Nepali Women in Academia: Negotiating in between their private and personal lives
-Neeti Aryal Khanal
(mail2neeti@gmail.com)
Women in academia in Nepal are almost as rare as red pandas of our Himalayas. The participation of women in education sector in Nepal, particularly in school education is promising. But there are limited numbers of women academics, particularly in postgraduate level in Nepal.
Taking a feminist perspective, it can be argued that the very nature of academia itself is masculine. Feminist epistemology, a theory of knowledge argues that men have always been knower and knowledge generators. Women were not regarded as knower as in early years, knowledge of women were based on their embodied experience of being a woman (wife, mother). It is only since recently that the number of women students in higher education is increasing. In universities in developing countries, it is no more surprising to find number of women academic exceeding that of male academic. However, in Nepal that scenario is changing but in very slow pace. Still in some of the department in our universities, one may not be surprised to find very few numbers of women academics.
In higher education system in Nepal, a complex ideology of gender and knowledge come into play due to which an experience of women academic is very different from that of male academics. Let me start with first impressions. As it is said, first impression is often the last. Impressions are created by how we dress and interact. The issue of impression is what plagues most of the new women lecturers who are in initial stages of their career. Here, I would like to share my own personal experience which I have found common among many Nepali women academics.
It was somewhere in 2004 that I had recently finished Masters in sociology and was offered to teach in one of the newly opened private programme in Masters in Sociology. At that time, I was thin and lean (minus the experience and fat I gained post marriage and motherhood). When I attended my very first faculty member meeting, prior to start of course, I was advised by my seniors (not with any ill intention though) to wear a sari while teaching. I perhaps had bought this situation upon myself. I had gone to the meeting wearing pants (not jeans, god forbid!) and perhaps looked more like a student than a lecturer. Wearing sari is in fact much more than draping a 5 meter colorful piece of cloth around your body. Apart from women ascetics who wear orange and white robes, for us materialistic women, wearing sari brings in whole new set of demands on our wardrobe and toilette. I can almost feel women readers nodding their head in empathy. For sari, you need to know how to shop well for all sorts of materials ranging from bindi, bangles, necklace, and above all shoes (heels preferred, a torture to someone who needs to stand for more than an hour to deliver the lecture). Then comes make up. The idea is to make up in such a way that is not noticeable but still traceable. The right way to make up for women academic is just to give a hint of femininity, but at the same time an academic seriousness, a contradiction in itself. In this way, I argue that women academic experience challenge to negotiate between their femininity and masculine nature of the academia. While, I am writing along these lines, I can almost hear you lamenting on this lengthy monologue of mine. That is exactly the point. For an academic in any subject what matters is locating the materials, reading them, analyzing them and plan how you will present and involve class in the discussion. But for women academic, it is not that simple and straightforward. For women academics, deciding what to wear and how to wear takes up as much time as what and how to teach during initial classes until we prove our worth. It is in those times, I envy male academics, for whom decision is only about choosing between jeans or cotton pant.
Another common experience of Nepali women academic is that students do not take them seriously in the beginning (please note the emphasis). The common scenario of their very first class is a buzzing murmur at the back of the class, a stifling giggle on the front row, dragging sounds of benches and desks for several minutes. Imagine trying to teach in this situation. The very first class of women academic starts with an unspoken but obvious doubt among students in her ability to teach, and to teach well. I distinguish between the two terms (teach and teach well) because in Nepali context they have two different meanings. Well, there are many people, who can just teach but they rarely involve students in the learning process. Besides the unidirectional teaching method of our university systems rarely gives us opportunity to involve students in learning process. But a good teacher who is sincere towards his/her profession finds ways to make learning more interesting and engaging students in the learning process. Thus, I argue that for male academic, it is already given that they can teach, they need to work hard further to prove that they can teach well. But women academic need to start from square one: to prove that we can teach. After establishing this, then only we can move towards the acceptance that we can indeed teach well. While writing these lines, I convey my respects to few pioneer women academics in Nepal who have proved through their hard work that indeed women academic can teach well and have made emerging women academic like us to make the path easier than before.
Another area I wish to bring into discussion is lack of working space in universities in Nepal. Universities in Nepal are not designed to enable professors/lecturers to pursue their academic work in their own departments. Physical infrastructures of many of our departments comprise of classrooms, an office for the department head, and a common meeting room with a small lounge. If only our departments had a staff room in which each of us faculty member have a small cubicle comprising of computer with high speed internet ( minus the facebook) and a shelf for our books. It may take a while to realize this dream but till then whatever works that requires us Nepali academics to prepare for the class and other academic activities such as research and writing has to be done from home. So, when women academic need to work from home, a complex ideology of gender division of labor comes into play. Reading at home, amidst the cries of a toddler and whistles of your pressure cooker with dalbhaat ( blame that to load shedding, for women can no longer cook in rice cooker) is not just done. On top of that, guests and neighbor come in and when they see you at home, they say" oh, you are free today, not going to university?" It takes a while for us to explain that we are at home: to read, to locate the material for that lecture, to make slides for the lecture, to make a memo of important points for discussion. I am not generalizing here but I believe that for male academic in Nepal, often there will be a wife behind who will hush her children to go play in another room as "papa" is studying. For an academic mom, perhaps things are not that simple. Somehow, academic mother manages to read for her lecture in between heating the oil in the pan and dropping vegetable with whoosh, cooking meal for kids to send them to school, and feeding milk to the toddler in her lap. And at the end of the day, after feeding the family, washing the dishes, settling her kids into sleep, with a big sigh of relief she opens her book late into the night to prepare for the next day's early class in the morning.
Writer is lecturer at Central Department of Sociology/Anthropology, Tribhuvan University.
