1 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan Farida Shaheed

WOMEN, POVERTY AND IDEOLOGY IN ASIA Also by Haleh Afshar

*IRAN: A Revolution in Turmoil (editor) WOMEN, WORK AND IDEOLOGY (editor) *WOMEN, STATE AND IDEOLOGY (editor)

Also by Bina Agarwal

MECHANISATION IN INDIAN AGRICULTURE COLD HEARTHS AND BARREN SLOPES: The Woodfuel Crisis in the Third World STRUCTURES OF PATRIARCHY: State, Community and Household in Modernising Asia (editor)

*Also published by Macmillan Women, Poverty and Ideology in Asia Contradictory Pressures, Uneasy Resolutions

Edited by Haleh Afshar Department of Politics University of York

and Bina Agarwal Institute of Economic Growth Delhi, India

M MACMILLAN © Haleh Afshar and Bina Agarwal 1989

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7DP.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published 1989

Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Women, poverty and ideology in Asia: contradictory pressures, uneasy resolutions. 1. Asia. Society. Role of women I. Afshar, Haleh, 1944- II. Agarwal, Bina 305.4'2'095 ISBN 978-0-333-44409-2 ISBN 978-1-349-20757-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20757-2 Contents

List of Tables vi Preface vii Notes on the Editors and Contributors viii Introduction Haleh Afshar and Bina Agarwal 1 1 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan Farida Shaheed 17 2 Women in the Work and Poverty Trap in Iran Haleh Afshar 43 3 Women, Land and Ideology in India Bina Agarwal 70 4 Petty Trading and Gender Segregation in Urban South India Johanna Lessinger 99 5 The Ideology of Femininity and Women's Work in a Fishing Community of South India Kalpana Ram 128 6 Internal Colonisation and the Fate of Female Divers in Cheju Island, South Korea Hae-Joang Cho 148 7 Women's Work, Male Domination and Controls over Income among Plantation Workers in Sri Lanka Rachel Kurian 178 8 Export-Oriented Industries and Women Workers in Sri Lanka Kumudhini Rosa 196 9 Poverty, Ideology, and Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia Gillian H. C. Foo and Linda Y. C. Lim 212 Index 235

v List of Tables

1.1 Female labour force by major industry, 1961-81 24 1.2 Female labour force by major occupational groups, 1961-81 25 1.3 Distribution of pieceworkers by work organisation and daily income 30 1.4 Distribution of women workers by their percentage contribution to monthly household earnings 31 1.5 Distribution of women workers by differences in male and female aggregate earnings within the family 32 1.6 Monthly earnings from home-based piecework from outside employment 33 1.7 Distribution of pieceworkers by age group and opinions on purdah observance 34 3.1 Women's customary access to land in India 76 3.2 Marriage location and post-marital residence in India 81 3.3 Percentage of rural population below poverty line 91 5.1 Average incomes of women in untrained work 143 8.1 Minimum wage levels determined by GCEC Wages Board 204

vi Preface

Working together on this book, with scholars dispersed across four continents, has been a difficult, often taxing, but in the end a rewarding and worthwhile experience. Conceived and initiated in 1986, the book has grown through meetings, correspondence and international calls between the contributors and us over the past two years. As editors, we have also visited some of the authors, and have met together in England and India several times to pull together the threads of the arguments that bind this volume. While most of the contributors are academics by profession, all are also active feminists, and many have been involved in long, difficult, and sometimes dangerous struggles against measures that condemn large numbers of women to subordination and poverty. In many senses, the interrelationships between ideology, economy and gen• der, as examined here, are in the nature of explorations, and we hope that the readers will carry the debate forward through the specific areas of their work and action. We are grateful to the authors for comments on the introduction, although responsibility for the final version is ours alone. We would also like to thank Maurice Dodson and our families without whose constant support, help and encouragement this book would never have been completed.

HALEH AFSHAR BINA AGARWAL

vii Notes on the Editors and Contributors

Haleh Afshar was born and raised in Iran, where she worked as a civil servant and a journalist. She teaches in the Department of Politics and the Centre for Women's Studies at the University of York. She is currently working with Muslim immigrant women in West Yorkshire and has edited Women, Work and Ideology (1985), Women, State and Ideology (1987) and Iran: a Revolution in Turmoil (1985).

Bina Agarwal is a Professor at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. She was educated at the universities of Cambridge and Delhi. She has been a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, and a Research Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit, both at the University of Sussex. Her extensive writings include articles on technological change in agriculture, the political economy of the woodfuel and environment crisis, poverty and the position of women in India and Asia, and several books: Cold Hearths and Barren Slopes: The Woodfuel Crisis in the Third World (1986), Structures of Patriarchy: State, Community and Household in Mod• ernising Asia (ed., 1988) and Mechanisation in Indian Agriculture (1983). She is currently a member of the Commonwealth Expert Group on Structural Adjustment and Women. She is also active in the women's movement and the environment movement in India.

Hae-Joang Cho teaches Cultural Anthropology, Korean Society and Gender Studies at the University of Yonsei, Seoul, South Korea. She is a graduate of History from Yonsei University and has a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is actively engaged in the feminist movement in Korea and is a member of a group called 'To hana-iii Munwha' (Alternative Culture). She is currently working on a book with a feminist perspective tentatively entitled 'Women and Men in Korea'.

Gillian Hwei-Chuan Foo is a consultant on family planning program• mes in Bangladesh. She is a Malaysian who graduated from Benning• ton College and has a PhD in Population Planning from the Universi-

Vlll Notes on the Editors and Contributors ix ty of Michigan in 1987. She has worked with international family planning agencies in Malaysia and Thailand.

Rachel Kurian is a Lecturer in the Labour and Development Programme at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. Her research has been on the position of women in plantations in the Caribbean and Asia, on which she has published a book, Women Workers in the Sri Lankan Plantation Sector: An Historical and Contemporary Analysis (1982) and is currently working on a book on women and plantations in the Caribbean, with special reference to Trinidad and Barbados. Since 1982 she has had field experience in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Barbados, Trinidad, Ecuador and Colombia.

Johanna Lessinger is a Research Associate at the Southern Asian Institute, Columbia University, in New York. She is a social anthro• pologist and a political activist. Her major interests are in politics, economic behaviour and women's activism in Third World societies. She has done research in the Caribbean, India and among Indian immigrants in the United States. Her most recent work is an edited volume Perspectives in US Marxist Anthropology, produced with David Hakken for Westview Press. She has taught Anthropology and Women's Studies.

Linda Yuen-Ching Lim teaches at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is a Singaporean with degrees in Economics from the University of Cambridge (BA), Yale (MA) and Michigan (PhD 1978). She has taught at Swarthmore College and the National University of Singapore. She is a specialist on multinationals, trade, industrial development, labour and women's issues in South-East Asia, and has consulted frequently on these subjects for various international development agencies (e.g. ILO, UNCTC, UNIDO, ESCAP, World Bank, OECD, ODI London.) She is the co-author of three books and more than fifty published articles, about one-third of which deal with women's work in developing countries.

Kalpana Ram is currently completing her doctoral dissertation in the Anthropology School of Pacific Studies, Australian National Uni• versity. She has undertaken fieldwork among the Mukkuwar fishing community in 1982-3 and again in 1983-4. The focus of the research is on the interrelations between caste, class and gender in the context of change in the labour process. X Notes on the Editors and Contributors

Kumudhini Rosa works at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. She worked extensively with women workers in the Greater Colombo Economic Commission and Free Trade Zone from 1979 ti111984 when she became the South Asian Sub-Regional Coordinator for the Committee for Asian Women in Hong Kong. In 1986 she obtained a Master's Degree in Women and Development from the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague.

Farida Shaheed taught rural sociology at Punjab University and was a Professor of Basic Research Methodology at Lahore. Since 1981 she has been a senior consultant on women and development. She is currently Research Director of the regional research project on the 'International Migration of Women' for the Asian and Pacific De• velopment Centre, Kuala Lumpur, and Project Director for the updating of 'an annotated bibliography on women', Shirkat Gah. She is also the Coordinator for Pakistan for Women Living under Muslim Law; International Network of Information, Solidarity and Support. Farida Shaheed is a founder member women's action forum which campaigned against the 'Islamisation' policies of Zia-ul-Haq. Introduction

The debate on the relationship between the ideological and the material which has long occupied a primary place in Marxist scho• larship is also one of central importance to feminist analysis. 1 This book addresses some aspects of the debate in the context of Asia. In particular, it examines the role that ideology can play both as a disabling and an enabling factor in the lives of women seeking to earn a livelihood for themselves and their families under conditions of poverty. In many parts of Asia (especially in the South and West), for instance, prevailing traditional ideologies impose restrictions on women's participation in income-generating work, by prescribing their confinement within circumscribed spaces, even while their economic situation necessitates such participation. Women caught in the poverty trap may then face conflicting choices between survival needs and social status and acceptability within the community. These choices can be particularly stark in communities where religion and culture dictate a high degree of physical seclusion and depend• ence for women, and where the State additionally reinforces tradi• tional dictates, as in today's Islamic theocracies. In contrast, else• where in Asia (as in much of South-East and parts of South Asia), the absence of such restrictions or the prevalence of traditional ideologies that favour female employment and autonomy, or State policies that counter the thrust of traditional restrictions, can complement women's attempts at economic survival and advancement. We might indeed expect to find within a country, at any one time, a plurality of co-existing traditions, especially in multi-ethnic, multi• religious societies. At the same time, ideological representations stemming from the dominant classes/groups often become the norms governing all classes/groups, or are ascribed a superior position within a range of representations and practices. A woman's class position in fact may enter into this in a complex and contradictory way. Upper-class women, for instance, may on the one hand be more strictly bound by the dictates of certain types of representations and cultural practices; on the other hand, their class position and/or higher education may enable them individually to challenge these dictates and bypass conventions from which women living under poverty conditions may have no easy escape. Again, deviations by

1 2 Introduction

poor women from conventions accepted and practised by the better off, may reflect either an alternative ideological tradition (as found, say, among tribal societies), or an uneasy resolution of a conflict imposed by economic necessity. The studies in this volume trace these contradictory and com• plementary roles that ideology plays in the lives of Asian women workers. All the case studies relate to women who need to earn in order to sustain themselves and often their families, although the extent of their economic deprivation varies by country and occupa• tional context. Together they provide a picture of the principal forms of ideological control to which the women are subject, the complex mesh of cultural norms and practices through which the ideologies are articulated, the role of institutions such as the State, the community and the family in perpetuating or undermining them, and how they affect women. The studies relate to a mixed set of Asian countries, with an associated diversity of cultural and economic conditions. They vary too in their ruraVurban specificities and the nature of economic activities in which the women are involved. Yet this very diversity both provides a basis for contrasting different contexts and helps bring to the fore the persistence of circumscribing ideological forms, despite contextual differences. The chapters cover a wide range of ideologies and associated cultural practices which broadly fall into four categories: (1) The ideology of seclusion. (2) The ideology of exclusion. (3) The social construction of femininity. (4) The demarcation of roles by gender. As outlined below, each of these, individually and in combination, affect in complex ways women's attempts to earn a livelihood. Conversely, ideologies are also subject to change, as indeed are women's responses to them, as a result of varying influences, including the nature and degree of women's involvement in economic activity itself. Some of the points of change highlighted in the papers are discussed here as well.

THE IDEOLOGY OF SECLUSION

The ideology of female seclusion, widespread especially in South and Haleh Afshar and Bina Agarwal 3

West Asia, is embodied in a wide range of cultural practices: the veiling of women, physically segregating their living spaces within the house, restricting their freedom of movement to certain sections of the village or town, and the specification of behavioural norms and modes of conduct. Common to all is the principle of avoidance interaction with men, although not with all men nor in all social contexts - the specification of which men and in which contexts varying across groups and communities. The rationalisations for this avoidance are cloaked in terms of izzat (family and personal honour), female modesty, the need to control female sexuality, and so on. But the exact nature and form of these practices varies by region, religion, community, and situation.2 For instance, in South Asia, the use of the veil whether as a chaddor or as a ghunghat (covering the head and upper part of the face) is confined to certain communities and regions (the former to Muslims, the latter to Hindus and Sikhs in north-west India). Even among the Muslims, as Farida Shaheed (Chapter 1) notes for Pakistan, insistence on the veiling of women is neither widespread nor the chief constraint on women's freedom of movement. Much more pervasive and constricting is the practice of circumscribing women's freedom of movement outside the home, noted in all the chapters relating to South and West Asia. These restrictions are particularly confining and strictly observed in Islamic states such as Pakistan and Iran, discussed by Shaheed and by Haleh Afshar (Chapter 2) respectively. In both countries, reli• gious texts are invoked to represent women as dependent on and protected by men - economically and socially - an illusion sought to be maintained even in contexts where male incomes are insufficient for the family's survival. In Shaheed's case study of Lahore city, in Pakistan, the conflict between economic survival and male honour (linked to men's ability to provide for the family, as well as keep women within the home) is resolved by women taking up home-based piecework (through middlemen who supply the raw materials and purchase the finished products), in effect rendering the fact of their working invisible to the outside world. Those who seek outside employment, primarily because of the lack of alternatives, do so in establishments/occupations that provide a semblance of purdah (e.g. inside buildings with an all-female workforce). This restricts female job opportunities (reinforcing other tendencies that help create and sustain a highly sex-segregated labour market, enabling employers to assign women lower-paid jobs or lower salaries than men for the same jobs), limits their chances of acquiring skills and on-the-job training, 4 Introduction and isolates women workers from one another and also from information about market rates for the goods they produce, or the prices that other women workers are charging for the same product. Lacking virtually all formal organisational structures and with few possibilities of solidarity, they can be employed when needed and rendered redundant when not. Shaheed's comparison of the earnings of home-based workers with those few from the same neighbourhood and class background who are able to seek factory employment, or establish independent sales outlets without the mediation of middlemen, indicates that the latter are able to earn twice as much on average as the former. Interestingly many of those who work outside the home wear the veil- a situation that Shaheed notes is perhaps better than the alternative of not going out of the house at all. Although Shaheed does not explicitly discuss State policies in relation to female employment in Pakistan, other writings indicate that the Pakistani State has tended to reinforce the biases of the religious community in restricting women's access to formal employment in various ways. 3 This is brought out explicitly and with particular force in Afshar's chapter on Iran, where the State has strongly backed fundamentalist opposition to women earning their own livelihood. On the one hand the Islamic Government's economic and social policies have favoured the ideology of female seclusion and domesticity, and - on the assumption that all women are protected by male breadwinners - closed most channels of formal employment for women, and cut down or eliminated welfare protection such as creches at the work• place. On the other hand, male unemployment and conscription, poverty, and the ease of divorce and polygamous marriages (facili• tated by State legislation), have intensified problems of destitution and the abandonment of women, making it imperative for them to find independent sources of earnings within a hostile social environ• ment. A few with social connections find work in the domestic sector, but most have been pushed to the outer margins of the economy and forced to eke out an existence via home-based work or prostitution. Many also populate the prisons, some of whose families are now (ironically) better off than before, by living on the pensions they receive as dependants of prisoners. Outside the context of Islamic theocracies, or of countries conduct• ing Islamisation drives, State policies do not explicitly adopt a posture advocating female seclusion and domesticity; indeed the State in most Asian countries is seeking, at least in rhetoric, to Haleh Afshar and Bina Agarwal 5 promote women's greater access to education and employment. But community norms and family pressures may yet continue to serve as a strong barrier to women's mobility, visibility and autonomy.4 Bina Agarwal (Chapter 3), for instance, highlights how marriage practices, cultural norms of post-marital residence, and accepted patterns of behaviour, all contribute towards the disinheritance of women from their legal or customary claims to agricultural land. Strictures towards women's visibility and mobility in public spaces, and various forms of avoidance practices, especially where coupled with village exogamy and patrilocal marriage residence (as common in north-west India) become barriers to women laying a claim both to any land they have a legal right to (most give up their rights in parental land in favour of their brothers) and to self-cultivating that which they may come to possess or get use access to. Community norms of village, caste and kin exogamy lead to marriages among strangers at considerable distances from the natal home in north-west India, while norms of seclusion constrain cross-village travel. Even within the village, in most parts of northern India there are identifiable spaces such as the market place where men congregate and which women are expected to avoid. This ideological division of public space considerably disadvantages women farmers in seeking information on agricultural practices, purchasing inputs, hiring labour and machinery to plough the fields, or selling the produce. Unfamiliarity with urban centres where credit and input co-operatives are usually located are additional barriers to female self-cultivation. The fear of gossip and of being labelled as sexually promiscuous serve as a strong deterrent to transgressing social norms and conventions. All this places female• headed households with no adult male worker in a particular quandary. In contrast, contacts developed by men in the market place considerably ease their ability to obtain labour, other inputs, and immediate help from fellow farmers. At the same time, what Agarwal's analysis significantly suggests is that the degree to which the ideology of female seclusion is enforced varies cross-regionally even within India, the strictures being strongest in the north-west and least in the tribal communities of the north-east, with central and southern India falling somewhere in between. In the south, for instance, veiling is not required and women are relatively more free to move in public spaces both within the villages and in the towns. The greater prevalence of in-village and cross-cousin marriages (which in turn is related, among other things, to the prevailing ideology of descent in these communities) give 6 Introduction women greater freedom of movement after marriage than in northern India. At the same time this is not an unlimited freedom, and in some measure the gender division of public space and male-female avoi• dance practices are to be found in the south as well, as illustrated by Johanna Lessinger's study (Chapter 4) of female petty traders in Madras city. Lessinger argues that cultural notions of appropriate female be• haviour, especially subtle avoidance conventions, shape and affect the ability of urban poor women to trade as successfully as men. For instance, women operate only as retailers of petty items, and within their specific retail area build up kin-like relations with other (especially male) traders. This provides them with a notional chaperonage and protective shield in their interaction with outsiders - male customers, market tax collectors and moneylenders. How• ever, outside the immediate market place no such social chaperonage is available. For instance, the city's central wholesale market from where supplies have to be procured is largely a 'male space' where few women other than prostitutes typically go. The women traders therefore usually avoid going there altogether, instead buying their supplies from the larger male retailers of their own market, but at higher rates that cut into their slender profit margins. Those few who venture into the wholesale markets do so in groups, avoiding the pre-dawn auction rush when the best bargains can be obtained. It is also a telling point that in those families that become prosperous on the basis of an initial equal participation of the husband and wife in trading, the wife often withdraws from active participation for status considerations; and nubile daughters are kept away from the shops for fear of tainting their reputations, even in families where the mother trades alone and critically needs an extra pair of hands. In other words, female seclusion continues to be associated with social prestige, even in southern India, although it is less strictly enforced here than in the north.

THE IDEOLOGY OF EXCLUSION

Seclusion is a subtle and pervasive form of exclusion - but in many South Asian communities women are also directly excluded from the main means of production on the basis of ideological constructs. For instance, taboos against women ploughing are found universally across all agrarian communities in South Asia (Agarwal) and against Haleh Afshar and Bina Agarwal 7 women entering the sea (or even going close to it) among some fishing communities such as the Mukkuvars of Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu studied by Kalpana Ram (Chapter 5).5 In both instances, the taboos are invoked through a ritual emphasis on pollution and purity. Women's touch, seen as polluting, is believed to lead to crop failure if they plough, and to endanger not only the success of the fishing ventures but even the lives of the fishermen if women enter the 'divine' sea. Young girls are prohibited from approaching the sea, and even playing near it, at an early age. Agarwal notes similar ritual taboos against women touching the potter's wheel or the loom among potter and weaver communities in northern India. Effectively, these taboos exclude women from access to the production technology most crucial for practising the craft in the given occupational context. In an agrarian economy, for instance, barring women from ploughing makes dependency on men unavoid• able for female farmers; among the fisherfolk of Tamil Nadu described by Ram, women (and only those middle aged) can at best be fish traders. As noted, these taboos go in conjunction with the wider ideology of pollution and purity that governs social and ritual interactions among the Hindu communities of South Asia. This contrasts with cultural and religious contexts where this particular notion of pollution appears to be entirely absent, as for instance among the diving community of Cheju Island in South Korea described by Hae-Joang Cho (Chapter 6), where the women divers are the main breadwinners of the family and dive even during their menstrual periods. As discussed in the next section, Cho's study also graphically illustrates how the concepts of masculinity and femininity can differ radically across cultures and link with women's work roles and access to property.

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF FEMININITY

Modesty and submissiveness are the two most emphasised character• istics of ideal female behaviour not only in South and West Asia but also in South-East Asia, even though female seclusion is not custo• marily practised in the South-East, and traditionally women here have had greater sexual and physical freedom as well as greater access to immovable property, including land, than in most other parts of Asia. These ascriptions, internalised by women over long years of socialisation within the family, and manifest in docility of 8 Introduction behaviour and demeanour and respect for male authority, are indeed a commonly stated reason for employers preferring to employ women rather than men in export factories (Kumudhini Rosa, Chapter 8; Gillian Foo and Linda Lim, Chapter 9). However, the employment advantage this provides women over men is, at best, only temporary; in the long run it leaves women more susceptible to economic and social exploitation, restricting them from protesting against oppres• sive work conditions, joining trade unions, etc. In some contexts, earning a living may itself require a break from socially favoured or accepted notions of femininity. Fish trading, for instance, is associated with haggling, aggression and loudness, and Mukkuvar women in Tamil Nadu who earn a livelihood by fish vending do so at the cost of being looked down upon as 'masculine' - role models which younger educated women of the same community today summarily reject (Ram). Attitudes to female sexuality which again impinge critically on how the feminine is represented in different cultures are more complex, and are revealed particularly in the degree of stress on female chastity. Among the Mukkuvar fishing community of Tamil Nadu, for instance (as Ram notes), there is a belief that women by their prayers and chaste behaviour bring the men safely home from the sea. In a notional sense this attributes to women power over male success and failure, and over life and death. But in real terms it makes women morally responsible for the well-being and survival of their family men, thus effectively binding them to sexually chaste behaviour. Again, rather than pay the high social price of being seen as transgressing the norms of chastity, the women traders of Madras city adapt their method of functioning, but at the cost of higher earnings. For instance, women do not take advantage of contract-supplying in bulk, which is one of the routes to accumulating investible capital, since to obtain goods at concessional rates requires the building up of close contacts with the wholesaler. Any attempt to do so would leave the women open to accusations of sexual immorality. For the same reason they do not hire male help, critical for expanding business and even functioning effectively if they have no male kin support, since to do so would give them a bad name. Again, women's dependence on social ties, protection and chaperonage within their familiar trade markets makes it difficult for them to relocate their trade if their market collapses, or to take advantage of expanding and more Haleh Afshar and Bina Agarwal 9 prosperous market locations. As a result, even in the retail market, women operating without adult male kin are amongst the poorest. In this context it is important to note the strikingly different position and representation of women among communities where women have had direct access to productive resources, in addition to playing a primary role in production and family upkeep. Cases in point are the women divers of Cheju Island in Korea described by Cho, and the matrilineal Garos of north-east India discussed by Agarwal. In Cheju Island women alone were customarily divers and the main income-earners of the family, with full and open access to the sea, and were seen as independent, proud, practical and hardworking (all characteristics traditionally carrying positive connotations in that community), while the men whose main role was to conduct the ritual function of chesa or ancestral rites, with farming being carried out on a casual basis, were seen as lazy and idle, although these traits were legitimised in terms of men's philosophic temperaments: 'A noble man does not work'. In other words, the ideal constructs of feminin• ity and masculinity were very different here from those typical of most other cultural contexts. Again among the matrilineal, matrilocal Garos of north-east India traditionally practising shifting cultivation, women, even up to the 1950s, used to be the main agriculturists and the sole inheriters of non-landed property, enjoying equal usufructory rights to the com• munally owned land as the men, and controlling the produce. They were also the initiators of marriage proposals, with equal freedom as men to divorce and remarry, as distinct from the more passive roles women were expected to play among non-tribal, patrilineal com• munities. This underlying dialectical relationship between women's work roles, their access to productive resources and the way they are ideologically represented, is further revealed when we consider how the impact of modernisation and technological change on these work roles and access to resources has accompanied shifts in the dominant and approved representations of femininity and masculinity among both these communities. However, before examining changes over time, it is useful to consider how gender roles may vary across cultures. 10 Introduction

THE DEMARCATION OF ROLES BY GENDER

The assignment of roles by gender shows both noteworthy cross• cultural commonalities and striking differences. The commonality lies in the virtually universal assumption that domestic work is women's responsibility. The differences lie in the roles that women are expected, allowed, or encouraged to play outside and in addition to that context. On the latter, the chapters in this volume suggest a wide range, varying from the situation described by Shaheed and Afshar in Islamic theocracies where women are ideally expected to confine themselves to being good wives and mothers under male protection, to that prevailing in Cheju Island in Korea where women have customarily been the main providers. In between are various degrees of acceptance of women as earners. Rachel Kurian's and Kumudhini Rosa's papers on Sri Lanka, and Gillian Foo and Linda Lim's on South-East Asia all describe contexts where the fact of women working outside the home in public spaces causes no stir, but where prevailing ideologies about women's proper roles nevertheless con• tinue to restrict the nature of their employment, their access to skills and training, and the payments they receive for the jobs they do. Kurian (Chapter 7), in her study of plantation workers in Sri Lanka, for instance, argues that social ascriptions of inferiority to women's work ability and productivity enable managers in tea, rubber and coconut plantations to differentiate between male and female labour by ascribing the labels of skilled to the former and unskilled to the latter group of workers, by assigning women manual work in the tea estates and men tasks that require tools, and by paying men higher rates for the same tasks, such as tea picking which is normally done by the women but for which men are also employed during peak periods. Not only are men thus able to obtain higher payments for fewer hours of work but, in addition, where male and female members of the family are employed in the same plantations, the women's wages are handed over to the men as heads of the household. Control over this income rests with the men who also do the shopping, on the grounds that it involves going to markets situated outside the plantations, and that 'men can handle cash better'. In practice, a fair amount (even of the wife's hard-earned cash) is usually frittered away by the husband in gambling and drinking, and the sale of her jewellery to repay the resulting debts is not uncommon. Haleh Afshar and Bina Agarwal 11

Again, the popular belief that women are only supplementary workers seeking to add to male income rather than the primary supporters of the family, can become a justification for employers to pay them lower wages than men. Given their socialisation, women often accept this view of themselves and their work. Many of the women export factory workers in Sri Lanka interviewed by Rosa, for instance, are of rural origin and view their employment as a short-term, transient phase prior to marriage and domesticity. They are thus willing to put up with the harsh conditions of work (long hours, denial of entitled holidays, dismissal for going on maternity leave) and of residence (three to four occupants per room in a boarding house, a 'mat space' for sleeping, living out of suitcases). But given the prevailing high levels of male unemployment, few can realistically expect to withdraw from paid work. Most continue to work after marriage even when their husbands disapprove. Over time, many of them have become the main breadwinners of their households. Yet they continue to be paid as if 'working for lipstick'.6 Also, chances of promotion are limited. Women are concentrated in assembly line production while jobs considered skilled, such as cutters (in garment-making), foremen or electricians, or which are supervisory or managerial in function, are usually restricted to men. The situation of women factory workers in South-East Asian countries, such as Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore described by Foo and Lim, are both different and similar to those in South Asia in several respects. They are different in that here traditional ideologies do not conflict with women's employment in modern factories. Indeed the traditional concept of 'parent repayment' encourages women to seek employment before marriage in order to compensate for the expenditure parents incur in their upbringing. This, in a sense, serves as an 'enabling' ideology. Families support and encourage women's employment as they derive direct and significant benefits from it. Also, the women are not compelled to work out of dire economic necessity (though their jobs are important for improving their living standards), and the greater economic prosperity of their countries and associated better public facilities and services make for less harsh living conditions than faced by the factory workers of South Asia. Yet like their counterparts in South Asia, here too women do not view themselves as the primary or long-term breadwinners in their families, but expect to be supported by their husbands after marriage; they are subject to the same ideological assumptions about differences in male and female work capabilities which structure the 12 Introduction labour market into sex-segregated categories and restrict women's entry into managerial and supervisory positions even in female• intensive industries. Also, wage employment in modern export factories has brought no radical shift in thinking about women's domestic responsibility within the family. This is not to suggest that the process of modernisation brings about no change in the way women are perceived by society or how they perceive themselves. Indeed it may bring quite radical shifts which are neither uni-dimensional nor uni-directional, as discussed in the next section.

CHANGING IDEOLOGIES

Just as ideologies vary regionally and cross-regionally, so too they are subject to change over time, although the process by which these changes occur, like the processes by which ideologies are historically produced and reproduced, are complex and inadequately under• stood. Not least, the complexity stems (as noted earlier) from the dialectics between ideological shifts and changes in women's work roles and relationship to property. Several chapters in the volume highlight this interaction. For instance, among the matrilineal Garos described by Agarwal there have been significant shifts, especially since the 1950s, from swidden cultivation to settled plough agriculture, and from commun• al to private land ownership, as a result largely of State policies restricting tribal access to forest land, directly encouraging settled farming and legalising individual occupation of plots through the granting of land deeds. Associated with the changes there has been a decline in demand for women's labour (which was primary under swidden cultivation), their loss of access to communal land while the privatised land is usually registered in male names, the establishment of male control over surplus produce, and a shift in parental attitudes towards daughters who are now seen by many as dependants making little productive contribution. Ideological and economic changes triggered off by State policies are also brought out in Cho's study. She describes how an increase in export demand for shellfish and seaweed in Korea in the 1970s initially gave a spurt to the income and economic power of the women divers, encouraging them to send their children to school. However, the schooling of daughters has had two significant long- Haleh Afshar and Bina Agarwal 13

term effects. First, the girls miss the crucial training period for divers, creating a shortage of younger divers to replace the mothers, placing the entire burden of supporting the family on the older women. Alongside this, State restrictions on women's free access to the sea and its resources, on the grounds of protecting a communal resource, is in effect leading to a marginalisation of the women divers and cutting into their incomes. Second, exposure to education and mass media in the towns has led to dramatic changes in how traditional occupations are viewed and in the accepted representations of masculinity and femininity. Television programmes project the ideal man as a responsible breadwinner and household head, and the woman as a dependent and leisurely housewife - representations that the sons and daughters have begun to internalise and accept. Also, educated daughters now view diving as 'primitive' and their mothers as blunt and insensitive. This attitude is echoed in Kalpana Ram's description of the Mukkuvar girls educated in the towns of Tamil Nadu who now look down upon the women traders of their own community as unfeminine and aggressive and seek to distance themselves through urban jobs. Such employment, while economical• ly more lucrative and holding a higher social status,7 yet requires (as noted) submissiveness towards male authority. Essentially what appears to be happening in the situations de• scribed is the homogenisation of cultural diversity across regions within countries under the impact of modern education and mass media exposure. But it is a homogenisation in favour of the dominant representations of masculinity and femininity and of the gender roles in that culture, which typify women as subordinate to men. However, insofar as the women are also subjects in the process of change and not merely passive respondents, we might ask: in what ways does earning an independent income affect women's self• perceptions and autonomy, or their status within the family? Shaheed found that among the home-based workers, with the exception of those who earned very little, most felt that it had increased their self-confidence and independence (although the refusal of the family men to acknowledge their contribution cut into this satisfaction). Also, those who worked outside the home had developed friendships with other women and preferred it to the suffocation and isolation of being confined to the house. Again, Foo and Lim note that women factory workers in South• East Asia, as a result of joining the workforce, feel less timid, more self-confident and freer, and exercise greater autonomy over deci- 14 Introduction sions that affect their lives, whether they relate to how they spend their incomes or to their choice of marriage partners. Modern factory production, compared with, say, home-based work, has an additional potential advantage of creating the conditions for the development of collective links and solidarity among women, enhancing their class consciousness, and paving the way for the struggle against low wages and poor work conditions; even though, as both Foo and Lim and Rosa note, obstacles to the realisation of this potential and to the channelling of emerging consciousness into militancy and organised protest, remain considerable in most countries. However, the choice of jobs that women have depends not only on the cultural constraints to their participation but also on the nature of demand for female labour in the country. A rapid expansion of export factory production and associated demand for female labour in countries such as Singapore have clearly been instrumental in enabling women to bargain for higher wages and more conducive work conditions, as described in Foo and Lim's paper. But in the countries of South Asia with large-scale underemployment and slow growth of employment opportunities in formal industry, the only options available to most women living under poverty are to enter the informal sector as sellers of petty products (as in Lessinger's study), as wage labourers in various capacities, or as home-based producers (as described in Shaheed's paper). Typically these are survival options, not lucrative enough to pull most women out of poverty, nor sufficiently different in their content or context to seriously challenge existing ideological constructs. This criticality of the macro-economic and class-structured en• vironment within which women live and work in Asia, and the wide-ranging impact of State interventions - be they economic, legislative or cultural- on women's micro-spaces, as highlighted in several chapters, underlines the necessity for poor women to struggle for change on many fronts. It also requires an underlying perspective that links the micro with the macro, the economic with the ideologic• al, so that the struggle extends in its scope and thrust far beyond the arena of women's immediate work context, even if that be its point of initiation.

