By Nazala Salauddin
Not on the Agenda

How can the paradigm of a woman’s sexuality get revolutionized in a religiously restrictive country like Bangladesh? Can we ever understand the complexity of female sexuality through critical eyes? Will rendering voices according to political or social contexts be enough? We need to dig deep to sort out the mud.

The female entity understood as ‘women’ in this country have been informed and made aware of the need for ‘their empowerment’ and yet to this day it may appear that  we  lack the imagination to unravel and  reflect upon the definition of that word even as it is being misconstrued with mere female presence in many political and social sectors of this country. I am not talking about some very subtle or radical notion of feminism by this; I am merely suggesting that even the most basic understanding of men and especially of women themselves about the meaning of empowerment for themselves as well as the actions and responsibilities it entails remains befogged. Perhaps the problem lies in construction of the issue in a molar fashion, thinking of  empowerment as a ‘unit’ to be achieved rather than a molecular entanglement, a de-territorializing of what it means to ‘become-woman.’ There is the segmentation of looking into women’s issues as gendered topics; this problem is not only prevalent in our country, compartmentalization is pervasive in ways of addressing social issues, world-wide. 

Yet this is what precisely continues to happen, like intensities of biased emotions snowballing in their magnitudes and expressing themselves in the form of biased notions that are enforced rhizomatically, at the level of perception and lack of social and community support, more than mere hierarchical structures of restriction or conceptualization.  Case in point: the lack of female accommodation in our country. Many are unable to rent while many have to suffer the lack of proper residential facilities despite giving rent and sharing apartments (Khaled 1), whether it is poor, middle class or young university or working women. All these are expressions of negligence and obstacles but based on what perception? There are those that think women are better off staying home or being avoided—visibly in the public sphere, to ensure they don’t express their thoughts directly; or, perhaps there are those that ‘empower’ while subverting that very power by not actively creating an environment in which they may ‘act.’ The definition of empowerment that the state reiterates as part of its development “policy agenda”  remains nominal and genuinely problematic. It would appear that their social development agenda envisions power in terms of just putting women in economic positions, not creating the environment or support that would enable them to perform their jobs for self-satisfaction as well as help them in living a higher quality of life socially, nor specifically addressing some of the issues of internal suppression and devaluation stemming from rhizomatic perceptions, that run beneath the surface like undercurrents. Accommodation for women in the slums are problematic: most female workers live in group housings or ‘messes’ in ‘Bostees’ (slums) where they face an unhealthy environment as well as the domination of law enforcement officers alongside the disturbance of local touts or ‘mastaans’. An illustration of this situation is given by worker Raj Banu, who states, “You want to know about our life. Our life is full of problems. Housing is the biggest problem. Today shorkar (government) is coming to evict us at 10:30 am. So we don’t have much time to talk to you. We don’t know what will happen to us after that.” ( living conditions…). Yet there is considerable support from the government that purportedly involves empowerment of women and cherishes our position in the global garment industry through mass housing facilities and group projects. Emphasis on the improvement of economic status of women is paramount and is seen as the primary focus for “enlightening her,” yet stress is given less on the social and cultural norms that condition her to choose jobs.   Thus, according to the essay “Living Conditions of Women Workers in the RMG sector in Bangladesh”:  “young women of same squatter settlement walk together in a group in the morning and at night to avoid unsolicited comments from strangers or advances often made toward girls of this age by male construction workers and rickshaw pullers.” Oftentimes the oppression of the mastans spill into the workplaces of the female factory workers as well, where they are threatened sexually as well as physically. For example, in the article, “Bangladesh: Protect Garments Worker’s Rights”, an anonymous garments organizer writes: “There was one mastan [gangster] as well as the owner’s brother and some other staff. The mastan said, “If you do not leave your job we will do something serious to you, so take your money, take two months’ pay, and go away.” I was terrified and so I agreed. I signed the resignation letter and was given the money. Whoever raises their heads suffers the most.” This demonstrates the  not so empowered state of  female organizers, some of who were beaten just because they wanted to start their own union. Thus, female workers generally (and workers in general) are panic stricken about losing their jobs if they fight for their rights. Of course, it doesn’t stop them from going to the streets or occupying the factory when it is a question of hunger, such as ‘wildcat’ strikes, sit-ins and protests that have taken place again and again, in spite of this climate of fear.

