With a majority of Sri Lankan women locked out of the economy or not allowed to make their own decisions about keeping a job, an essay written 71 years ago resonates still.

March 8th is International Women’s Day. While some are offended by the idea, it is a day to acknowledge hard-fought advances, reflect on persisting failures and ponder resolving many serious issues unresolved for far too long that disadvantage women. If the sometimes condescending tones or well-intentioned yet cringe-worthy spectacles may be overlooked, perhaps the day serves to bring all the candles together in what still is a demon-haunted world, to borrow the title of a Carl Sagen book, where he writes about the stunning (unforgivable) silence of all the saints, church doctors and lettered men against the mindless witchhunt of women spanning three centuries in Europe.

His lascivious advances spurned, a libidinous brunt of a man had only to accuse his neighbour’s wife of witchcraft, and that was that. No one could speak on her behalf at the mockery of a trial, and often if not always, she sealed her fate by confessing falsely under excruciating, cruel torture, condemned to the stake to suffer a death far crueller than crucifixion.

Sagen notes that apart from a minuscule number of brave monks who authored underground pamphlets denouncing a diabolical church, all the educated men, clergy and saints maintained a deathly silence over the gross injustices that went against the very grain of the religion they professed. Religious hysteria was rife. It was also a time the Western churches were burning books. They should have kept their books and burnt the Malleus Maleficarum instead! And the so-called renaissance in the West was later only possible because the Islamic world preserved the works of Aristotle and the other fathers of democracy in ponderously voluminous libraries, some historians believe, only to lose them when they caught the same sickness of the Western churches.

Men in the West carelessly and intensionally thrust women into a sinister form of servitude by, for instance, casting notable women like Aspasia – Socrates’ dialectics teacher without whom he would not have been – or the pious women from Magdala – the first – under a red-glow to belittle their worth.

In South Asia, home to diverse peoples and diversely rich cultures, women are inherently disadvantaged by diverse archaic laws, religious practices and cultural norms. In ancient Sri Lanka, when women began to take up the saffron-robbed life, their male counterparts decided to issue a litany of edicts, valid to this day, governing every aspect of these pious women’s lives. And they went above and beyond absurdity to do so, points out author, teacher and YouTuber Upul Shantha Sannasgala.

How is modern Sri Lanka? According to the Institute of Policy Studies, the Covid-19 pandemic impacted women the most. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the number of employed men had increased by 38,938 compared to the previous year. But 189,148 women lost their jobs in the same period!

A 2019 Women’s Well-Being survey by the Department of Census and Statistics showed that one in four women in Sri Lanka had experienced physical or sexual violence by a partner or non-partner. One in every five women has suffered physical, sexual, emotional, and economic violence or controlling behaviours by a partner. Subsequently, the lockdowns subjected women to more violence.

It is unfortunate that women and men alike, in fear or devoid of reason, continue to perpetuate biases that subjugate women: schools impose restrictions on female teachers and parents, likewise the Parliament; only sarees are allowed. We tax tampon imports as if they were luxuries. We have restricted women from taking foreign jobs as housemaids. There are instances where law enforcement officials tend to treat domestic violence as a domestic matter, despite laws in place to remove perpetrators from their homes and impose criminal penalties. In a country proud of its veneration of motherhood, men sometimes behave like they never knew their mothers.

The poisonous root runs deep and contaminates.

To paraphrase an observation Sannasgala makes in one of his videos, ‘Most parents call their daughters putha or puthe (son). Puthe make some tea. Puthe sweep the garden. Puthe can you run up to the market. Perhaps, these parents feel a void of not having sons (or, we will liberally add, they loath exerting that extra tad of effort to say duwa). If not, why don’t they call their sons duwa or duwe? Why can’t they say to their sons, duwe make me a cup of tea, will you?’. Here, Sannasgala is warning his listeners against unconscious biases. Unconscious biases may not be as harmful as the many unconscionable biases we sometimes willingly defend with violence, but they are equally insidious and potent. Distributing roses to female colleagues every 8th of March is but piffle, an insult even, without the safe spaces and opportunities to be themselves, grow as leaders and further their professions.

A Robin Red Breast in a cage puts all heaven in a rage, William Blake could write during the industrial revolution, in an age that discriminated against women and many other people (although the stake was no longer in use). Many today could relate to any avian bereft of soaring high, to be itself, but what about people in many forms of cages or boxes?

