Zoya
Hasan and Ritu Menon analyze the data
produced by the Muslim women's survey in
India and reach the conclusion that the
combination of extreme material deprivation,
state neglect, and patriarchal control make
for an intensification of women's
subordination.
The actual decision about how many children
to have is, on the whole, taken jointly by
the couple themselves in 38 per cent of the
cases, and by the husband alone in 30 per
cent cases. Here again, generational
differences are considerable, with women in
the youngest age group, 18-35 years,
reporting proportions that are five times
higher (41.6 per cent) than women in the
oldest age group, 60 and above. This last is
corroborated by the finding that among 60-90
year-olds, 58 per cent urban and 65 per cent
rural women replied that neither they, their
husbands, their in-laws, nor anybody else
decided on how many children to have,
suggesting that childbearing was not
something about which decisions needed to be
taken.
The really sharp and significant difference,
of course, is in the proportions for
'husbands alone' and 'wives alone' deciding
- 30 per cent, compared to 2.5 per cent,
respectively. The gender imbalance is clear
and dramatic, especially among older women,
but the situation is not much better for
younger women. The fact that the incidence
of joint decision-making is slightly higher
than unilateral decisions taken by husbands
is a positive indicator, but it does not
necessarily follow that women are equal
partners in decision-making or that they
have any real choice in the matter
A widely-held perception is that if only
women were better educated this would have a
positive effect on their family-size, but
the Muslim women's survey was unable to
establish a positive connection between
women's education and their ability to
influence the number of children they should
have. Disaggregating this information by
community rather than education, however,
throws up some interesting variations.
The percentage of husbands who decide on the
number of children is highest among Muslims
(35 per cent), but the proportion for wives
alone deciding is marginally higher among
Muslims than upper caste Hindus - 2.04 and
1.82 per cent, respectively; the highest
figure in this category is reported by
scheduled castes (3 per cent); while joint
decision-making is greatest among scheduled
tribes (46 per cent).
Low decision-making capacity is the general
condition of women in India, and it is not
significantly affected by either their own
educational attainment or that of their
husbands; by community; or by their
wage-earning capability. Three other
factors, however, do seem to indicate a
positive impact - age, with younger women
reporting greater joint decision-making;
residence, urban women being better off than
rural; and socio-economic status. The
last-mentioned, though, actually reports
lower decision-making capacity with a higher
social economic status, thus indicating a
negative correlation. Again, the regional
variation shows the south zone in a lower
ranking than even the north zone, which is
also unexpected.
The survey consciously avoided asking
questions on purely domestic activities -
that is, what to cook, etc. - focusing
instead on those common familial and
household concerns that involve decisions on
household expenditure, number of children,
children's education, marriage, birth and
death ceremonies, major illnesses, travel,
major purchases, and major investments.
Given this shift in focus, the finding that
roughly 35 per cent of Muslim women are part
of joint decision-making in the family is
quite encouraging; the fact that this
percentage increases with the younger age
group indicates a positive trend, and is to
be welcomed.
But interpreting or analyzing data, whether
empirical or statistical, on women's
decision-making presents several problems...
As Naila Kabeer cautions, not all of them
are equally persuasive... because "not all
have the same consequential significance in
women's lives". (An obvious example would be
the greater consequential significance of a
decision regarding a suitable match for her
daughter than, say, purchasing a utility
item for the house.)
Second, very few cultures have sharply
divided power distribution, with men making
all the decisions and women making none: it
is much more common to find a hierarchy of
decision-making with some areas
predominantly male and others - such as
those related to food - primarily female.
Third, formal decision-making by men may
well conceal informal power exercised by
women in influencing those decisions, a
dynamic that is practically impossible to
measure statistically. Just as there is a
hierarchy of decisions, so too, there is a
hierarchy of the significance of decisions,
and women can - and do - exercise the option
not to decide, selectively. By this strategy
they may, simultaneously, maintain a public
image of submissiveness while actually
gradually increasing their influence and
participation in the home.
In other words, agency may not be an
unvarying, constant feature in their
decision-making; rather, as Val Daniels has
suggested elsewhere, it may be useful to
think of women's 'agentive moments', and at
what points these moments occur. Finally, as
Srilatha Batliwala notes in her discussion
of empowerment, there is a certain implicit,
but widely-held, value placed in our
cultures on abdicating decision-making in
favour of adults, older family members, and
male heads. If this operates in the case of
younger males in the household, it is
certainly true of women, young and old,
depending on the significance of the
decision to be taken.
There is a further distinction that we might
make in terms of what can be called
'control' decisions - such as those
regarding mobility, education, health, major
purchases and investments, and work;
'management' decisions - such as what and
how much to cook, and how household
expenditure is to be managed; and 'family
life' decisions - such as those regarding
marriage, illness, birth and death
ceremonies, and travel.