Sexuality in Rhizome

In case of sexuality,  I would suggest that in spite of considerable and relatively superior levels  of participation in education and the economy compared to neighboring countries  like India, women’s perception regarding their own sexual wishes can spread rhizomatically, as cancerous cells do,  perpetuating  certain pathways of thought that lead to  acting in a particular manner. Yet if we look at the contradictions revealed in the data collected thus far, the norm is far from ‘obvious.’  Some field research perpetuate the notion that women are obedient to gender norms and obey their husband’s sexual desires and thrust against their will that crush their self-respect and turn them into child rearing machines with some of them bearing sexual trauma or resenting the act of sex altogether.  This is not indicative, however, of a universal norm—as we will see, but it is certainly a cause for reflexivity regarding where our focus tends to lie in terms of ‘empowerment.’  For instance, one twenty five year old woman expressed her views on sexual trauma, “Forced sex is a bitter experience. At that time I hate everything. I feel like dying. A woman who has faced it will only understand what is forced sex. I feel horrible, both mentally and physically”  (Khan 251-253). Forget the concept of respect, trust and love that a relationship should ideally entail, a bonded contract of implicit expectations seems to invisibly control such cases of unexpressed will and desire.  From such case studies, it would appear that female perception of their sexuality remains suppressed in the form of shame, travelling like roots and connecting many women’s feelings, dissatisfactions and innate injustices done to them on the basis of ‘sexual rights exclusively for men and husband on the same plane of consistency with non-hierarchical rhizomatic pattern connecting stories of different sexual intensities and their reactions like assemblages.
  According to Khan’s article, “An informant, aged 25, who studied up to class 12 said: Yes, of course I knew about the sex life which takes place after marriage. And every educated person knows it very well. My sister-in-law had taught me some techniques like how I can get close to my husband or protect myself from getting pregnant by taking pills regularly.” (242). Men’s behavior may well often emanate from the normative bias of their gender identity and its clichéd superiority, particularly because of the economic and social status just their mere existence evokes. The structure can be understood as rhizomatic since it is difficult to break or even comprehend at times, since its elements have mixed so well within the masculine and feminine psyche that we rarely bother questioning it, so infinitely connecting and territorializing are its tendencies. The rhizomatic strands of sexual suppression and the trauma caused to  self-respect because of forced sex or utter disregard for female sexual health by both male and female counterparts causes women to internalize their sexual grief and ensure in spreading it within other women; of course, male victims of sexual trauma may experience similar internalization. That is perceptibly one of the reasons why pre-marital sex is unacceptable by cultural and religious standards yet not as disruptive of family unity and prestige when a man does it but it is both when a female is involved (Khan 237-253).  The sexual roots form unity within women and strengthen itself to such an extent that deterritorialization appears impossible. Social and conjugal actions that may lead to ‘lines of flight’ thus, are only  taken when the worst scenario occurs, such as in the case of damage to the female anatomy due to contraception or familial crisis.  Surprisingly, curiosity and ethical behavior after critical analysis of sexual situations is not rhizomatic, it is very hierarchical as different male and female individuals have variation in their moral character and upbringing. Environmental influences affect judgment regarding sexuality of men and women. Unfortunately, the normative plane can act as friction for this ‘ideal plane’ where the cancerous male rhizomatic principles have burst genuine female curiosity and receptivity about her sexuality, where in its place male sexual domination has grown and spread evenly rhizomatically using female minds as the same plane or plane of consistency. Religion, however, acts as the catalyst for positive sexual behavior by women who are able to reach for this ‘ideal plane’ ,  in instances of satisfactory conjugal relations, creating new assemblages and even lines of flight.

Strange bedfellows

It seems prejudice has made space for empowerment. As long as it’s economic. A crucial example is the treatment of female garment workers by their superiors; they are given ‘simple work’ thus remaining unskilled for which they are not hired for higher positions and so their wages don’t increase (Repon 31). They are foremost chosen for their cheap value and physicality in the garments sector where they face suppression regarding their basic rights, a lot of which due to the inappropriate and wrong portrayal of issues by NGO’s don’t come up and get the attention and voice they need. The NGO’s and donor organizations focus on issues which are important internationally and have monetary value. The unions and groups formed relating to women empowerment can also become corrupt in its leadership and cause, banning new participation of women and freedom of speech within those groups. According to Srivastava’s article, organizations take measures that fail to see and alleviate the underlying causes behind women’s oppression and deprivation of basic rights, the steps taken by donor agencies and NGO’s are not properly evaluated to see their actual impact on changing women’s status. Thus, there is a lack in identifying the implications of different organization’s advocacies (13-15). At the intersection of the international and national, many well-respected women’s organizations have to also negotiate their own and donor priorities. For example, in Nazneen’s article it is stated “Some of these organizations, such as the Bangladesh Mohila Parishad (BMP), Naripokhkho, Women for Women, Bangladesh National Women Lawyer’s Association (BNWLA), attempted to ensure that there was a consistency between the organizational goals and specific donor mandates when securing funding. They also tried to retain control over their agenda and protect their autonomy by keeping their core activities separate from project-funded work” (12). This indicates that important movements  negotiated a tricky path to fit donor funded agendas while navigating their own. The movements for women empowerment work within the societal system as long as it fits the political agendas and social conveniences. These conveniences, particularly for third world ‘development’ agendas, include using women as a force for enhancement of economy in the guise of promising them their rights and well-being through organizational female empowering movements that may seem right at first where their façade ultimately begins to fade away as the loopholes in such movements as well as the misuse in using such movements for economic and personal gains get revealed. In Nazneen’s article it is thus stated, “The organizational procedures are standardized, formalized and somewhat bureaucratic.”(12). Also, a clearer example is how the factory managers prevent unionization of female workers through various means, barely maintaining a façade outside where they pretend to have motives of welfare for their female workers. For example in “Bangladesh: Protect Garment’s Worker’s Rights” it is stated that “Labor activists also complained that some of the unions in factories are not genuinely independent, but are so-called “yellow unions” that have been established by the factory owners themselves to control workers and prevent them from establishing or joining the union of their choice.” Thus, this proves that merely for the sake of showing proper factory worker participation that is contributing to a thriving economy, superiors are willing to lie. They will ‘support’ women empowerment if it serves their purpose of running the factory.  In fact, they are so desperate that attacking  women’s sexuality isn’t an issue, as long as it serves their purpose of running the factory for their so called ‘economic development’. Again an instance of this is in the article, “Bangladesh: Protect Garment’s Worker’s Rights”, “Many female workers said they received threats or insults of a sexual nature. For example, workers complained that in one factory a supervisor said that any woman joining the union would be stripped of her clothes and thrown into the street. Elsewhere a manager said that a female union organizer was “polluting” his factory and should go and work in a brothel.”

The Obsession

Empowerment promoted by various national and international organizations has broadly taken the instrumentalist approach, where the concept is instrumentalized for organizational  agendas or nominally coveted. The overarching focus on economic development (micro or marco) for women appears to not have instigated  transformation in the cultural and individual spheres, separate from pre-existing conditions leading to normative change. 
In terms of Bangladesh’s working women, a demographic that often receives praise,  at present they  are rarely granted important decision making positions. Granting them important job positions will also mean granting them power which the male co-workers have no incentive to relinquish, as within the garments sector where men are granted supervisorial positions over female co-workers even if they are more qualified (Repon 3-41).  I am not suggesting empowerment is coeval with the Thatcher-cum-Indira Gandhi-model, or in our case, the most powerful person of the country somehow being a woman; or suggesting any more female CEOs. The example of empowered women, if anything, should be set from the bottom level of society—or how do we know the hourglass has flipped at all? Even at the so called bottom, though, female solidarity is not necessarily a given. In the international film Made In Bangladesh, by Rubaiyat Hossain, protagonist  Shimu attempts to forge a path of resistance after a devastating (and not uncommon) factory fire, working to unionize; however, her female co-workers are seen set against her, to some degree, indicating the overriding power of crude self-interest or fear over both worker and female emancipatory goals. It does not, however,  see the rhizomatic power at constant work from females or feminine entities that act as glue in uniting the family and in mentoring work forces crucial for the economic performance that the capitalistic patriarchal system so craves. 