Notes

1. For a clear and useful discussion on some of the theoretical aspects of this Haleh Afshar and Bina Agarwal 15

debate in the context of Marxist and feminist analysis see Barrett (1980). 2. Some of the differences and commonalities between Muslim and Hindu practices of female seclusion and avoidance are discussed at length in Papanek and Minault (1982) and Mandelbaum (1988). 3. See, for instance, Mumtaz and Shaheed (1987). 4. For a discussion on some of the ways in which the State, the community and the household operate as interacting structures, converging or diverging in relation to the gender question in different contexts and countries, see Agarwal (1988). 5. Given the limited number of detailed anthropological studies on fishing communities in India, it is difficult to say how universally applicable this is across the country. 6. This phrase, used by Susan Joekes (1985) in the context of women employed in the clothing factories in Morocco, effectively captures what is in fact a widespread (and, for the employer, convenient) assumption, common to many contexts and cultures, that women factory workers need to work only to supplement male income, or for personal luxuries. 7. Underlying the social status associated with different types of work are not merely the economic returns from such work but also a complex set of attitudes which are not entirely coincident with the economic, such as attitudes towards manual vs. mental labour, rural vs. urban location, tasks done with machines vs. those done by hand, jobs requiring various levels of skills/education vs. the unskilled (or so labelled), and so on.

References

Agarwal, Bina (1988) 'Patriarchy and the "Modernising" State', in Bina Agarwal (ed.), Structures of Patriarchy: State, Community and Household in Modernising Asia (Delhi: Kali for Women, and London: Zed Books). Barrett, Michele (1980) Women's Oppression Today: Problems in Marxist Feminist Analysis (London: Verso). Joekes, Susan (1985) 'Working for Lipstick? Male and Female Labour in the Clothing Industry in Morocco', in Haleh Afshar (ed.), Women, Work and Ideology in the Third World (London and New York: Tavistock). Mandelbaum, David G. (1988) Woman's Seclusion and Men's Honour: Sex Roles in North India, Bangladesh and Pakistan (Tucson: University of Arizona Press). Mumtaz, Khawar and Farida Shaheed (1987) Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (London: Zed Books). Papanek, Hanna and Gail Minault (eds) (1982) Separate Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia (Delhi: Chanakya Publications). 1 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan Farida Shaheed

INTRODUCTION

This chapter examines purdah as an institution that controls and governs women's lives in Pakistan, both as an ideology that, through internalised behaviour codes, predetermines a woman's options and actions, and as a set of externally enforced rules of gender segrega• tion and female seclusion. It explores the impact of purdah on women's access to economic resources and employment opportuni• ties, and suggests that in urban areas the social organisation of space, combined with the distancing of skill acquisition and workplaces from the homestead, have intensified the negative repercussions purdah has on women's earning ability. The chapter focuses on the worst victims of the system (namely women who, caught between the 'respectability' imperatives of purdah and the need to earn, end up as home-based pieceworkers), and looks at the ways in which purdah contributes to their exploitation. The data on these pieceworkers was collected in 1981 as part of a preliminary investigation of a neighbourhood in Lahore city. 1 Since a more comprehensive study was never conducted, the data have certain limitations which need mentioning. Firstly, the significance of purdah only came to light as a by-product of the study, so that a detailed analysis of the interplay between the social imperatives of purdah and women's economic need to work has not been possible. Also, a number of factors such as ethnic identity, family composition, the worker's position within the family, kin or community support and cohesiveness, all of which would influence the interplay, could not be sufficiently explored. Even the respondents' own concepts of and opinions about purdah were elicited in the most general terms. Secondly, the lack of comparative data on those employed outside precludes any systematic comparison of them with the home• workers. Nor is there information on home-based male pieceworkers for comparing earnings and work conditions by gender. Thirdly, the diversity of purdah rules prevailing among different classes and

17 18 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan communities (and varying consequences thereof) is a vast study in itself that would have to be carried out before any definitive conclusions can be drawn on the impact of purdah on women's earning powers in different classes, communities and regions. In the absence of more systematic data, the conclusions presented here are perforce tentative in nature. Despite all these shortcomings, the chapter has been written because in Pakistan purdah is such a critical factor in women's lives, and one that is normally ignored, particularly in development-related research. One hopes therefore that presenting even tentative conclu• sions will encourage others to pursue this field of investigation and thereby increase our knowledge and understanding of this versatile but tenacious institution.

THERULESOFPURDAH

Based on two cardinal and complementary principles - gender segregation and female seclusion - purdah is a rather complex set of rules that governs all interaction between the genders. As an institution, purdah serves to divide and therefore define spaces: the public and private, the exterior and interior, the male and female. Private interior spaces demarcate the realm of women, while public exterior spaces are reserved for men. The contours of these spaces vary in different classes and regions, but as an internalised belief system - an ideology - purdah mediates between all women and the outside world, governing their lives, defining what is possible and by extension what is not. Since the division of space does not entail an equal distribution of decision-making and authority, purdah politics has proved a most effective tool for controlling women and buttres• sing a patriarchial structure. The exterior world of men- in which is concentrated financial and political power - penetrates and inter• venes in the interior female space through male relatives whose authority supercedes that of women even within the interior domain. In contrast, the ability of women to intervene in the exterior public world is marginal. Either women do not enter public space at all or, when they do, frequently encase themselves in a veil that serves as a 'portable' private space. It is important to recognise that purdah is not the physical description of either the veil or the homestead. Many women do not veil themselves but observe strict purdah since they never leave their Farida Shaheed 19 homes. The burqa, a nineteenth-century innovation, is still relatively unknown in rural areas. Village women and many poor urban women use only their duppattas2 (which is part of the national dress) for covering themselves. Asked whether they observe purdah these women frequently reply in the negative, meaning that they neither wear a chaddor or burqa, nor are they restricted to their homes. Yet with respect to non-family males and their own movements, the behaviour of such women often indicates relatively high levels of purdah practice. In fact the conscious avoidance of any contact with male strangers - particularly those with comparable social status and in places of work - is a form of purdah that, with the exception of a small minority of professionally working or upper-class women, is universally practised in the country. Secondly, the spaces defined by purdah are ideological and not physical demarcations. In villages, the private 'interior' space of women includes wells and washing areas which can be situated well outside the boundaries of even the severely controlled Pathan household compound.3 Inversely, as soon as the family can afford more than one room the house is divided into the 'zenana' (female) and 'mardana' (male) sections, a practice that continues in urban centres. The ideological underpinnings of 'public' and 'private' are also reflected in the flexibility of definitions for different classes. In rural areas confining women to the homes is a public statement of the family's ability to replace unpaid female family labour with paid, usually male, labour, and the seclusion of women increases with their economic and social status. 4 Because female labour is required in agricultural production, the fields cannot be considered public space for most village women. In contrast, for the rural rich, all space outside the physical boundaries of the homestead is public. It is amongst these households that one finds the small number of rural women who wear a burqa. Given its association with the upper echelons of rural society, purdah has tremendous prestige value and is therefore aspired to by those desiring upward social mobility. For the concerned woman, the reduced workload resulting from house• hold confinement tends to reinforce social considerations of prestige to make purdah seem a very desirable change. Despite these differences, some rules apply to all categories of women and reflect an underlying desire to control the financial independence of women as well as their interaction with males. Most importantly, all women are excluded from bazaars, cattle markets and any other places involving financial transactions. As control 20 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan diminishes with distance, all space outside the village parameters is considered 'public' for all women, and their movements outside the village are carefully monitored and in any case greatly restricted. In urban areas the social organisation of the environment is such that all spaces outside the home automatically become public. Accentuated by the heterogeneous nature of the population, this leads to heightened male control over female relatives. Consequent• ly, stricter rules of purdah apply to a larger number of women and the emphasis has shifted from definitions of public spaces to female visibility in public. Different rules apply to different categories of women and mobility depends on class, ethnic identities and the size of the city. In all cities, the poorest women have the least restrictions imposed, while purdah is strongest amongst the lower middle class. For such families purdah is sometimes the only visible means of distinction from the working poor, and is therefore frequently adopted by families that as Papanek says 'cannot actually "afford" to do without the additional income (that could be earned by women) nor to spend money on the additional services which seclusion implies' (Papanek, 1971). The only survey which attempts to assess the practice of purdah at a national level, by Shah and Bulatao (1981), confirms the greater prevalence of purdah in urban areas and in certain classes. 5 Analys• ing the data of the National Impact Survey 1968-9, the authors find that according to women's self-definition of the term purdah: '82% of women in urban areas and 47% in rural areas follow purdah customs ... [and that] in both urban and rural areas, purdah observance is positively associated with several measures of socio-economic status . . . including upward mobility aspirations' (Shah and Bulatoa, 1981: 32). Additionally only a small proportion of purdah-observing women were found in low-status occupations, most tending to be occupied in tasks or jobs which permited some degree of female seclusion and/or segregation. After analysing the data, Shah and Bulatoa (1981: 36) conclude that 'purdah constitutes a significant constraint in employment'. While agreeing with the overall conclusion, in my view, equating purdah with the veil (as implied in the study) can be misleading. The impact of purdah is entirely negative in the urban context, but under certain circumstances the veil, insofar as it increases a woman's mobility, can be advantageous in allowing a woman to undertake work to which she would otherwise have no access (as illustrated below). It is the institution of purdah that is a major constraint on Farida Shaheed 21 women's employment because it limits their access to information, skills and employment opportunities and undermines their ability and confidence in undertaking any type of business transaction and negotiation. Although purdah affects all urban women, the severest impact is on the poor, but not the poorest, women.

EFFECT ON ACCESS TO URBAN EMPLOYMENT

As spiralling costs of living push an increasing number of urban women into seeking employment, they find that purdah practices leave them little room for manoeuvre. The definition of all public space as male space drastically reduces women's locational mobility. Urbanisation and industrialisation have shifted the location of skill acquisition and work sites into public spaces and at increasing distances from horne boundaries; at the same time the marketability of traditional horne skills has decreased. In combination, these factors severely undercut women's ability to earn. Firstly, public space being 'male' causes women, with the exception of the poorest, to seek employment in establishments/occupations that provide a semblance of purdah's prescr-ibed chardewari (four walls). 6 If women cannot find house-based work they prefer employ• ment inside buildings with an all-female environment (staff, co• workers and clientele). The greater the degree of work seclusion a job provides, the more favourably it is viewed. Where work increases exposure to males and public visibility it reduces the likelihood of women participating. As a result one rarely finds women in Pakistan employed as shop attendants, vendors or hawkers. They are also frequently excluded or discriminated against in jobs which, though located in a building that provides some measure of seclusion (and possibly segregation), entails trips outside the work premises or interaction with males. Exceptions to this rule strengthen the general tendency. Three major exceptions to women working in the public sphere are construction workers, brick kiln workers and street sweepers. For one thing, women in all three categories belong to a particular group with its own sub-culture.7 For another, all these occupations rank amongst the lowest in prestige. As a result, resistance to working in public amongst the general female population is reinforced, and strengthens the position of those who feel that 'is it a degradation for a woman to work outside. People are rude, unpleasant ... and 22 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan women are constantly harassed in the streets ... if my sons have any gumption, there will be no need for my daughters-in-law to work at all'. Secondly, when women try to find employment within a charde• wari, their lack of skills places them at a disadvantage. In the exterior world of men- in garages, workshops and the bazaars - an informal apprenticeship system provides large numbers of boys with market• able skills. Because of purdah, women are excluded from this system while the private interior space demarcated for them has a dwindling supply of skills relevant in the new market. In the formal educational system, institutions - segregated from primary to college (14th grade) level- are heavily weighted in favour of males, leading to enormous, and apparently increasing, disparities between male and female levels of education. 8 This initial handicap is compounded by the policies and practices of vocational training. Formal vocational institutes cater almost exclusively for men, and although women are not legally excluded, the imperatives of segrega• tion ensure that women do not register. (See Shaheed, 1987; Shaheed and Mumtaz, 1987.) Even training programmes specifically aimed at increasing women's employment usually fail since they do not provide a support system for women entering the labour market and, unlike men, women cannot simply take their skills to the local labour market (skilled labourers collect at specific places from where contractors can hire them). Thirdly, segregation facilitates the management practice of sex• typing tasks, assigning women the lower-paid jobs or lower salaries for the tasks done. 9 Conditioned to live in a segregated society, women accept this position and feel more comfortable than in an environment where men and women work together and particularly where men substantially outnumber women. This can have a direct bearing on women's earnings. A number of workers in an electronics factory, where 90 per cent of production staff consists of young women, said that they had refused offers of better-paying jobs elsewhere despite the 20 to 25 per cent increase in salary this signified. As one worker explained:

Our homes don't provide any experience of interaction with men. Initially we found it a little difficult to adjust to working with strange men here. We didn't know how to behave or [assess their behaviour). Although our male colleagues are nice ... neverthe• less ... when (other factories) offer us jobs that we know are better Farida Shaheed 23

paying, we have no way of knowing how many work there, or what type of men. Maybe there will only be five or six of us. Here we are in a majority, so it's better. 10 A desire for security and the fear of harming their reputations are also determining factors in women's refusal to work overtime after sunset even if such work is substantially better paid. Despite this, urban women who are gainfully employed outside their homes are not the worst victims of purdah. The very fact that they work implies that the rules of purdah have been relaxed to some extent and their ability to contribute to the household income accepted even if reluctantly and with reservations. The mobility required to undertake such work automatically increases exposure to the outside world and multiplies their sources of information. Even skill acquisition and work opportunities can increase. Consequently such women are far better off than women who, because of purdah, are immobilised in their homes. However, these women constitute a very small percentage offemale workers (see Tables 1.1 and 1.2 for a profile of female employment in Pakistan).

HOME-BASED PIECEWORKERS-THE WORST VICTIMS

Trapped in veritable ghettos of purdah respectability are a large number of poor urban women. The men of their households see female employment as pointing to their own failure to provide for family needs, and as a direct affront to male honour (and by extension the family's). Unwilling to be classified amongst those who 'live off their women' (a derogative statement that draws its negative connotations from its original reference to the prostitution trade) male members of these households frequently refuse women permis• sion to work outside. Caught between the demands of purdah and economic pressures, women from these families are the worst victims of the purdah system, and when economic pressures become unbear• able many are obliged to seek a compromise solution, namely working at home. Sometimes women work as family labour, producing small items sold through male relatives on the open market. Most commonly these consist of food items (savouries, papadams or pickles) but goods such as baskets and toys, or even radio parts and chimney stoves may also be produced. More frequently, large numbers of ~

Table 1.1 Female labour force by major industry, 1961-81 1961 1973 1981 No. No. No. Major industry (thousands) % (thousands) % (thousands) % Agriculture 796 71.26 545 65.07 299 39.19 Mining 1 0.09 33 3.97 2 0.26 Manufacturing 137 12.27 46 5.45 117 15.33 Utilities - * 1 0.12 2 0.26 Construction 4 0.36 14 1.67 19 2.49 Trade 11 0.99 25 2.99 47 6.16 Transport 3 0.27 5 0.61 13 1.70 Finance 0 0 1 0.17 4 0.52 Services 165 14.77 151 18.07 227 29.75 Inadequately defined * 16 17.13 34 4.46 Total 1117 100 837 100 764 100 Source: Compiled from Basic Manpower and Related Statistics: 1961 and 1981 Census 1973 HED Survey. Note: *These categories were not included in the 1961 Census. ~

2.74 4.72 0.76

8.39

2.42

16.71

26.15 38.02

1981

442

5812

No.

20870

36000 63968 19192

127

199435

289972

762691

1961-81

1.12

9.62 0.49 2.32

8.82

8.66

4.99

63.99

groups,

1973

855 859

413

4091

9278

No.

19410

80594 73

41797

72529

535

837

occupational

1984.

major

0.05 0.37 0.92

2.82

10.91

14.08

70.86

Statistics,

force

1961

998

513

labour

4106

No.

10276

31674

122454

157

794987

and

Female

1.2

Manpower

Table

Basic

equipment

husbandry

from:

management

classified

technical

group

animal

transport

Compiled

workers

adequately

Occupational

Professional

Clerical

Service

Administrative

Agriculture,

Production,

Source: Sales Total

Not 26 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan women work at home in an informal-formal sector link~up which is highly beneficial to commercial enterprises. Goods sold in large shops, in the national and occasionally international markets, are being produced by women in their homes, particularly garments, but also rubber slippers, chimney stoves, radio parts and processed foods. Through this link-up, business concerns are able to reduce their overhead expenditures, avoid labour laws and minimum pay scales, and dispense with the possibility of any labour problems, including strikes and go~slows. For the employers, these women constitute a captive labour force. Isolated in their homes, unaware of the market rates of either labour or products and lacking the confidence to bargain for better terms, home-based pieceworkers are powerless to protect themselves from being exploited. This is particularly highlighted in our study of a group of poor urban women located in a neighbourhood of Lahore city where roughly 10 per cent of adult females are engaged in home-based piecework. Pockets of such invisibly employed women are to be found in most of the poorer localities of Lahore and the industrial centres of the country. Though the findings are based on the study undertaken in 1981, it is unlikely that the general situation has undergone any radical changes since then. While overall rates may have increased marginally, for some tasks the rates had actually decreased over the years due to substantial increases in the number of women willing and needing work in the same locality. The study was carried out in Kot Lakhpat, a township designed in 1963 to provide low-income families with cheap accommodation, and located in an industrial area. Yet while the 204 households surveyed lived in the smallest units (120 square yards) only a nominal number of male household heads were factory employees. Less than one• third worked as unskilled labourers, hawkers or pedlars, while a little over half could clearly be categorised as lower middle class. Literacy rates of both males and females were higher than those prevailing nationally and in the neighbourhood. Significantly, the literacy rate for the women in such households was three times as high as that of women in the neighbourhood as a whole (38 per cent compared with 14 per cent). Among men the literacy rate was 63 per cent with 33 per cent having at least a matriculation (tenth grade) degree. On the whole therefore these families could not be classified as the poorest sections of society and were careful to emphasise this difference through the cultural norms they adopted, particularly the practice of purdah and female seclusion. Farida Shaheed 27

According to their own definitions, 57 per cent of the women observed purdah in that they wore a veil outside the house or never left their homes. Another 9 per cent had previously worn a veil. Of those who had discarded the veil none were under 20 and almost half were over 40. (Ten per cent of those who had never worn a veil were Christian.) It was interesting to note that a significantly higher proportion of males in the primary-school-educated group obliged their women to veil themselves than among illiterate males or those with higher education (89 per cent, as compared with 64 per cent of the illiterate, 65 per cent of those with tenth grade education, and 42 per cent of the higher-educated males). In this respect, the findings of the case study are similar to those of Shah and Bulatao and tend to support Papanek's contention that those who aspire to a higher social status may adopt the veil as a visible indicator of status even if they are not in a financial position to afford purdah. Whether veiled or not, all the women led highly cloistered lives that, for the most part, were controlled and constricted by purdah. Many had never stepped outside their block, let alone the township. The vast majority were heavily dependent on their neighbours and to a lesser extent on family members for work contacts, skill acquisition and information. Where women could not rely on neighbours, they had to depend on middle persons (usually men) approaching them with work. Pushed into working by sheer economic necessity, most were obliged to work at home because of purdah. Nearly three• quarters of the women were female heads of household. With an average family size of seven, one would have expected that house• hold responsibilities would be the main stumbling block to their working outside, however 77 per cent specified purdah as the principle reason for having to remain at home. With the exception of those working in family businesses, women received neither material nor moral support from male relatives. Instead, when confronted with the necessity or expressed desire of women to work, males normally reacted in a manner that served to underscore their greater household authority and control over women. Almost inevitably women were only allowed to work on the condition that they remain at home, and even then men frequently objected to any contact with male middle persons, either insisting that younger (and preferably male) children act as go-betweens, or conducting business transactions themselves. These reactions reflect two distinct though interrelated behaviour patterns associated with the concepts of shame and honour embodied in purdah ideology. 28 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan

Firstly, the heavy emphasis placed on women's behaviour as a key element in a family's (i.e. male's) reputation and honour creates a felt need to control the interaction of female relatives with unknown males (usually accomplished by preventing any interaction at all). Secondly, within a community, men's prestige and honour are frequently measured by their ability to provide for the family economically. As such, honour and prestige are very easily and immediately threatened if it becomes general knowledge that women have been 'reduced' to working outside. Asked what the male response to their working had been, women consistently replied that the objections voiced related to the loss of honour and prestige, particularly within the community and family. As one woman said: My husband is very narrow-minded and rigid in his beliefs. He would kill my daughters if they were to utter a word against purdah. He said he objected to my working because the household would be neglected but in fact he is concerned about his 'honor' (izzat). He wanted to know why I wanted to go out of the house and I've been forbidden to work unless a woman delivers the work at home ... I work mostly without his knowledge and only for my most pressing needs. The equating of female work with disgrace and a fall in social standing was very strong. Some men tried to insist that the women live on their earnings even though this was physically not possible, forcing women to hide their work from male relatives. Others had been obliged to give up better-paid jobs at the insistence of male relatives (who were sometimes not even living with them) so as to preserve the norms of respectability dictated by purdah. It is clear therefore that disguising the need for women's economic contribution by forbidding them to leave the house guards against male relatives losing face in public, and simultaneously facilitates control over female interaction (a responsibility that shifts from father to husband with marriage and decreases with a woman's age). It is equally clear, however, that male honour and prestige is saved at the expense of women's earning capacity. Home-based pieceworkers figure amongst the poorest paid urban workers. Thirty two per cent of the women working in this manner failed to earn more than 2 rupees (Rs.) a day, 68 per cent could not earn more than Rs. 5 and only a nominal 2 per cent had a daily income exceeding Rs. 20. Net earnings were even lower, since these Farida Shaheed 29 wages had to cover any expenses the workers incurred for the maintenance of tools, for raw materials such as thread, and for overheads such as electricity. Sometimes this came to as much as 30 per cent of their wages, as in the case of women who were paid Rs. 2 per dozen shorts but had to spend 60 paise per dozen on thread. For half the women, annual earnings were further reduced by the irregular or seasonal nature of the work provided. In some instances, all family members, including young children of five and six, were obliged to work before piecework yielded a total of Rs. 5 a day. Though the ages of the women workers varied from young girls of eleven to grandmothers of over sixty, the majority ( 60 per cent) were female household heads and one quarter were eldest daughters - precisely those women who bear the greatest burden of household duties. Some worked as long as 12 to 14 hours a day on piecework, having to juggle this activity and household tasks (which on average consumed seven hours). Despite the fact that close to 40 per cent of the women worked every single day for as long as work was available, 13 per cent of these workers received less than Rs. 26 a month and almost two-fifths earned less than Rs. 50. (At the time the minimum wage was Rs. 400 per month). With less than half the women managing to earn more than Rs. 100 a month, the monthly income from piecework was generally very low although individual earnings displayed considerable differences. While a substantial number of the workers were struggling to make between Rs. 20 to 40 per month, one exceptional woman was able to earn a little over Rs. 1000 (when work was available)Y Differences in earning ability were related to a variety of linked factors, the most important of which were skills and distance from the final buyers. Although 77 per cent of the women did some type of sewing, knitting or embroidery, those who were proficient enough and had the necessary contacts to set themselves up as professional self-employed seamstresses had the highest earning capacity. However, this was a small group constituting only one-fifth of the workers. Again, women who had enough mobility and self-confidence to deal directly with either factories or sales outlets (constituting 28 per cent of the sample) were still better off than the 50 per cent who depended entirely on middle persons. Table 1.3 shows for instance that only 44 per cent of tailors who dealt directly with individual customers failed to earn more than Rs. 5 a day as compared with 69 per cent of those working directly for outlets or factories and 83 per cent of those working through middle persons. 0

0 1

15.01-20

1 1

No.

6.9 3.6

8.2

23.1

income

9 4

daily

10.01-15.00

(Rs.)

No.

and

income

17.2

12.6 19.2

41.0

Daily

organisation

5.01-10.00

10 14

No.

work

82.8 43.5

68.9

69.2

,;;;;,5

pieceworkers

144

No.

Distribution

(for

1.3

outlets

persons

individual

Table

middle

(supplying

supply

work

through

(direct

workers

customers)

factories/outlets)

factories)

Category

Direct Working

Tailors

Total Farida Shaheed 31

Another factor affecting earnings was whether the women were producing custom-made items or standardised goods for mass con• sumption, and, within this last category, whether they were making a complete commodity ready for sale or only performing one step in an assembling process. Though essentially engaged in sewing, women employed to sew children's summer shorts were paid Rs. 2 per dozen, those performing one or two steps in assembling cricket caps were paid Rs. 1.50 per dozen. In contrast, a seamstress could earn Rs. 15 to Rs. 30 per suit. Of course the worst-paid were those engaged in unskilled mass production such as the assembling of metal earrings and their subsequent stapling on to cardboard for sale, and the multi-stage assembly of tinsel garlands. To make the simplest hoop earrings the women had to twist the cut strips of metal provided, turn up the two ends and affix the hooks. For this tedious work, they were paid between Rs. 0.50 toRs. 1 per gross pair. For pinning them on to cardboard the workers received Rs. 0.25 per gross pair. Garland• makers fared only marginally better. Cutting out and embroidering the heart-shaped centre cloth was paid at the rate of Rs. 0.20 per piece. Cutting out cardboard backings fetched Rs. 1.25 per gross for small-sized ones and Rs. 1.50 per gross for large-sized ones, and so on. Not satisfied with these exploitative rates, middle persons were not above cheating the women by providing 'lots' of work constitut• ing more than the stipulated one gross.

