Gender discrimination: a bee in our bonnet.

Gender discrimination is a tabled topic around the globe. Numbers of feminists work jointly to end all forms of discrimination against women. In the same token, women in Bhutan are moving beyond household chores and field works. Thus, they are becoming independent and are equally contributing in building country’s economy and social developments alongside  men. Nevertheless, gender discrimination in Bhutan lies in the words and phrases used in everyday languages. 

In the male oriented country, women are facing discrimination in every aspect of life. This is well

proven in the Nargarjuna’s letter to his friend,  “Regard a young girl’s body on their own. It smells so foul, its opening nine a pot of filth, insatiable, and clothed with skin and regard adornments on its own.”This vividly shows that people hold a prejudice idea of women being a dirty object which need to be given up. In another word, women are depicted as inferior soul than men. Therefore, in many communities, parents prefer a boy child over a girl child. Moreover, inferior complex is inculcated in a girl child at home by their mothers. Mothers at home, teach their daughters that they are inferior to their brothers and so should they be submitting as it said in the proverb, “Men are superior to women by nine generation gaps.” Hence, in our society, women are deprived of all the social and political responsibilities even till date.

Our modern society is organized on patriarchal system where male is the head of the family. He decides over matters at home and women have to agree to his decisions. Thus, discrimination against women starts from the family which is a primary foundation of socialization. This is evident in a proverb which states, “Man has nine wives and if there is another one or two, he is capable.”This clearly shows the position of women being placed low by the society in the past, and this notion still exist in this generation. In addition, it also marks the line of superiority of men over women. As a result, the society values men more than women.

“Morimo” is one of the words which condemns women in Bhutan. For example, if a man shares whatever is told to him under confidentiality,  the people would scold him as Morimo, one who does not keep his word like women. Moreover, if a man acts like women, people would tease them as Morimo. Whatever the point may be, it defames women in either ways. Therefore, it is clear that women are depicted as weak figure in the society. As a result, people does not have faith in them as they are weak by innate. This may not be true for some women yet generally women are weak due to which people do not let the women to lead in any aspects in the country.

In conclusion, despite women coming out of the kitchen and participating equally with men in all aspects of life,  discrimination of women lie in the words, phrases and proverbs which instilled long term notion of women being inferior. This has affected the thinking of people about the women being weak. Therefore, though people have become more civilized, this notion keeps haunting them, and chooses men over women almost in all the areas of work.