by Kumari Jayawardena
Kumari Jayawardena, an activist and political scientist, was formerly a lecturer at the University of Colombo and one of the early leaders of the Sri Lankan civil rights movement in the 1970s. Today, as one of Sri Lanka's leading feminists, she works closely with the Voice of Women, a group which provides free legal advice to women and publishes a monthly magazine in English as well as the two languages of Sri Lanka, Sinhala and Tamil.
This article is reprinted from Voice of Women, vol. 11, no. 4, March 1986.
"Then what is this hoo-ha about women's liberation?" asked the Island in an editorial in 1984 on International Women's Day. which was marked by the arrest and assault by the police of several women demonstrating for peace. Many others too wonder what the hoo-ha is about, and why Sri Lanka, with its high physical quality of life for women, needs feminist organizations of various hues, to agitate about discrimination against women and their continued subordination. But as feminists in Sri Lanka have realized, the vital statistics for women - literacy 83 percent, life expectancy 67 years and a maternal mortality of 1.2 per thousand births - may be comparatively good, but yet in society, in the family and at work, women still have a subordinate position. During this decade (1975-85), which was evaluated at the Nairobi conference organized by the U.N. in July 1985, the status of women has been more intensively discussed and debated than ever before and feminist consciousness has made notable advances in Sri Lanka.
The period was one of important economic, political and social changes in the country; politically, Sirima Bandaranaike, the world's first woman prime minister, was replaced by the government of J.R. Jayewardena in 1977; the new constitution in 1978 was a change from the "Westminster model" to a presidential system, and the referendum in 1983, to postpone elections until 1989, was one important sign of the shift to authoritarianism. After 1977, the economic changes included the strategy of the "Open Economy" with liberalization of imports, devaluation, the opening of the Free Trade Zone and the encouragement of foreign and local private capital, leading to some growth of the productive forces. One of the main features of the open economy was the absorption of female labor power into the production process as cheap labor. The overriding crisis of the decade, however, has been the ethnic issue. Sinhala-Tamil riots occurring in 1977 and flaring up again in 1981 and 1983. when there was a pogrom against Tamils, involving killings, arsons, loot, rape and continuous blood-letting on both sides.
In this period of social and political upheaval and continuing conflict. it is not surprising that the women's issue has come to the forefront; today it is undeniable that the women's movement is part of national political activity, the annual ritual state violence against feminists on March H. Women's Day, serving perhaps to prove the point. In 1984 and 1985 women demonstrating on this day were arrested, tear-gassed and assaulted with batons by the police, and in 1983 Vivienne Goonewardena and other women petitioning for peace were assaulted at the police station.
In Sri Lanka, the women's movement was not imposed on women by the United Nations or by Western feminists, but has an independent history. Women participated in the cultural revival of the late 1880 - 1910 period, educated themselves and began to enter the professions, (the first woman doctor qualifying in 1899) and in the 1920s, the Women's Franchise Union led the demand for female vote, which was obtained in 1931. In subsequent years, many organizations including the Women's Political Union, and the All-Ceylon Women's Conference, agitated for equal rights. Women were also active in trade unions in the 1920s and in the first Leftist party of the 1930s where they participated in the anti-imperialist struggle and the battle for basic economic and social changes. The first autonomous women's feminist socialist group was the Eksath Kantha Peramuna. formed in 1948, led by women of the Left parties. By 1975, women had already made important strides, not only in obtaining political rights, but also in education, employment, literacy, life expectancy and health.
The "Year of the Woman" proclaimed in 1975 by the U.N. served to bring the issue to the forefront again. Almost all political parties, trade unions and non-governmental organizations celebrated the event. Feminists travelled around Sri Lanka speaking on the women's issue and meeting with a good response from all classes of women. Feminist literature from abroad also influenced many local women, who began to write on the issue and to translate feminist writings. New organizations arose ranging from liberal to Marxist, which represented various shades of feminism. Foreign funders, pressured by their own feminist movements began to support local women's movements and projects both at governmental and nongovernmental level. The result of this activity was a forging of links internationally between women's movements, especially with Indian and other Asian women's groups.
Brahmin Ideology
In order to understand the various types of Sri Lankan feminism that have emerged during the decade, it is useful to highlight the anti-feminist attitudes that have traditionally prevailed and still persist in our society, often referred to as "Brahmin ideology" (bamunu matha). While the Sinhalese have no Brahmins, and the Tamil Brahmins of Sri Lanka are usually confined to ceremonial temple functions, the concept of "Brahmin ideology" is widely understood even in popular parlance.