Table 1.4 Distribution of women workers by their percentage contribution to monthly household earnings Contribution Not as%of observing purdah Observing purdah Total family income no. % no. % no. %

~5 4 6.3 6 4.6 10 5.2 5-9 16 25.0 16 12.3 32 11.3 10-19 11 17.2 29 22.3 40 20.6 20-29 5 7.8 35 26.9 40 2J.6 30-39 6 9.4 15 11.5 21 10.8 40-49 1 1.6 6 4.6 7 3.6 50 2 3.1 4&4* 6.2 6&4* 5.2 51-59 6 9.4 4 3.1 10 5.2 60-69 2 3.1 4 3.1 6 3.1 70-79 1 1.6 1 0.8 2 1.0 80-99 1 0.8 1 0.5 10 15.6 5 3.9 15 7.7 *Piecework is carried out jointly by males and females in the household. 32 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan

As the vast majority of pieceworkers were unable to earn more than Rs. 200 a month, it was generally very difficult for a family to survive on what the woman alone earned, and most depended on male earnings. In one quarter of the families, the women's contribu• tion - frequently described as a drop in the ocean - amounted to less than 10 per cent of the household income and three-quarters of the female workers contributed less than 50 per cent. The disparity between male and female earning capacities in these households was very sharp. 12 On average, a male worker could earn Rs. 400 a month more than a female worker: in other words, three to four times as much as a woman. In only 9 per cent of the cases did women's earnings equal or surpass those of male relatives. Further, as exemplified by the case of a young matriculate woman earning Rs. 60 where her illiterate brother was making Rs. 300, the disparity had less to do with basic qualifications than the restrictions on work opportu• nities dictated by purdah norms. This is even more evident when one compares the earning capacity of women forced to work at home with those who work outside. While the study did not systematically focus on women working outside their homes, eighteen cases of such women were recorded and provide interesting pointers. All of them belonged to the same neighbourhood and occasionally to the same families as the home• based pieceworkers. Given identical backgrounds, the differences

Table 1.5 Distribution of women workers by differences in male and female aggregate earnings within the family Excess of Households Households not male earnings observing purdah observing purdah Total over female no. % no. % no. % -200 2 1.5 2 1.0 -101-200 2 1.5 1 1.5 3 1.5 -100 3 2.3 4 6.0 7 3.6 0 3 2.3 3 1.5 100 7 5.4 4 6.0 11 5.6 101-200 6 4.6 7 10.5 13 6.6 201-300 19 14.6 12 18.0 31 15.8 301-400 25 19.2 11 16.4 36 18.3 401-500 15 11.5 8 12.0 23 11.7 501-600 8 6.2 5 7.5 13 6.6 >600 28 21.5 4 6.0 32 16.3 n/a. 11 8.5 11 16.4 22 11.2 Total 129 100 67 100 196 100 Farida Shaheed 33

Table 1.6 Monthly earnings from home-based piecework and from outside employment Monthly income Work outside Home-based (Rs.) homes(%) piecework (%) -=:;100 fiJ.7 101-200 15.4 23.2 201-300 15.4 8.9 301-400 23.1 4.3 401-500 23.1 0.5 >500 23.1 2.4 Total 100.0 100.0 found are all the more striking. In sharp contrast to the vast majority of home-based workers who earned up to Rs. 200 a month, those working outside had an average monthly salary of Rs. 420, and even the worst-paid earned more than Rs. 150. An interesting aspect of those working outside was that half of them wore a burqa. While the average salary of these women was Rs. 23 less than those who did not wear a veil, this is not significant. The number of cases involved was very small and in any case the highest-paid woman was a stenotypist who wore a veil while the least paid was a sixteen-year-old school• teacher who didn't. The fact that half of those working outside wore a veil underscores the importance of distinguishing the institutionalised aspects of purdah, i.e. gender segregation and female seclusion, from the mere practice of donning a veil. From the point of view of female poverty it is the former far more than the latter which impedes a woman's ability to be economically self-reliant. Where the veil, by providing a portable private space, is used by women to increase their mobility, it can actually increase their opportunities. This is not to suggest that the veil is a generally desirable practice, only that where because of purdah women are obliged to work at home, it makes little difference whether or not they wear a veil outside. In this respect, the opinions of the workers regarding the veil are worth mentioning. Understandably, those who had never worn a veil were, with one exception, opposed to the practice. Yet despite the high representation of young women under twenty (comprising 27 per cent of the sample), of those who wore a veil only a minority were opposed to the practice. The majority (70 per cent) accepted it either because it was a family tradition or because it was seen as a symbol of prestige. Younger women were less inclined to take a favourable view and considered the veil to be outdated and useless. More w -!>-

Table 1.7 Distribution of pieceworkers by age group and opinions on purdah observance Age group and opinion of purdah ~20 20-29 30-39 ?340 Purdah status Like Dislike Like Dislike Like Dislike Like Dislike Total Current (no.) 19 12 24 11 23 10 31 7 97 40 observe (%) 61.6 38.4 68.6 31.43 69.6 30.3 81.6 18.4 63.5 36.5 Previously (no.) - - 1 2 1 7 3 5 5 14 observed (%) - - 33.3 66.6 12.5 87.5 37.5 62.5 26.3 73.7 6&2* 10&1* - 4&1* 42&5* Never (no.) - 22&1* - 1 - 1 observed (%) - 100 - 100 7.7 92.3 100 2.1 97.9

Total (no.) 19 35 25 21 25 28 34 17 204 100 *Christians Farida Shaheed 35 importantly, women were more concerned about the isolation im• posed by purdah than having to wear a veil. Home-based workers were generally conscious of the negative repercussions of having to work at home. A clear majority expressed a preference for working outside, specifically because they could earn more through regular better-paying jobs. However, non-economic considerations also extend into this. For many, working outside was seen as the only means of breaking the isolation of purdah and overcoming the sense of claustrophobia and suffocation they felt at being locked up all day, day after day. The desire to have greater contact with and experience of the world beyond the chardewari was frequently and variously expressed: 'working outside is more interest• ing'; 'one gets to know about the world'; 'to be able to communicate with the world'; 'it is good to have a change of environment'; 'I feel suffocated staying at home', etc. Women who had never worked outside often felt that this would increase their confidence and ability to deal with and cope with the outside. Those who had worked outside felt this even more strongly. A nineteen-year-old, whose brother stopped her from working outside (where she was earning Rs. 550 a month) because it undermined his honour and prestige, said: 'It was working outside that gave me confidence. I dealt with so many people and made good money ... Now I can only make Rs. 75 a month and my brother, who is a maulvi [preacher] type, doesn't allow us to say anything ... and anyway I earn so little.' For an older woman, the company of other women and the ensuing friendships were valued above the better pay and more interesting work available in the outside world. In short, these women resented the narrow interior spaces to which they were confined by purdah - spaces they found constricting in social and psychological as well as economic terms. In addition to obliging them to work at home, restrictions placed on women's mobility through purdah had more subtle repercussions on earning capacity. Prevented from extensive interaction outside their compounds, women workers rarely knew who or how many other women were doing the same type of work as themselves. Consequently they could not engage in any form of collective bargaining and had no means of knowing whether the rate they received was the same or lower than that given to other workers. Although the rates were uniformly and abysmally low, they did differ. Even within the limits of the one locality studied, some women were paid Rs. 1.25 while others would receive as little as Rs. 0.25 for 36 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan the same task. 13 Lack of mobility was responsible for ignorance regarding both the selling price of the product and the market where it was being sold. This deprived workers of any basis on which to demand better rates, and prevented them from overcoming the exploitation of middle persons by supplying their goods to the outlet or market directly. Only exceptionally were women in a position to undertake work such as tailoring or embroidery with a female clientele. The boundaries of purdah also impede any experience of business transactions or interaction with males, and a number of women who would have liked to bypass the middlemen were intimidated by the prospect of having to cope and negotiate with strange men in the market place. Even those who did deal directly with factories or shops often found themselves ill-equipped, because 'the travelling is a burden, it is tiring and people are rude, and I find it incomfortable to deal with men'. Consequently purdah affects women's earning capac• ity in many less-obvious ways. The impact of home-based piecework on the self-perceptions and world views of the women is again revealing. These were not uniform, and the differences are important. Essentially they were the first women to work in their families, and the majority did experience some level of satisfaction at being able to earn at all. But to a large extent increases in self-confidence and independence depended on the amount earned. Women who were either the main providers or who contributed a substantial proportion of the household income were more likely to have gained, not just in terms of self-esteem but also greater participation in decision-making within the family. However, such women were in a minority, and those who earned very little had mixed reactions. Some felt that even meagre wages saved them from being 'reduced to beggars' (a reference to having to 'beg' male relatives for money), others felt that: 'we work hard but receive such low wages, how can we feel independent or confident with such little money?' One woman said: 'I have no use for confidence or independence - I need money.' Also, increased self-esteem did not necessarily reflect itself in an increased say or status within the family. Even when the women were earning quite well, the men in the family commonly refused to acknowledge their contribution and a frequent complaint was that male relatives prevented women from feeling any sense of accom• plishment or self-confidence. As one woman explained: 'It's useless working. The men always decide everything and now that their Farida Shaheed 37 earnings are not enough to support us (they feel) they have to assert their authority on us even more.' When women's earnings are very small and not commensurate with the labour involved or where male relatives undermine women's self-confidence through rigid social control, this leads to frustration. In the former case it gives material shape to the popular saying that 'there is no blessing or happiness in a woman's earning'; in the latter it leads to resentment at having to work at all. Frustration is also caused by the conflict between a frame of mind that has internalised purdah ideology and the forces of changed material conditions that have catapulted women into roles and activities for which they are socially, technically and psychologically unprepared. The dissonance between women's satisfaction at earning, the prevailing social norms and values, the limitations on earning capacity imposed by home• based work, and the additional burden of household responsibilities, put workers under acute pressures. Under these circumstances, instead of challenging the social order, the experience of working may actually end up convincing women of the desirability of the 'natural order of things' where men provide for the family and women remain housewives. Ironically enough, it was the highest-paid woman worker who said: I work too hard, my health is deteriorating ... I am fed up with my husband's irresponsibility ... I run the home alone. I am master in my home, but this is not the way things should be. A women's place is only in her home. She should be mistress, not master. Consequently, as a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, the constraints and social environment created by purdah help perpetuate and sometimes magnify its hold as an all-pervasive ideology.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING COMMENTS

Dominant ideologies both reflect and bolster actual power structures. Purdah, where it is practised, is an essential pillar of patriarchy, articulating the need to control female access to economic resources and decision-making. Composed of gender segregation and female seclusion, purdah effectively limits women's participation in econo• mic spheres while simultaneously restricting their role in society to the dual functions of reproducing and servicing the social collective. Originally a means for controlling women belonging to the economi- 38 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan cally and politically dominant classes, by now purdah has percolated to all social groups. 14 Its adoption by other classes and communities has not been uniform and this unevenness has given rise to varied definitions of the private interior space of women and the exterior world of men. Uniformly, purdah embodies notions of shame and honour where it becomes a matter of honour that men go out to earn for the family and maintain control over the behaviour and social interaction of female relatives. Women are not acknowledged as independent social actors, only as extensions of their male relatives who mediate between them and the exterior world of men, finance and political power. Women, who are rarely attributed with indi• vidual honour and are governed by notions of shame/modesty, are nevertheless the fulcrum for male honour. Interlinking male honour with female behaviour maximises the perceived need for male control over female behaviour. In urban areas the impact of purdah is more evident than in the villages where the nature of woman's work requires them to leave their homes to collect fodder, fuel and water as well as labour in the fields, and makes it impractical for them to wear a burqa. In the urban environment, the market economy has greatly reduced the scope for collective family labour. Places of work and skill acquisition have become increasingly distant from the homestead while the social organisation of space has converted all areas outside the household walls into male space. Decreased mobility and reduced access to skills greatly undermined women's potential to earn a livelihood. With the exception of the poorest, women seek employment in places that allow some degree of compliance with the dictates of purdah: a chardewari and minimal contact with males. As a general principle, conformity with the rules of purdah becomes a tool in the hands of management for increasing profits at the expense of women's earn• ings. However the most serious repercussions of purdah are experi• enced by women of poor households who are compelled by economic need to work for a livelihood, but are constrained to camouflage this need by working within the home. Forced to remain at home and suffering from lack of marketable skills, severely limited employment possibilities, a paucity of in• formation sources and a self-perceived inability to cope with the outside world, home-based pieceworkers are a captive labour force. Those faced with the greatest purdah restrictions and most desperate• ly in need of an income are the most vulnerable to exploitation. Indeed their willingness to accept the lowest rates sometimes reduces Farida Shaheed 39 the piece-rate for all other workers. Without access to each other, purdah-bound women are also deprived of any means of collective bargaining. The management of businesses employing home workers absolves itself of all responsibility and increases its profits by elimi• nating overheads, minimising labour costs and avoiding labour laws and regulations. Different women feel the impact of their circumstances differently. Those who are able to earn a substantial portion of the household income or become economically solvent tend to be more critical of the social restrictions imposed by purdah. In contrast, those who earn only a nominal amount end up with an even stronger conviction that women's earnings bring no blessings and that their natural place is in the home. By circumscribing women's ability to earn, the institution of purdah actively perpetuates the ideology it embodies.

Notes

1. The study was sponsored by the Women's Division, Government of Pakistan, and the results subsequently published in Shaheed and Mum• taz (1983). Questions on purdah were added more out of curiosity than because of any foreseen linkages between this type of work and purdah constraints. At the time we had presumed that home-based work was undertaken either because women failed to find employment outside or because household responsibilities precluded their leaving their homes. Although we knew from previous interaction that such workers were highly exploited, the role of purdah only surfaced during the analysis. Given financial constraints it was not possible to return to this question during the study, and unfortunately the Women's Division was unwilling to sponsor further investigation of either home-based piecework or the role of purdah in determining women's participation in the labour force. 2. A shawl-like piece of cloth either draped over the head or worn covering the chest and slung over the shoulders - distinguished from a chaddor mainly in thickness. 3. Pathans are the people of the North West Frontier Province, where notions of shame and honour linked to purdah are very strong and where, consequently, women lead a highly cloistered existence. (See for instance Ahmed and Ahmed 1981.) 4. A study of the impact of migrant work in the Middle East, for instance, showed a marked increase in purdah amongst female relatives of migrants in the home villages, where it was acknowledged as a symbol of prestige (Shaheed, 1981). 5. The findings of the National Impact Survey 1968-9 have to be viewed with caution. The percentages of veiled women seem high, particularly for the rural areas. One obvious source of data bias is the social approval 40 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan

and prestige attached to the veil, especially in rural areas, this may be responsible for women saying they veil themselves even when they don't. 6. A popular concept of purdah is the sanctity of 'chaddor and chardewari', the veil and the four walls of the house. 7. The degree to which such groups constitute sub-cultures can be debated, but they are certainly distinct with respect to their attitudes to women working, and the term is used in this sense. The women do not observe strict purdah and women's work is not considered a matter of shame for the family but an integral part of their existence. Unlike the mixed ethnic background of male labourers, female construction workers come from the Oudh tribe, a nomadic people whose lives are organised around work (previously seasonal agricultural activities and no construction sites) amongst whom men and women traditionally work together. The sweeper community is predominantly Christian and amongst the women it is almost impossible to find a Muslim. In the brick kilns, whole families work together and through generations of understanding such work have become a distinct community. They are one of the worst-off of the bonded labour groups in the country. 8. Even at primary school level, female enrolment is one third of male enrolment. This disparity increases as we go up the educational scale. (See Shaheed and Mumtaz, 1987.) 9. This is a revealing point noted by Susan Joekes and John Humphrey (1986) in the context of Morocco and Brazil, but one that has not yet been verified in Pakistan. 10. Interview with an employee of Micro Electronics Industry, Lahore, in the course of preparing a report for ILO/APSDEP, Islamabad (Shaheed, 1987). 11. Tahira, a fifty-year-old seamstress, presents one of the study's para• doxes. One of only two women (the other being an ex-domestic help) who voluntarily left outside employment to work in the home, she was the only one to earn more based at home than employed outside. Having spent fourteen years as a sewing instructor in an industrial home for women, she gave up her Rs. 300-a-month job both because of the poor pay and because the long hours left her unable to cope with household responsibilities. She was the principle breadwinner in her four-member nuclear family, since on most days her carpenter husband refused to look for work and on average contributed only Rs. 60 per month. At the time she had been sewing jeans and jackets for a chain of ready-made garment manufacturers for six years. Dealing directly with the establishment and working every single day, her high proficiency and speed allowed her to earn Rs. 1000-1100 a month when work was available. Despite this, and her self-acknowledged position of household head, she was vehemently opposed to remunerative work for women which she viewed as un• pleasant, unnatural and degrading. 12. The work undertaken by men and women of the same family was normally dissimilar. Yet many males were employed as unskilled work• ers and few were technicians or white-collar workers. Unlike the women, the majority of male earners had a steady source of income but a sizeable number were day labourers, street vendors, hawkers, etc. Even those Farida Shaheed 41

men employed in the informal sector were able to earn several times the amount earned by the women of the same household. 13. This was for making earrings, and the exceptionally high rate of Rs. 1.25 was only received by one family who had a personal relationship with the middle person. 14. These groups include non-Muslims who have also adopted different attitudinal and behavioural patterns of purdah.

Select bibliography

Abbasi, M. B. (1980) Socio-Economic Characteristics of Women in Sind: Issues Affecting Women's Status, Sponsored by Women's Division, Re• gional Planning Organization Sind (Kci). Ahmed, Akbar S. and Zeenat Ahmed (1981) '"Mor" and "Tor" Binary and Opposing Models of Pukhtun Womanhood', in T. S. Epstein and R. A. Watts (eds), The Endless Day of Asian Rural Women (Oxford). Ahmed, Saghir (1977) Class and Power in a Punjabi Village (Lahore: Punjabi Adbi Markaz). Afshar, Haleh (ed.) (1985) Women, Work and Ideology in the Third World (London and New York: Tavistock). Eglar, Zekiye (1960) A Punjabi Village in Pakistan (New York and London: Columbia University Press). Hafeez, Sahiba (1981) Metropolitan Women in Pakistan (Karachi: Royal Book Company). Hodges, Emily (1977) The Role of Village Women in Village Level and Family Level Decision-Making and in Agriculture: A Pakistani Punjabi Case Study, USAID 77--01, Islamabad, June. Irian, Mohammad (1983) The Determination of Female Labour Force Participation in Pakistan, Studies in Population, Labour Force and Migra• tion, Project Report no. 5, PIDE, Islamabad. Mumtaz Khawar and Farida Shaheed (1987) Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? (London: Zed Books). Papanek, Hanna (1973) 'Purdah -- Separate Worlds and Symbolic Shelter', mimeographed version, first printed in Comparative Studies in Society and History 15 (3). Qadri, S. M. A. and Akbar Jahan (1984) Women in Agriculture, Sind Women's Division, Government of Pakistan. Rouse, Shahnaz (1983) 'Systematic Injustices and Inequalities: "Malik" and "Raiya" in a Punjabi Village', in Hassan Gardezi and Hamil Rashid (eds), Pakistan: The Unstable State (Lahore: Vanguard Books). Shah, Nasra M. and Elizabeth Q. Bulatao (1981) Purdah and Family Planning in Pakistan, reprint from International Family Planning Perspec• tives, vol. 7, no. 1, East-West Centre, Honolulu. Shaheed, Farida (1981) Migration and Its Effects on Women in The Villages of Provenance, ILO Working Paper, Geneva. Shaheed, Farida (1986) 'The Cultural Articulation of Patriarchy: Legal Systems, Islam and Women in Pakistan', South Asia Bulletin 6 (1) Spring. 42 Purdah and Poverty in Pakistan

Shaheed, Farida (1987) Diversification of Women's Training and Employ• ment in Pakistan, report prepared for ILO/APSDEP, Islamabad. Shaheed Farida and Khawar Mumtaz (1983) Invisible Workers: Piecework Labour Amongst Women in Lahore, Women's Division, Govt. of Pakistan. Shaheed, Farida and Khawar Mumtaz (1985) Report of the Pakistan Commis• sion on the Status of Women. Shaheed, Farida and Khawar Mumtaz (1987) 'Women's Education in Pakistan: Opportunities, Issues and Challenges', paper presented at Conference on Global Perspectives on Women's Education, Mount Holyoke College, Boston, 4-7 November. 2 Women in the Work and Poverty Trap in Iran Haleh Afshar

The stated ideology of domesticity that is part and parcel of the Islamic Government's employment and social policies has direct and severely adverse effects on women, especially those who are too poor to afford the luxury of full-time domesticity. The current constitution nominates men as heads of household and responsible for the welfare of the family. Thus, by definition, women have become second-class citizens who must be morally protected by and financially dependent on men who are the designated providers and protectors. Those women who are not supported by a male breadwinner have become the lowest strata of second-class citizens. They have been defined as bisarparastan (the 'unprotected') by the constitution and are sup• posed to be dependent on the State. But despite its legal obligation to provide for this group, the Government has yet to make any provisions to do so. As a result the poorest and low-income women are of necessity obliged to fend for themselves and secure a livelihood for their family as best they can. But they do so in the context of a general condemnation of all women working outside the domestic sphere. The 'unprotected' carry the double burdens of poverty and ideological antagonism. The espoused ideology of the State has always played a central role in defining the legitimate areas of employment for women in Iran. 1 The formal labour market was gradually opened to women and expanded as part of Reza Shah's modernisation policies. Thus whereas only 13 000 women were in paid employment in 1941 the total had increased to 573 000 in 1956. 2 Not surprisingly, women were confined to traditionally female sectors of the industry, such as textiles, carpet weaving and garments. For the poor, the labour market remained firmly segregated throughout the reign of the Pahlavis. In the factories, women - 80 per cent of whom were illiterate and had no formal training- were confined to monotonous, repetitive tasks which were universally labelled as 'unskilled'. In the service sector they remained in the lowest grades of cleaning, catering and care. By far the largest percentage of impoverished women,

43 44 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran

however, were employed in the highly segmented informal sector, the entry to which was, and still is, tightly controlled by kin, village and neighbourhood ties. 3 Housed in shanty towns and without access to most city facilities, poor migrant women maintain their village grouping and familial networks. Frequently families move to join their relatives, who help to find them a site and build their makeshift houses - houses that become their permanent domiciles. Marriages are arranged amongst relatives, and access to a street patch or a domestic job is negotiated. Until the 1960s few women moved independently to towns, and those who did generally went directly into service and lived in the houses of their employers. But in the mid-1960s for the first time the proportion of women migrants rose above 50 per cent of the total. In part this was caused by the advent of land reforms. Although only 29 per cent of the peasantry obtained land as a result of the reforms4 a much larger proportion of the rural population lost their access to employ• ment. This was caused by the more intensive use of familial labour by the newly created land-owning peasantry each with his small parcel of land, and by the provisions of the reform laws which exempted those landlords who mechanised their farms from distribution of their holdings. The relative prosperity of the urban areas, the growing building and light industries and the expanding service sector all helped to absorb the new wave of migrants. By the early 1970s the proportion of rural to urban population had changed from 60: 40 to 40 : 60 and a larger pool of labour was available for both the formal and the informal sectors to draw on. At the same time the prevailing ideology of modernisation enabled the newly emerging food and chemical and pharmaceutical industries to employ larger numbers of women on the production lines.

THE INFORMAL SECTOR

The informal sector became a major source of employment for women. Thus, whereas in 1956 only 17.8 per cent of the female urban workforce was working in the informal sector, the proportion had increased to 23.4 per cent of the total in 1966 and 59.1 per cent in 1971. Of these over 40 per cent were divorced and 7 per cent were heads of household. 5 The range of activities for this group extended from the better-paid domestic service jobs such as washing clothes, Haleh Afshar 45 cooking, cleaning, etc. to hawking goods in the streets, begging and prostitution. The sprawling urban slums and shanty towns, some of which were built on plots in the middle of the capital, and the increasing numbers of beggars and peddlars were deemed undesirable by the Shah, who saw them as detrimental to his modernist image. As a result, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Shah's Government embarked on sporadic measures to round up beggars and street walkers, and use bulldozers to clear out the slums. Thus destitute women were harassed on the streets, their freedom of movement was severely curtailed and many were made homeless from one day to the next. Such policies fuelled the discontent of the men and women slum• dwellers who joined the revolutionary demonstrations in droves and gave their wholehearted support to the Islamic uprising.6 But after the revolution, the lot of the poorest women did not improve and the sporadic rounding up of beggars and prostitutes continues. In fact the righteous and moralistic posturing of the Government and its espousal of the most reactionary interpretations of Islamic dictum, along with its firm endorsement of patriarchical relationships, has led to a considerable erosion of the already limited opportunities open to women working in the informal sector. The prevalent polemics of gender segregation and male supremacy have combined to squeeze women out of most areas of the labour market. But the paternalistic discourse has not been translated into govern• ment-funded support systems for the impoverished and unemployed women. The limited measures that had been taken initially were abandoned in the rush to pay for the eight-year-old war against Iraq. The regime has been unwilling to accept that for many women 'immoral' occupations such as prostitution are a necessity and not a carefully planned western-inspired wicked plot to lead upright Mus• lim men astray. Where the revolution has made a difference is in opening a wider arena of discourse and criticism and opening new issues to public debate. Whereas the Pahlavi regime did not allow any unfavourable analysis of its policies to be published legitimately, the current theocracy leaves room for some degree of discord. One of the questions that is open for evaluation is the status of women. Although by and large the media endorse the views of the religious establishment, and the women's weeklies run lengthy serials by leading clergy telling women how to be good wives and mothers, there has nevertheless been a number of critical articles written about 46 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran the lives of the poorest women in society. After one of the bouts of street clearance, Zaneh Rouz, the most popular women's weekly in Iran, interviewed a number of beggars and prostitutes. One was quoted as saying: 'I became a prostitute at fourteen, there was no other way of feeding the family ... I thought at least if I give them my life they may be spared my fate. So I went on and this is how we survived. '7 In the early months of the revolution prostitutes were encouraged to repent and give up street-walking. Those who came for help were advised to find an alternative source of income and paid a small stipend by the Government. But the payments were cut short by the war and many women have been obliged to return to the streets. As one women told Zaneh Rouz: ... after the revolution, the Fight Against Evils section, Dayereh Mobarezeh ba Monkerat, paid me 25 000 rials per month and I worked in a sewing factory and supported my mother and my son. But the money stopped and they closed the factory and I had no options left. So I went back to the streets ... there is no other job for me.8 Prostitution often leads to or results from addiction, and drug• pushing becomes a related sideline activity: My husband divorced me and I was desperate, I smoked the odd pipe (of opium) to calm down and before I knew it I was hooked. Then I lost my job as a hospital cleaner . . . after that the only alternative for me was to become a prostitute to support myself and the children. 9 The current theocracy, however, condemns addiction as an anti• revolutionary and untreatable habit. In 1982 all drug rehabilitation centres were converted into hospitals for war casualties and the Government decided to send all addicts who persevere with their habits to prisons: We managed to revolutionise a whole country and get rid of a whole system of corruption, all by ourselves and without any professional help, surely these people can just give up addiction by themselves . . . In any case there is no medical treatment for addicts and addiction centres have never cured anyone, so we've given up this useless practice and have classified addiction as a crime . . . Giving up drugs never killed anyone and the only suitable treatment for those who persist in this undesirable habit is to put them in prison. 10 Haleh Afshar 47

The high moral tone and the total absence of any material help from the State speeds up the downward spiral of misery of the lives of these women who are all too aware of the futility of their imprisonment: I think that the courts, instead of subjecting me to lashes so that I admit to being an addict and then putting me in prison, should think of a solution for my problem. 11 We should be given treatment not punishment ... Where can we go once we are out? I have nowhere to go but the streets. I have no wish to be discharged since I know that I'd be back in no time. 12 Many prostitutes spend their childhood as beggars and return to it in their old age. In a recent round-up in Tehran 40 per cent of the beggar-women who were arrested said that they had been prostitutes in earlier years. 13 In Tehran, as in other large third world capitals, there are tightly knit and well-organised groups who make a living by begging; entrance to the profession is mediated by kinship ties, descent and marriage. Patches are owned and inherited and many a woman has raised her children on the same corner of a pavement. Some have working husbands whose incomes are insufficient and others are the sole provider for their large families. Sometimes it is a male relative who sends the woman out to beg, at other times it is the older woman who sends out the younger ones to beg: 'We are from Khorasan; they took my husband to fight the war and so my mother-in-law put me and the baby out to beg for a living. '14 As with prostitution, so with begging: the Government has been generous with its condemnations and parsimonious in material help. Once more women are seen as more guilty than men. The man responsible for helping the needy, Ayatolah Moussavi Bojnourdi, the Under-Secretary for Protection of the 'Improved Living' Organisa• tion, Moaveneh Hemayatieh Sazemaneh Behzisti, states: Begging by women is worse than begging by men in the eyes of Islam. In the case of a man, since he is responsible for supporting himself, we may have a glimmer of understanding. But women have no such duty. Since women must be supported by others, then it is this man who has to pay for her as well. If she is unprotected then she must work. Women who beg betray our social norms and betray the very dignity of womanhood and its respected status in society. 15 It says much about the intoxicating power of a belief system that the firm opinion that women are protected by men should in itself make 48 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran all women who are not so protected in real life appear guilty of grave misconduct in the eyes of the ideologues. Working, however, is none too easy for those women who do not have familial mediators into the service sector, as one beggar said: 'I moved to Tehran when my husband died and left me with three kids to raise. But I had no contacts, no experience and no references, so I couldn't find any other job, so I ended up begging in the streets.'16 It is possible for some women who are sufficiently elderly and have enough capital to create a job for themselves or to inherit one. But such cases are rare and such women still have to solve the problems of domestic work and child care. They must also brave public disapprov• al. Women petty traders and hawkers are on the whole a northern phenomenon in Iran. In the south a combination of ideological constraints which exclude women from the market place, and a plough cultivation system that marginalises their productive role in the rural sector, help to confine them to the domestic sphere. In the north, women are a major part of the agricultural force, active in rice transplantation and tea cultivation. As a result the social mores have evolved in a less restrictive way allowing them access both to the fields and to the market place, an access which is crucial in providing them with some degree of economic independence. 17 Women ven• dors often operate at the interface between rural production and urban consumption, buying or producing the food themselves and then selling their surplus either from door to door, or on the street corner, or at the weekly (often all-women) markets in nearby towns. Usually the profits are small and the work arduous. Those women who have a smallholding and grow their own food are only able to market their produce with the help of their children and at the expense of their education. As a woman herb-seller with six children in Massal in Guilan explains: 'If I send the children to school, then I couldn't get the housework done, nor produce enough to pay for our livelihood. >~s The income earned is often barely adequate for the family's subsistence: for example, a Mazandari woman selling vegetables door-to-door estimated in 1985 that she earned about 350 rials a day to feed herself and her nine children. At the time the average rural cost of living was about 30 000 rials per month, 19 if this woman worked every day of her life she would still not earn half as much. Other women traders, like their counterparts in South India20 depend on the intermediary of men shopkeepers to buy the veget• ables at the wholesale market and have to meet the exacting criteria Haleh Afshar 49 of perceived modesty. One such woman herb-seller had solved this problem by working a patch opposite to that of her husband. The husband had lost the use of his limbs and could not weigh the bunches of herbs, so he was reduced to selling toys and biscuits from a tray and earning very little, but his presence lent respectability to his working wife. 21 In the absence of free child-care provisions, women vendors are obliged to combine child care with their business. A forty-seven-year• old onion-seller in Tehran, who took over the sales trolley from her husband when he became too ill with arthritis to be able to work, carried her youngest children on the cart. Even though her disabled husband was at home, she did not consider him 'able' to take on child care. Nor could she afford to send her children to school.22 Since men are perceived as domestically incompetent, female familial ties come to play a central part in the survival strategies of slum-dwelling women. They take on the orphans of their dead siblings, and those who can, live with their mother or a sister to share the domestic work and the payment of the exorbitant rents. A well-known pavement tea-seller in Tehran lived with her widowed sister. The tea lady earned about 900 rials a day and her sister received a 12 000-rials pension per month for her dead policeman husband. Between them they barely managed to pay the 9000 rial rent and buy enough food to survive in a city where the cost of living is conservatively estimated to be about 40 000 rials per month. 23 A marginally better-paid means of survival is to find domestic employment in private households. Employers require reliable refer• ences and only those women who are sufficiently well connected can obtain such jobs. Some inherit the job from their mothers or aunts. Others move directly from their village to the landlord's house or that of his friends and relations. Many domestic servants are caught in the moral economy of kin and cannot conform to the currently idealised social mould to get themselves married off: ' ... when I was young I couldn't marry because there was no one else to support my younger sister. When my sister died, after a long illness, I had spent all I had to cure her. So I did not have a dowry, and no one would marry me.'24 At the same time domestic work no longer provides a secure lifelong occupation. With the advent of modernisation and increasing nuclearisation of the families, the old traditions of keeping on elderly retainers have gradually disappeared. Servants are easily and fre• quently dismissed and domestic work is now paid for on a daily basis, 50 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran the average ranging between 250 to 400 rials for a nine- to twelve• hour day. There are no provisions for accidents, sickness or old age: I worked as a washerwoman, as did my thirteen-year-old daughter. But our house caught fire and I burned my hands trying to rescue our belongings. My hands never healed and I haven't been able to work since. 25 If I ever get too sick to work then I'll die of starvation. 26 I lost my husband when I was nearly forty, then I had no choice but to become a servant to keep myself and the children alive. I've been working for about thirty years now. The children have grown up but they are too poor to help, so I'll have to work till I die.Z7

HOME WORKERS

It is abundantly clear that impoverished women work outside their home out of dire necessity. But the ideological association of female employment and immorality means that few women venture out to work with any degree of safety. Those who do are perceived by men to be readily available sexual preys. As a result women who wish to resolve the contrary pressures of needs and modesty are obliged to work within the confines of their home. Even then the boundaries of honour and respectability keep them constantly in fear. One such seamstress who supported herself and her three children explained: 'I must take care at every moment. Men, when they see a widow woman, they view her as an easy and helpless prey.'28 Thus the combination of economic need and ideological condem• nation of female employment places the impoverished women in Iran in an impossible situation. Male unemployment, conscription, pover• ty, ease of divorce and polygamous marriage has intensified the problems of desertion and abandonment of women and has led to an ever-increasing number of those that the Government has labelled bisarparastan, 'the unprotected'. Divorce, desertion or widowhood generally spell destitution for those women who live on the margins of subsistence. The deserted are left penniless, widows are entitled to little and usually get less than their due. Women inherit only half as much as men. Childless wives inherit a quarter of their husband's wealth and mothers inherit only one-eighth. For the poor such a portion is not even a pittance. Divorced women fare even worse. Haleh Afshar 51