A 2022 research paper by economic policy think-tank Verite Research titled Costs of Doing a Job for Urban Women in Sri Lanka shines the spotlight on this problem. It does not cover rural women, where it is reasonable to conclude things may be worse. A disconcerting quality about our urbanites, who are more educated, informed and well-off than the rural folk majority. Even Gananath Obeysekera alludes to this in his Placating Demons: Ritual Practices among Sri Lankans, which suggests that the best human herds on the island are still preoccupied with governing their lives according to perceived numinous or diabolical myths and legends.

A survey of urban women for the Verite Research paper showed that marriage was the primary reason compelling women to leave their jobs, followed closely by child care (please see graph: Deciding for Her). Both these reasons, noted the authors of the paper, hint at rigid, gendered norms embedded within the Sri Lankan family structure, even in urban areas. Notably, most respondents (44%) stated that the decision to quit their jobs was their own.

“This is perhaps more concerning as it reflects the internalization of these gender norms and roles as well,” Verite Research concludes. So most women are forced to leave their jobs: they have no choice about the matter.

Most often, husbands decide for their wives, and the most common reason was that they did not like their wives working, the paper points out. These husbands believe in confining their wives to run a home and caring for their young. They believe! But there is more disturbing stuff. When asked why she left her job, one woman told Verite Research that her husband did not like an outsider taking care of their children. However, another married woman, without children or other dependents, told the researchers that she had quit her job because her spouse said: I don’t want you to work. “He would not tell me anything else, so I stopped asking,” she said. And like that, the best among us give up on their dreams.

Another study finds that women struggle for equality and inclusion in the workplace. According to the International Labour Organization, Sri Lankan women earn 30-36% less than their male counterparts doing the same job. “Despite the country’s vast strides in education, health and other indicators, women have lower chances to get into the workforce than men- and even if they wrestle against the odds and get hired, they eventually face wage discrimination.” Incidentally, in its survey of women in Colombo, Kurunegala and Ratnapura in 2016, the ILO noted that as many as 48% of the 500 women surveyed said they quit their jobs for homemaking.

DECIDING FOR HER

A 2021 Verite Research paper highlights a worrying trend. Survey responses on why women quit their jobs and who made the decision. Verite Research says: Notably, most respondents (44%) stated that the decision to leave the labour force was solely theirs – this is perhaps more concerning as it reflects the internalisation of these gender norms and roles.

Mckinsey & Company, a global management consultancy, hints at the economic cost of pursuing a policy of locking out women from the productive economy. It estimates that Sri Lanka can add $20 billion to its GDP annually by 2025, increasing its current economic growth trajectory by about 14%, by improving access to jobs for women. A cautionary note, Mckinsey wrote this piece in 2019 before we abandoned the said trajectory to go skydiving (by choice; unintended or misguided, but it was a choice). Releasing this formidable force is like sweeping the Augean Stables: the 2021 annual report of the Central Bank notes that the female labour force participation rate in Sri Lanka had improved from 24% in 2000 to 36.7% in 2021, a significant improvement but still lagging behind the male participation rate of 71.4%. Apart from cultural and religious barriers, there are several legislative hurdles.

Gilded Cages

Women are not only locked out of the productive labour force, but they are also unfairly treated

While many of our labour laws are on par with basic international standards and say nothing about what happens in reality, many problematic areas need fixing. According to the 2020 World Bank report Getting to Work: Unlocking Women’s Potential in Sri Lanka’s Labour Force, there are several legal barriers to tear down.

The Constitution treats both sexes equally and does not discriminate: women and men have equal rights to travel outside their homes or the country, choose where to live, and be heads of a household or family. Our laws treat women and men equally in financial, commercial, and property-related transactions. However, perniciously, personal laws interpreted in each religious community contain provisions regarding marriage, divorce, financial transactions, and property that disadvantage women.

While labour laws cover health and safety, wage benefits, and maternity leave, they do not cover more than two-thirds of male and female workers employed in the informal sector, the World Bank report notes. While laws compel employers to provide maternity leave, women back from maternity leave are not guaranteed an equivalent position. We have laws prohibiting the dismissal of pregnant workers, but there is nothing to stop employers from asking potential hires about their family plans. The list goes on: there are no legal protections against gender-based discrimination in hiring or equal pay for equal work. Laws also limit night-time work and overtime, discouraging companies from hiring women. The World Bank report also says that Sri Lanka provides few tax incentives for women to work and little job protection. There are no childcare tax deductions or credits specific to men or women, either.