In the elitist literature (especially reflected in the 15th century Kavyasekeraya in the Brahmin's advice to his daughter), a classic model of female behavior among the upper classes and castes is projected, involving subordination to the male. The "do's" included chastity, modesty, servility, self-sacrifice, confinement to home, preoccupation with children, husband, relations and husbands friends, not to mention looking after his property; there were also several "dont's" including loud talk, laughing running, idling and keeping the company of independent (therefore bad) women.
The essence of "Brahmin ideology" in both Sinhala and Tamil cultures is that woman's role is that of wife and mother, that women have no brains, are fickle, emotional and cunning, leading men astray and also that women have prime responsibility to look beautiful. Thus woman emerges as a devoted mother, a beauty queen, an evil temptress and a stupid housewife.
The concept of beauty and good behavior in women are also stressed by the traditional ideologies. To give a few examples from thv elitist traditions, the Sinhala concept of beauty speaks of the Pancha Kalyani (Five Attributes of Beauty) namely beauty of hair, teeth, flesh, skin and youthful appearance. In Tamil culture, women had to possess the Natkunam (Four Great Qualities): a sense of fear, shame, ignorance (of bad things) and pretense (not revealing too much knowledge of reality).
Today, in spite of many economic and social changes, vestiges of the "Brahmin ideology" remain, and fairly frequently, some socially backward "Brahmins" in the form of politicians, religious leaders, and males in high places, get on platforms to give advice to women on how they should behave, what they should wear, how many children they should have, how they should not lose their feminity, etc. Belief in the Five Qualities of Beauty of the Sinhalese and the Four Great Virtues of the Tamils still prevail in our society.
To what extent such anti-feminism and "Brahmin"" views persist can be seen from recent editorials in liberal and socialist journals. The Island, the most liberal of the national English dailies, had the following comments to make in an editorial entitled "Women's Liberation!"" in March 1984:
The feminine consciousness as it obtains today is another article of the contemporary ideological baggage borrowed from the West. In traditional societies, which the ideologues of women"s liberation love to scoff at. woman, as wife and mother, had her own preordained place.
The mother was more often the real power in the household. In the last analysis, therefore, she also subtly influenced the thinking and the decision-making in the household.
Then what is this hoo-ha about women's liberation? Like most other fads, to which our alienated elite genuflect, this too is a concept hatched in a West riddled by all the problems which a post-industrial society is heir to...
The fashionable women's lib in which our upper class women engage in merely a chic posture devoid of any meaning to the large bulk of Sri Lanka's women.
" Even more surprising arc perhaps the comments of the revolutionary Left. In an editorial on Women's Day in 1984 the Kainkani Viththi (Worker's News), the Sinhala paper of the NLSSP (the Left breakaway from the Trotskyist Lanka Sama Samaja Party) fiercely attacked the women's movement: feminists were called "middle-class canaries, who think women's oppression is due to men's inherent animal-like qualities'" and believe that if men "crept into the kitchen and helped in scraping coconut...equality would be achieved." On the question of^ violence against women (which feminists have recently been highlighting) the paper said:
"The relationship between a man and a woman is a complex one to which there is no easy answer. To outsiders it may look as if a man is harassing and beating a woman. But if we look closer it is merely a bit of fun and games between husband and wife."
The traditional concept of women's subordinate position still pervades many women's organizations. There are numerous women's associations spread all over the island with very traditional activities for women, including many religious associations which organize religious festivities, run orphanages and homes for destitute or "fallen" woman, as well as urban-based women's groups who raise funds for charity; these are the tacit proponents of "Brahmin ideology." They take the present structures of society as given and treat any sign of independence by women as transgressions of the social order. All their activities seem designed to perpetuate the subordinate status of women, in the name of tradition and culture.
While this traditional ideology still retains its force, the economic changes in society particularly over the last decade have brought into being a new attitude to women, one that seeks to make of the woman, not only a mother and wife, but also a productive worker. Women in our agrarian society have always been workers, associating themselves with men at various stages of the cultivation cycle: women have always been the major part of the plantation labor force. But with the need for more labor in the expanding modern sector, an ideology of "women in development" has emerged.
Liberal Feminism and Women's Projects
Today the most accepted ideology — the one that receives state patronage, approval from foreign agencies and government and from liberal-minded persons — seems to be the "women in development" strategy which takes the position that
1. Women should be emancipated, have equal political, legal and economic rights, which include equal access to education, employment and political decision making; and
2. In the whole process of economic growth, women should be "integrated into development," by bringing them into new avenues of employment and income-generating projects.