Unless otherwise registered, all joint property belongs to the male head of household. At divorce the only required payment by men is the stipulated mahre, married women's entitlement for consum• mation of marriage, a sum that is negotiated before marriage and recorded in the marriage contract. After divorce women are not entitled to maintenance, and those who try and find employment face the general disapproval of the society in which they live. A young woman explained her plight eloquently when she said: Have you ever heard of a man losing his home and his position and being unhappy after the divorce or loss of his wife? He won't starve, he won't be a sexual prey, he won't be the recipient of accusations and unkind treatment from friend and foe alike. He won't be ostracised by family and neighbours. He won't be unprotected and unloved and he won't need to beg to survive ... he won't end up in the streets homeless and unable to rent a room from anyone. People won't deny him a roof and won't see him as a threatening divorcee'. 29

THE UNPROTECTED

Where destitute women are concerned, the State in Iran is caught in a dilemma posed by the contradiction of its ideological perceptions and the realities of their lives. In theory, females of all classes are protected by the male heads of household who, in pursuit of their religious and national duty, would set out to marry all unattached women and provide them with a home and protect their dependants. The Government has emphasised the legal obligation of men to pay maintenance, nafageh to their dependants,30 legally defined as only those who are of direct vertical line of descent from the man concerned. 31 In theory those entitled to maintenance can take the man responsible to court and obtain their due. 32 Payments are supposed to be made according to the ability of the payer and the needs of the dependants.33 In practice men do not pay, and the 'unprotected' cannot afford to extract their legal dues. As for the State, all it has done for the 'unprotected' women and children is to encourage polygamy, as the only way of creating a male protector for them. The war exacerbated the problem. Men are conscripted to fight, 52 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran but they are not paid a living wage. Those killed in action do not leave a pension behind. Despite the nationally orchestrated eulogies of the martyrs and war heroes, the Government did not even make a contribution towards their funeral expenses. Their widows end up in the street in ever larger numbers. Even the government-funded programmes of clearing up beggars cannot cope with the situation; many are released since there are no funds available to house and feed them. Some are put in prison and their children left to fend for themselves as best they can. As one such child says: 'What do you expect? Do you suppose that they come from the prison and say, "Dear children, have some pocket money"?>J4 In the heyday of the revolution, when the new constitution was drawn up, the Government was made responsible for the welfare of the 'unprotected'. It was to 'create an insurance system to protect widows and old and unprotected women'. 35 Accordingly on 13 November 1983 the Cabinet instructed Majlis (Parliament) to draw up the necessary legislation to meet this responsibility within a three-month period. 36 It took Sazemaneh Behzisti, the Better Living Organisation, four years to draw up the Bill. Once there, it was promptly rejected by Majlis. The Bill had failed to overcome religious prejudices and financial shortages. As a member of Majlis' Law Committee pointed out: 'We have not managed to formulate a suitable law for such women in keeping with the framework of Islam and respecting their honour and dignity.'37 Another MP added: 'Of course the problem is funds and where they should come from. '38 Meanwhile, unconnected and haphazard policies formulated by privately funded charities, government-sponsored groups and State organisations provide largely inadequate assistance for the 'unpro• tected' group of their choice- a choice that may include the poorest and/or the middle-class women of strained circumstances. Officially Behzisti, the Protection and Guidance Headquarters Setadeh Sarpar• asti va Ershad, the Needy's Foundation Bonyadeh Mostaazafin, the Imam's assistance group Komiteh Emdadeh Imam, and the 15th Khordad Foundation and charitable individuals are all providing their own brands of help. Private organisations are also licensed by Behzisti to run their own old and disabled people's homes, provided they allocate 5 per cent of their beds to the organisation. In addition Behzisti extracts some extra help from private and charitable nursing homes who obtain their licences on the basis of a similar agreement. Although women are more likely to be destitute, charitable homes have more places for men than women. Usually men can gain access Haleh Afshar 53 to such institutions within a month of application, whereas women invariably have to wait for more than eight months. There are proportionately fewer men seeking accommodation. The patriarchal structure of society enables men to retain their economic control over what little resources there are. Economic control is in turn reflected by the social norms which make families feel more responsible for the care of the male rather than female elders. Those families who take charge of looking after disabled members of their household are rewarded by Behzisti, which pays them a monthly allowance of 60 000 rials. This organisation also pays small pensions to 'unprotected' families: these are female-headed house• holds who have lost the husband, father or eldest son/brother through death or imprisonment or desertion or disability. But divorced women are specifically excluded from such benefits: 'If a woman who wants to leave her husband feels unprotected, she will continue living with him. If she realises that there is an organisation to protect her then marriages will easily fall asunder. '39 By 1984 there were 76 517 families protected by Behzisti, receiving from 3000 rials for a single person to a maximum of 7500 for families of three and more- this in a city where the lowest rent for a room is around 6000 rials. In 1985 there were 27 500 families on Behzisti's waiting list who were expected to remain there until some of those receiving pensions become independent and move on. 40 Behzisti does not help those charitable institutions which are funded and run by private individuals and volunteers, for fear of discouraging such donations. It does however run some orphanages. These accommodate 3000 children, but they refuse to help the children of divorced parents 'because such help would contribute to an eventual rise in divorce figures. '41 The orphanages have a policy of placing as many children as possible with foster parents in order to make room for the increasing numbers of deserted children. But they operate in the context of a culture which does not have a tradition of adoption and care for those born outside the kin group and which poses religious obstacles to admitting an unmarried girl into the family. Muslims consider all men other than those related by marriage or direct descent to be namahram (outsiders) to women, that is to say, not allowed to set eyes on them. Those who foster or adopt children do so for personal gain and tend to treat the children in their care as slaves. According to Dr Yarigar Ravesh, Head of Behzisti, their records show a high rate of mortality for adopted children.42 Where girls are concerned, on the whole, orphanages 54 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran

attempt to marry them off and the girls themselves see marriage as the only viable alternative open to them: 'The only solution for us is marriage, or finding a job ... but there are no jobs. '43 Marriages are arranged by the Protection and Guidance Headquarters, Setadeh Sarparasti va Ershad: 'Men who wish to get married apply to the director of Setad who then puts them in touch with us and we introduce them to a suitable girl. We even provide her with a dowry .'44 Institutional organisation of the marriage market, where girls are raised to expect marriage and men allowed easy access to brides through state-funded charitable institutions, must be viewed with considerable suspicion in a country where divorce, polygamy and desertion are rife. Even the Iranian theocracy is aware that some women are 'unmar- riageable', and in theory there are some provisions to help such cases: 'Unprotected' women who ... for some reason are unable to marry, must be employed by government sectors and private production units to enable them to become active participants in society and to lighten the heavy burden of government's responsi• bility. By being gainfully employed in suitable jobs such women will cease to walk aimlessly round the streets, an activity which in itself makes them vulnerable to various forms of corruption. '45 To meet these aims Behzisti has set up a few training and residential centres for 'unprotected' women. Each centre usually accommodates about ten boarders and fifty day-women who are trained in skills such as sewing, paid piece-rate for what they produce and given free food-ration tickets. The places fall far short of demand and some turn away as many as twenty women a day for lack of facilities. Those who get a place can, in a good month, earn as much as 50 000 rials. But the centres depend entirely on government contracts and as the war expenses increased, allocations for such marginal concerns de• creased. At the same time these institutions have a vested interest in keeping the women's pay as low as possible. They do so by labelling them as 'unskilled' and 'trainees' whose work 'is not up to standard ... so that they cannot go out and compete in the open market. They can only make flags and sheets for revolutionary guards and their hospitals. '46 Although the centres see themselves as a stage in training and preparation of women for the labour market, women who work there do not expect to find any other work. Most are supporting their families on the meagre income and hand-outs obtained at these Haleh Afshar 55

centres. One group of women, from fifteen to over seventy years old, interviewed at one such centre in July 1987, had an average of four to six dependants each. Access to these centres is mediated by Guidance Headquarters, though many had got there by knowing someone in the Centre's management. To qualify for a place a woman must be seen as 'likely to be harmed by society and in need of help. Those who if we do not help, God forbid might be led astray. '47 More intentionally decentralised charitable institutions are the neighbourhood Komitehayeh Emdadeh Imam. These are local units funded by charitable donations from the worthy in each district and some contribution by the Government. These komitehs claim to assist 73 000 'unprotected' women in cities and 13 000 in the villages. 48 The komitehs pride themselves on being independent of Behzisti and othet State agencies and see their simple unbureaucratised cells as the most effective and efficient means of identifying the needy and providing the necessary help. They determine who the 'unprotected' are, as they see fit, and decide on appropriate levels of payment. Reported payments range from 9000 rials per month for a reformed prostitute to 10 000 for a widow, who in addition has her son educated at the expense of a wealthy local merchant who is one of the komiteh 's 'advisers'. 49 Women who are protected by the Society for the Protection of the Families of Prisoners, Anjomaneh Hemayateh as Khanevadeh Zendanian, on the whole fare better. The organisation is funded by the Government and obtains additional resources by selling the products of prison workshops. It has a more realistic concept of the cost of living and pays 5000 to 10 000 rials to those families who have a subsidiary income and 10 000 to 25 000 rials to those without. It provides for some 10 000 families with about five children each, and also gives some additional assistance with food, fuel and medical bills. On average, 'unprotected' wives of prisoners who have one or more children get a monthly payment of 11000 to 17 000 rials. Unfortunately most prisoners and their dependents are unaware of the existence of the society. Those who do find out about it must submit to the cumbersome bureaucratic processes which require a testimony by the prisoner, another by his or her relatives, a third from a social worker and an endorsement by the prison authorities. Each of these stages requires a knowledge of the existing official and unofficial networks and a skilful handling of the appropriate red tape. Most destitute women lack the know-how for getting access to the benefits. 56 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran

Those who manage to get money from the society obviously do better than those who are paid by Behzisti. Although the procedure for the latter is less complicated, women still have to find someone of good repute to testify to their destitution. One woman obtained a stipend because her son was a Revolutionary Guard and, as such, a prominent member of society. Even so the monthly payment of 7500 rials did not even meet her 9000 rials room rent. So she also worked as a cleaner, a job which she obtained with the help of a reference from her son. In addition to make ends meet she was obliged to sew about 100 pairs of gloves a month at 3 rials a pair.

THE FORMAL LABOUR MARKET

Although the Iranian revolutionary State has been at war for all but one year of its existence it still has not solved the problems of male unemployment - this despite the massive death toll at the fronts. The Government began by a stated policy of underdevelopment which was accelerated by the flight of capital which ensued, and the fall in internal consumption that has followed. 50 Although there is now something of a small boom in the war industries, other sectors are stagnant and employment opportunities remain limited. In an attempt to balance the national budget, the Government has 'rationalised' the civil service, largely by retiring female employees and not taking on new staff. 51 The private sector has achieved a similar result by excluding women from most processes of production. This has been in part a response to the clergy's advice that the workforce should be segre• gated. For the management that has meant removing the women rather than men, and taking on only men as new employees. In a recent survey of the central region's light industries, Zaneh Rouz reporters found that not one of the factories visited had employed a single new female employee since the revolution. All owners, directors and managers felt that it was 'unislamic' to employ women when there were unemployed male heads of household available who had the responsibility of providing for entire families. 52 As the Prime Minister's adviser on Labour Affairs, Mr Mahjoub, explained: War and revolution have led to a relative stagnation in industrial development ... naturally those seeking work exceed the number of jobs available. In this situation our first priority is to provide employment for those who are responsible for supporting families. Haleh Afshar 57

As a result men become the obvious choice as they are the breadwinners . . . From the very beginning our religious leaders stated that women should only do light work in accordance with their delicate physical characteristics ... I can promise that when the economic situation improves and when we have created employment opportunities of such nature as not to undermine the domestic lives and duties of women, then we will undertake to employ women in jobs that are suitable for them. 53 The question of 'appropriate' work is one that has been difficult to define: Mr Mahjoub suggests typing 'which is a delicate job' as being 'suitable'. But at the same time he has grave reservations about making secretarial posts the exclusive domain of women, 'because it encourages women to behave like dolls and not real workers.'54 The Deputy Speaker of Majlis, Mohamad Yazdi, is of the view that: 'Our working sisters can only be employed in the pharmaceutical indus• tries ... All the other women must now tum to Behzisti for help. '55 This is not a very promising perspective when Behzisti is busily training the 'unprotected' to join the very labour market which has just been declared as out of bounds by Yazdi. To meet the ideological requirement of the theocracy, the Nationalised Industries Organisation issued a directive in 1985 for• bidding the employment of women in any of its industries. When questioned by reporters the Administrative Secretary simply said: Men have priority in access to jobs. This is in accordance with our religious beliefs and practices ... and is accepted by all. Naturally our sisters are unlikely to succeed in the exacting context of our industrial units or on the factory floors which impose difficult and demanding tasks, targets and schedules. 56 The only growing sector of the economy, the defence industries, also exclude women as a matter of policy. The Head of the Political and Ideological Section of these industries, Hojatoleslam Motbahri, explained his position: In principle I am against all employment for women outside their homes . . . in my opinion basically the access of women to the factory floor is against the laws of nature ... Besides if women are employed by industry and the public sector, they will displace men and close their employment opportunities ... We encourage all those ladies who wish to retire from work to do so and we will replace them with a young active workforce of the male gender. 57 58 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran

Attempts to exclude women from paid employment date back to the early years of the revolution. As early as 1982 the all-male workers' councils were trying to sack women workers: We don't need so many women workers. We have already announced that those who wished to return to the warm embrace of the hearth and the family to raise better children for our revolution may do so with our blessing. We even offered to replace each woman by a male member of their household. But so far no one has accepted our offer . . . perhaps as our Islamic culture evolves and its values take root, these ladies will appreciate the importance of motherhood and accept it as their exclusive peroga• tive and duty. 58 Motherhood is perceived as strictly confined to the home. Neither the polemic nor the concern extends to the need for the care of those children whose mothers are obliged to work. Since the pre• revolutionary labour laws are still on the statute books, there are legal provisions for child care and maternity leave for working mothers, but of course usually they are not implemented. Legally women are entitled to ninety days unpaid maternity leave, all factories employing ten or more mothers with children under school age must provide a nursery, and nursing mothers must have thirty minutes in every three hours to suckle their babies. But there has never been any penalty for failure to meet these requirements, and on the whole they have been ignored. The Islamic Republic has in practice blocked these altogether. To accommodate its ideological opposition to working mothers, a government directive has long since made it illegal for the public sector organisations to allocate any government funds to set up or maintain nurseries. Although not implemented, the spectre of the law is constantly raised as a major reason for not employing women. The Chairman of the Majlis Committee on Employment and Social Affairs recently declared: Imagine employing a worker who nurses her baby every three hours, has a lunch break after four hours of work and takes an extra thirty minutes to say her prayers; a worker who spends an hour to bring her child from school to the nursery; now take off fifteen minutes at each end of the day and you've got no working time left at all. You can't stop work every five minutes for a different reason. We are not planning a social gathering on the Haleh Afshar 59

factory floor and we don't pay people for not working. The point is that those who wish to work must do so full time and reap the benefit ... Having three months off for maternity leave means that the employers must either leave the machine idle or employ someone whom they have to sack three months later ... then when she is back they have to give the lady thirty minutes off every three hours to feed the baby ... Well obviously it is much simpler to employ a young man instead and not have any of these problems ....59 This modernist vision of the privileged woman worker with extensive legal entitlement to child-care facilities has now combined with the Islamic concern over gender segregation to make women appear as an unprofitable and immoral workforce. From its inception the Iranian theocracy has been demanding that those women who must work should do so separately from men. Although the kind and degree of separation has never been defined, many factories have sought to implement the regulation with differ• ing degrees of alacrity. The level of religiosity of the management, proximity to the capital city and the proportion of women in the workforce are all factors which contribute to the level and speed at which special separation is enforced. In some cases men are now being employed in the traditionally feminised industries such as textiles. Factories situated in or near Tehran, where there is a large pool of migrant labour available and where proximity to the seat of power makes them politically very visible, have been diligent in segregating their workforces. Occasionally in the early days this resulted in the promotion of a woman to head an all-female section, but, of late, employers are more interested in removing women from the production line. A typical example is Rey's textile complex, where women have been systematically moved out of the factory floor and put into a separate area to weave carpets instead, or to sew garments. Not surprisingly the carpet workshop is making a loss. It cannot compete with the experienced rural home-workers who produce high quality carpets at considerably lower prices and form the backbone of the industry. So now the management has decided to close the unit and make the women redundant. 60 The situation is marginally better for female textile workers in the northern provinces, where women's productive work has traditional• ly had a much higher visibility in the rice and tobacco fields, and where female factory work dates back to the 1930s. Although the 60 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran long history of outdoor work enables women to earn their living, in the north as elsewhere they remained classified as 'unskilled'61 and capable of working only in the specifically feminised segment of the labour market. In Mazandaran, for example, textiles and garments are still seen as the preserve of women, as the Director of Mazandar• an Textiles explains: Much of our work can only be done by ladies. Weaving needs attention, patience and a delicate touch. Men are totally unsuited for such work and are only used in the areas that require strength or as drivers ... Women are much more productive than men in mending and metrage and sewing. No man could do the delicate mending work which needs a lot of patience. 62 The Director of Cottons and Weaving factory is of the same opinion: 'In some sectors we don't use men at all because women's work is much finer. If you take thread-winding, men produce about 500 kg. for every 650 kg. produced by women. '63 The Director of Khazar complex agrees: 'It is pointless to employ men to sew. Sewing is of its nature women's work and men would be wasting their physical strength in such an occupation. '64 Although women textile workers in the north were the first to have been employed in the formal sector in Iran, they still have not succeeded in getting adequate child-care provisions on the premises. Some factories such as Mazandaran Textiles provide a creche for children under two; others don't have even such minimal facilities. Nor have women been exempt from working night shifts. The Islamic Government has said much about the undesirability of women working at night. But in August 1987, when the new employment bill was submitted to Majlis, sectors such as health and services which still depend on women's work, were permitted to continue employing them round the clock. Women who work must do so as men and on the understanding that they would be better and more productive than men. As one worker explains: 'I sew up 500 to 600 pieces of material each day and they expect us to produce at the same level whether we are well or ill or whatever, what matters to them is that production levels must stay high. '65 But the payment they receive is gender specific. As elsewhere, they are seen as naturally dexterous and patient and are therefore paid less than men, who are obliged to spend considerable time and effort to acquire such 'skills'. Since the assumption is that it is not possible to 'improve' on nature, women workers have little chance of promotion and few job grades to move Haleh Afshar 61 up on.66 As elsewhere, they are also paid on the basis that their income is supplementary to that of an employed male head of household. So women get paid a half or a third of men's wages. 67 For example, in 1985 women textile workers in Mazandaran could earn 35 000 rials after four years and 40 000 after sixteen years in the job. Similarly, in 1982 women working in ghee factories in Tehran or tobacco factories in Orumieh were earning about 30 000 to 36 000 rials per working month. 68 Tobacco work, however, is seasonal and the factory employs them for only seven months each year: 'We work only seven months each year, but we have to eat . . . even in the months that we have no work and no pay ... It is not easy to survive on these wages. '69 Yet most of these women are either the head of their household or a major contributor to its income. Some support aged parents and young children and relatives. These women caught as they are in the web of familial obligations find it difficult to seek refuge in the idealised embrace of a protective husband: 'I am worried, if I get married then who will support my mother and sisters and brothers?'70 In reality working men with low incomes are unwilling and unable to accept the Islamic burden of familial responsibility that the Government has allotted to them. As a woman worker who is polygamously married explains: My first husband died of cancer and left me with two children and my aged parents to look after . . . I married my present husband who has a wife and three children ... well this was my destiny .. . He is very much against my working ... he's bought us a house .. . I live there with my parents and children. But he says 'I didn't buy the house for your parents; leave them and your children and just live with me', as if I would ever do such a thing. 71 Even though in the post-revolutionary euphoria of concern for the poor and in the 'free' media such cases are reported, the State and management's attitude has not changed. As a result there are women who are trying to feed six people on an income of 31500 rials. At the same time a combination of revolutionary ardour and economic stagnation has resulted in a governmental decision not to allow any rise in wages, despite the raging inflation and severe consumer shortages. Many working-class women are caught between the cutting edges of an oppressive ideology and an exploitative economy: Please Miss Reporter, for God's sake write that we are at the end 62 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran

of our wits with these prices. The rations are far too short and we have been forced to go to the black market and you must know that with these low wages we simply can't get enough to eat.72 These women, like all the poor, spend almost all their income in obtaining inadequate food and shelter. There is a critical shortage of housing in the urban areas and many are haunted by the spectre of homelessness. Some factories provide home loans, but usually these are allocated to men, even in factories where women are the main workforce and men are used as casual labour. The Director of the Orumieh Tobacco Factory's explanation shows that management does not even feel it necessary to justify such decisions: 'last year we were able to give loans only to the brothers, because there were fewer of them and they had agreed to come back and work here next year as well. m Excluded from such loans in. the same factory was a widow with four children under eight, who had worked there for years and had to find 5000 rials for rent every month. The high cost of urban housing has resulted in some women living in villages which are considerable distances away from their workplace, some have to travel thirty kilometres each way, though none possesses a car. Some factories run a bus service for their workers, but many don't. Living far from the centre of prosperity, most of these women have no running water or electricity. Even those who obtain a loan to build a house do not fare much better. Loans are small and land prices high. An old woman explains the outcome: I have worked all my life . . . at last they gave me a loan and I bought 120 meters of land in Baqer Abad, Behesheth Zahra [a village about ten kilometres from Tehran]. I built four walls around it. It has neither door nor frame nor water nor electricity and the road leading to it is not tarmacked. It has nothing. When I have to go up the road I wade up to my knees in mud.74 Living far away from work in poor but costly houses, working long hours and having to cope with shortages exacerbates the problems of carrying the double burden of productive and domestic work for women. All remain responsible for cooking, cleaning and child care. Even those who have an unemployed husband at home do not see him as either willing or capable of doing any housework. Those who get home too late to cook have to feed themselves and their family on bread and cheese. 75 All carry the responsibility of the care and welfare of their families: Haleh Afshar 63

By the time I get home it is five or six p.m., then I have to prepare a meal, clean the house, look after the children. I don't know which one to fit in such a short space of time. By the time I've got going its time to go to sleep ... I spend all my days off on sorting out family problems, taking the children to the doctor, getting them vaccin• ated, seen to etc. . .. When will this tired working body of mine find a moment to rest?76 Workers are entitled to one day leave for every full month of work. But the poor medical facilities available to workers and the distances they have to travel mean that most women have to take additional unpaid leave just to get access to a doctor. Although insurance contributions are automatically deducted from all wages, workers' health care services have virtually disappeared. Most have to pay privately to get medical help. Since the war, the Ministry of Health has had to find thousands of extra beds for wounded heroes. As a result, the workers' hospitals and health centres have either been taken over for the military or opened to the general public. At the same time the Ministry and the military have been building and opening new hospitals for the exclusive use of the new armed elite, the Revolutionary Guards. As a result women often have to choose between spending entire days in queues in the hope of seeing a doctor in a public hospital or paying for private consultation. The erosion in workers' health-care facilities is mirrored in the virtual disappearance of their social security entitlement. In the aftermath of the oil boom, the Pahlavis finally set up a Social Security organisation in 1976 and made it responsible for the payment of 75 per cent of the wages of those workers who were on sick leave. Those unable to return to work were entitled to a pension proportionate to the period they had spent in employment. Women retiring at fifty-five with thirty-five years service were entitled to a pension equivalent to their average income in their last two years at work. But although the law remains on the statute books it has not been implemented and most workers are unaware of its existence. Most employers have not been paying their social security contributions which should range from 7 per cent to 27 per cent of the workers' wages, depending on the size of the factory. Women who continue to go out to work under such adverse conditions do so out of dire necessity and in the current climate of opinion all are made to feel guilty about not fulfilling their paramount duty of motherhood. None has managed to solve the problem of child 64 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran care. One textile worker with thirteen years of experience was, in accordance with the segregation requirement, promoted to head the production line, and paid 50 000 rials a month. But she had to give up her job when her child went to school. The factory had no child-care facilities for school-age children; school ended at midday and the factory stopped at 4 p.m.77 Many have to leave their children alone, as one woman put it, 'in the care of God' or with unwilling landladies: 'A landlady puts up with four or five children running around the place for a few months and then sends us all packing. Then I have to find another room and another landlady ... it's a nightmare. '78 This nightmare is the essence of the life experiences of women workers in Iran. One such describes her life and her feelings: My son had epilepsy since he was born. I don't know what caused it, it must have been lack of food or something like that ... I think may be it was because I didn't look after him properly because I had to go to work ... anyway he was sick, I spent a lot of money and took him to many doctors ... finally he had enough and killed himself at nineteen ... Now its just me and my two sons ... the eldest is fourteen and is in the first grade of secondary school. He failed last year and had to resit two exams, he'll probably fail again. When there is no one to keep an eye on them they're bound to do badly ... the other day his teacher wanted to see me, but I can't afford to lose a day's wages to go and see him ... I leave the house at five-thirty a.m .... when I leave the children are asleep, I leave them in the care of God and leave twenty or thirty rials for their lunch ... sometimes I put the kettle on for them, but they don't have the gumption to make tea so they just turn it off and go out without any breakfast . . . My poor children, they have never experienced maternal love and so they are not caring or thoughtful ... by the time I get home I am so tired and so worried that I lose my temper with them and just cause trouble and strife.79

CONCLUSION

Working-class women in Iran have to pay at the personal level the heavy costs of the State's policies and ideology of domesticity. The belief in the inferior status of women is orchestrated at every level and enshrined in the post-revolutionary labour relations. Haleh Afshar 65

Women who go out to work are denounced by the men and the media as irresponsible or un-Islamic: a view that cuts across notions of class solidarity and is echoed by male workers as well as employers and law-makers. All efforts are concentrated towards pushing women into marriage and motherhood - this at a time when marriage has become a highly unstable institution. The ease with which men can divorce their wives, the growing prevalence of polygamy and the high levels of male unemployment which persist despite the carnage at the fronts, have all made wifehood a precarious occupation. Since the State cannot admit to the tenuous nature of current marriages, particularly amongst the poorer classes, it continues to blame women for the breakdown in marital relations. With its habitual disregard for evidence, the theocracy seeks to punish divorced women. They are not allowed to benefit from the limited help that is available to those who have been abandoned or widowed. No one stops to ask who divorced these women, in a country where recent legislations have made divorce the automatic perogative of men. Only educated middle-class women who know their laws can negotiate the right to divorce and include it in their marriage certificate, a privilege that is not open to illiterate working-class women, many of whom are married off in their early teens, some• times polygamously. Yet though it is men who can legally discard their wives, it is the women who have to carry the brunt of public disapproval. They must cope with their sense of failure, with the stigma of 'immorality' and with all the men who see them as easy sexual preys. There is no sisterly solidarity for such women, who are seen by others as a potential threat. The emphasis on marriage, and its insecure nature, has set women against one another, each defending their own domestic corner from the potential threat posed by their unattached sisters. Men, far from being the appointed 'protectors', are the whimsical husbands who can legally keep many permanent and temporary wives or move from wife to wife, leaving a debris of destitute women behind them. Once divorced, the combina• tion of social condemnation and public disapproval, and the degrad• ing pursuit by men, slides these women towards the streets, drug• pushing and prostitution. The war and the deterioration of industries that employ women, together with a growing refusal to employ them, has accelerated their downward spiral of poverty. Those who remain married simply have more and more children while their incomes remain static. Many are compelled to seek paid employment. Those women who go out to work in the factories, or 66 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran on the streets, do so out of dire necessity. For most of them there is no 'protection' in the shape of a male breadwinner who is able to meet the household expenses, nor is there anything remotely adequ• ate in terms of state benefits. As oil prices fall on the international markets, the economic situation has deteriorated in Iran, along with state-funded social and health facilities. What little there is, is allotted to the wounded soldiers. Women who are neither warriors nor employed by the war industries have become even more marginalised. Under the present circumstances it is difficult to come to any but the most pessimistic of conclusions about the plight of impoverished women in Iran.

Notes

1. For a more extensive discussion of this issue see Afshar (1985a), pp. 247-50 and Najmabadi (1987). 2. Andishehahyeh Rastakhiz, and Iran Almanac. 3. I am grateful to Ruth Pearson for pointing this out to me. 4. See Afshar (1985b). 5. The figures are based on information obtained from Iran Almanac, Donya, the political and theoretical publication of the central committee ofthe Tudeh Party, and Touba (1972). 6. For further details see Afshar (1982) and Tabari (1982). 7. Zaneh Rouz, 9 November 1985. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Dr Seyed Hosein Fakhr, Director of the Collaboration Headquarters, Setadeh Hamahangi, Battle Against Addiction Unit, Zaneh Rouz, 16 November 1985. 11. Zaneh Rouz, 16 November 1985. 12. Zaneh Rouz, 27 June 1987. 13. Ibid. 14. Zaneh Rouz, 4 July 1987. 15. Zaneh Rouz, 27 June 1987. 16. Zaneh Rouz, 4 July 1987. 17. For a more detailed discussion of this see Afshar (1985c). 18. Zaneh Rouz, 28 October 1985. 19. Estimates by the Centre for Rural Economic Studies, Makrazeh Tahqi- qateh Roustayi, quoted by Zaneh Rouz, 4 January 1986. 20. See Chapter 4. 21. Zaneh Rouz, 28 October 1985. 22. Zaneh Rouz, 13 April 1985. 23. Tahqiqateh Roustayi (Centre for Rural Economic Studies) quoted by Zaneh Rouz, 4 January 1986. 24. Jahaneh Zanan, vol. 2, no. 9, May 1981. Haleh Afshar 67

25. Zaneh Rouz, 18 May 1985. 26. Jahaneh Zanan, vol. 2, no. 9, May 1981. 27. Zaneh Rouz, 4 May 1985. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Article 1198 of the Civil Code. 31. Ibid., article 1196. 32. Ibid., article 1205. 33. Ibid., article 1198. 34. Zaneh Rouz, 30 November 1985. 35. Article 21, Section 4. 36. Kayhan, 15 November 1983. 37. Ayatolah Seyed Mohamed Khameneyti, member of the Legal and Criminal Committee of Majlis, Zaneh Rouz, 26 October 1985. 38. Mrs Rajazi, Zaneh Rouz, 26 October 1985. 39. Qeisary administrator of Majlis Committees quoted by Zaneh Rouz, 28 October 1985. 40. Zaneh Rouz, 11 May 1985. 41. Zaneh Rouz, 27 April1985. 42. Zaneh Rouz, 8 June 1985. 43. Ibid. 44. Zaneh Rouz, 18 July 1987. 45. Hojatoleslam Syed Hamid Rouhani, Controller of the Bureau of Re• cords of Islamic Revolution, Daftareh Asnadeh Engelabeh Eslami, Zaneh Rouz, 5 September 1987. 46. Zaneh Rouz, 18 July 1987. 47. Head of Guidance, Ali Khani, quoted by Zaneh Rouz, 18 July 1987. 48. Zaneh Rouz, 11 May 1985. 49. Ibid. 50. See Afshar, H. (1985a) 'The Iranian Theocracy', in Afshar H. (ed.), Iran: a Revolution in Turmoil, Macmillan 1985, pp. 220--43. 51. See Afshar, H. (1987) 'Women, Marriage and the State in Iran', in Afshar, H. (ed.), Women, State & Ideology, Macmillan 1987, pp. 70-86. 52. Zaneh Rouz, 19 October 1985. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. 55. Zaneh Rouz, 28 October 1985. 56. Zaneh Rouz, 22 August 1987. 57. Ibid. 58. Etalaateh Banovan, 8 May 1981. 59. Zaneh Rouz, 5 October 1985. 60. Zaneh Rouz, 19 October 1985. 61. See Elson and Pearson (1981). 62. Zaneh Rouz, 11 January 1986. 63. Ibid. 64. Zaneh Rouz, 19 October 1985. 65. Zaneh Rouz, 11 January 1986. 66. See John Humphrey. 67. Etelaateh Banovan, 8 May 1981. 68 The Work and Poverty Trap in Iran

68. Ibid., andlahaneh Zanan, 21 April1981, vol. 9, no. 2. 69. Etelaateh Banovan, 8 May 1981. 70. Zaneh Rouz, May 1982. 71. Etelaateh Banovan, 8 May 1981. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid. 75. Zaneh Rouz, 18 July 1987. 76. Zaneh Rouz, 26 October 1985. 77. Zaneh Rouz, 28 October 1985. 78. Zaneh Rouz, 19 October 1985. 79. Etelaateh Banovan, 8 May 1981.

Bibliography

Afshar, H. (1982) 'Khomeini's teachings and their implications for Iranian women', in A. Tabari and N. Yeganeh (eds), In the Shadow of Islam (Zed Books). Afshar, H. (1987) 'Women, marriage & the state in Iran', in H. Afshar (ed.) Women, State & Ideology (Macmillan), pp. 70--80. Afshar, H. (1985a) 'Muslim women and the burden of ideology', Women Studies International Forum, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 247-50. Afshar, H. 'The Iranian Theocracy', in H. Afshar (ed.) (1985b) Iran: a Revolution in Turmoil (Macmillan), pp. 220--43. Afshar, H. (ed.) (1985c) 'The position of women in an Iranian village', in Women, Work and Ideology (Tavistock), pp. 63-82. Andishehayeh Rastakhiz Journal. Donya, the political and theoretical publication of the central committee of the Tudeh Party. Elson, D. and R. Pearson (1981) 'The subordination of women and the internationalisation of factory production', in K. Young et al. (eds) Of Marriage and the Market (CSE Books). Etelaateh Banovan: weekly women's magazine published in Tehran by Etelaat. Iran Almanac Jahaneh Zanan: women's magazine published in Tehran. Humphrey, John (1985) 'Gender pay and skill: manual workers in Brazilian industry', in H. Afshar (ed.) Women, Work & Ideology (Tavistock) pp. 214-31. Humphrey, John (1987) Gender & Work in the Third World (Tavistock). Najmabadi, A. (1987) 'Women, State and Ideology in Contemporary Iran', paper presented at the Workshop on 'Women, Islam and the State', Richmond College, London. Tabari, A. (1982) 'The enigma of veiled women' in A. Tabari and N. Yeganeh (eds), In the Shadow of Islam (Zed Books). Tabari, A. and N. Yeganeh (eds) (1982) In the Shadow of Islam (Zed Books). Haleh Afshar 69

Touba, R. (1972) 'Relationship between urbanisation and the changing status of women in Iran, 1956--66', Iranian Studies, vol. V, Winter, no. 1. Zaneh Rouz: weekly women's magazine published by Kayhan Publications in Tehran. 3 Women, Land and Ideology in India1 Bina Agarwal

INTRODUCTION

Always you said Your brother and you are the same 0 Father. But today you betray me, 0 Father. My doli leaves your house, 0 Father My doli leaves your house?

Women in north-west India, married patrilocally among strangers and separated by considerable physical distances from their natal villages, use the medium of folk songs to decry their estrangement from the green pastures of their childhood homes to which their brothers, who customarily inherit the ancestral land, have automatic access. In rural Maharashtra, women divorced or deserted by their husbands can be found working as agricultural labourers on the farms of their brothers who are substantial land-owners (Omvedt, 1981); and in Rajasthan there are similar cases of widows, deprived of their rightful shares by brothers and brothers-in-law, seeking wage work for survival (personal observation). Women of landless labour house• holds in the Bodhgaya district of Bihar, while actively participating with their husbands in the struggle for ownership rights to the land they have sown for years, observe: 'If these men who are today landless beat up their wives so badly, merely using the power exercised from being men, then tomorrow when they get the land will they not become relatively even more powerful? We are part of the struggle so we should also get land' (Manimala, 1983: 8). And in the hills of Uttar Pradesh women have taken direct charge of protecting and restoring the forests which are the basis of their lives and livelihood, successfully resisting environmental destruction in the name of development schemes, often against the wishes of the village men (including their husbands): 'Do not axe these oaks and pines• nurture them, protect them. From these trees the streams get their water and the fields their green.'

70 Bina Agarwal 71

These voices of lament, protest and assertion from across India highlight rural women's relationship with land, and their own percep• tions of the significance of independent land rights in their lives - an aspect that has been paid little attention in the considerable literature tracing the linkages between a rural household's access to agricultural land and its relative economic, social and political position in the village community. This paper examines the issue of women's independent land access and the particular ways in which gender ideology, and the cultural norms and practices in which it has been crystallised, impinge on this access. In particular, it examines four aspects (in Sections I to IV of the paper respectively). (1) The significance of women's access to agricultural land for their economic and social well-being; (2) Women's customary rights to land across communities and cross-regionally; (3) Barriers to women exercising their existing legal claims; (4) Barriers to women directly controlling, managing and cultivating land. These questions have so far been little explored in the Indian, or even South Asian, context. 3 Drawing primarily upon village studies (in• cluding those unpublished) which in one way or another throw light on the above issues, selected legal documents, and my fieldwork observations in northern India,4 this chapter seeks to provide poin• ters, even though, given the dearth of available information, defini• tive answers are not possible on several aspects.

I WOMEN, LAND AND POVERTY

Access to cultivable agricultural land can take varied (although not necessarily equivalent) forms: individual ownership through inheri• tance, gift or self-acquisition; joint family ownership; usufructory rights to communal or private land, and tenancy rights- temporary or inheritable. While in none of these forms does access in itself guarantee control over management and production decisions, or the right to alienate the property, it provides, at the very least, rights to a part of the produce from the land, and strengthens the possibilities of control over the land itself. 72 Women, Land and Ideology in India

At the level of the rural household there is considerable evidence that land serves as a security against poverty and as a means to basic needs in both direct and indirect ways. An estimated 89 per cent of rural households in India own some land, and an estimated 74 per cent operate some (NSSO, 1986; 1987). Although, given the high degree of land concentration, the majority of these households only have marginal plots (owned or operated), 5 this can yet significantly reduce a household's risk of absolute poverty, partly due to direct production possibilities (for crops, fodder or trees- unless of course the land is totally barren), and partly to indirect advantages such as facilitating access to credit from institutional and private sources, reducing the risk of unemployment (especially for women),6 helping agricultural labour to maintain its reserve price and even push up its real wage rate,7 serving as a critical reserve in years of bad harvests, and, where the land is owned, serving as a mortgagable or saleable asset during a crisis. 8 A negative relationship between the incidence of absolute poverty and land access (owned or operated) has indeed been noted in several studies9 and landless labourers are found to be worse off than the near-landless during famines (Sen, 1981). The importance of privatised land access has also been increasing with the rapid depletion and decline of village common property resources (CPRs) and forests, on which the poor in general and women in particular are dependent in considerable degree for subsistence needs. 10 However there are substantive reasons for querying the assump• tion that male access to land within the household, which would render the household less susceptible to poverty by some average measure, will automatically and in equal degree provide this protec• tion to all its members, and especially to its female members. Growing evidence of a systematic bias against women and female children in access to basic necessities such as food and health care, although varying in degree cross-regionally and cross-class (the bias being much sharper in the north-west relative to the south, and among the landless relative to the landed), 11 suggests that even in households above a defined poverty line there are likely to be women and female children whose individual consumption levels would place them below the norm, and that there would be gender inequalities in the sharing of benefits from any assets or resources possessed by the households. Also, studies covering several states of India document noteworthy gender differences in household spending patterns, with women in poor households typically contributing almost all their Bina Agarwal 73 earned incomes to the family's basic needs and men typically keeping a not-insignificant part for tobacco, liquor, etc., with the absolute contributions by women being substantial in all cases. 12 A corollary to this are research findings, such as those from Kerala, that among agricultural labour households the children's nutritional status is much more closely linked to the mother's earnings than the father's (Kumar, 1978; Gulati, 1978). In other words, the risk of poverty and physical well-being of a woman and her children could depend crucially on whether or not she has direct access to income and productive assets such as land, and not just access mediated through her husband or other male members. For female-headed households (FHHs) with no adult male sup• port, this link is direct and obvious. In such cases even women whose parental or marital families could be classified as 'rich peasant' are rendered extremely vulnerable economically, in the absence of independent land rights: as noted, in rural Maharashtra and Rajas• than women- divorced, deserted or widowed- are not uncommonly found working as wage labourers for survival on the farms of their well-off brothers or brothers-in-law. This fact, as Omvedt (1981: 21) observes, 'perhaps more than any other, shows the essential prop• ertylessness of women as women'. In general, the incidence of both poverty and landlessness is found to be much greater among FHHs than those headed by males (Parthasarthy, 1982; Visaria and Visaria, 1985)_13 Women who are de facto household heads (say, due to long-term male outmigration) are again strongly disadvantaged without land titles in getting credit from institutional sources or moneylenders, or technology and information on productivity-increasing agricultural practices and inputs (in the dissemination of which both a class and gender bias prevails)/4 while often being left with the prime or even sole responsibility for the family's upkeep. In fact, poor peasant women in Bihar, during a discussion on land access and government credit, insisted: 'If the land is in women's names, the loan money cannot be spent on drink or frittered away' (Alaka and Chetna, 1987: 26). Likewise, where men's and women's land-use priorities fail to correspond, whose priorities prevail could have an important bearing on the use patterns of both public and private land. In semi-arid Rajasthan, Brara (1987) notes that where new planting on the village commons is being undertaken, women tend to choose species neces• sary for daily sustenance, while men prefer commercially profitable 74 Women, Land and Ideology in India ones. There are many similar examples from the Chipko movement for forest protection and regeneration in the hills of Uttar Pradesh, which again clearly reveal a gender divergence- for instance, in men opting for fruit trees to provide cash, and women opting for fuel and fodder trees to provide subsistence - in community reforestation schemes; or in women successfully resisting the axing of the Dungari• Paitoli oak forest for setting up a Government potato-seed farm, in opposition to the village men who favoured the new scheme for its potential cash benefits. These women's direct concern with the protection and regeneration of the forest as a source of 'fuel, fodder, food, fibre and fertiliser' and of 'soil, water and pure air', stemming from their primary responsibility for fetching fuelwood, water and fodder, etc., has had wider positive implications for ecological preservation in the region (see, e.g. Jain, 1984; Shiva and Ban• dhyopadhyay, 1987). Apart from the economic dimension of women's land access and its links with female poverty, survival and productivity, is its effect socially on gender relations, especially women's ability to challenge male oppression in society and within the home. A telling illustration is provided by the earlier-mentioned Bodhgaya movement in Bihar that emerged in the mid-1970s in which women and men of landless households jointly participated in an extended and partially success• ful struggle for the ownership of the plots they cultivated, held illegally by a local religious body, and during which women raised the demand for independent land rights. Where only men got titles there was an increase in drunkenness, wife-beating and threats: 'Get out of the house, the land is mine now' (Manimala, 1983: 15); where women got the titles (as they did in two villages) they could now assert: 'We had tongues but could not speak, we had feet but could not walk. Now that we have the land, we have the strength to speak and walk' (Alaka and Chetna, 1987: 26). Low-caste women in a village in Andhra Pradesh studied by Mies (1984) attributed their powerless• ness mainly to their lack of land: 'If we had a little land they (the upper-caste landlords) would not talk like this. But now they keep us at a distance because they say we are untouchables and shameless' (Mies, 1984: 167-8). In China the Agrarian Reform Law of 1947, which for the first time entitled women to hold separate land deeds, also - as a result - gave them the self-confidence to speak out 'bitterly' and without fear against the oppression of feudal landlords and the violence and mistreatment of husbands: 'If he divorces me, never mind. I'll get my share, and the children will get theirs. We can Bina Agarwal 75 lead a good life without him' (Croll, 1978: 215). However, notwithstanding the clearly strong case for women having independent land rights, their customary access to land has been extremely limited, as discussed below.

II WOMEN'S CUSTOMARY ACCESS TO LAND

Under traditional Hindu law, according to both the main legal systems - Mitakshara and Dayabhaga - women did not inherit immovable property such as land (although they could receive it as a gift), and at best enjoyed a life interest in ancestral property under specific circumstances (e.g as daughters in son-less families, with uxorilocally resident sons-in-law). Islamic law did recognise women's rights to inherit ancestral property, including immovables, but not as equal to men's, and in relation to agricultural land, in most states the religious law was superceded by regionally prevailing customary law under which women were typically excluded. In fact the only communities among whom there was a clear recognition of women's rights to inherit (but not alienate) immovable property were some of the matrilineal groups. Usufructory rights were somewhat more common, but mainly confined to tribal (matrilineal or other) communities. 15 Table 3.1 gives an idea of women's customary land access, cross-regionally, among 145 agricultural communities where the households have some access (as owners or tenants). 16 The over• whelming normative pattern (in 131 of these communities) is clearly patrilineal. It is only in small pockets of the north-east (principally the states of Meghalaya and Assam) and the south-west (mainly Kerala) that matrilineal and bilateral inheritance patterns have been in existence and continue to prevail among certain communities - in the north-east these are the Garos, Khasis, Pnars and Lalungs (all tribal communities), and in the south-west the Nayars of Kerala, the Tiyyars, Mappilas, Phadias and Chettis of northern Kerala, and the Bants of southern Karnataka. Among all these communities the inheritable property included land and other immovables, typically held in joint family units, except for the Garos among whom all land was communally owned by the clan and not individually inheritable. In addition, the Nangudi Vellalar of Tamil Nadu practised matrilineal descent and bilateral inheritance, with property passing from father to son and mother to daughter, the latter transfer being in the form of

0'1 0'1

...... :...... :.

% %

(3) (3)

(1) (1)

(6) (6)

(1) (1)

(7) (7)

(2) (2)

(4) (4)

(8) (8)

(6) (6)

and and

(90) (90)

(23) (23)

held held

(100) (100)

cases cases

Garos: Garos:

or or

1 1

5 5

8 8

3 3

8 8

6 6

b b

12 12

10 10

34 34

145 145

no. no.

131 131

matrilineal matrilineal

Total Total

communally communally

ownership ownership

tenants. tenants.

land land

% %

(7) (7)

(5) (5)

(2) (2)

son-in-law, son-in-law,

(16) (16)

(79) (79)

(14) (14)

(12) (12)

(100) (100)

and and

2 2

3 3

1 1

6 6

7d 7d

Historically Historically

43 43

land-

34 34

no. no.

d d

individual individual

Southern Southern

4+1e 4+1e

to to

uxorilocal uxorilocal

than than

land. land.

% %

the the

in in

(16) (16)

(74) (74)

(10) (10)

by by

(100) (100)

other other

shifting shifting

2 2

in in

1c 1c

3d 3d

19 19

---

----

14 14

no. no.

India India

owner-cultivators, owner-cultivators,

now now

1b+ 1b+

in in

North-eastern North-eastern

inherited inherited

inheritance inheritance

small small

% %

be be

land land

(7) (7)

16. 16.

---

(14) (14)

(43) (43)

owned; owned;

inheritance inheritance

to to

(100) (100)

and and

can can

1 1

1e 1e

2 2

14 14

- - --

no. no.

Eastern Eastern

bilateral bilateral

*Seen *Seen

land land

large large

access access

5+ 5+

or or

patrilineal patrilineal

communally communally

% %

where where

(12) (12)

(44) (44)

(12) (12)

(100) (100)

land land

2 2

7 7

2 2

customary customary

son-in-law. son-in-law.

16 16

Cases Cases

households, households,

no. no.

Central Central

e e

matrilineal matrilineal

historically historically

land-

and and

Women's Women's

% %

uxorilocal uxorilocal

(2) (2)

(6) (6)

(8) (8)

---

Paite: Paite: --

---

(30) (30)

than than

c c

(100) (100)

or or

1 1

inheritance. inheritance.

4 4

3.1 3.1

3 3

4 4

53 53

no. no.

non-cultivating non-cultivating

Northern Northern

land. land.

other other

ownership ownership

of of

12+4e 12+4e

in in

Table Table

daughter daughter

bilateral bilateral

to to

the the

by by

under under

individual individual

inheritance inheritance

shifted shifted

to to

communities communities

or or

all all

only only

children children

customs customs

possession possession

son-less son-less

inheritance inheritance

bilateral bilateral

shifting shifting

in in

male male

rights rights

shifting shifting

communities communities

8 8

matrilineal matrilineal

or or

ownership ownership

actual actual

specific specific

of of

Includes Includes

land land

of of

a a

now now

of of

via via

patriliny patriliny

no. no.

daughters daughters

widows widows

dowry dowry

daughters daughters

widows widows

behalf behalf

familes familes

examined

families families

As As

under under

Mention Mention

Usufructory Usufructory

As As

on on

As As

Usufructory Usufructory

Notes: Notes:

Bilateral Bilateral

matrilineal matrilineal Patrilineal Patrilineal

historically historically

inheritance, inheritance,

owned; owned;

As As

Communal Communal

As As

Total Total

Matrilineal Matrilineal

Norms Norms

Access Access

Aspect/region* Aspect/region* patriliny patriliny Bina Agarwal 77 a dowry. Among them, Dumont (1957) found women to be substan• tial land-owners, owning half the fields in their main village at the time of his study in 1950. Within the more typical patrilineal tradition, however, women could customarily inherit only under special circumstances, as widows or as daughters in families without sons, but even the latter custom cannot be seen as affirming female inheritance rights since usually the daughter only acted as a custodian on behalf of the son, and as a direct heir, too, essentially inherited as if she were a son. The inheritance of a widow again has usually been conditional on her not remarrying outside the family (although levirate - marrying the husband's brother- has been encouraged), and remaining chaste. 17 The claims of widows have also been recognised more readily if they have had male heirs. Occasionally, especially in south India, women have been given land as dowry - but this has been rare and dowry has typically been in movables only. Inheritance apart, women under certain circumstances have had usufructory rights to land as daugh• ters, widows or even wives. In some cases these were customary rights, as among most tribes; in others it was only privileged access, courtesy of male kin. What is noteworthy is that even in communities which traditionally recognised women's inheritance rights in land, the recognition was not unconditional but was linked to certain specified rules of post• marital residence/8 which would have served as a means of ensuring that the land remained within the control of the extended family. Among the matrilineal communities of the south-west, for instance, women either continued to reside on their maternal joint family estates after marriage (as among the Nayars of central and southern Kerala, practising duolocal residence), or where they were required to move to the husband's maternal estates (as among the north Kerala Nayars and Tiyyars) they had to return to their own maternal estates on divorce or widowhood, for establishing their claim there, since they had no subsequent claims on their husband's estate. The children (or sons only) usually returned on puberty. Among the Nangudi Vellalars of Tamil Nadu practising bilateral inheritance, matrilocality was the rule, as also among the tribal matrilineal groups of the north-east. Even in predominantly patrilineal communities usually practising patrilocal residence, if women inherited as residual heirs (in the absence of sons) uxorilocal residence was a pre• condition. Marriage between close kin, such as between cross-cousins, which 78 Women, Land and Ideology in India

again safeguards against land inherited by women from passing outside the extended kin group, has been similarly preferred and encouraged among most communities in India (and Sri Lanka) where a daughter's land rights have been customarily recognised. At the same time there are exceptions to this, and among the matrilineal Khasi and Lalung tribes cross-cousin marriages are strongly dis• approved. Clearly the underlying basis of cross-cousin marriage rules and preferences is complex, and the considerable social anthropolo• gical literature on this points variously to the ideology of descent prevailing in a community, the attempt by certain social groups to create and perpetuate solidarity ties and alliances with other groups, apart from property considerations. 19 It is also of interest that control over female sexuality as reflected in social rules governing virginity, chastity and divorce/remarriage, appears to have been less rigid among the matrilineal communities. All said, therefore, women in India customarily had little access to land and in the limited pockets or circumstances in which they did, it was circumscribed within specific rules and patterns of marriage and residence or behaviour. Also there has been an erosion over time of these limited rights, whether usufructory, as in most tribal (matri• lineal or other) communities, or of inheritance, as among non-tribal matrilineal communities such as the Nayars of Kerala. The basis of matriliny especially has been strongly affected, and bilateral trends are apparent both in the south-west and the north-east. The decline in matriliny, particularly since the turn of the century, is a result of a complex mix of factors (traced in detail in Agarwal, 1987a; 1988): State legislation and policies, technological change, the thrust of patriar• chal ideologies, changing class and land relations, and market forces. In particular, the State (both colonial and post-colonial) has played a primary role in triggering or strengthening other changes. For instance, State restrictions on tribal rights over forest use and the systematic promotion of settled agriculture and land privatisation, at the cost of swidden cultivation and communal forms of land own• ership and use, have contributed significantly to the disruption of the egalitarian (in class and gender terms) character of tribal matrilineal communities such as the Garos. Among them, traditionally, land was communally owned by clans and not individually inheritable, and all men and women belonging to a particular clan and resident in the village had equal use rights to it; women played the primary role in cultivation (which was almost entirely in the form of shifting agricul• ture) and controlled the produce; and all non-landed property passed Bina Agarwal 79 through the female line. Marriage residence was matrilocal, women usually initiated their own marriage proposals and were free to divorce and remarry, pre-marital sex was tolerated and, in accord• ance with norms of established behaviour, any unwelcome advances of a man which caused a woman embarrassment or shame could be reported by her to the village council and the offender punished. Today land privatisation is moving apace, with land passing increasingly into exclusively male control; there is growing class differentiation, landlessness and poverty, a decline in the importance of female labour with the shift from swidden to settled agriculture, the establishment of male control over agricultural produce, and emergent negative attitudes of fathers towards daughters, reflected in statements such as: 'the daughters, being women, cannot do anything except rely on their husbands. To let them succeed to the land is a great risk' (Nakane, 1967: 89). While marriage proposals may still be initiated by women, post-marital residence is shifting towards patrilo• cality; and with the disruption of the village community and the associated decline in the influence of the traditional village councils, women no longer have the same social protection these afforded. In other rural communities as well, the process of privatisation of communal land has seriously eroded people's usufructory rights, to the specific detriment of poor peasant and tribal women who have been deprived of their access to public land without getting alterna• tive access to private land. Also, although modern legislation, especially since independence, has given women of most communities the right to individually own, use and dispose of land and other immovable property, these rights are not on an equal basis with men's (see Agarwal, 1988, for details). Even more crucially, a variety of social and ideological factors restrict women's ability (a) to exercise even what legal claims they possess; and (b) to control and independently farm the land where they do get access, as discussed over the next two sections.

III BARRIERS TO WOMEN EXERCISING THEIR EXISTING LEGAL CLAIMS Several factors circumscribe women's ability to claim their legal share in land: Post-marital residence and maintaining the brother's goodwill In parts of India where patrilocality, village exogamy and long 80 Women, Land and Ideology in India distance marriages are the norm, women typically relinquish their claims to parental land in favour of their brothers. In the north, for instance, marriages are usually outside the natal village (village endogamy being forbidden in most communities) and at considerable distances from the natal home, residence being patrilocal, with the exception of son-less families with uxorilocal sons-in-law. At times even the preferred direction of the marital village is specified (see Table 3.2). In some cases, this separation of a woman from her natal home is further formalised by taboos on parents accepting hospitality from married daughters or even visiting her home; and where such a visit is unavoidable they pay for any items consumed. In these circumstances, parents can typically expect no material support from their married daughters, which would add to the overall disincentive towards endowing them with property, especially land. In this context, the brother becomes a vital link with the natal village. He is often required to escort the woman on her initial journeys between her marital and natal home, her access to which. especially after her parents' death, can depend crucially on her relationship with him. He is thus seen as providing social, economic, and even physical security in case of marital discord, ill-treatment and marriage break-up, apart from playing a ritual role in children's weddings among Hindu families of all castes. As one old woman from Harbassi (Punjab) put it: 'If the brother and sister are on good terms then she will tell her brother that she does not want her share of the inheritance. After all, if he eats, then she can eat' (Sharma, 1980: 57). And in Rajasthan, some of the views I have heard expressed commonly include:

A sister gives up her claim to keep the passage to her natal village open. If the sister claims the land then she will have only the land. If she maintains good relations with her brothers she will have a constant flow of gifts each time she visits them. If she stakes her claims, her brother's wife will refuse to invite her home or speak to her. Where would I take the land, even if my brother parted with it? Even leasing out or selling the land to the brother was not considered desirable since it would introduce an element of commerce into the Table 3.2 Marriage location and post-marital residence in India Northern Central Eastern North-eastern Southern Total cases Aspect/ region no. % no. % no. % no. % no. % no. % Village endogamy Practised 10 (19) 10 (62) 6 (43) 7 (37) 21 (49) 54 (37) Forbidden 22 (41) 1 (6) 2 (14) - - 1 (2) 26 (18) No information 21 (40) 5 (31) 6 (43) 12 (63) 21 (49) 65 (45)

Village direction specified 10 (19) 2 (12) 1 (7) - --- 13 (9)

Post-marital residence Patrilocal/Virilocal 40 (75) 16 (100) 14 (100) 9 (47) 25 (58) 104 (72) MatrilocaVUxorilocal ------3 (16) 2 (5) 5 (3) Others ------23 +1b (16) 2b+4c (14) 9 (6) No information 13 (24) -- -- 4 (21) 10 (23) 27 (19)

Distance from natal home Far 10 (19) 1 (6) - -- - 1 (2) 12 (8) Near 8 (15) 2 (13) 3 (21) 2+4d (32) 5+4d (21) 28 (19) No information 35 (66) 13 (81) 11 (79) 13 (68) 33 (77) 105 (72)

Uxori/ocality practised as a special 13 (24) 7 (44) 6 (43) 2 (10) 5 (12) 33 (23) casee Total no. of communities examined 53 (100) 16 (100) 14 (100) 19 (100) 43 (100) 145 (100)

Notes: a Neolocal residence. b Duolocal residence. c Avunculocal residence. 00 d Not strictly applicable since residence is matrilocal or duolocal...... e e.g. in son-less families in communities where normal residence is virilocal. 82 Women, Land and Ideology in India relationship. In actual practice, material support from brothers is not always forthcoming or necessarily significant. These considerations would impinge less severely in the north-east and south where, by contrast, there is a strong preference for in-village marriages, village endogamy is almost never forbidden, and marriages outside the village are typically at close location. In the central and eastern states again, village endogamy is often practised and rarely forbidden, the direction in which the marital village should be located is rarely specified, and residence is typically patrilocal (see Table 3.2). Yet even here a woman's relationship with her brother would be a consideration (albeit a less significant one in terms of material security) impinging in one way or another upon her claiming her legal share. Intimidation by male kin Where women as sisters and daughters in traditionally patrilineal groups do not voluntarily give up their rights in favour of their brothers and instead file claims (possibly at the instigation of their husbands), male kin have been noted to resort to various means of circumventing modern laws. For instance, to ensure that only sons inherit, fathers leave wills disinheriting daughters, or wills have been forged by relatives after the person's death (Parry, 1979); or the brothers have appealed to revenue authorities (who maintain land registers) that their sister is wealthy and does not need the land, or that she is an absentee landlord as she is living with her husband in another village (Mayer, 1960). This last can become a significant way of preventing women from claiming land where village exogamy is usually mandatory. Land disputes are found to be increasing, and Mayer notes for Madhya Pradesh that they usually centre around male attempts to prevent sisters or daughters from inheriting. The claims of widows are generally viewed with less antagonism than those of daughters, since there is a greater chance of the land remaining with agnates, especially if various conditions on remar• riage, including levirate, can be enforced. Also a widow with a young son (through whom the lineage continues) appears more likely to inherit the husband's share than one with only a daughter. 20 Levirate appears to be most easily accepted when the widow is young and childless or has only one child, and the brother-in-law is unmarried, but cases of unwilling widows with several children being forced to cohabit with married brothers-in-law, who then take over their land, are not unknown.Z 1 A case in point is that of a Punjabi Jat widow of Bina Agarwal 83

Kithoor village with five minor children (one son and four daughters) who inherited 3.2 acres from her husband, and who was strongly pressurised by her husband's younger brother (married, but with no male heirs) to marry him. But when a daughter was born from this alliance he abandoned her, enticed away her fourteen-year-old son (his nephew) who now lives with him, and through forgery got the widow's land transferred to the boy's name, thereby gaining effective control over it. He now gives her a part of the wheat, but not of the cash crops grown on the land, leaving her to fend ineffectively for herself and her daughters. Single women (unmarried or widowed) are particularly vulnerable to harassment by male kin, who may involve them in expensive litigation which forces them to mortgage their land for paying legal expenses and thus lose it, or who may threaten to kill them if they insist on exercising their claims. Cases of direct violence to prevent women from filing their claims or exercising their customary rights have also been noted, especially in Bihar, beatings being common, and murder - often following accusations of witchcraft - not unknown. 22 Official responses Official policies and programmes reflect and reinforce traditional attitudes. Prevailing biases have affected both court judgements and the formulation and implementation of government policies, includ• ing the land reform programme. And although the sixth Five Year Plan mentioned that government land distributed to the landless should be under the joint ownership of husband and wife, this was not reiterated in the seventh plan document. In any case, it is not the formulation but the implementation of laws, policies and program• mes that remains the biggest bottleneck. The views of the panchayat (village council) secretary of Kithoor village in Rajasthan where I did some fieldwork are revealingly illustrative. He mentioned that he usually pressurises daughters to sign away their shares in favour of their brothers, but seeks to persuade widows to keep their shares. Again, in the Bodhgaya peasant movement mentioned earlier, the women's struggle was not only against the religious body, but also against the prejudices of the men of their own community, and of the local government officials, towards women holding independent land titles. Having been suc• cessful on the former two counts, when they sought formal registra• tion of the land in their names, the district officer initially refused on 84 Women, Land and Ideology in India the grounds that titles could only be given to the head of the household who was the male, and further, since women would leave the village on marriage, they could not be made the owners (Manim• ala, 1983). Again, when landless women in Udaipur district (Rajas• than) claimed a part of the village wasteland to grow herbs, fodder, etc., the bias of the local official was clear: 'But we do not allot to women.' When asked why not, he said with unbeatable logic: 'Because we never have, so that is why we won't!' (Lal, 1986). This systematic bias in the implementation of State policy is found even in the context of matrilineal tribal communities. Among the Garos of the north-east, for instance, where, as noted earlier, land privatisation has been encouraged by the State, the title deeds granted to individual households are typically in male names. In Wajadagiri village, for which there is quantified evidence, out of twenty-three households, fourteen got title deeds, eleven in the names of men, one in that of a widow and two in those of unmarried daughters (Mazumdar, 1978).

