by Nazneen Huq

WHEN Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as ‘government of the people, by the people and for the people’, the definition of ‘people’, I believe, referred to people with gender balance. Again that balance is not in terms of number of men and women, but in terms of balance of power between these two sexes in socioeconomic and political arena. Without such a gender balance of power in every segment of the society, real democracy will remain far from real. With a new democratic government in power, with new enthusiasm among political parties to ensure democracy in their party activities, are we on a clear path of establishing a real democracy in Bangladesh? The answer is ‘no’. The current status of gender balance in our society does not even encourage us much in that direction; sometimes even frustrate us with the signal of backward movement in terms of gender balance, which makes democracy meaningless. Of many other characteristics, democracy means freedom of choice, responsibility to others and equal opportunity for all. We observe serious gender imbalance on all these counts.
   There prevails an array of misconceptions regarding the meaning of gender balance. Whilst often used interchangeably, ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are in fact different terms. A person’s sex is biologically determined as female or male according to certain identifiable physical features which are fixed. ‘Gender’ refers to the ways a person’s biology is culturally valued and interpreted into locally accepted ideas of what it is to be a woman or a man. Thus, ‘gender’ refers to hierarchical power relations between women and men and those are socially constructed, and not derived directly from biology. ‘Gender balance’ thus means such balance of power between men and women. As this power relation is socially determined, the gender balance is to be ensured by social institutions. When democracy is envisaged without this balance, we may actually end up in democracy of ‘people with gender imbalance of power’ and thus dictatorship of one gender in the society. This actually leads to an artificial democracy.
   To understand the level of gender balance in Bangladesh, the level of gender discrimination needs to be understood. ‘Gender discrimination’ refers to the systematic, unfavourable treatment of individuals on the basis of their gender, which denies them rights, opportunities or resources. Therefore, discrimination may arise at different level of the society – from family to economic activities to politics. At present women in Bangladesh enjoy more freedom and power than the previous century. However, they are still deprived when compared to men in virtually all aspects of life. Women are still deprived of equal access to health care, financial, and decision making powers in the political, social, and business arena. Policies generally address woman’s reproductive role and focus more on reducing fertility. However, women’s role as agents of economic development is not properly addressed in the society and even by policies.
   In our families, roles typically designated as female are almost invariably less valued than those designated as male. Women are generally expected to fulfil the reproductive role of bearing and raising children, caring for other family members, and performing household management tasks, as well as managing home based production. The most notable thing is that there is no democracy in the choice in these activities. Even when both the men and women in a family are working, it is still expected that women will bear the full responsibility of cooking, cleaning, child care – all household activities. In many families, women and girls can face discrimination in the sharing of household resources including food. This often leads to higher malnutrition and mortality indicators for women. Female children are commonly considered to be a burden in many families and this not only creates a social pressure on women to have sons, but also a major reason for violence against women. We also regularly hear numerous cases of violence against women for dowry. The imbalance in power relation between men and women is clearly evident from such undemocratic attitudes in our family life. As a result, potentials of a large part of population remain undiscovered; these women remain busy with an inherent struggle with their male counterpart rather than making choice for better utilisation of their inner capacity. As long as these unnecessary struggles and deprivation are not solved, we will not be able to achieve democracy.
   Bangladesh has already achieved gender parity in primary and secondary level enrolment, however girls to boys ratio in tertiary level is only 36: 67. This indicates lower rate of completion of secondary studies by girls and social discouragement to go to the tertiary level of education. This also indicates the positive role of scholarship programme for female students to bring gender parity in secondary level of education.
   There is widespread consensus that investment in the economic empowerment of women can and will help reverse the trend of gender discrimination. Economic empowerment of women refers to increased control over income. Increased income controlled by women gives them self-confidence, which helps them obtain a voice in household decisions; economic decisions like acquiring, allocating, and selling assets; decisions related to reproductive life (fertility, child care) and decision for land use and conservation. It is believed that economic power of women also enhances the ‘wealth and well-being of nations’. Women who control their own income tend to have fewer children, and fertility rates have shown to be inversely related to national income growth. Women are also more able – and generally more willing than male counterparts – to send their children (daughters as well as sons) to school. It also affects her decision-making process about contraception, age of marriage, etc. Though there are so many benefits of economic empowerment of women, we see gender imbalance in economic opportunities and treatments.
   It is observed that women largely remain outside the labour force of Bangladesh, though women’s participation in direct economic activities has gradually increased during the last decade. The Labour Force Survey data reveals a number of gender discrepancies. The size of female labour force has more than doubled during 1995-96 to 2005-06 from 5.4 million to 12.1 million. In spite of the increase in the labour force participation rate of women over the last ten years (from 15.8 per cent in 1995-96 to 29.2 per cent in 2005-06) the relative rate remains quite low. Only about 29 per cent of women participate in the labour force compared to about 87 per cent men. The unemployment rate among women is much higher than that of men; 7 per cent compared to 3.4 per cent. Moreover, underemployment rate is extremely high for women. About 68 per cent women are underemployed compared to about 10 per cent of men. Among 10.3 million unpaid family workers 6.8 million are women. Moreover, only 0.2 per cent (22,000) of the employed women were engaged in the administrative or managerial positions compared to 0.6 per cent (201,000) of the employed male. Both male and female are mostly employed in agriculture, forestry and fisheries.
   In the labour market, unequal pay, occupational exclusion or segregation into low-skill and low-paid work limits women’s earnings in comparison to those of men of similar education levels. Data from the Wage Survey 2007 of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics reveal huge wage discrepancies between male and female workers with similar education level. Considering both formal and informal sectors, a male worker earns Tk 132 and a female worker Tk 92 per day on an average. Gender difference in daily wage is the highest at 50.5 per cent in the informal sector compared to 40 per cent in the formal sector.
   Micro-credit is vastly considered as a facilitator of poverty alleviation by creating and expediting economic life of mainly women as they are the prime borrowers from this credit facility. It is seen to be the pioneer to the apparent ‘quiet revolution’. However, some new challenges have been extended by the current form of micro-credit operation. In many cases it has not taken women far beyond the confines of their home. There is a growing concern to whether or not these women actually retain control over their loans, or they are just working as agents of their male counterparts to access loan. Thus, the crisis in power relation between men and women continues. Even when a woman applies for formal sector loan, she is asked for ‘permission’ or ‘guarantee’ from her father or husband, while a man does not have to seek permission from his wife.
   With all these gender imbalances in the family and economic activities in the society, we cannot claim prevalence of democracy in these activities. Usually interlink between gender balance and democracy is discussed within the domain of political activities only. However, links of gender balance with democracy should be considered in a broader horizon. To ensure democracy, gender balance only in political activities is not enough, rather gender balance in social and economic activities need to be ensured. The fundamental right of freedom of choice and equal opportunities should be ensured in every sphere of life. This is necessary not only to attain millennium development goals of gender parity, but also to attain democracy in a meaningful way. Bangladesh has accepted the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Therefore, the gender mainstreaming should be given utmost importance in development policymaking. Only at that point the true sense of democracy would stem from home, and that would then spread to the entire society. We would not only have democracy in political arena but also a democratic society in its real meaning.
   Nazneed Huq is a researcher at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies.