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womens fertility is increasingly portrayed as a threat to the Sinhala race and is a key element of vitriolic public discourse that is fuelling attacks
against Muslims.
Racism and sexism
Institutionalised racism-sexism in post-war Sri Lanka is not only essentialising women and their productive and reproductive labour in different
ways but also rendering it increasingly difficult to build solidarities and connections across ethno-religious and class boundaries. The suturing
together of virulent Sinhala-Buddhist ethno-nationalism, militarisation, undermining of democracy and the rule of law, and aggressive neoliberal
populism, is buttressing the power of a repressive state and political economic structures of exploitation and exclusion.
The articulation of gender within nationalist discourse is not new in Sri Lanka. As pointed out by scholars such as Kumari Jayawardena, Sinhala
Buddhist nationalist ideology which emerged in opposition to colonial rule in the 19th and 20th centuries always had an elaborate gender
ideology with an articulation of the good Sinhala Buddhist woman. Yet public policy with regard to women and gender for the most part
remained outside of its grip. Ironically even as the Sri Lankan state became increasingly ethnicised after independence it remained a more or less
a gender neutral welfare state with regards to women. But for the first time in our history we are now confronted with both racism and sexism of
the state.
OpenDemocracy.net, November 10. Chulani Kodikara is a research associate at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
She is the author of Muslim Family Law in Sri Lanka: Theory, Practice and Issues of Concern to Women and Women and Governance in Sri
Lanka (with Kishali Pinto Jayawardena).