Gender Inequality – Current status of women in Nepali Politics, Good or

Bad?

Introduction

Status of women can be defined in the context of their access to knowledge, economic resources,

and political power. Nepali women constitute more than half of the country's population. Due to

the continuous dominance of the patriarchal value system they have remained discriminated and

treated as second-class citizens. On paper, the Constitution of Nepal guarantees various rights to

women but in practice, however, women do not enjoy equal benefits as men in their civil,

political, social and economic advancement.

Gender inequality is an unequal treatment exercised to someone solely based on their gender.

Gender inequality has been an issue for women mostly and other genders except for men who are

considered prominent. The issue still exists all over the world, somewhere even more as

compared to the other one. In Nepal, it is something that has been talked about for decades and

as of now, definitely some progress has been made along the way but I believe it is not enough as

per the expectation of everyone. There is not a single country in this world which has been able

to attain gender equality in politics but with determination and leadership, we all can outperform

society or at least we can try to do so. The very important question still exists, where are we with

gender equality today in Nepal? It’s time to reassess our priorities and decide if gender equality

is a Nepali value and decide whether all the genders matter in political space.

Nepal has achieved some unprecedented results in gender equality after the transition of the

country from monarchy to republic embracing the principles of proportional participation and
inclusion. Currently, 29 per cent of the lawmakers in Nepal’s parliament are women and 35.64

per cent of women are into the civil service. After the promulgation of the new constitution in

2015, three key state agencies- the President’s Office, Parliament and Judiciary are running

under the leadership of women which is a strong evidence of Nepalese society becoming more

concerned with women issues. Also, on the legal front some remarkable improvements can be

seen for which we sure can be proud of. In an interview with The Guardian Suprabha Ghimire, of

the NC, said that Nepalese society is still reluctant to accept women as leaders. "Society looks up

to men as born leaders. They are not eager to welcome women in these roles.” which completely

explains the current scenario of women in Nepalese politics.

Objective

The objective of the paper is to know about the current policies, provisions and happenings

regarding politics of Nepal specially for women and their current status on political arena.

Additionally, also to make comparisons of progress made in the field of politics by women with

others.

Methodology

The study is primarily based on the secondary information collected from the various interviews,

organizations, individuals and their publications. Besides, election result for the National

Parliament and Local Bodies collected from the Election Commission office which was available

online supplemented necessary information to analyze the district wise variation on women’s in

political participation.
 Analysis and Findings

Women’s participation as voters and their awareness about rights have increased in general.

Their willingness to participate in the political process has increased in the last decade. We can

also see some of the successful women politician in Nepal such as Bidhya Devi Bhandari, Onsari

Gharti Magar, Sapana Pradhan Malla, Sahana Pradhan and so on.

The time has obviously changed which has introduced many movements and successful

development initiatives by women that has pushed everyone towards a real change and also some

of the seats have been reserved for them in order to make them feel socially included. Nepal's

women have a voice in politics but has anyone been listening? The change for equality is what

we all seek and have been for centuries. Inequality brings many problems with it; social

exclusion is one of them. More women need to feel empowered from a very young age, and this

is still an enormous challenge in many parts of the world including Nepal. If we look at the

statistics, the political participation of girls within the world looks comparatively very low and

exposes the existence of the patriarchal mentality among various political parties regardless of

how socially, economically, culturally advanced they are. It’s shocking how ladies are in danger

from violence in all the told areas of life but the issue is barely addressed. Moreover, they’re in

danger in politics because they are not heard or their opinion means a very little to those who are

politically superior. The ancient system of the society still expects women to stay restricted at

intervals four walls of a home that remains a standard incidence. The fact that except for most of

the males, women are dominated and they are excluded from the most of the available
opportunities which is supposed to be accessible to all is very shocking.

