Assalamualaikum,
As a Muslim and as an activist I always felt that women's
liberation movements would never reach any useful end without bringing in
total justice in the society. Justice towards women is only a part of this
total justice. However, this total justice can’t be achieved only by
changing the law and enforcement system, it requires change in the
understanding and the attitude of the common people. Different women's rights
movements are working towards improving the conditions of women in our
country. My worry about the local women rights activists is that they tend to
forget the time and space factor in their action plan and try to follow the
more liberated west without giving second thought to the consequences. I
would like to share with you the following article, which I wrote for the
Gender Equality Policy (GEP) group's (BUET) magazine to express my concern.
With regards
Gender Equality or Equity?
Gender discrimination has been a subject of concern for a
long time. Although the issue has taken different dimensions in different
parts of the world, sufferings of women never really stopped. In western
world the women's rights movement has been able to successfully change
thousands of local, state and federal laws that had limited women's legal
status and social roles. In a developing country like Bangladesh the sufferings
of women are not so much for the state law as much as it is for the poverty,
lack of education, social customs, superstitions, misrepresentation of
religious scriptures, etc. When we talk about Gender issue, we talk about
equal rights of men and women in all spheres of life. However, an important
distinction needs to be made between equality and equity. Equality emphasizes
treating people the same without accommodating the significant differences
existing among them, which may affect the outcomes of equal treatment. For
example, in Bangladesh, the engineering institutes continue to have less
female students than their male counterparts; although theoretically, girls
have the same access to courses and University programs as boys. The main
reason behind such disproportionate distribution is that in these
institutions the courses are predominantly filled with boys and male
instructors; the environment is not conducive to girls feeling comfortable.
Thus "equal" treatment, without taking into account the differences,
tends to default to the unequal status quo. Moreover, ignoring the basic
differences between the inherent natures of the two genders creates
additional problems for the society. One example of such incidents is sending
female US marines to the front line of Iraq war. Fifteen of them were sent
back home due to the unwanted pregnancy.
Equity, on the other hand, recognizes the differences and
accommodates it. Thus the concept of Gender equity is being built and
preferred over the concept of gender equality. The term Gender equity is
defined as a set of actions, attitudes, and assumptions that provide
opportunities and create expectations about individuals. It offers a
framework for educational reform in which all females and males are engaged,
reflective learners regardless of the subject; are prepared for future
education, jobs, careers, and civic participation; set and meet high
expectations for themselves and others; develop as respectful, inclusive, and
productive individuals, friends, family members, workers, and citizens;
receive equitable treatment and achieve equitable outcomes in school and
beyond. A unique example of establishing Gender equity law is set by Iran.
Under women’s employment law, women workers are prohibited from engaging
in hard and hazardous jobs. Mothers who breast-feed are given half an hour
break every three hours at work in order to feed their babies. Those
employers who deny women workers such rights are fined the first time and in
case they repeat the offence they would receive prison terms ranging from 91
to 180 days. Another small yet significant example of gender equity is set by
our good old University BUET. The authority established computer and
photocopy facilities in the ladies hall since female students are not allowed
to be out side of the hall campus after 10:00 pm due to security and cultural
reasons. None of the boys’ hostels have similar facilities as they can
access the outside facilities any time in day and night.
The feminist movement in the western world, however, is
moving beyond the Gender equity. The present movement is motivated by the
idea of abolishing all the distinctiveness between men and women. It resulted
in increased number of women victims of sexual assault, increased number of
broken families and increased number of single mothers. In the context of the
present western society, it is ironic that every movement developed to
encourage woman to stand up and fight their own battles has taken a strange
detour, and instead is making them feel vulnerable and in need of protection.
In Bangladesh when we are struggling for establishing women’s rights,
we have examples of western world ahead of us. While ensuring the basic
rights of women is a dire need of the society, applying simple equality concept
in realizing such rights will give imbalanced outcome, and result in more
injustice towards women. The advocates of Gender equality should appreciate
the different conditions under which the different gender groups attempt to
live and work, to make their struggle fair and fruitful towards improving
women’s position in the society.