IV BARRIERS TO WOMEN CONTROLLING, MANAGING AND SELF-CULTIVATING LAND

Quite apart from the obstacles to women claiming their inheritance in land, it is typically not easy for those who do inherit to maintain control over it, or to self-cultivate it. Existing evidence on this, although scattered and somewhat scanty, is illustrative, and indicates that in most cases the land is managed by men- brothers, husbands, sons. Pressure on widows with minor children to sell their shares to a relative at a low price, or to lease it out, is usually considerable. (Even customarily in matrilineal communities, whether or not women were active participants in the farming process, men - the brother or husband - played the primary role in overall management and control, although women had a significant say in decisions, especially relating to the disposal or sale of joint family land.) Cases of women self-managing appear to be more common where they are widows with minor sons for whom they want to safeguard the land, or in tribal communities, although even here it is often under extremely hostile social conditions, as described by Kishwar (1987) for the Ho tribals in Bihar. More generally, women in de facto female-headed households are left to cultivate land on their own (even while the legal titles are held by the men), especially in areas of Bina Agarwal 85 high, long-distance, male outmigration. However, a range of factors (discussed below) circumscribe women's ability to function as inde• pendent farmers, and also limit their ability to lease in land where they own little or none. While most of these obstacles would apply to women as a gender, their importance and implications are especially adverse for women in poverty.

The ideology of seclusion

To begin with, where women inherit as daughters, in areas where village exogamy and long-distance marriages are the norm, these not only serve as barriers (as noted) to their claiming their legal rights, but also pose obvious practical difficulties in managing the land. This is compounded by the ideology of purdah or seclusion which, along with women's responsibility for child care and housework, restrict their mobility between villages. Even where the land under the woman's control or management is in her marital village, the notion of seclusion and 'territorial' purdah can constitute a strong ideological barrier to her exercising effective control.23 For instance, within many villages in the north Indian plains there are identifiable spaces where men congregate that women are expected to avoid - restrictions being especially rigid vis-a-vis the bazaar (market place). Although seniority, age, whether she is a daughter or a daughter-in-law, her class/caste, all affect a woman's freedom of movement so that older women with grown-up sons, village daughters, and women of poor and low-caste families enjoy greater liberty, even here spaces of predominantly male presence are meant to be avoided. A graphic illustration of how women may internalise these values is provided in a study of a Punjab village where a western researcher, Sandra Murray, reports the following conversation between herself and thirty-four-year-old Kiran Kaur, as they were returning from the gurdwara (the Sikh place of worship). Kiran Kaur, not wishing to be seen, said:

Let's take this lane. (Why?) Can't you see that group of people outside the lambardar's house? (Yes, but what of it?) No, I don't want them to see me. I don't want to give them anything to talk about. (What could they talk about?) Oh they may say 'Sat Sri Akal' (a greeting) to us, but when we have gone, they will say 86 Women, Land and Ideology in India

'Where did she go? What did she have to go out for?' and then they may tell someone else they saw us on the street. ( Oh?) Or they may ask me 'Where have you been? Why did you go there?' (Yes, but we have only been to the temple.) But, I don't want to talk to them. I don't really know them, and if I have to talk to them, then someone may see us doing so, and then they will go around talking about it. (~urray, 1984: 296-70)

The assumption that even innocent encounters will lead to gossip - something to be avoided at all costs - can thus lead to self-imposed purdah. This ideology of seclusion places women at a considerable dis• advantage in seeking information on agricultural practices, purchas• ing inputs, hiring labour and machinery to plough the fields, selling the produce, etc. Contacts developed by men in the market place considerably ease their ability to obtain labour and inputs on time, or solicit help from fellow farmers. ~en also have a greater command over the labour of relatives than women who cannot provide recip• rocal labour or favours in the same way, and who are restricted too by social norms: 'If my brother-in-law helps me, people insinuate we have a sexual relationship' (a widow in Kithoor, Rajasthan). Women's limited mobility in general can also directly or indirectly restrict their access to credit and agricultural inputs. For instance, credit and input co-operatives situated in the urban centres are rendered relatively inaccessible to most of the women who are unfamiliar with bus routes and forms of urban interaction, and are illiterate in addition. Several poor widows to whom I spoke in Kithoor village described a visit to the nearest town on their own as a traumatic event. At the same time, many of them found it difficult to get loans within the village as well: 'The moneylender often refuses to lend to us, but men can get credit more easily since they can find some wage work, if necessary by migrating, to repay the debt'. A few also said: 'If a woman travels out of the village too often on her own, they say she roams around, that she is a loose woman.' Indeed purdah is one manifestation of a much more general control exercised over female sexuality as reflected in social emphasis on virginity and chastity and in the ease of divorce or remarriage. All of these indicate the degree of social sanction against or tolerance towards a woman's contact with men other than her husband or close kin. This restricts her physical mobility and participation in activities Bina Agarwal 87 outside the home - be it relating to work in the fields, interactions in the market place, or wider contact with the world- and consequently her ability to manage farming independently. 24 These factors would operate with less severity or negative consequ• ences among communities and in regions where village endogamy is the rule and sexual control over women less rigid - as in the north-eastern and southern states of India, where female labour participation in agricultural fieldwork (although varying by class) is also, in general, much greater than in the north.25

Male control over technology, especially the plough

Successful self-management of land by women is also limited by the restrictions on their access to agricultural technology imposed by their limited control over cash for purchasing modern inputs, gender (along with class) biases in extension services, higher illiteracy levels than among men, and ritual taboos against women ploughing. Taboos against ploughing, which appear to be widespread across most cultures, and certainly hold across all communities in India, is perhaps the biggest obstacle. Male control over ploughing, which occupies a central place in intensive agriculture, is in fact believed by some scholars to date back to neolithic times and appears to have been one of the significant factors associated with the decline in the monopoly women enjoyed in cereal production among hunting/ gathering societies (see Childe, 1942), although it is contentious that a simple causal relationship between the advent of the plough per se and women's role in agriculture can be established. What appears undisputed, though, is that while women mainly hoed plots, it is men who typically ploughed the fields. Childe (1942) notes that in the oldest Sumerian and Egyptian documents, those who ploughed were all males, although the plough itself is believed to have been developed from the women's digging stick (Allaby, 1977). Male control over ploughing, which must have helped in establishing control over both female labour and surplus production, appears to have been facilitated by men's prior control over pastoralism and stock breeding (Childe, 1942) and entrenched subsequently by strong ideological control, and by instituting punishments for transgressions. In India today some communities (e.g. the Oraon tribals of Bihar) believe that if a woman were to plough, there would be no rain, and calamity would follow (Dasgupta and Maiti, 1986). Himachali men 88 Women, Land and Ideology in India told Sharma (1980) that God had decreed women should not plough. When women in desperate circumstances have ploughed family land they have usually been severely punished. An illustrative case is of a tribal woman in Bihar who, with an ill and bedridden husband, on getting no help from her neighbours for ploughing the family field, tried in desperation to do it herself. Within an hour or two of her starting, she was forcibly stopped by the villagers, and subjected to the decision of the village council which punished her by yoking her to the plough along with the bullock, and forcing her to plough the village headman's field for over an hour in this way (Dasgupta and Maiti, 1986). Women of the Ho tribe in Bihar, if seen to have accidentally touched the plough, are heavily fined by the panchayat and, in rare cases, even stoned to death (Kishwar, 1987). In effective terms this taboo makes dependency on men in settled cultivation unavoidable and greatly restricts women's ability (espe• cially if poor) to farm independently. Poor female-headed house• holds are placed in a particular quandary. As Sharma (1980: 114) notes: 'It is at ploughing time that Durgi complained most bitterly of her widowhood. No one was prepared to plough her fields for her without being paid; and even those who would do it for pay would only do it after they had completed their own ploughing.' Tractor• owners in Kithoor village demand advance or immediate cash payment for ploughing the fields of poor widows: 'A man doesn't face this problem because it is assumed that he will be able to work and repay' (a widow in Kithoor). Delayed ploughing also adversely affects crop yields which are linked to timely field preparation. I would like to suggest here that a significant reason underlying this insistence on exclusive male control over the plough would be to thereby establish claim over the agricultural surplus. Essentially male control over ploughing (a) means control over an operation that is usually critical for good yields (and surplus production) under settled intensive cultivation; and (b) appears to provide the ideological justification for male right over that produce. The analogy of sexual reproduction which goes back to Vedic times is often invoked in this regard, in which the woman is symbolised as the field, the man as the seed, the produce (children, grain) belonging to the one who sows the seed. 26 Here sowing the seed would be not the literal placing of the seed in the soil which women often undertake (although some communities forbid even this) but preparing the ground for the sowing, namely by ploughing, which only men are allowed to do. It is a telling point that in many potter and weaver communities in Bina Agarwal 89 north-west India, women are barred also from touching the wheel and the loom.

V IN CONCLUSION

Noting the significance of women's independent access to agricultural land, and not just access mediated via male members for their and their children's economic and social well-being and survival, this chapter has examined their land rights as have existed customarily in law and in practice, the barriers to their exercising their legal claims today, and the difficulties they face in controlling or self-managing the land that does come into their possession. In this, gender ideology is found to interweave in complex ways, often crystallised in socially accepted gender-discriminatory prac• tices, to deny women ownership and/or effective control over agri• cultural land - the crucial means of production in agrarian societies - as also over cultivation technologies. Gender biases impinge too on the attitudes and approaches of official law and policy implementing agencies - village councils, bureaucracy and even judiciary - tilting implementation in favour of male interests. Also, the increasing competition for limited land resources has intensified tensions and conflicts in the countryside, manifest among other things in the growing evidence of attempts by male kin to prevent women from getting their share of family land through both legal and extra-legal forms of coercion, including direct violence. On the positive side, there is an emerging recognition of women's independent claim to land among some of the grass-roots movements of the landless and land poor (as for instance in the Bodhgaya movement described). In this context, however, a significant issue that needs to be addressed is whether the demand should be for land ownership rights on an individual basis, or land use rights on a group basis, with groups of poor rural women cultivating and managing land co-operatively. The former raises all the attendent problems of individual self-cultivation by women; and has the danger of the husband taking over the management and control of the land and its produce even if the wife has the title, and of daughters losing out if the mother chooses to will the land to the sons, 27 or if the daughter's claims are disputed by male relatives after the mother's death. In contrast, co-operative management of the land by groups of women who actively cultivate it, with none having the right to fragment, sell, 90 Women, Land and Ideology in India or otherwise alienate it, would help overcome most of these difficul• ties, while also enabling larger numbers of women to gain use access to land via the co-operatives, even if no individual woman may be able to subsist on this basis alone. While the logistics of any such scheme would need working out in concrete terms by the women involved, in principle it would be a step towards re-creating commun• al assets in the hands of the poor, and a shift away from the current trend towards privatisation in which very few poor persons, and even fewer women, get a share. Some success stories of the group approach to land use, although micro in scale, can in fact be found in South Asia: for instance, experiments involving groups of landless rural women managing jointly owned land to grow medicinal herbs and trees in Rajasthan and West Bengal in India, or the provision of credit to small groups of women for leasing in agricultural land by the Grameen Bank for the rural poor in Bangladesh. 28 Such a group approach has also been found to have the potential for strengthening women's ability to deal with other forms of social oppression, including gender violence in the home, more effectively. 29 At the same time, these are but small beginnings and, at best, provide pointers to an alternative approach, rather than act as a force that could yet counter the overwhelming bias in most communities against giving women access to agricultural land.

Notes

1. This chapter draws substantially on an earlier, much longer, paper by the author (see Agarwal, 1988). 2. A Punjabi folk song, sung when the bride leaves her father's home for the first time (source: Veena Das, Delhi). Doli= palanquin. 3. Among the exceptions are Sharma's (1980) study of two villages in northern India, and Kishwar's (1987) of a tribal community in Bihar in eastern India. Both authors explore the interlinkages between social practices, women's work roles, and their property access. 4. In particular, I draw on my recent fieldwork in Kithoor village (Alwar district, Rajasthan), undertaken with two others (Miriam Sharma and her research assistant Urmila Vanjani, who were working on a larger study on production and reproduction). 5. These estimates are based on the 37th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) carried out in 1981-2. According to the Survey, 66.5 per cent of land-owning households in rural India owned 1 ha. (hectare) or less and accounted for only 12.2 per cent of all land owned by rural households (NSSO, 1987). The distribution of operational holdings is almost as skewed (NSSO, 1986). Bina Agarwal 91

6. Lipton (1983: 44), in a survey article on labour and poverty, provides several examples from rural India on the three-way link between land shortage, unemployment and poverty. For instance, a ten-village survey covering 100 agricultural labour households in Andhra Pradesh in 1972 showed that the risk of extreme poverty and unemployment was much lower among the 32 households who had a little cultivable land relative to the 68 who had none. A four-village study in Gujarat in 1970-1 likewise found a 25 per cent higher risk of unemployment among the landless, relative to the landed households. Again ICRISAT research in six semi-arid villages showed that the prospects of female employment were much better among small and medium farm households, relative to landless agricultural labour households. Also, in Visaria and Visaria's (1985) study in rural Gujarat, unemployment for women was found to be 70-80 per cent higher than for men among landless households, but fell about twice as fast with every extra acre. 7. See, for example, Raj and Tharakan (1983) for Kerala, where the implementation of land reforms gave many agricultural labour house• holds full ownership rights to small-sized holdings of less than 1 acre in the 1970s. 8. For a useful review of literature on land and poverty see Lipton (1983 and 1985). 9. Estimates by Ali et a/. (1981, quoted in Sundaram, 1987) for 1975 indicate a consistent decline in the percentage of rural population below the poverty line as operational holding size increases (see the table below).

Table 3.3 Percentage of rural population below poverty line Per cent share Per cent below Size class in rural the poverty line (hectares) population (2250 calories) 0.00 12.3 81.7 0.01-0.50 18.6 75.4 0.51-1.00 15.7 67.0 1.01-2.02 18.5 57.0 2.03-4.04 16.3 45.3 4.05-8.09 10.7 31.7 8.10 and above 7.9 4.5

All 100.0 56.2 Source: Sundaram (1987: 179).

Sundaram and Tendulkar (1983) on the basis of NSS data for 1977-8 find that the incidence of poverty among households dependent mainly on agricultural labour for a livelihood is almost twice that among cultivating households (58.8 per cent relative to 30.1 per cent). Gaiha and Kazmi (1981) again find the highest risk of poverty among agricultural wage labour households on the basis of the NCAER data for 1971-2. 92 Women, Land and Ideology in India

10. A detailed study by Jodha (1986) relating to the semi-arid areas of seven states of India indicated that the landless and near-landless households depend on CPRs for up to 20 per cent of their incomes, 66-84 per cent (varying by state) of their needs of domestic fuel (including 91-100 per cent of firewood), and 66-89 per cent of their grazing needs. However, the availability of CPRs has declined by 26-63 per cent over 1950-84. There is a similar high dependency on forest produce among tribals who have been seriously affected by State restrictions on their access to forests, and the overall decline in area under forest from 55.5 million hectares in 1972-5 to 46.4 million hectares in 1980-2- an annual fall of 1.3 million hectares over the seven-year period. 11. For a detailed review of issues and literature relating to this, as well as a discussion on the causes of the bias, see Agarwal (1986a). Also see the review of evidence by Harriss (1986). 12. See Gulati (1978) for Kerala; Mencher and Saradamoni (1982) and Mencher (1987) for Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal; and Dasgupta and Maiti (1986) for Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Assam. Mencher's (1987) detailed quantitative evidence for landless and near-landless agricultural labour households in twenty sample villages in Tamil Nadu and Kerala indicates (taking the weighted average for each village) that: (a) the wife's contribution to household maintenance from earned income exceeded her husband's in six of the twenty villages, was equal or close to equal in five others, and substantial in the rest; (b) the wives typically contributed 90-100 per cent of their earnings and men rarely gave over 60-75 per cent of theirs, keeping the rest for personal use; (c) the minimum contributed by all household males was less than by all household females in thirteen of the twenty villages. All this is despite women's lesser access to employment and their lower wages relative to men. It is also noteworthy that these contributions do not include the value of items such as fuel, fodder, food, etc., that are gathered by women. 13. In Kithoor Village (Rajasthan) I found that while an FHH with even a half-acre of rainfed land on which supplementary fodder could be grown could maintain a buffalo, the landless typically did not venture to apply even for the Government's anti-poverty loan subsidy scheme for buffalo purchase, given the virtual absence of grazing land in the area or the means to buy fodder. 14. For a review of material on the class bias in agricultural extension services see Dasgupta (1977) and Byres (1972); and on gender bias see Agarwal (1985). 15. For a more detailed discussion on women's legal rights to immovable property among different religious and other groups, customarily and in the present period, and the gender inequalities therein, see Agarwal (1988). 16. The regional patterning of Indian society and culture has been attempted by several geographers and social anthropologists, although their geog• raphic divisions vary from a two-fold north-south divide to a four-fold one or more (see, e.g. Sopher, 1980; Mandelbaum, 1980; Miller, 1981; Bina Agarwal 93

Libbee, 1980; and Karve, 1965). In general, there is a fair degree of agreement among scholars in defining the south as comprising the four states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, although there are some differences in the division of the rest of the country. In the present chapter, taking account of existing discussions and rationa• lisations, and in an attempt (although admittedly in a broad and rough fashion) to separate areas known from existing work to have some degree of cultural distinctiveness, as well as certain notable differences along ecological lines and extent of development, the country has been divided into five regions: northern (Jammu and Kashmir, Himachel Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan); central (Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh); eastern (Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal); north-eastern (Assam, Meghalaya and further north• east), and southern (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala). Within these regions, further sub-regions could of course be identified, such as the hills and the plains. Essentially these divisions are meant to help focus on broad patterns rather than serve as strict demarcations. 17. Haekel (1963); Parry (1979); Furer-Haimendorf (1979). 18. Definitions of different types of post-marital residence (except for duolocal) mentioned at various points in the paper are taken from Murdock (1967), and are as below: Matrilocal: Normal residence with or near the female matrilineal kins• men of the wife. Uxorilocal: Equivalent to matrilocal but confined to instances where the wife's matrikin are not aggregated in matrilocal or matrilineal kin groups. Patrilocal: Normal residence with or near the male patrilineal kinsmen of the husband. Virilocal: Equivalent to patrilocal but confined to instances where the husband's patrikin are not aggregated in patrilocal or patrilineal kin groups. Avunculocal: Normal residence with or near the maternal uncle or other male matrilineal kinsmen of the husband. Ambilocal: Residence established optionally with or near the parents of either husband or wife depending on circumstances or personal choice. Neolocal: Normal residence separate from the relatives of both spouses. Duolocal: Normal residence of wife with her matrilineal kinsmen, and of husband with his or elsewhere, in a visiting relationship. 19. For a useful review and discussion on some ofthe theoretical debates on the subject see Fox (1967). Also see Yalman (1962; 1967) on cross-cousin marriages in south India and Sri Lanka, and Tambiah's (1965) critique of Yalman. Tambiah (1965), Leach (1961), and Goody (1976), writing on South Asia, place a particular emphasis on property considerations underlying marriage preferences. 20. Fieldwork in Rajasthan. 21. I have come across several such cases in Rajasthan. 22. Minturn and Hitchcock (1966); Kishwar (1987); Standing (1987). 23. See especially Sharma's (1980) discussion of this in the context of rural 94 Women, Land and Ideology in India

Punjab and Himachal Pradesh; personal observation in rural Rajasthan. These factors similarly circumscribe women in the urban context - see Chapters 1 and 4. Mandelbaum (1988) gives an excellent review of some of the issues that arise in the context of women's seclusion and men's honour in South Asia. 24. Although the issue of female seclusion has essentially been discussed in feminist literature in the context of Asian countries and/or Islam, and many of the forms it has taken are no doubt particular to these contexts, the ideological division of public space into 'male' and 'other' is indeed not uncommon in other parts of the globe. For instance, Thomas Hardy's description (in his novel Far from the Madding Crowd) of the stir caused among the male farmers by Bathsheba Everdene's visit to the cornmar• ket as an independent woman farmer, in nineteenth-century rural England, highlights the prevalence of a notion of 'male' space (which women were expected to avoid) which, in its essence, was not dissimilar to that discussed here in the context of village India. 25. For a cross-regional mapping of some of the indicators of sexual control over women see Agarwal (1988). 26. For a useful exposition and review of Vedic and other material on the symbolism of seed and earth in male-female sexual relations see Dube (1986). 27. This is by no means only a theoretical possibility. Some of the women who obtained land in their own names after the Bodhgaya struggle, for instance, are today inclined to leave the land in the names of sons rather than of daughters who, they say, may leave the village on marriage (conversations with Bodhgaya activists, 1988). 28. The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh caters exclusively to the landless and near-landless. All loanees are required to form groups of five persons each and select a chairperson for their group. Women's groups are independent of the men's groups, and women constitute over half the Bank's members. Loans are given for a variety of uses as decided by the group, and can be obtained either for individual enterprises or for group ventures. Either way there is an implicit group responsibility for repay• ment. Leasing in land for cultivation on a group basis is one kind of venture that some of the women's groups have opted for. Loan repay• ments are made easy, especially for women, by the weekly village visits of a Bank official who holds village meetings and collects the payments. Initiated in 1976 as an experiment by an individual, today the Bank covers 3700 villages, and 200 000 persons. By all accounts it has made a significant difference to the economic status of the members and especially to the women (see esp. Hossain, 1984, and Rahman, 1986). 29. For a brief overview of this see Agarwal (1987b).

References

These include only the studies referred to in the text and not all of those on which the tables are based. For a comprehensive listing of the latter, see Agarwal (1988). Bina Agarwal 95

Journal abbreviations CIS : Contributions to Indian Sociology EA : Eastern Anthropologist EPW : Economic and Political Weekly JRAI : Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute MI : Man in India

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Kinship', Occasional Papers of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 2. Epstein, S. (1973) South India: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Mysore Villages Revisited (London: Macmillan). Fox, R. (1967) Kinship and Marriage (London: Pelican Books). Furer-Haimendorf, C. Von and E. Von Furer-Haimendorf, (1979) The Gonds of Andhra Pradesh: Tradition and Change in an Indian Tribe (London: Allen and Unwin). Gaiha, R. and N. A. Kazmi (1981) 'Aspects of rural poverty in India', Economics of Planning, vol. 17, nos. 2-3. Goody, J. (1976) Production and Reproduction: A Comparative Study of the Domestic Domain, Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology (Cam• bridge: CUP). Goody, J. and S. J. Tambiah (1973) Bridewealth and Dowry, Cambridge Papers in Social Anthropology, no. 7 (Cambridge: CUP). Gulati, L. (1978) 'Profile of a female agricultural labourer' EPW, Review of Agriculture, vol. 13, no. 12, 25 March. Haekel, J. (1963) 'Some aspects of the social life of the Bhilala in Central India', Ethnology, vol. 2, no. 2, April. Harriss, B. (1986) 'The Intra-Family Distribution of Hunger in South Asia', paper prepared for the WIDER project on Hunger and Poverty, Seminar on Food Strategies, Helsinki, July. Hossain, M. (1984) Credit for the Rural Poor: The Experience of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, October. Jain, S. (1984) 'Women and people's ecological management: a case study of women's role in the Chipko movement in Uttar Pradesh', EPW, vol. 19, no. 41, 13 October. Jodha, N. S. (1986) 'Common property resources and rural poor', EPW, vol. 21, no. 27, 5 July. Karve, I. (1965) Kinship Tribal Organisation in India (Bombay: Asia Publishing House). Kishwar, M. (1987) 'Toiling without rights: Ho women of Singhbhum', EPW, 17, 24 and 31 January. Kumar, S. K. (1978) 'Role of the Household Economy in Child Nutrition at Low Incomes', Occasional Paper no. 95, Dept. of Agricultural Economics, Cornell University, December. Lal, Ian (1986) 'Goats and Tigers', a video film by Ian Lal, ILO, Delhi. Leach, E. R. (1961) Pul Eliya- A Village in Ceylon (Cambridge: CUP). Libbee, M. J. (1980) 'Territorial endogamy and the spatial structure of marriage', in D. E. Sopher (ed.), An Exploration of India: Geographic Perspectives on Society and Culture (London: Longman). Lipton, M. (1983) Labour and Poverty, World Bank Staff Working Paper no. 616, Washington DC. Lipton, M. (1985) Land Assets and Rural Poverty, World Bank Staff Working Paper no. 744, Washington DC. Mandelbaum, D. G. (1980) Society in India (Berkeley: University of California Press). Mandelbaum, D. G. (1988) Women's Seclusion and Men's Honour: Sex Bina Agarwal 97

Roles in North India, Btmgladesh and Pakistan (Tucson: University of Arizona Press). Manimala (1983) 'Zameen Kenkar? Jote Onkar', Manushi, no. 14, Jan-Feb. Mayer, A. C. (1960) Caste and Kinship in Central India- A Village and Its Region (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). Mazumdar, D. N. (1978) Culture Change in Two Garo Villages. (Calcutta: Anthropological Survey in India). Mencher, J. and K. Saradamoni (1982) 'Muddy feet and dirty hands: rice production and female agricultural labour', EPW, vol. 17, no. 52, 25 December. Mencher, J.P. (1987) 'Women's Work and Poverty: Women's Contribution to Household Maintenance in Two Regions of South India', mimeo, forthcoming in D. Dwyer and J. Bruce (eds), Women and Income Control. Mies, M. (1984) 'Indian Women in Subsistence and Agricultural Labour', World Employment Programme Research. Working Paper No. WEP 10/WP 34, ILO, Geneva. Miller, B. (1981) The Endangered Sex: Neglect of Female Children in Rural North India (New York: Cornell University Press). Minturn, L. and J. T. Hitchcock (1966) The Rajputs of Khalapur (New York: John Wiley). Murdock, G. P. (1967) 'Ethnographic atlas: a summary', Ethnology, vol. 6, no. 2, April. Murray, Sandra C. (1984) All in the Family: A Study of Family Life in a fat Sikh Village, PhD dissertation, University of California, San Diego. Nakane, C. (1967) Garo and Khasi: A Comparative Study in Matrilineal Systems (Paris and The Hague: Mouton). NSSO (1986) 37th Round Report of Land Holdings: 1. Some Aspects of Operational Holdings, Report no. 331, National Sample Survey Organisa• tion, Department of Statistics, Government of India, Delhi. NSSO (1987) 37th Round, Report on Land Holdings: 1. Some Aspects of Household Ownership Holdings, National Sample Survey Organisation, Dept. of Statistics, Government of India, Delhi. Omvedt, G. (1981) 'Effects of Agricultural Development on the Status of Women', paper prepared for the International Labour Office Tripartite Asian Regional Seminar on Rural Development and Women, Maha• baleshwar, India, 6-11 April. Parry, J. P. (1979) Caste and Kinship in Kangra (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House). Parthasarthy, C. (1982) 'Rural Poverty and Female Heads of Households: Need for Quantitative Analysis', paper presented at a Seminar on Women's Work and Employment, Institute of Social Studies Trust, 9-11 April. Rahman, R. I. (1986) 'Impact of Grameen Bank on the Situation of Poor Rural Women', Working Paper no. 1, Grameen Bank Evaluation Project, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Dacca. Raj, K. N. and M. Tharakan (1983) 'Agrarian reform in Kerala and its impact on the rural economy - a preliminary assessment' in Ajit Ghosh (ed.), Agrarian Reform in Contemporary Developing Countries (London: Croom Helm). 98 Women, Land and Ideology in India

Sen, A. K. (1981) Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Delhi: OUP). Sharma, Ursula (1980) Women, Work and Property in North-West India (London and New York: Tavistock). Shiva, V. and J. Bandhyopadhyay (1987) 'Chipko', Seminar, no. 330, February. Sopher, D. E. (1980) 'The geographic patterning of culture in India' in D. E. Sopher (ed.), An Exploration of India: Geographic Perspectives on Society and Culture (London: Longman). Standing, Hilary (1987) 'Women's Land Rights in Reserved Munda Areas of Bihar', a note, AFRAS, University of Sussex. Sundaram, K. and S. Tendulkar (1983) 'Towards an Explanation of Inter• regional Variation in Poverty and Unemployment in Rural India', Work• ing Paper no. 237, Delhi School of Economics, May. Sundaram R. M. (1987) Growth and Income Distribution in India: Policy and Performance since Independence (Delhi: Sage Publications). Tambiah, S. J. (1965) 'Kinship fact and fiction in relation to the Kandyan Sinhalese', IRA/, vol. 95, part II, Jan-Dec. Visaria, P. and L. Visaria (1985) 'Indian households with female heads: their incidence, characteristics and level of living', in Devaki Jain and Nirmala Banerjee (eds), Tyranny of the Household: Investigative Essays on Women's Work (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House). Yalman, Nur (1962) 'The structure of the Sinhalese kindred: a re• examination of the Dravidian terminology', American Anthropologist, vol. 64, no. 3, part 1, June. Yalman, Nur (1967) Under the Bo Tree: Studies in Caste, Kinship and Marriage in the Interior of Ceylon (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press). 4 Petty Trading and the Ideology of Gender Segregation in Urban South lndia1 Johanna Lessinger

INTRODUCTION

In every society, a variety of conflicting ideologies having to do with sexuality, maternity, domination/subordination and economic pro• ductivity serve to define what is labelled, for lack of a better term, 'women's role'. This chapter uses data from India to examine the economic impact on women of these ideologies. In India two cultural ideals - that of female modesty and that of sacrificial motherhood - intersect to define women's activities, including their economic behaviour, in a variety of ways. This chapter is concerned with how these sets of ideas, when put into practice, cripple but do not wholly crush, one group of women's ability to enter the paid workforce and to become self-supporting. The larger context of the chapter is, of course, the ongoing question of why women end up clustered in one section of the workforce and not in another. The argument offered here is that although ideology and cultural norms can be shown to constrict women's economic participation in very concrete ways, they contain as well the seeds of resistance and change, the building blocks from which new traditions can be forged. 2 This detailed case study of women petty traders in the south Indian city of Madras shows precisely how cultural notions of appropriate female behaviour shape one very prevalent kind of work taken up by poor urban women and impair their ability to do that work as successfully as men. Ideologically, no Indian woman should work for others or move far beyond her own household. On the other hand, economic forces - in this case dire poverty and the overwhelming need of Madras's poor urban households for women's earnings - provide a countervailing pressure. As elsewhere in India, large numbers of women in Madras are driven to go out to work, despite

99 100 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India

the ideological barriers. In doing so they may not achieve full economic autonomy. The market women in this study, for instance, remain economically dependent on male kin because cultural press• ures make it impossible for a woman to do some of the tasks involved in trading. In ideological terms, because their contradictory situation places them in a dilemma, women traders themselves become adept at a conceptual redefinition of their work and its meaning, rendering employment possible, personally easier and less threatening to the dominant patriarchal ideology. Nevertheless this redefinition may be a form of women's covert resistance. Certainly it suggests the basis for changing prevailing attitudes in the future. This question of altering cultural attitudes toward women's em• ployment is particularly important since the dominant ideology affects not only workers and potential workers but also planners and social workers attempting to promote women's welfare through employment schemes. These professionals are themselves often infected with the dominant ideology about the impropriety of women's employment - perhaps even more strongly since they themselves often come from the kinds of bourgeois Indian families which have historically maintained the tightest control over women's sexuality and mobility. Thus any attempt to change India's dominant ideologies about women's work must be society-wide, affecting the attitudes not only of poor families but of the managerial classes as well. The whole question of women's ability to find employment is particularly critical in the Indian situation in which there is wide• spread hardship, a general scarcity of work for both sexes and a resulting acute competition for jobs. This paper suggests that ideolo• gical factors may be decisive in the falling labour market participation of Indian women - a fall which feminist social scientists there have viewed with alarm. 3 One of the purposes of this chapter is to examine a situation in which women, despite cultural barriers, have actually managed to work within a mixed-sex environment, through symbolic redefinition of the work situation. It is suggested that these female strategies - although far from adequate in allowing women a full range of employment - may nevertheless eventually prove useful in helping both women and men to reconceptualise gender relations in the Indian workplace. This is not as wildly idealistic as it seems, since India's ongoing capitalist growth will eventually draw ever-larger Johanna Lessinger 101 numbers of women into the workforce. In such a situation ideologies of gender segregation will be under increasing strain, although they will also remain supremely useful in male attempts to exclude or marginalise women in a highly competitive labour market. Attacks on gender segregation have already come from India's thriving women's movement,4 in which the links between urban intellectuals and grass-roots activists are far closer than in the West. From this movement have come both active efforts to end the helplessness and dependency unemployment forces on women, and direct attacks on patriarchal ideology.