Almost 71 years ago, Ashley Montagu, an anthropologist, penned an essay titled The Natural Superiority of Women. Quite late in his piece, he explains his choice of words: he defined superiority as being of higher quality than or of higher nature or character. He argues that women are biologically hardwired to be superior to men. Women are more humane, caring, and cooperative. They are better at perceiving nuances and picking up the subliminal signs in human behaviour. If women are indecisive, it is more a virtue because they lack the trigger-thinking of men who plunge into action without weighing the cost, he said.

Montagu averred that the perceived indecisiveness of women is an inverse reflection of the trigger-thinking bent of men. Because of their empathy and unaggressive nature, women are superior to men, and men often act as if they have never been loved. He argues that humanity is best served if women are free to be themselves and govern their destinies because men are inept at taking care of the world: “they have created a battlefield of the world where fathers slay their young and are themselves slain”. Men may be physically powerful, but women are stronger, and there is a profound difference. Women have proved themselves better at any job a man can do. So, Montagu urged women to stop supporting men for the wrong reasons: it was time for men to learn the truth that women are the superior of the two sexes. Women have extraordinary power for good in this world. They can make a world fit for human beings to live in. “The greatest single step forward in this direction will be made when women consciously assume this task,” Montagu wrote.

Back then, Montagu predicted that women would soon break the shackles that subjugated them for millennia. Seven decades later, where are we?

The world has made tremendous progress with women leading countries and successful multinational corporations. Sri Lanka has had a woman prime minister, a world first, and a president, and many women soar in their chosen professions. Elsewhere in this magazine, we feature several companies committed to diversity, equality and inclusion. Visionary companies are pushing for gender parity at every level, creating more and better opportunities for women to excel in their careers and life, and even tackling unconscious biases head-on. A few Sri Lankan companies have even adopted measures to ensure people use thoughtful, inclusive language in their communications.

Yet, battlefields of all forms pepper the earth: In Sri Lanka, we battle for a future. But women are severely disadvantaged as they grapple with society, structures and systems stacked against them.

We maintain that the unfolding economic crisis is of our own making. We, citizens, allowed bad policies to perpetuate due to our ignorance or arrogance or apathy – the same traits that have kept an exceedingly productive segment of the population unfairly locked out of the labour force, in the process, suppressing our humanity. And a better world needs everyone of both sexes and every gender. The political will to right the many wrongs can only manifest itself if the attitudes of individuals change. And, as psychologists often suggest, we need to slay our own dragons first; in other words, obliterate archaic, unjust attitudes, help each other address unconscious biases, and stop calling our daughters putha!

Before you go, the editorial for the March 2023 issues may also interest you:

Women without Rights 

While we are preoccupied with securing our democratic right to hold provincial council elections – so we can sooner reset the economy, fast-track the debt-restructuring process, and decisively  overhaul the ineffectual public sector while restoring law and order and governance) –  blessed by Koalemos forever and ever, amen, and touched by his divine hands, we are perpetually comatose to far more vital matters. For instance:

Sri Lankan women put up with tremendous injustices. They have fewer rights than men. They have fewer rights than women in Rwanda, Liberia, Tanzania, Zambia, Saudi Arabia, Angola, Congo (Dem. Rep.), Ethiopia, Uganda, Sierra Leone and South Sudan, and more than 126 other countries, the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law (WBL) Index 2022 reveals. 

The annual index analyses legal and regulatory differences between women and men in 190 countries across eight economic indicators: mobility, workplace, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets, and pensions. Sri Lanka has an overall score of 67.5, which means a Sri Lankan woman has less than 70% of a man’s rights. 

She stands on level ground in mobility and marriage, but in the workplace, she has 75% of the rights of a man. She does not have three-quarters of a man’s rights around pay and half the rights to a pension. She finds only limitations and restrictions to building a career after having children because laws deny her 80% of the parental rights available to men. She has fewer rights than a man to hold assets (80/100) or start a business (75/100), the WBL Index shows, and this is just the tip of the iceberg (and mind, the wisdom is in the simile!).

In this edition, we feature successful women and companies tearing down unfair structures and doing more to inspire and create better opportunities for women. They are defying the cultural, religious and political impediments (or even remonstrations) to women’s emancipation. However, there is much to do, and as we argue elsewhere in this issue, it is reprehensible that we are unmoved to haste!