It is interesting to note that although
approximately 35 per cent of women in the
Muslim women's survey take decisions jointly
with their husbands in all three categories
in this cluster, the findings from our
survey on women's mobility indicate strong
control exercised by men, primarily
husbands, in practically every aspect of
women's lives; this corroborates the finding
that 60 per cent of all respondents were not
involved in any decision-making at all, as
reported by themselves.
Decision-making in families, as Bina Agarwal
points out, is itself a complex process,
allowing for differences in individual
preference, in budget constraints, and
control over resources. At the same time,
decisions also involve very complex gender
and generational relations within the
household. This may be seen, for instance,
in both the MWS and NFHS in the finding that
older women have greater decision-making
powers.
Hierarchies between women in the household
are also important and so, as Agarwal notes,
assertiveness (as a factor in household
decision-making) is more acceptable in older
women; from mothers-in-law than from younger
daughters-in-law; from daughters-in-law with
sons than from those without; and from
daughters rather than daughters-in-law.
The finding in the MWS that 35 per cent
women take decisions jointly with their
husbands, and approximately 50 per cent are
consulted on them, does not enable us to
determine whether decision-making itself is
conflictual, cooperative, or collective. For
instance, it may be collective with regard
to birth and death ceremonies or marriage,
or cooperative as far as household
expenditure is concerned, but conflictual
when it comes to major investments and
purchases, or children's education - or even
women's desire to visit their natal
families. That is, just as women may well
influence decisions without actually making
them, so too may they comply or concede
without actually agreeing or approving.
Both Naila Kabeer and Bina Agarwal mention
men's and women's 'separate spheres' of
decision-making based on socially recognized
gender roles, while sharing some common
responsibilities and some resources and
activities. Generally speaking, one might
say that the purely household-specific
decisions - as far as what to cook and the
daily care of children and other dependants
is concerned - are made by women in the
family; while those with greater
consequences for the family as a whole - and
one might add, for gender relations - are
made by men. Moreover, social norms mediated
by gender, age and marital status exert a
powerful influence on women's own
self-perceptions regarding their role in
decision-making - taking decisions that are
likely to disturb the household's economic
or emotional equilibrium or, for that
matter, its gender relations is an option
few women are willing to exercise. Doing so
may come perilously close to what Bina
Agarwal calls the 'threat point' - a
breakdown of relations, which most women
will avoid. Naila Kabeer notes a similar
recognition by women of the merits of not
exercising agency, strategically, arguing
that 'agency has both positive and negative
meanings in relation to power', especially
in societies and cultures where social norms
or 'traditions' are powerfully present.
Important to note for our purposes, however,
is that, by and large, women exercise very
little agency in making those
critical-choice decisions that affect their
own lives: whether and how much to study;
whether, where, and when to work; when and
whom to marry; how many children to have;
whether or not to practise contraception;
and whether or not they may be able to avail
of health care. It is true that all of the
above are mediated by class, community, and
customary practice on the one hand, and
state-supplied support and services on the
other; but it also appears to be the case
that patriarchal control overrides other
material constraints, so that even if the
latter were absent or minimal, one could not
say with confidence that women would be more
autonomous.
This is reinforced by our findings on the
severe constraints placed on women's
mobility, whereby the extent of control is
both wide-ranging and near-total. We may
recall that an astounding 86 per cent of
women, Hindu and Muslim, said that they
needed permission from their husbands for
any and all of the activities listed in our
questionnaire. The culture or practice of
seclusion, or curtailed mobility, is thus
much less a community-specific than a
gender-specific condition, regardless of
purdah although, as noted earlier, there
are interesting class and regional
variations.
In conclusion then, the combination of
extreme material deprivation, state neglect,
and patriarchal control make for an
intensification of women's subordination, so
much so that, as Srilatha Batliwala says,
"Men's traditional power over the women in
their households is reinforced by control
over her body and physical mobility; by the
right to abdicate from all responsibility
for housework and care of the children; the
right to physically abuse or violate her;
the right to spend family income on personal
pleasures (and vices); the right to abandon
her to take other wives; the right to take
unilateral decisions which affect the whole
family; and the countless other ways in
which poor men - and indeed men of every
class - have unjustly confined women."
Zoya Hasan
is professor at the Centre for Political
Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New
Delhi.
Ritu Menon is a publisher and writer.
She is the author of several books.
This is a study of the status of Muslim
women in India. It is based on the
first-ever national survey of 10,000 Muslim
and Hindu women and covers a range of issues
from education, work, socio-economic status,
and marriage to those of autonomy and
violence. |
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