The theorists of this approach generally accept the present economic system, and the view that all nations will develop generally on the lines of Western capitalist growth, provided that enough quantities of capital and technology arc available and provided that traditional societies succeed in reforming and modernizing their social structures. However, they argue that up to now, the benefits of modernization have accrued only to men and that it is necessary to devise plans that will specifically bring women within the scope of growth that will "integrate women into the development process."
During the decade (1975-8.S) this line of thinking has become popular in Sri Lanka and is reflected in the establishment of a Women's Bureau (1978), in the participation of official delegations at the Mexico (1975) and Copenhagen (1980) women's conferences, and at Nairobi (1985); in the appointment of Minister of Women's Affairs (1983); and the increase in women's projects. Such projects, run by governmental and non-governmental organizations, in many cases with foreign funding, are tailored to the prevailing ideology of foreign funders that
1. Money for development projects should also be channeled to projects for women, especially women from the poorest sectors of the society.
2. The projects should not only be income-generating, hut also be "grassroots" and "action-oriented," two key words in development conditionality.
Many of the women's projects, however, arc confined to traditional areas especially the ubiquitious "sewing classes" which exist at all levels. Where women's projects venture beyond sewing, they take to poultry-rearing, growing vegetables and flowers, batik making, bee-keeping, cookery, and if more daring, into electrical and bicycle repairs.
While no one objects to women generating some income for themselves, the limitations of such projects are evident. First arises the question, how much income can actually be generated? Second, who benefits by the additional income? And third, what changes does it make in the subordinate status of women?
Within this approach, there is a tacit assumption that the status of women can be improved by making them economically active members of society, by making them, even in a restricted sense, economically independent. Besides the income-generating activities on a self employment basis, there is also an emphasis on drawing women into the labor force - e.g. into tourist related activities, the Free Trade Zone, or the Middle East as housemaids but there is no questioning of the patriarchal structures of society. Therefore, the relative economic independence of the woman does not contribute to her emancipation. She, in fact, becomes doubly oppressed; she has to bear the double burden of paid wage work and unpaid domestic labor. The developmental approach may therefore result binding women more firmly to her subordinate status. Women are, in fact, being integrated into a process of development that still continues to be exploitative and oppressive as it is male-dominated and male-oriented.
The "open economy" has also had consequences, in making the country equally open to cultural and ideological pressures from the advanced capitalist countries. These pressures have had diverse and paradoxical results. On the one hand we have the rising tide of consumerism and commercialism; goods and services familiar to the West are advertised through the television, in the same manner as in the West, thus making us a part of an international market. Women, in their roles as housewives and mothers, play a prominent part in these campaigns, from the woman who advertises her clean bathroom on TV to the beauty queen who extols the merits of a particular brand of milk powder. Women are also used as sex symbols to advertise anything from a car to eau-de-cologne. On the other hand, there are films and TV shows which portray women as the equals of men - in politics, in business, spying, in fighting, etc. However that may be, it is possible that the new Western pressures on our culture and values do play a part in forming or changing feminist consciousness.
Many of the "developmentalist school" while being fully supportive of women in all fields of activity also show vestiges of "Brahmin ideology" namely women's "obligation" to produce children and look like a beauty queen at the same time. For example, an editorial in the SUN (February 26, 1985) on "Virtues of Womanhood" refers with approval to the speech of the Minister of State, Anandatissa de Alwis. who in addressing the University Women's Federation urged women professionals not to lose their femininity. The editorial states:
When the Minister referred to 'loss of feminity' he was apparently not referring to any romantic fiction. Feminity first and foremost, is embodied in the glory of motherhood. Whatever the bra-burning liberators or the professionals of assorted vices may say, a woman's noblest and greatest role has and always will be in the beauty of motherhood.
"Women can reach for the stars, only if and as long as her launch-pad is a good home, which she has helped to build. Any other foundation, fashionable though it may be, would be threadbare."
The developmentalist ideology is translated into action by the Women's Bureau and various other non-governmental organizations like the Mahile Samitis which are engaged in the task of encouraging and teaching rural women to become producers in the economic sphere. In the urban areas there are also various associations of professional women, as well as the female counterparts of business organizations like Rotary and Lions, all with limited objectives, the limitation lying precisely in their ideology. They may be for achieving some type of equality - socially, educationally, legally, economically - but all they may achieve is the appearance of equality; the substance of equality will elude them as long as the patriarchal structures of society remain in place.
