#metoo

This year has been a lot about #metoo movement. Last month the women in US marched together in many states to raise underlying issues – issues that we have normalized. The unity of our gender calling for equal measures is a distant dream here in Nepal where we have yet to speak against sexual violence of all forms and equal pay for women.

And then on the other side of the world we hear about this brave 17 yo Ahed snubbing #wtf to the Israeli soldiers resisting against years of injustice. Ahed in many ways reinstates that women are the stronger gender designed to withheld with infinite patience every injustice thrown at her. No, she isn’t the kind of empowered feminists from Hollywood the west decides to gallantly define what women’s courage looks like. Ahed is fighting for justice against oppression – for every person who have witnessed violence and bullying all their lives. I would have liked the women of Hollywood to bestow the same compassion and empathy they showered for Malala.

I want to talk about our gender and how they are faring in the far west of Nepal not the west. I was there a couple of months ago for work. To sum up; it is pretty much the same all over the world - poverty sucks for women! I interacted and observed a lot of people. What wasn’t surprising was that women did all the chores. Men were just being them – doing nothing. I met a 21-year-old girl in Bajhang who was seven months pregnant and thin as a stick. She was working as a kindergarten teacher and was earning NPR 4500 per month. Her husband didn’t work. Her mother answered on her behalf; “tell her, your in-laws don’t give you enough food!” when I enquired if she ate lentil, rice and vegetables two times a day. She barely uttered a word.

A Teacher who earns NPR 4500 per month in Bajhang does not have the freedom to eat two proper meals a day, because she is a woman and that too when she is pregnant. While visiting a health post, I learned that many women ask the attending nurses or health post in charge to kill the new born (surki lagaideu); if it is a girl. Of course, the staff would never do that. But negligence for the new born baby girl starts right from the time she inhales her first breath. Gender based violence and gender discrimination takes a whole different turn in this part of Nepal.

The life of Ahed and this 21 yo pregnant girl from Bajhang is stark. Their fight is different yet similar in so many facets – one fighting for liberation from oppression and the other fighting for liberation from her own.

A #metoo movement or a women’s march isn’t going to work for women living in poverty. One of the underlying factor for gender based discrimination globally is women do not control the finances. We may fight for equal pay at our work but at our homes we still refuse to see the discrimination we are thrusted upon since the day we are born – or even from the time of our conception. Yes, change comes from within. And one of the most fundamental question is, will we ever fight against our own?