MADRAS AND ITS MARKETS

Madras, capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, is one of India's major cities, with a population of around 3 million people in 1971, when this research was first begun. In 1981 the population was officially around 3.5 million, and by 1986 it had surged to around 5 million, swelled by several years of severe drought and a flood of Tamil refugees from the civil war in nearby Sri Lanka. The city's rapid postwar growth is fuelled by the region's uneven development, which has increased agricultural productivity but has undermined the position of small farmers, landless labourers and artisans. Much of this 'surplus' rural population, forced out of the villages, has flocked to the state's large towns and cities in search of work. In urban areas, however, the region's sluggish industrialisation has failed to generate enough work in the formal sector. 5 Thus Madras, like so many other third world urban centres, has an enormous 'informal' sector,6 which employs thousands, particularly those first-generation rural migrants who continue to arrive in attempts to earn a more secure living. To accommodate the influx Madras itself goes on expanding its bound• aries outward, with the endless creation of new housing colonies on the peripheries. In Madras's dense residential neighbourhoods, local retail market places have grown up, often in conjunction with more substantial bazaar shopping areas or central public facilities such as temples and bus depots. In addition to providing neighbourhoods with their chief source of fresh food (chiefly fruit and vegetables), trading in these retail markets provides the unskilled urban poor with one of the most accessible and sought-after forms of informal sector employment. Two periods of research in eleven of these local retail markets and in 102 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India

the central wholesale market make clear the dynamics of trader recruitment and the process of market place growth. Perhaps 100 of these retail produce markets exist in the city, ranging from the older, licensed public or private markets to newer 'illegal' markets along roadways or at intersections. The busiest and most prosperous of these markets had, at their period of most rapid growth in the early 1970s, as many as 200 male and female vendors present on any one day. The least prosperous markets, located in desperately poor neighbourhoods which can support only minimal retail trade, hold only a handful of vendors, usually elderly and female. Wherever they sell, these traders share a dependence on a chain of professional intermediaries who move produce from farmer to consumer. The retail traders, the last link in the distribution chain, buy goods in credit from the commission agent/wholesalers in Kottuwal Chavadi, the city's central wholesale market. Few of these retailers, even the most successful, ever move up the chain to become wholesalers since the job's initial capital demands and the range of needed social networks are beyond their reach. Wholesaling is totally closed to women, whatever their class level. Interviews with 249 of these men and women retailers indicates that at least half were themselves rural immigrants who had come to Madras in childhood or young adulthood as part of family migrations. Many of the rest, who proudly dubbed themselves 'Madras natives', nevertheless remembered the names of villages from which their parents or grandparents had migrated before taking up trading. Thus for two generations or more, the city's retail markets have provided work for those of the city's poor, including newcomers, who lack formal skills. Aspiring petty traders must use their social networks extensively in order to locate suppliers and a selling spot and to build up credit ratings. They must then invest a small amount of capital and long hours of their own and their families' labour. Those who can accomplish this are able to support themselves at an adequate, if hardly lavish, standard of living. (This means that the average trading family can afford a rented tenement room or a hut in a slum, two or three complete meals a day, a second set of clothing for each family member, bus fares and occasional expenditures on festivals or life crisis rituals.) Profits, which the vendors estimate fairly accurately to be about 10 per cent of their total sales volume, can be increased within limits by intensifying labour input. This has the effect of increasing turnover, and places a premium on the use of unpaid family labour. However, Johanna Lessinger 103 like the rest of the city's working class, the average trading family finds its livelihood precarious. The illness or death of an adult family member is likely to throw the household back into destitution. Within any retail market place the scale of individual operations varies widely, and within these gradations, women are confined to the lower rungs. MUch of this female marginalisation can be traced specifically to the cultural barriers which either forbid women to do many of the essential tasks of retailing or make accomplishment of these tasks inordinately difficult, even dangerous. To be successful women traders must therefore continue to rely on men to do certain aspects of the job for them. Although they do not have a clear overview of their situation, women are at least partially aware of this problem, and many chafe against the barriers to their greater involvement in trading. This clash between female role expectations and the particular work conditions of trading will be discussed in detail later. There are in most market places a few very prosperous large traders, selling plantain leaves (used as plates by the orthodox), or large quantities of vegetables or fruit. (Butchers and large-scale fish vendors, outside the immediate scope of this paper, are also part of the market-place elite.) These big traders, who are without exception male, have often attained their relative affluence by combining their daily retail sales with contract sales to institutional kitchens or to restaurants. The vastly increased turnover made possible by this contract selling is the only method by which retail traders can accumulate significant amounts of capital, since all trade in perishable produce is relatively low-profit. This small group of male traders, which tends to invest its profits in agricultural land, houses, dairy cattle, trucks or rickshaws for hire, routinely employs male servants to help in the work of running the business. Interviews with such men suggest that before they were rich enough to hire male servants, many had their wives working alongside them. It seems to be relative affluence which has persuaded these men to withdraw their wives from trade to the greater prestige of home and housework. Below this small group of very prosperous traders there is a large middle group of vegetable and fruit sellers, both male and female, using family labour and the occasional hired youth. Marketers at this level earn an adequate living selling a selection of vegetables or fruits to a regular group of daily retail customers. There are women as well as men running such small retail stalls, and a certain number of such concerns are run by husband-wife teams. Indeed these jointly run 104 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India

businesses are some of the most successful of the middle-range concerns, since women are often more energetic and responsible than hired men, while their labour is, of course, free. Some households, instead of designating the woman her husband's assistant, assign her a separate stall in the same market place. The strategy apparently increases overall sales by increasing the number of outlets. It also allows the household to control another selling spot in the market in situations where selling spots have a resale value. At the bottom of the trader hierarchy are the smallest sellers, dealing either in the highly-perishable, low-profit items such as greens, herbs, flowers, betel leaves and limes, or in tiny piles of squashed and faded vegetables which will be bought by the very poorest consumers. Some of this group cannot afford to rent proper stalls; they sell instead from mats or baskets on the ground, usually at the physical periphery of the market area where sales are slower. Not surprisingly, this category of very small traders contains large num• bers of women, along with elderly men, children and young boys, and a few able-bodied men new to marketing. These sellers, clearly the most marginal to the trading system, often barely manage to support themselves. Childless elderly women in this category were found on occasion to be living in the market place itself, because they could not afford to rent anywhere in which to cook and sleep. Thus one of the anomalies of the marketing system in Madras, when it is compared with similar systems in other parts of the world, is that women traders are present, making up anything from a half to a quarter of the sellers at work in any one market place, yet they are somewhat marginal to the market's economic structure. Not only are women wholly absent from the wholesale market and from the tiny retailing elite, but so many are clustered among the least successful retailers. Women appear to be most successful when they are members of family trading teams which also include at least one man. Reinforcing this impression of female marginality is the fact that there were proportionally far fewer women selling in the busy and successful market places (such as Mambalam Market and the Zam Bazaar of 1973) than in the declining markets (such as McDonalds Market, Olaikardai or New Janda) which are losing trade. This marginality of women vendors is particularly striking in comparison to Latin America, the Caribbean, West Africa and South-East Asia, where petty trading, and particularly the retailing of food, are viewed as an almost exclusively female preserve, as 'women's work', the specifically female contribution to household Johanna Lessinger 105 production which complements male agricultural work. 7 Furth• ermore in these other societies there seem to be fewer curbs on the size and scope of women's trading operations, so that women are more evenly distributed within the various trader categories. Like much of the sexual division of labour anywhere, the Madras pattern has unique historical roots.8 Rural Tamil Nadu communities such as those from which most of these women migrated are already accustomed to the waged employment of women alongside men in agricultural tasks. There is therefore both a tradition of female extra-domestic paid work and a cultural precedent for men and women to do the same tasks in the same location. Urban petty trade in Tamil N adu has likewise remained open to both sexes. It is not defined entirely as 'men's work', which would place it culturally off-limits to women. In effect this kind of petty trade remains contested terrain within a society where many other kinds of labour remain gender-typed. As a result, amidst the perpetual job search which preoccupies India's urban poor, both men and women are competing for the available slots in the produce marketing system, although they themselves do not necessarily view the situation that way. The relative availability of work in petty trade is particularly crucial to poor Indian women, whose few job opportunities are confined overwhelmingly to the informal sector, whether in cities or in the countryside. As others have pointed out, informal sector work is notoriously irregular, unstable and poorly paid. 9 If unskilled men in Madras have difficulty finding jobs in either the formal or informal sector, unskilled women have still fewer choices in a city where neither the municipal government nor factories hire many women, and where domestic craft production is rapidly dying out. A few female alternatives remain: domestic service in one or more middle• class households; work in those remaining small courtyard factories which make things like bidis (a crude local cigarette) or cotton-filled mattresses and pillows; the backbreaking work of a coolie (porter) or construction worker. Some women can find home-work: sewing, finishing craft items, knotting fringes on saris, stitching dried-leaf plates or stringing flower garlands which others will sell. The pay for such work is pitifully inadequate. In such a situation of job scarcity, a selling space in the local retail market is something of a boon to women (Lessinger, 1985). Trading offers a source of income which is not wholly out of bounds within the local division of labour; it is both less exhausting and less humiliating 106 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India

than domestic service or working as a beast of burden. One woman, comparing her work in the market with previous experience as a domestic servant, said, 'At least there is nobody here to yell at me'. Furthermore, from the point of view of household survival strategy, women's trading opens the route to part- or full-time male involve• ment as well. When there is male assistance available, women's trading yields a better return than other kinds of female jobs. However, if women value work as petty traders, so do men. Moreover men are likely to be more successful at it. In this situation of implicit competition within a gender-segmented job market the ideology of male-female separation becomes a material force, dis• couraging some women from even entering trade and making others less than wholly successful. Thus men continue to dominate this kind of petty marketing, while still able to deploy the labour of wives, sisters and other female kin in the market place as needed.

SEPARATION, MODESTY AND SELF-SACRIFICE

The customary restrictions on women's activities, rooted in the ideologies of sexuality, power and hierarchy, severely undermine women's ability to carry out effective trading by themselves. 10 This is what renders women marginal in the Madras marketing system. It should be noted that the problem is not a straightforward prohibition on women's employment. Instead it is a far more complex set of ideas about women's innate nature and the sexual danger they pose, inimical to family honour. When acted upon, these ideas effectively prevent some women from working, place a variety of jobs outside the reach of other women and hamper female performance in virtually all kinds of employment. Throughout the Hindu and Muslim regions of India, there are strong local traditions of female 'modesty', a theoretically internal• ised form of sexual purity expressed most forcefully through patterns of male-female avoidance. The highly varied gradations of avoidance and seclusion in India form a continuum, as Ursula Sharma (1983) has noted, and all are mediated by local class relations. Avoidance ranges all the way from elaborate observances of full purdah, in which women veil their faces, avoid speaking directly to men, and remain in complete seclusion within the confines of the household, to more subtle systems such as that in operation among Hindus in Tamil Nadu and other areas of South India, where the separation of the Johanna Lessinger 107 sexes exists but is given less symbolic stress. The general south Indian patterns give women a certain flexibility, permitting them to move outside their homes unveiled and to occupy most social spaces alongside men, while still enjoining women to avoid physical proxim• ity, eye contact or direct social interaction with unrelated men. Thus beneath the comparative 'freedom' it gives women, the south Indian variant of male-female avoidance seems to share many of the underlying assumptions about sexuality, human nature and family status expressed in north Indian purdah. In her discussion of Tamil marriage, Sheryl Daniels (1980: 67) has described the perceived duty of 'good women' to observe these avoidance conventions, and the concommitant duty of husbands to provide their wives with privacy and seclusion within the household from 'the eyes of men'. Women who fully observe these customs preserve their inner modesty and their public reputations against the explosive, socially disruptive forces of unregulated human sexuality. For both sexes, the only effective controls on sexual behaviour are assumed to be external, rather than internal. Indeed women are thought to be more sexual than men, and thus in greater need of control. Since people cannot be expected to control their sexual feelings through learnt self-restraint, it is believed that only external restraints imposed by the social group prevent people from having indiscriminate and inappropriate sexual relations. The successful maintenance of female 'modesty' is a critical component of a family's honour and status, so that control over women and enforcement of the code becomes a vital concern to all family members. (In this aspect Indian beliefs and practices are strikingly similar to the honour/shame complex of Mediterranean societies (see Campbell, 1974). In both towns and villages of Tamil Nadu, women are not generally confined to special women's quarters of houses or flatly prohibited from leaving their own courtyards, as in so much of north India. Tamil Hindus do not veil their heads and faces, either before strangers or as a mark of respect for elders. As a result women can be seen on the streets, visiting, shopping, attending public functions, or at work in the fields and construction sites. Very orthodox or very high caste women may observe a stricter form of seclusion, usually phrased as a product of family or sub-caste tradition. Such a woman might boast, 'In our family, women never go outside alone.' This relatively extreme behaviour is (or was) an effective marker of high status, precisely because it contrasted with the comparative freedom 108 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India

of movement among most south Indian women. That 'freedom' may originate in a rice-growing agricultural system that depends heavily on female labour and in a marriage pattern that encourages village endogamy and marriage between relatives. Thus pressing economic/ ecological reasons to utilise female labour militate against a general rule of female seclusion; in addition, married women do not need to maintain the kind of respect avoidance before socially distant affines which rationalises much of the female seclusion in north India (Jacobson, 1982). Nevertheless, if south Indian women inhabit public space and are visible members of the community, they continue to observe more subtle avoidance conventions, expressed spatially. Men and women do not sit side by side or even gather in the same group to talk unless they are married or are close relatives. This leads to segregated seating on Madras city buses and at traditional social and religious functions. Even at more 'modern' affairs, where the seating is theoretically unsegregated, men and women will avoid sitting next to strangers of the opposite sex. If such seating arrangements cannot be avoided, as in an overcrowded concert hall at the height of the music season, people will manoeuvre to place an insulating child or a (presumably asexual) elderly person between the man and the woman. Within the household a definite, if flexible, spatial separation between the sexes is also maintained (see Hobson, 1982). Although there often are no formally designated women's quarters, it is understood that inner rooms are female territory, for dressing, sleeping, food preparation and entertaining female guests. The men of a family will usually congregate in the front room or porch of a house. Even where the living quarters consist of a single cramped room, men and women tend to use different areas of the available space. The spatial separation of the sexes persists in agricultural work, where south Indian women play such a major role (Hobson, 1982; Mencher, 1978; 1984). In agricultural tasks, mixed teams of men and women engaged in work like threshing tend to be made up of relatives, so that the sexual implications of physical proximity are muted. In other situations men and women work in separate groups in the same field. Much female agricultural work is done by gangs of women workers hired to transplant rice or weed a field. In at least some situations these all-female gangs are supervised by the older women of the farmer's household. 11 This avoidance of physical proximity between the sexes both Johanna Lessinger 109 contributes to and is reinforced by a carefully learnt avoidance of direct interaction. Outside the immediate family, men and women avoid addressing each other directly except on matters of pressing, immediate concern. The most respectful terms of reference and address, or kinship terminology, are employed. Men and women avoid looking each other in the eye, since the act of looking has powerful sexual significance in Tamil culture (see Daniels, 1980: 67). Some of these forms of avoidance are ameliorated where there are marked age differences or where the parties have grown very familiar with each other over time. Thus women who might be stricken with horrified embarrassment over the need to speak to a total stranger of their own age feel more comfortable interacting with men much older or much younger than themselves. Women also feel that they can speak to men grown familiar to them from their neighbourhoods or workplaces. In general, male-female avoidance grows stronger the further a person moves away from familiar people and territory. The ideal of the middle classes is that women who go outside the physical confines of the household (and by implication beyond its immediate social field) be escorted by a chaperone- a servant, a male relative, an older woman or, at a pinch, a child. The degree of chaperonage necessary varies with the location, the time of day, family status and the age of the woman involved. Young, nubile women are guarded most carefully while old women past menopause have relative latitude in their movements. Chaperonage becomes more necessary after dark. Urban schoolgirls may be trusted to take the bus in groups to classes but still require chaperonage from their mothers or married female neighbours for an evening visit to the temple. A trip out of the neighbourhood, across town, might require the presence of a man while long-distance travel demands it. Middle• class men spend much of their free time escorting female relatives on visits, shopping expeditions or visits to distant kin. The bitter complaint of many women is that they are perpetually housebound because there is nobody in the family willing to take them out. There is, of course, a strong class aspect to these conventions, which are observed most carefully and fully by the well-to-do and those with pretensions to high status. The traditional elite demons• trates its wealth not only by keeping 'its' women out of the labour force and wholly secluded from contaminating influences, but also by maintaining servants and leisured men to chaperone those women and to carry out chores involving movement beyond the home. The poor have no such options, and women in such families, in going 110 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India about unescorted, must necessarily flout middle-class convention, reinforcing upper-class prejudices and giving further proof of the shamelessness of the poor and low caste. In fact, poor women have simply replaced the individual chaperone who accompanies each woman personally with a kind of chaperonage by the larger social group. Both village women and working-class urban women in Tamil Nadu use something which I can only call 'social chaperonage'. This pattern, first reported by Brenda Beck (1972: 274) as a technique which eased her own fieldwork, allows a limited amount of male• female interaction as long as that interaction is carried on publicly, in front of an audience which knows both parties. For women whose daily work requires some contact with unrelated men, the presence of an audience of familiar people who can later vouch for the innocence of the interaction is apparently critical. This flexible and pragmatic technique, observing the spirit if not the letter of gender segregation conventions, allows poor women to travel and to work alongside men without a total loss of reputation and chastity. It is a technique which does not involve extra labour on the part of a chaperone. Thus gangs of women field-hands or road-workers can travel to other villages, sometimes without their husbands, if they are accompanied by fellow villagers. Women market traders invoke this kind of protection constantly, although, as I will show, it has its practical limits. Primarily it fails when the impersonality of the city throws women among strangers who can neither testify to her virtue nor exert strong social pressure against possible harassers. Indian society's preoccupation with chaperoning women is made necessary because the ultimate sanctions for female transgression against the conventions are sexual harassment and rape. It is impossible to know just how widespread these are in India. However, most urban Indian women have experienced sexual harassment and molestation (known as 'Eve teasing') on buses, trains and in public places. Madras market women were eloquent on the subject of the harassment they encountered. Rape is a growing concern of India's feminists, and the incidence of reported rape is rising, particularly in Indian cities. Again, there is a strong class component to the problem. Historically, coercive seduction and outright rape of poor and low-caste women were an assertion of privilege and superiority by high-caste men. 12 (Today the police are often the culprits.) As such, rape damages not just the woman herself but the honour and status of her family. Johanna Lessinger 111

Rape, however, is also used to punish women who disregard the conventions of female modesty and subservience. Helen Ullrich (1977: 96-7) mentions an instance of a high-caste woman in Karnata• ka, raped by the youths of her village who thought her too indepen• dent because she travelled outside the village alone. 'She must have deserved it,' is the frequent reaction to such attacks; it is assumed that no respectable woman would have been so alone or so far from home as to get raped. Such incidents serve as a threat to all women, reminding them of the penalties of deviance and making men's controlling, protective role seem more necessary. Despite the rigid conventions limiting women's activities there exists an ideological loophole which women frequently use when seeking employment. This involves an appeal to the cultural ideal of 'sacrificial motherhood', an integral part of the same patriarchal ideology which produces gender segregation, female seclusion and women's subordination. Under the banner of this idealised, heroic nurturance a truly womanly woman is enjoined to do anything, to make any sacrifice, for the sake of household welfare, for the sake of her husband, and especially for the sake of her children. The ideal is most frequently invoked when a woman is being urged to submit quietly - to anything from poverty or humiliation from her in-laws to wife-beating. It is the argument by which women are parted from their only wealth, their dowry jewellery. In its view of women's innate propensity for self-sacrifice this ideal leads to a view of women as better, purer, than men. At its literary extreme is the ultimate in sacrificial womanhood, the young prostitute who sells herself not out of viciousness but in order to save her family from starvation. 13 However much the ideal is invoked to justify female passivity and subordination, it can also be invoked to justify activity, particularly to justify the potentially deviant and compromising behaviour involved in working outside the home. Taking up employment is frequently defined, both by working women and their families, as a form of female sacrifice for family well-being. The woman gives up her cherished seclusion and bruises her innate modesty by going out of the household to work amongst potentially predatory (male) stran• gers. I have heard both middle-class women in white-collar jobs and women market traders describe their initial decision to go to work in almost identical terms. They describe overcoming timidity, their determination and endurance in the face of family opposition. The clinching argument in such remembered scenes is always the appeal 112 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India to overriding family need, and the inability of truly good woman to see her family suffer. 14 Those who invoke the self-sacrificing ideal do not always find their reasoning accepted by others. The daughter of an elderly market woman in Madras, married to a cousin in her mother's village, left her husband and returned to her mother's house with her baby. Soon she began to help her mother sell in the market. The young woman's own version of events was that her husband was a drunkard who beat her and had hurled the baby on the floor. She had returned to Madras to earn her own living, to support her child and to look after her old mother in her declining years. Most of the other market people thought the young woman was wrong and immodest. The more charitable shook their heads and counselled resignation, remarking that a woman's place was in her husband's house, whatever his behaviour. The cynical were sure that the girl had come to Madras to have affairs with other men. There was a certain shift of opinion when the husband himself showed up in the market to reclaim his errant wife. Staggering drunk, he wove his way down the line of stony-faced vendors, shouting abuse against his wife, the market, the evils of the city. Everyone met his queries by insisting that they had not seen the young woman, or her mother, for days, had no idea where they were ....

MODESTY AND THE WORKING WOMAN

Obviously, the mandates of gender segregation severely restrict women's physical mobility and their range of social networks. These limitations in turn hamper women's ability to enter the labour market. Women are rendered particularly unfit for the capitalist labour market which demands worker autonomy, physical mobility and (in areas where gender-segmentation of the labour market is of no value to capital) worker willingness to take a job alongside anyone, even those of the opposite sex. Indian women have great difficulties in fulfilling such requirements. Furthermore women's circumscribed lives may leave them with truncated social networks, unable to find out about work opportunities if they should be available. Thus many Indian women who sew, process grain or produce craft items at home nevertheless refuse to seek wage work outside the Johanna Lessinger 113 home, even if it offers better pay. As Maria Mies (1982b) says of a group of female lace-makers, the ideology linking female seclusion with preservation of family honour not only survives but can be vigorously defended in the face of the most extreme poverty. It is no surprise that as researchers and social workers discover the huge numbers of Indian women who clamour for work to supplement family income, they also discover that such women overwhelmingly favour work which they can do at home or, at most, in all-female work environments. 15 When women like these market traders do manage- with difficulty- to get employment outside the home, their jobs often leave them economically marginal and unable to accumu• late capital without the considerable assistance of their male kin. Such a career path reinforces culturally defined female helplessness in the 'public' world beyond the home. Furthermore the ideological pressure against these women's involvement in trade, plus their relative lack of individual success in it, means that they can easily be pushed out of trade again. Women as workers, or potential workers, are not the only people to be caught up in the prevailing ideology and practice of gender segregation. Indian planners and Indian social workers are, to their credit, beginning to take seriously the lack of paid work which is at the root of women's social disabilities. Some officials, unconcerned about women's particular oppression, nevertheless see the employ• ment of women, especially in the informal sector, as a quick way to raise overall household incomes in a country where male wages are often insufficient to support a family (see Jain et al., 1980). Thus there are increasingly more efforts to find or create work for poor women. Yet these planners and social activitists themselves often fall into the same ideological trap as those they seek to help, believing that 'decent' women should be given work to do at home, or at best in all-female work environments. This simply reinforces the tendency to confine poor women's employment to the informal sector. Unfortunately, this kind of secluded women's work is not ideal even from the purely economic viewpoint. Home-work is at present increasingly scarce in an economy where domestic production and handicrafts are facing stiff competition from mechanically-produced goods. Furthermore home-work and all-female workshops have historically subjected women to gross exploitation (Jain et al., 1980: 1-17, 147, 186-206). The danger is that even idealistically conceived development schemes, because they are designed to generate income 114 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India quickly without arousing male opposition, may tacitly reinforce the notion that women can only be employed safely at home or among other women.