Nepali women's representation in the legislative body was dramatically increased to 32.8%

through the Constituent Assembly (CA) Election held in 2008. In the election, 191 women

leaders (33.2%) were elected out of 575 seats, and Cabinet nominated 6 women out of 26 seats,

resulting to 197 women members (32.8%) in the Legislative parliament. As a result, Nepal

stands on the 14th position globally to send the women leaders in the legislature parliament. The

reason behind the drastic change in the women's representation is due to the reservation of seats

provided through the Interim Constitution of Nepal, 2007. As an outcome of the effort to bring

all sections of the society, including women, in the Constitution making process, the CA election

helped Nepal to enter in a new dimension of inclusive political development. Even though,

through the FPTP system out of the 240 seats, only 30 (12.5%) women were elected, through the

PR system, out of 335 seats, 161 (48.05%) women were elected. As a result, 197 women (almost

33%) is now part of the process of Constitution making process as well as a member of the

Legislative Parliament. Also, the Local Level Electoral Act 2017 has reserved two seats on each

of the nearly 7,000 ward committees for women, one of which is for women of the marginalized

Dalit caste. In addition to this, political parties that present candidates for both the positions of

Mayor and Deputy Mayor in municipalities, and Village Chairperson and Village Vice

Chairperson in rural municipalities, have been mandated to include at least one-woman candidate

among the two. This definitely is a victory.

It's not a secret that women are vastly underrepresented at all government levels all across Nepal.

Much credit for this goes to the constitutional and legal provisions that introduced compulsory

quotas for women in different posts within local governments. Women’s participation in political
life depends largely on their access to employment which gives them not only material

independence, but also certain professional skills and grater self-confidence. So that access to

means of production and finances has a direct relationship and influence on the participation of

women in political institutions. So, everything must be balanced as required in order to achieve a

greater goal for our country and mainly focus on women for their equal participation in politics.
 Conclusion

As we can see that very few women are elected to executive positions in the National Parliament

or in local institutions. The political participation of women in rural areas is less than that of

towns and cities. The level of participation is even less in the mountain and Terai especially in

the far western and mid-western regions. With the literacy rate of women standing at 44.5 per

cent according to recent reports of the Nepal Living Standards Survey 2010-2011 (NLSS- III),

women are still confined into the domestic chores. Those who have stepped out in the job market

have also been facing discrimination in various ways. Women are marginalized in politics

because they are considered inferior within society. To tackle such entrenched perspectives will

not be an easy job. People have already decided what they want to think about women being

their leader and how they want to act so the only thing that we can do is try to change that. I

believe such attitudes towards women are perpetuated by illiteracy and the way people lived in

previous generation, which can only be tackled over time with better education or developmental

campaigns which may possibly give them a chance to look at their leaders in a different

perspective. Even now, discrimination against them continues because of failures at policy level.

We must realize that equal participation of women in diverse development activities of our

country is essential for us to maintain balanced development. Also, to keep half of the population

in isolation is not justified both in terms of human right and social justice. Therefore, women

need to be empowered so for that all the necessary focus should be provided to them in order to

do so. To sum up, the status of women is not very good but it has definitely been better as

comparison to previous years and this is what needs to be maintained in order to maintain

equality in political arena as well.

 References:

1. Sex Discrimination | Gender Inequality in Nepal with Problems, Jitendra Sahayogee (2018)

http://www.imnepal.com/sex-discrimination-in-nepal/

2. Gender equality: New Opportunities,Pratik Chhetri And Neha Malla(2018)

https://thehimalayantimes.com/opinion/editorial-gender-equality-new-opportunities/

3. Gender Equality in Nepal, Kushal Pokharel

http://therisingnepal.org.np/news/17804

4. Why Gender Matters Sue Thomas - Women & Politics – 2016, The Guardian

5. The Status of Women in Political Participation in Nepal, Prativa Pradhan

https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/HR/article/view/2415
 Essay

On

Gender Inequality (Women in Nepali Politics)

BCD 2nd Year 1st Semester

Kathmandu University, Schools of Arts

Submitted to: Shuveccha Ghimire

Submitted by: Prajwal Badal, 02

Submission Date: December 3rd, 2018

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Signature