In the political arena, organizations of women, linked to various political parties have emerged. The Left and non-Left parties have women's organizations which are mainly mobilized during elections. Recently, the government has started the Seva Vanitha movement, significantly copied from the Indonesian model of Dharma Vanitha. Wives of officials in various government departments and offices are organized in hierarchical groups, parallel to the status and position of the husbands (the Minister's wife being the President of the Seva Vanitha in each ministry!). The functions of the baminis (Brahmin's wives) of the Seva Vanitha are to help in implementing government policies and organizing various social charitable events; its purpose are thus linked directly to the whole bureaucratic state apparatus and in no way serve to tackle the question of women's subordination.
Socialist Feminists
Today the word feminism includes but goes beyond reforms for achieving equal status. It is used to highlight women's struggles against all the various aspects of patriarchy, including male dominance in the home and family, the unequal man-woman relationship, women's double burden in production at work and reproduction of the species, male control of woman's sexuality, women's unpaid domestic labor, and women's subordinate status in the culture (including religions) of the country. The women's struggle is not only for emancipation, but for liberation from all the oppressive structures and institutions of patriarchal society. This is a consciousness that is now emerging in contradistinction to both the traditional ideology of female subordination and the presently dominant school of women in development. This type of feminist consciousness goes together with views on the restructuring of the economy and society on non-exploitative, socialist lines.
The first socialist feminist group in Sri Lanka was the Kantha Handa (Voice of Women) formed in 1978. This group (which publishes a journal in three languages) raised many new issues ranging from equal pay and economic demands, to rape and wife-bartering, as well as sexism in the media and especially attacking beauty competitions. In subsequent years, several other socialist feminist groups emerged, the Women's Liberation Movement in Ja-Ela, the Progressive Women's Front in Ibbagamuva and many other smaller women's organizations. Many of these feminist socialist groups have come together in the Women's Action Committee, which agitates on specific issues and annually celebrates International Women's Day. The Left parties including Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Communist Party also have separate women's associations, which have consistently highlighted women's social and economic oppression.
The area of women's exploitation at work has been the main concern of the socialist feminists, with special attention being paid to wages and conditions in the Free Trade Zone, plantations and in agriculture . Studies on the export of women to West Asia, women and tourism and women in the informal sector have further revealed new areas of women's exploitation and oppression. Opposition to night work for women has been another issue that has been at the forefront of agitations of feminists over the last few years.
One area where there has been some agitation by socialist feminists during the decade, but with little result, has been that of the beauty industry. The open economy strategics and increasing commercialization and consumerism, have increased the number of" inane beauty competitions and fashion shows, as well as well as the misuse of the faces and bodies of women to advertise products. The earliest battles the feminists in Sri Lanka had with the establishment, and with advertisers and journalists, was on the issues of women in advertising and beauty competitions. However, in spite of the continuing popularity of these forms of activity degrading to women, the growing consciousness among women and men about these issues during the decade is often reflected in newspaper comment and in conversations. Even editorials in newspapers attacking the spoil-sport puritanical feminists for their attitude to beauty competitions show awareness of the arguments against such events. For example, the Island (June 6, 1985) in an editorial commenting on the BBC television ban on beauty competitions, referred to the exploitation and commercialization that arc features of such competitions but attacked the "Lanka libbers" for not appreciating that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever."
Women's Struggles
The socialist feminists basically go beyond the liberal developmentalists in that their agitation is defined in terms of liberation rather than emancipation. Unlike the developmentalists. who accept the system as given, the socialist feminists are for changing the system, believing that women's exploitation and oppression arc not "social evils" (to be eradicated by legislation), but are part of the whole exploitative economic system which depends for its survival on the continuing oppression and exploitation of both men and women. The women's movement, they argue, is therefore not only a democratic struggle for equal rights, but is also part of the struggle for radical social change.
It is in this context that socialist feminists have actively supported struggles of women in the day-to-day situations at work and in the family. During the decade there have been several successful struggles of around 800 women factory workers of the Polytex Garments in Ekala for better conditions of pay and work. These workers were supported by a feminist group in Ja-Ela (the Women's Liberation Movement) which runs the Women's Center; other feminist organizations were mobilized to give joint support, in the form of picketing, distribution of handbills, printing posters, collecting funds for the strikers and informing foreign women's groups of the Polytex Women's struggle.
