thus, when women are left behind as sole providers for their children, they suffer particular distress. In desperation, mothers will go to extraordinary lengths to feed their families: they turn to the informal sector, work as domestic maids, beggars, sex workers, or sell their bodies to traffickers, since there is very little decent work available in the formal sector for unskilled, illiterate women and girls. In the Shiree baseline survey, two thirds of the female household heads had no schooling and their average monthly income levels were around 1,000 taka ($12 USD) less than in male headed households.
These fractured families are under enormous pressure to pull their children out of school and engage their sons and daughters in informal work too. On top of that, these widowed or abandoned women face severe discrimination, stigma and isolation from neighbours and their communities.
If a woman does find employment outside the house, she will also face inequalities. Women, particularly poor women working as day labourers, receive lower wages for the same work as men, sometimes as much as 50% less than their male counterparts for the same job.
But it goes further than wage disparities. Often women will have next to no say in any household decision-making, especially in spending decisions. If a married woman objects to her situation or tries to hold on to her own wages, she can become a victim of domestic violence.
A recent survey (BBS and UNFPA 2011) revealed a series of horrifying statistics – nearly 9 out of 10 (87 %) husbands abuse their wives in Bangladesh, and around one-third of the married women reported having been raped by their husbands. 126 women in the sample of 12,600 claimed to have had a family member who had committed suicide due to domestic violence.
Despite managing to tick the box of the ‘Millennium Development Goal’ on gender equality, gender discrimination and women’s suffering is widespread in Bangladesh. While gender discrimination is often exacerbated by poverty, it persists even as families and nations become richer. The striking thing when you start talking about gender inequality is that the list of discriminations goes on and on. It happens in all areas of our lives.
How do we make sure that the potential of half of the population is not wasted, neglected, harassed, abused and exploited? Having two female political leaders (who are both surrounded by and dependent on large groups of powerful men) has certainly not solved the problems of Bangladeshi women lower down on the socio-economic scale.
Raising awareness through education, as well as engaging with men and power brokers, is central to ending gender inequality by changing attitudes and mindsets. Together we can move towards a society where our beloved babies can grow up to fulfill their dreams, regardless of the sex they were born with.