Despite this support, the system constantly searches for ways to exploit female power with less effort based on profit or efficiency maximizing views that conceal the underlying rhizomatic process which helps the hierarchical system survive. The female force is brought under structural control where conversations or rather mentions of empowerment are not for them but just to feed and maintain the justification of the oppressive hierarchical system, or, in the case of rhizomatic discrimination, of all structural modes. There are many instances where women are deprived of the support needed to do their job like proper maternity leave, bathroom facilities (I could never attend toilets in my school and was dehydrated for most of my student life), day-care facilities etc. None of this is unique to Bangladesh, working women globally face similar constraints under the capitalist grind; do such trade-offs come with the territory—if so, whose agenda?  Women may well thrive from support in a pyramidal structure, where the female psyche is not only ‘educated’ but can support herself and others not just for a time being but through generations in groups. This is where the Calcutta-TV-serial mother-in-law- daughter-in-law syndrome comes to mind, yet another ‘rhizomatic’ strand of ‘disempowerment.’ . If daughters of every home are supported by older women of their households in doing their work in solidarity with other sisters, instead of constant jealousy, criticism, lack of empathy and understanding then  collective ‘power’ might be more realizable; not just a handful of women who get promoted or successful by sacrificing their personal or social life (wholistic, human). 

References:

 

• “Bangladesh: Protect Garment Workers’ Rights”, Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/06/bangladesh-protect-garment-workers-rights
• Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London: Athlone Press, 1988. Print.
• Khan, M E & Townsend, John & D'Costa, Shampa. (2002). “Behind Closed Doors: A Qualitative Study of Sexual Behaviour of Married Women in Bangladesh.” Culture. Health & Sexuality. 237-256. 10.1080/13691050110102253.
• Khaled, Prof. Sarwar MD. Saifullah. “Safe accommodation for single working women needed”, The Independent BD, 28th September 2017. https://m.theindependentbd.com//post/116298
• “Living Conditions of Women Workers in the RMG sector in Bangladesh” https://www.assignmentpoint.com/business/human-resource-management/living-conditions-women-workers-rmg-sector-bangladesh.html
• “Made in Bangladesh”, Spirituality and Practice, https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/reviews/view/28991/made-in-bangladesh
• Repon, A.R Chowdhury. Et.al. “Labour Rights and Decent Work Status of Working Women in Bangladesh” Asia Monitor Resource Center, Sept. 2015.
• Shyama, Debjani. “How to deal with today’s daughters-in-law”, Dec 8, 2016.https://www.thedailystar.net/lifestyle/how-deal-todays-daughter-laws-1326982
• Srivastava, Lalima. “Women and Non-Governmental Organizations in Developing Countries” *women_and_non-governmental_organizations_in_developing_countries.pdf

AUTHOR

© Nazala Salauddin Nazala Salauddin is an aspiring Bangladeshi student. She has recently graduated from BRAC University and is also currently pursuing a Master’s degree in English Literature from the same institute. She is passionate about being a writer. She aspires to write novels and prose pieces that critically reflect human conundrums; a hope she feels will fulfill her desire of creating an impact with her penmanship.

 

ILLUSTRATOR

© Sadia Akter Hi, This is Sadia Akter. I've completed my graduation from the department of Graphic Design, University of Dhaka. I'm pursuing my post-graduation from the same department. I've always thought of myself as having a soul that is free and vibrant, like a bird. As a child I've always felt a strong artist self within myself, it got a new direction after I came to study here in the Fine Art's Faculty. I'm always exploring myself and searching for inspiration from everything around. I love to introduce my soul to new forms of art like theatre and performance studies. I'm a Children's book illustrator and I've worked for clients all over the world. I have a wide range of work areas where I'm expanding my wings each single day.