It will be useful to distinguish between two groups of socialist feminists. One group would give primary emphasis to achieving changes in the economic and social structures, believing that a socialist society would pave the way for women's liberation. The other would give more emphasis to the struggle against patriarchy, believing that unless continuously opposed, patriarchy is likely to survive even in a socialist mode of production.
It is socialist feminists of the second group who have not been content with limiting the struggles to "equal rights " in an unequal society. They have gone further and probed other areas of women's oppression, especially highlighting the oppression in the family and within marriage. These feminists have not hesitated to raise issues such as male dominance in the family, in society, ill politics, in religion and ideology — in short, they have emphasized the dominance of patriarchy in ail spheres of life. They have shown that in spite of high achievements in education, literacy, health, and life expectancy in Sri Lanka, women can yet be subordinate since patriarchy prevails. They have also raised the issue of violence against women, from harassment on the road and in buses, to molestation, rape, incest and wife-beating, and violence of all types especially rape against minority women during ethnic violence. Due to rise in consciousness on the issue of violence against women, newspapers are reporting and commenting more on this issue. Violence which was a somewhat hidden issue, is now openly discussed and has been the subjects of several recent seminars, one by socialist feminists and another by the Women's Bureau quaintly called "Women and Safety."
The right of a woman to control her own sexuality and the process of reproduction is another issue raised by these feminists; this includes agitation for the change of the antiquated abortion laws, which is now beginning to emerge as an issue. As in India discussion has also begun on the need for a common legal code for all ethnic groups, so that discrimination against Tamil and Muslim women cannot continue under the guise of respect for their traditional laws. Another aspect of increasing feminist consciousness during the decade has been the recognition by feminists of the importance of women's studies. The Women's Education Center and the Center for Society and Religion have started a Women's Studies program which also has a socialist feminist orientation.
Women and the Ethnic Issue
The ethnic conflict between Sinhalese and Tamils, which has engulfed Sri Lanka since \9^?>. has had a significant impact on feminist consciousness. Ethnicity is an issue which has cut across political lines and chauvinist attitudes can be found not only among Brahmin ideologues but also among other sections. However, what is important in the emerging feminist consciousness is the desire for a peaceful and just solution and cessation of violence. This has given rise to significant women's peace movements both in the north and south of Sri Lanka. It is a remarkable development, that on this issue, as well as many others, feminists appear to be in advance of various other groups in society.
In the north, the violence, arrests rapes and killings have led to many new organizations emerging which are nonpolitical movements mobilizing people. Apart from the Citizen's Committees (which have included women) formed to look into injustices to people and to provide relief necessary, a Mother's Front was formed in Jaffna, an organization of women who have joined together to protest against arbitrary arrests and detention of their sons and to provide help in areas where people are suffering from want of food and clothing. Recently the Mother's Front has openly criticized one of the militant Tamil groups for putting up posters all over Jaffna asking women to produce more children (Saturday Review. April 198.'S). In the south of Sri Lanka, women of all ethnic communities have formed the Women for Peace movement, which has deplored violence and called for a political rather than military solution to the problem: it has not only launched an island-wide signature campaign for peace but has also published documentation in all languages against racism, which is distributed in schools, workplaces and at public meetings.
A broad overview of changes in feminist consciousness during the last decade would thus show a shift from traditional ideology to a view encompassing women in both the productive and reproductive spheres. Insofar as women are being encouraged to shift from household into wage work, and to achieve a measure of economic independence, this may be seen as a move in the direction of women's emancipation. More and more women are thus being given the basic prerequisites for an independent existence. However, the limits of this approach have to be realized; the necessity of moving further ahead in the direction of true liberation is the task of feminists today.
At the beginning of the decade much was written and spoken of "consciousness-raising" among women. In subsequent years, however, there was a trend of starting "projects" for women, without any component of raising consciousness. Today many feminists are again recognizing the need for an organized, sustained campaign to make women and men aware of the fact that women can have a high physical quality of life and yet be subordinate. During the next decade, this awareness of the continued exploitation and oppression of Sri Lankan women has to be brought to the masses of women in factories, fields and plantations. Women cannot continue to be "bought off" with equal pay and "projects" or with promises of participation in the system. Women both rural and urban have shown their militancy during the decade, have challenged the myths and superstitions of the "Brahmins" and have fought in the workplace and on the streets for their rights. It is now necessary to move ahead and mobilize more women into the only project that is of real interest to women: the project for women's liberation.
For more information, contact Voice of Women at 25 Kirula Road, Colombo 5, Sri Lanka.