THE PARTICULAR PLIGHT OF MADRAS MARKET WOMEN

A detailed examination of the actual tasks Madras's market traders do makes it clear how hampered women are in the performance of this relatively gender-neutral job. 16 Unable to carry out the full range of trading activities, or to pursue the few routes to expansion and capital accumulation, women remain dependent on male household members for crucial help. In this way, although trading is an important working-class female occupation, it offers women only the most minimal form of economic independence. Furthermore, the precarious male job situation in Madras encourages some men to abandon their own poorly paid jobs and to take over the small trading enterprises their wives have started. In such a situation, women become helpers and subordinates, rather than proprietors of their own businesses. For instance a woman selling in New Janda Market explained with some amusement her husband's initial vehement opposition to her decision to begin selling. Now, however, he was full of enthusiasm for her trading, and planned to devote much of his time to it. His own job, as an auto-rickshaw driver, had collapsed after a serious accident in which the rickshaw was demolished. In another case a very timid young woman, married to a coolie attached to the municipal harbour, had been encouraged by her husband to take up trading in Olakardai to tide the family over his frequent periods of seasonal unemploy• ment. Whenever he himself did not have work, the husband accom• panied his wife. In both these instances it was clear that the man was likely to become the dominant figure in the trading business at the point at which he began to make it his primary occupation. In a few cases of very successful enterprises, women withdraw from the family business altogether, to be replaced by hired men. This pattern might never have been detected except for discrepancies in the occupational history given by two prominent male traders. Both denied indignantly that their wives had ever helped them in the business. 'My wife is too respectable. She would never come here,' one man said with some heat. However in another interview, reminiscing about his start in trading, he let slip the fact that his wife Johanna Lessinger 115 used to help him, some ten to fifteen years before, when the business was new and small. At that time the husband had been working primarily as a chauffeur to a powerful political figure. Obviously some women traders contribute so significantly to a business's success that the family becomes part of the genuinely petty capitalist market elite. The family then feels obliged to assert its new status through keeping the woman at home and replacing her labour with that of a male servant. It is not clear what women themselves think about such a situation. The tension which exists between the demands of status and the need for female labour was amusingly illustrated in the case of C, illegitimate son of a high status rural land-owning family. C arrived in Mylapore market determined to make money, to make a success of himself, and to validate the status he felt entitled to. C married a pretty young woman, daughter of a widowed market trader. C was careful to tell the researchers that his wife was 'at home'; in fact she rarely went out of their tiny one-room tenement alone. However C had no qualms about accepting extensive help from his shrewd, practical mother-in-law, owner of the highly valuable market stall C occupied. She minded the stall, handled the family finances and put at her son-in-law's disposal her considerable skill, experience and extensive networks within the market. The primary difficulties women encounter in their trading stem from the constraints on their physical mobility and on their interac• tion with men. In general women have the greatest difficulty in those tasks which take them outside their own market places. Already full of her kin, neighbours or fellow villagers because of market recruit• ment patterns, a woman trader's own market constitutes the audience, the group chaperones who can vouch for her good behaviour even when her husband or son is not present. Within the market, male traders are elaborately courteous and protective of the women around them. Much of this courtesy involves ignoring the women, using the politest terms of address or reference or avoiding direct address altogether. As a courtesy, men will refrain from looking at the women they work beside. With fellow traders who are actual kin or with whom they have long familiarity, women will be much more relaxed. In such situations reciprocal kinship terms may be used. By calling someone 'aunt', 'older brother' or 'mother' Tamils customari• ly establish a mood which is both respectful and somewhat intimate, and in such a setting, similar to that in residential neighbourhoods, women can ask the men around them for occasional assistance and 116 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India advice. More importantly, women are protected in their necessary interactions with outsiders: male customers, the market collector, the moneylender or the wholesaler's representative who arrives to fetch a payment. These comparative strangers to the market will not dare to insult a woman working in a setting which has, in various subtle ways, been defined as like her own protective home. Beyond the small market-place community, defined in some measure as an extension of the household, lie endless threats to a woman's modesty and propriety. This is the point at which a woman moves out into the world of strangers and social chaperonage is no longer effective. The first chore of every retailer is to procure supplies from the city's central wholesale market, Kottuwal Chavadi. Every two or three days, if not more often, retailers make early-morning buying trips to wholesale houses in the oldest section of the city. In addition to filth and crowding, the area is rowdy, with large numbers of pavement dwellers, cheap liquor shops, sellers of smuggled goods and a good deal of prostitution. Women traders who venture there face verbal harassment from the market porters, and risk being accosted as prostitutes. At a series of wholesale shops women must bargain aggressively with high-status male merchants, or their far from respectful clerks. Women describe the process as an ordeal and an affront to their modesty; some flatly refuse to do their own buying at Kottuwal Chavadi. Others go, in groups, but none will attend the pre-dawn auctions of early-arriving goods where the best bargains are to be found. Even the trips to and from Kottuwal Chavadi are fraught with hazards. Women describe being pinched and caressed on buses, being propositioned by the wholesale dealers and threatened by rickshaw drivers when trying to arrange transportation home with their sacks and baskets of goods. There is an element of coercion in this because women are being encouraged to trade sexual favours for co-operation in the transport of their goods or for lower prices. Significantly, these are all situations in which a woman is likely to be alone, isolated from the protective group. Women are thus immediately faced with a dilemma: they can grit their teeth, endure the sexually charged atmosphere of the wholesale market with its verbal and physical harassment, to find good prices and high quality vegetables. Or women can find a man to do their buying for them. Women with husbands, sons or brothers can usually get the men to handle the procurement aspect of the business. This is Johanna Lessinger 117 easiest for men whose own working hours are flexible or short. L, the office peon in a large Government department, had for years done his wife's buying in Kottuwal Chavadi. He delivered the goods to her in Zam Bazaar before showing up at his office at 10 a.m. At the 4 p.m. closing time, he returned to help his wife until Zam Bazaar shut around 9 p.m. Their combined efforts gave the household two steady incomes. Women without men in the household are less fortunate. If they have male kin among their fellow vendors, women may ask the men to buy for them and to establish the needed long-term relationship with particular wholesalers. Otherwise such women may simply purchase what they need from the largest male retailers in their own market. In either situation goods cost the woman more and cut into her already slender profit margin. Furthermore she loses control over procurement, a crucial aspect of her business. The barriers to male-female interaction operate even more strong• ly to prevent women from setting up contract sales businesses. This lucrative side-line taken up by some of the larger male retailers involves monthly or yearly contracts to provide restaurants, hospit• als, schools, prisons, factories or merchant vessels with all their daily vegetables, fruit or plantain leaves (used as plates). The retailer who can buy goods in bulk and deliver them daily to a commercial kitchen can make a sizeable profit simply because the quantities involved are larger than in retail sales. For retailers who can rarely hope to become wholesalers, this contract supplying is one of the few routes to the accumulation of significant investment capital. Virtually all of the retail elite had taken on some form of it in addition to running retail stalls. Yet this lucrative aspect of retail trade- with its potential for social mobility - is not open to women. Several women who had contemplated such a business noted that no woman could safely move around the city, developing the kind of special relationship with wholesalers that brings concessional prices, and dealing with institu• tional paymasters over the monthly bills. Women also find it impossi• ble to hire male servants, an absolute necessity if a contract business is to be run properly. This inability to hire servants, and thus to mobilise extra, non• family labour power, is a critical barrier to women's expansion of their businesses, since they cannot simply intensify their labour input. Male traders, as noted earlier, turn first to their own household members - wives, children, elderly parents or in-laws, younger brothers- for help, since these sources of labour are free. If such 118 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India household labour is unavailable, men hire boys or young men to help them. The wages are low, but the understanding is that the servant will eventually take up retailing on his own, after he has saved some money, accumulated experience and developed an informal credit rating. When such a young man launches his own business, his employer usually contributes some money to his starting capital. This relationship is impossible for a woman working alone, howev• er. What might seem a rather innocent employer-employee rela• tionship between an adult woman and a boy or young man is apparently considered too intimate in the absence of a watchful husband. This attitude became apparent in the case of one rather formidable woman trader, an abandoned wife whose children were too small to help her. During the course of the field study this attractive middle-aged woman did try to hire a young male assistant, after a nephew proved useless as her assistant. The storm of gossip and scandal which shook the market forced her to get rid of him within days. The woman was thus thrown back on the rather intermittent assistance of a male cousin, and the feckless nephew. This case, plus the total absence of businesses run by single women with male employees, suggests social chaperonage by fellow traders is somehow ineffective against the dangers of a man and woman working closely together in the rather cramped quarters of a market stall. If, in general, the familiar market place is morally and physically safe for the adult married woman trader, it is considered tremendous• ly dangerous for young, unmarried girls and women. Puberty and the approach of marriage render Tamil girls particularly vulnerable to 'the watchful eyes of men' as well as to malign supernatural inftuences. 17 The public exposure of the market place is particularly damaging, both to a girl's inner purity and to her public reputation. The audience of public chaperones, instead of protecting the girl, becomes part of the threat to her. A woman selling in New Janda Market explained how her daughter, who used to help her, was now kept at home. 'We are arranging her marriage. We can't let her come here now,' the woman said, going on to indicate that any gossip might damage the girl's reputation for virginity and upset the marriage negotiations. In another instance K, a capable, well-spoken young woman of twenty or so, insisted that she 'never' went to the market. This was somewhat astonishing since the researchers had met her while interviewing her parents in Mandaivalli Market. The statement was Johanna Lessinger 119 the key to K's difficult and ambiguous position, however. Educated to seventh standard, K's parents wanted her to get a prestigious (i.e. non-manual) job to raise family status. K could not find such work since her education was not sufficiently extensive. The family was also trying to arrange K's marriage to a cousin, but was having difficulty meeting the dowry demands. Meanwhile the household was slipping into greater poverty as the elderly father became more and more unable to run the retail business. K's mother desperately needed help in keeping the stall going, but she had to depend on a younger daughter of ten and a scrawny, overworked son of about twelve. K, physically strong, intelligent and literate, would have made an ideal assistant for her mother. Because of the vulnerability created by her nubile, unmarried state, K only visited her mother in the market, and was not permitted to do any work there. Like hundreds of girls and young women, K was being denied a crucial apprenticeship in the intricacies of retail trade, an apprenticeship which young men her age were already serving. 18 When girls emerge as young matrons from the period of seclusion imposed on them by puberty and impending marriage, they may again take up trading alongside husbands, mothers-in-law, parents or even wholly on their own. By this time they are at a considerable disadvantage compared to the male traders around them. Less experienced, less familiar with the competition, without established credit ratings or much capital, and burdened with the care of children, women traders cannot hope to be as successful as their male competitors. The dependence women develop on the social ties, protection and chaperonage within their own familiar market places makes it more difficult for them to relocate if trade collapses. Traders rarely leave a market once they have obtained a selling space (and a social niche) in a particular location, unless trade in that market begins to decline markedly. Most of the markets studied in 1973 were in the process of growth, but some were suffering a loss of trade, either because the surrounding neighbourhood was becoming more impoverished or because the growth of one market damaged its nearby competitors. In 1986 several once-thriving markets were losing trade because their landlords had neglected the premises, hoping to drive out the traders, demolish the market place and erect a more profitable structure. The response of male traders to a drop-off in trade is usually to seek out a better selling location. To make such a move they utilise all their networks, visiting relatives, friends and aquaintances in other 120 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India markets to test the waters, locate potential selling spots and win the approval of those already established there. In some markets space can be had simply by offering a substantial bribe to the market rent collector and by buying the rights to a selling spot from somebody who is retiring. In a busy market, however, entry of a new vendor also requires the tacit approval of those already working there. Long tenure in a market is understood to confer the right to bring relatives, close friends or political clients into any vacant space. Wealthier and more influential traders can assert their right to insert newcomers more effectively than the marginal and poor. In such a situation women are again at a disadvantage, since they find it harder to travel around the city exploring new sites, have less capital to purchase a space and have less powerful and effective social networks than men. Women can hardly offer themselves as effective political followers to the market leader, should he have political aspirations, a common route for young male traders. Most declining market places therefore contain an unusually large number of elderly women vendors, left behind when the tide of trade shifts. Women traders also suffer actual discrimination from the wholesal• ers to whom they must apply for goods on credit. Women themselves complain that they cannot expand their trading operations because the suppliers will not allow them to take more goods on credit. This discrimination, however, is not simply anti-female prejudice, but is the direct result of women's reduced selling capacity. The Working Women's Forum, an organisation founded in Madras in 1978 to make small loans to women petty traders, artisans and agricultural workers, has begun to tackle the problem. The forum has had great success in setting up loan funds which have allowed thousands of poor women to take up various kinds of small-scale self-employment (Jeffers, 1981), including petty trade. By 1986 the idea of setting aside loans particularly designated for poor women had caught on in political circles. The ruling party in Tamil Nadu, the All-India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (A-I DMK), had made a similar small loan programme part of its grass-roots organising strategy in Madras slums. The effort, however symbolic, was part of a concerted drive to build A-I DMK loyalty among women, who are thought to be particularly devoted to Chief Minister (and former movie star) M.G. Ramachandran. However, the problem is obviously more complicated than the simple shortage of credit and capital which women traders' own analyses would suggest. The difficulty is more widespread, reflecting Johanna Lessinger 121 accurately women's economic marginality in the marketing system. Although women may enter trade in large numbers, 19 they will still find it virtually impossible to expand their businesses into true profitability. Women, with their far smaller resources for increasing sales volumes, simply do not measure up in the extensive if informal credit checks wholesalers carry out on everybody- male and female - who wants to buy now and pay later. Suppliers are cautious because, they estimate, as many as 25 per cent of their retail customers eventually default. Nevertheless the tendency to deny women credit because their trading is too petty involves a self-fulfilling prophecy which helps keep women's operations small.

CONCLUSION

As feminist social scientists have known for some time, cultural ideals about 'women's nature' and women's appropriate behaviour become material forces in shaping women's economic participation. This case study from a part of India in which ideals of gender segregation are somewhat less severe than in the country as a whole suggests the limitations (and some of the small areas of freedom and innovation) in poor women's employment. Some women are kept out of the workforce altogether because they cannot, or are forbidden, to encounter strange men. Other women do take on extra-domestic jobs, but the range of work they can do is vastly narrowed by the cultural pressures on them to remain secluded from men. Essentially they seek and enter only those kinds of jobs whose physical and social demands can be accommodated within local conventions of propriety. Women traders in Madras are among those who can find work but who remain marginal in terms of what trading might offer them. Some of these female traders find themselves moved into or out of their jobs in response to the demands of male employment and family prestige, becoming at one stage of the family developmental cycle auxiliary labourers, the family's most mobile economic resource, and at another stage emblems of status through their mandatory semi• seclusion. In such a situation the duality of the ideology, which simultaneously tolerates the self-sacrificing woman going out to work and idealises the secluded woman immured in her household, is extremely useful in radically altering the economic contribution of the same woman. 122 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India

This phenomenon also suggests that researchers can no longer make a firm analytic distinction between women who work and women who remain 'at home', since some women obviously do both, depending on their circumstances. Instead we need to look in greater detail at where women end up within a gender-segmented workforce, and why. The most striking feature of the Madras marketing system is the degree to which all women traders remain dependent on men, whether in their families or in their market places, for critical assistance in buying supplies. The result of female engagement in trade, therefore, is that although many women may be able to keep themselves and their families from total starvation, they never really obtain economic autonomy through this kind of work. Furthermore, in endless ways the structure of patriarchal control and privilege remain intact, since women themselves continue to observe many of the conventions of male-female separation at the cost of their economic activities. The implication of this situation for planners is that attempts to find or create work for poor women must involve more than the creation of new, sheltered niches within the service economy. At some point there must be an ideological assault on the whole structure of gender segregation which so hampers women economically. Otherwise, in the already overcrowded informal sector women will continue to lose out in the economic competition with men doing the same work. In this situation a tacit acceptance of existing patterns and ideals will not appreciably change Indian women's desperate situation. This, of course, is a delicate task, since it requires the active collaboration of women whose entire energy is often occupied with the task of physical survival. It frequently seems arrogant to ask such women to take the risks involved in breaking with tradition, in moving out of the protected, enclosed realm of household and neighbourhood into jobs amidst strangers. Nevertheless planners, social workers and feminist activists need to begin envisioning major changes in both social organisation and ideology, to think beyond what is to what might be. In doing so it is useful to look again at working-class women's intense desire to earn a living, and at the ways they have been able to organise their working lives to make that possible. The often oppressive ideal of maternal or feminine self-sacrifice takes on a new twist when women themselves invoke it in order to win the right to take jobs. In doing so they are insisting that their employment Johanna Lessinger 123 contributes more to family well-being than does their household seclusion. The argument is not always successful, and parents, parents-in-law and husbands retain the right to order women to stay home and to attend to their 'natural' duties in the household. However, large numbers of poor women do go out to work, particularly in urban areas, as do growing numbers of women from once-conservative middle- and lower middle-class families. This suggests that, whatever the motivation, a non-domestic definition of women's roles and duties must gain ground. Perhaps the most fruitful form of female manoeuvering within the boundaries of an oppressive system is the use of social chaperonage, which seems widespread in south India, and perhaps in other parts of the country as well. Women have reinterpreted the mandate for chaperonage imposed by intense concerns with sexual propriety in order to produce something both more flexible and less wasteful of others' labour than the middle-class pattern. It is possible for a poor woman to work alongside unrelated men if her every interaction is open to public scrutiny. In some sense the work group, already rendered a cohesive unit, becomes the guardian of the women within it. Women traders in Madras have successfully adapted this conven• tion in order to work in mixed-sex market places where many co-workers are neither real relatives nor actual neighbours. Obvious• ly this strategy has its limitations; these are visible in the fact that women are unable to do successfully those trading tasks which take them physically or socially outside the protective circle of the familiar market place. This limitation is emphasised by the anonymous nature of work in a large city. Nevertheless this technique seems worthy of both further notice and deliberate enhancement. Since all workers, world-wide, seem concerned to humanise the workplace and to make it more comfortable socially, it seems logical to emphasise the aspects which make it comfortable and safe for women to work alongside men, and to seek to create such work environments.

Notes

1. Earlier versions of this paper appeared in Manushi (no. 28, 1985) and in Feminist Studies, vol. 12, no. 3, Fall1986. The data were collected during two periods of research, in 1971-3 and in 1986; the earlier work was funded by the National Science Foundation. Thanks are due toM. Bhar• athan and G. Vasantha for their assistance during the course of the 124 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India

research. Joan Mencher, Frances Rothstein and Nina Glick Schiller made valuable comments on this paper. 2. Increasingly anthropologists, following the lead of historians such as Eric Hobsbawm and Terrance Ranger (eds) (1983), have become aware of how actively and constantly culture is reshaped and tradition reinvented from materials present in the cultural repertoire. 3. Indian Council of Social Science Research, Status of Women in India: Report of the National Commission (Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1975); Mitra (1979); Mitra eta/. (1981). 4. The clearest record of these debates is found in the pages of the Indian feminist journal Manushi: A Journal About Women and Society. 5. For a full discussion of the city marketing system in relation to the regional economy, see Lessinger (1976). 6. See Bromley and Gerry (1979) for an account of the informal sector which is applicable to India as well as to other parts of the third world. The concept of an informal sector, which some have questioned, seems useful and relevant here, as does Bromley's and Gerry's decision to group certain kinds of wage work with certain kinds of self-employment. 7. See, for instance, Sudarkasa (1973); Dewey (1962); Chinas (1973); Mintz (1964). 8. See the suggestion of Raju (1984) that there are marked regional differences in women's workforce participation and that these cut across class lines. Maria Mies (1982a) also stresses the historical background of a particular local division of labour. 9. See Bromley and Gerry (1979) on the salient characteristics of 'casual' or informal sector work. 10. Sidney Mintz (1971) was one of the first to note systematically how customary restrictions on women's physical mobility hamper the scope of female trading. 11. Material presented by Kenneth David (1980) suggests that in Tamil areas of Sri Lanka wives of land-owners often serve as the liasons between the male land-owner and women field-hands. 12. See Kolenda (1985: 24, 26). James Freeman (1979) offers a fascinating view-from-within of sexual coercion, amateur prostitution, and the (mis)use of 'social chaperonage' conventions. 13. A good example is in Kamala Markandaya's novel, Nectar in a Sieve, New York: The John Day Company Inc., 1954. 14. The motif of self-sacrifice to justify employment appears in the accounts offered by Patricia Caplan (1985); Promilla Kapur (1972); Rhoda Blumberg and Leela Dwaraki (1980). 15. See Chapter 1 and Hilde Jeffers (aka Helzi Napponen) (1981). Her report analyses both the difficulties and successes of an innovative attempt to extend women's employment and to empower working women in the process. 16. In both rural and poor urban families, women are often entrusted with keeping the household funds and regulating their expenditure. The problem is not, therefore, that women are culturally defined as unable to handle money or understand business affairs. In fact they are thought to be shrewd managers, in part because their loyalty to household and Johanna Lessinger 125

children discourages wastefulness or unwise speculation. 17. Sheryl Daniels (1980: 72-5) sees one model of ideal Tamil female behaviour as involving a 'nurturant form of control' within the family. Despite the theoretical subservience of women, this model awards them an innate moral superiority and greater capacity for self-sacrifice than men. This does not translate into power or autonomy for women, but rather tends to reaffirm their exclusively domestic roles and capacities. 18. This young woman's plight is also representative of another problem: education, which confers status and imparts Sanskritised ideals offemale behaviour, makes girls reluctant to take up the kind of trading their mothers did. The new 'respectability' demands more rigorous seclusion of women, and increases the demand for jobs in a gender-segregated environment. See Chapters 5 and 6. 19. Wholesalers make small loans to help some women retailers set up business initially. It is clearly advantageous for suppliers to have as many retail customers as possible willing to take the cheapest and most perishable goods off their hands. It would seem a matter of economic indifference to wholesalers whether their larger retail customers were male or female, so long as they were solvent and reliable. However, the structure of patriarchal privilege is fragile and easily threatened. Obviously the physical mobility and social freedom implied by successful female trading is threatening to this structure and, as men, wholesalers have a stake in preserving it.

References

Beck, B. (1972) Peasant Society in Konku (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press). Blumberg, R. and L. Dwaraki (1980) India's Educated Women (Dehli: Hindustan Publishing Corporation). Bromley, R. and C. Gerry (1979) 'Who are the casual poor?' in Bromley and Gerry (eds), Casual Work and Poverty in Third World Cities (New York: John Wiley). Campbell, J. K. (1974) Honour, Family and Patronage (New York: Oxford University Press). Caplan, P. (1985) Class and Gender in India (London: Tavistock). Chinas, B. (1973) The Isthmus Zapotecs, Women's Roles in Cultural Context (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston). Daniels, S. (1980) 'Marriage in Tamil culture and the problem of conflicting models', inS. Wadley (ed.) (1980). David, K. (1980) 'Hidden powers: cultural and socio-economic accounts of Jaffna women', inS. Wadley (ed.) (1980). Dewey, A. (1962) Peasant Marketing in Java (New York: Free Press of Glencoe). Feminist Studies. Freeman, J. (1979) Untouchable: An Indian Life History (Stanford: Stanford University Press). 126 Trading and Segregation in Urban South India

Hobsbawn, E. and T. Ranger (eds) (1983) The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: CUP). Hobson, S. (1982) The Family Web: A Story of India (Chicago: Academy Press). Indian Council of Social Science Research (1975) Status of Women in India: Report of the National Commission (Bombay: Allied Publishers). Jacobson, D. (1982) 'Purdah and Hindu family in central India' in H. Pa• panek and G. Minault (eds), Separate Worlds, Studies of Purdah in South Asia (Delhi: Chanakya Publications). Jain, D., N. Sing and M. Chand (eds) (1980) Women's Quest for Power (Sahibabad: Vikas Publishing). Jeffers, H. (1981) Organising Women Petty Traders and Producers: A Case Study of Working Women's Forum, Madras (Berkeley: Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California). Kapur, P. (1972) Marriage and the Working Woman in India (Dehli: Vikas Publications). Kolenda, P. (1985) 'A blind eye on India', Natural History, 94, August. Lessinger, J. (1976) Produce Marketing in Madras City, PhD thesis, Brandeis University. Lessinger, J. (1985) '"Nobody here to yell at me": job security and politics among urban Indian traders', inS. Plattner (ed.), Markets and Marketing (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America). Manuchi: A Journal About Women and Society. Markandaya, K. (1954) Nectar in a Sieve (New York: The John Day Company). Mencher, J. (1978) Agriculture and Social Structure in Tamil Nadu (Durham, NC: North Carolina Academic Press). Mencher, J. (1984) 'What Constitutes Hard Work? Women as Labourers and Managers in the Traditional Rice Regions of Kerala and Tamil Nadu', paper presented at the American Anthropological Association National Meeting, Denver, November. Mies, M. (1982a) 'The dynamics of the sexual division of labour and the integration of rural women into the world market', in B. Lourdes (ed.), Women and Development: The Sexual Division of Labour in Rural Societies (New York: Prager). Mies, M. (1982b) The Lace Makers of Narsapur (London: Zed Press). Mintz, S. (1964) 'The employment of capital by market women in Haiti', in R. Firth and B.S. Yamey (eds), Capital, Savings and Credit in Peasant Societies (London: Allen and Unwin). Mintz, S. (1971) 'Men, women and trade', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 13. Mitra, A. (1979) The Status of Women: Literacy and Employment, ICSSR Programme on Women's Studies (Bombay: Allied Publishers). Mitra, A. et al. (1981) Status of Women: Shifts in Occupational Participation in India and Pakistan (Delhi: Chankya Publishers). Raju, S. (1984) 'Female Participation in the Urban Labour Force: A Case Study of Madhya Pradesh, India', Working Paper series no. 59, East Lansing: Office of Women in Development, Michigan State University. Johanna Lessinger 127

Sharma, U. (1983) Women Work and Property in North-West India (London: Tavistock). Sudakasa, N. (1973) Where Women Work: A Study ofYoruba Women in the Market Place (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press). Ullrich, H. (1977) 'Caste differences between Brahmin and non-Brahmin women in a South Indian village', in A. Schlege ( ed.),Sexual Stratification: A Cross-Cultural View (New York: Columbia University Press). Wadley, S. (ed.) (1980) The Powers of Tamil Women, South Asian series no. 6 (Syracuse, NY: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University). 5 The Ideology of Femininity and Women's Work in a Fishing Community of South India Kalpana Ram

I INTRODUCTION

We are haunted by a crude nineteenth-century materialism when it comes to conceptualising the interconnections between culture and economics, particularly as they affect women. Ideologies of feminin• ity, particularly in their more severe and restrictive aspects such as seclusion, segregation and sequestration, are all too frequently conceived as the peculiar burden of women in the propertied upper strata of society. This is sometimes noted as a curious 'paradox': women's freedom from surveillance is supposedly in inverse propor• tion to their economic power as members of a class or caste. Jeffrey's book on seclusion among the Pirzada women of the Mizammuddin Sufi shrine in Delhi states the general argument as it has been framed for India: The Indian situation, then, presents a paradox. It is mainly- but not exclusively - women from the poorest sectors who work outside their homes, and have greatest equality with their menfolk at home. By contrast, the cloistered women who do not work are women whose menfolk wield the greatest influence on the world outside the home, and who, as several writers have commented, experience marked inequalities between spouses in these richer families, often signalled by the women when they cover their heads, lower their eyes, or employ polite and circumlocutory forms of address. (1979: 32) The nineteenth-century tradition I refer to received its most inftuen-

128 Kalpana Ram 129 tial and intensely argued version in Engels' (1884) thesis attributing women's subordination to the development of private property. The control of female sexuality became imperative in this context, and was ensured through the institutionalisation of monogamous mar• riage. Hirschon (1984: 1) has pointed out that these ideas were not unique to Engels- they were part of the nineteenth century's interest in, even preoccupation with, the relationship between property, marriage and women's position. The continuities between socialist and non-socialist theorisation on this question are even more evident in the assumptions that Engels incorporated into his formulation. Coward writes: But this supposed non-human account of the possessive agency of the bourgeoisie was, in fact, built on presuppositions about the relations between the sexes which have made their theorisation difficult. These assumptions are: a natural division of labour between the sexes; a male psychologistic motivation to ensure transmission of property to genetic offspring; and finally, the capacity and desire of the male to submit the female to these exigencies. Thus the account which sets out to demonstrate the emergence of the power relations of the 'modern family' provides this account by assuming certain features of that contemporary family such as marriage entailing the subordination of women as chattel. (1983: 153) Yet for all its inadequacies, the argument continues to resurface with remarkable persistence in current social theory. For those theorists who reflect on the question of gender, it is economic surplus, the establishment of a privileged, non-productive class, which leads to seclusion, concealment, chaperonage, segregation and arranged mar• riages, in short to the cultural disciplining of women's sexuality. 1 Yalman (1963), although reluctant to reduce the religious problem of purity to exclusively economic terms, similarly links the concern with female purity in caste society to social stratification. Materialism, of whatever brand, may provide a measure of anti• dote to the far more powerful tendency in social theory: culturalist idealism. The aim here is to codify 'culture', seen as a free-floating set of values, customs and ideas. In this version of culture, there is little attempt to scrutinise and deconstruct the interrelation between power and ideology - 'explanations' of female seclusion are often little more than reiterations of the self-serving justifications offered by the powerful. Vatuk (1982) tells us, for example, that practices 130 Femininity and Work in South India such as purdah reflect 'a concern with women's sexual vulnerability and the consequent need to protect her from possible violation or sexually motivated assault from non-family males' (p. 59), and a second concern, that the in-marrying woman may cause disruption to the 'structural integrity of the kin group and the need to maintain harmony among its members' (p. 60). Jacobson (1982) similarly stresses the need for harmony, but is at pains to stress that there is no male conspiracy at work here. 'This sort of system', she blandly assures us, 'apparently exists because it has proven to be successful' (pp. 81-2). Materialism may lead us out of the blind alley of meaningless tautologies and the unwitting duplication of the ruling ideology, but it has left us with its own legacy of problems. I am here particularly concerned with the scholarly and political implications of this position for interpretation of the lives of women in the poor, non-propertied classes. Cultural control of female sexuality, and in a sense the problem of ideology itself, have become the province of upper-class women. For those who own few means of production, if any, the problem must be 'economic'. But does this economy operate outside cultural signification simply because one is dealing with the disposses• sed? Certainly the interaction between various forms of power will shape the form taken by ideology and culture - but does this mean that the 'economic' operates in a naked fashion, bereft of cultural complexity? This certainly seems to be the assumption underlying the proliferation of research, 'feminist' in inspiration, on 'work roles' and the economic problems of labouring women. Lower-caste women emerge as creatures of brute necessity, whose lives are harder, but somehow simpler to describe. It is only a small step to go on to assert, as socialists historically have done, that in such circumstance women's 'interests' are identical with those of the men of their caste and class, that gender contradictions or 'the woman question' can safely be postponed indefinitely into the post-revolutionary future. This chapter aims to reintroduce ideology as a legitimate area of analysis in discussions of women and poverty. But here again we must be careful as to how we frame the questions. My own reading of the problem is shaped by my interpretation of the lives of women in a poor fishing community in south India: a caste known as the Mukkuvars, located principally along the west coast of the extreme southern tip of the sub-continent in the district of Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu. KalpanaRam 131

II PROPERTY IN A FISHING COMMUNITY

'Property', as it has come to be defined in capitalist society, as the individual rights to goods and objects transferable from one person to another, exists in Mukkuvar society, but has limited importance in the actual reproduction and functioning of the artisanal mode of production. The material means of production- the fishing nets and the kattumaram (catamaran) or val/am (dug-out canoe) are highly perishable items. Given the working conditions on the open surf, the risk of depreciation, damage and loss of equipment are extremely high. Households that may be classified as 'owners' of this kind of property cannot easily decline to 'coolie' or labourer status. At the same time, the investment taken to set oneself up with the minimal amount of equipment necessary to take up simple forms of artisanal fishing, such as hook and line fishing is low compared to similar investments required for peasant farming: 750 rupees (Rs.) will purchase the necessary equipment, while even a more elaborate form of fishing using gilnets requires only Rs. 2000-Rs. 5000. The ease of access to these means of production is strictly a relative matter. Compared to the rigidity of agrarian stratification in south India, inequality in artisanal fishing society is a remarkably volatile affair. Within the terms of the fishing community itself, which enjoys a fluctuating and uncertain income that averages out to Rs. 300 a month at best, the costs of daily living are difficult to meet and indebtedness is structurally built into the economy. Yet this poverty at least is one which is shared by most households - remarkably few households qualify for the label of 'elite' in the village where I conducted fieldwork. If we limit our framework to the physically tangible means of production we would have to conclude that the community is relatively egalitarian, if only in the sense of a shared poverty. I will indicate shortly why this framework of property is itself misleading in this stratification by the orthodox criteria of property alone; inequality in artisanal fishing society is remarkably volatile. The artisanal mode of production is currently being made more complicated - though not from within. It is in the process of being articulated with an economy of mechanised fishing, catering to a wider international market for seafood. The process has not brought much by way of actual ownership over the new means of production• the mechanised trawlers and fishing gear - to the fishing community 132 Femininity and Work in South India

itself. The few who availed themselves of state subsidies to purchase such equipment have been badly affected by the rise in fuel costs since the mid-1970s, and by a decline in the availability of commer• cially profitable species of fish and sea food along the west coast. In any case, the district is not ecologically well-equipped. It lacks the estuaries and the wide continental shelf necessary for producing the few profitable items consumed by the international market, such as prawns and crustaceans. Simultaneously, the Indian State has swung away from its early commitment. Mechanisation, originally viewed as a means of bringing economic prosperity to the fishing community, has come to represent a means of bringing foreign exchange - a policy which is logically suited to encouraging big business and seafood companies. As a result the Mukkuvars continue to rely largely on artisanal fishing, supplementing their income in the lean seasons by supplying labour at the wealthier centres of mechanised fishing in Kerala (Cochin, Ernakulam) and on the eastern seaboard of Tamil Nadu (Rameswaram). So far we have, then, a community with little economic stratifica• tion, with a still largely artisanallabour process, in which the means of production are relatively easy to acquire, gradually becoming converted into a quasi-proletariat, a source of labour supply for the wider capitalist economy: an ideal setting in which to examine the materialist thesis. Here we should have relative equality between the sexes, since there is no property ownership to warp the relationship. However, this apparant lack of marked inequalities in artisanal fishing is based on an inaccurate, bourgeois notion of property. If we widen our notion of property to include the non-material economic resources more relevant to a fishing community, then inequalities, come into focus, most of all the fundamental dispossession of women. Simultaneously we are confronted with the role of cultural ideology in mediating women's access to these key economic re• sources. Lowie (1929) coined the term 'incorporeal property' to describe certain privileges which constitute wealth in certain societies. These privileges may include the proprietorship of certain skills, knowledge of rituals, songs and legends. Among Mukkuvars the incorporeal property consists of the transmission of specialised skills in the operation of fishing gear, knowledge of fishing grounds and the breeding habits of the fish, navigation skills, astronomy, and so on. These skills are essential to the utilisation of the ocean's resources in what is the most lucrative of occupations open to a seafaring community: fishing itself. Fishing is also the central phase in Kalpana Ram 133 production, on which every other phase in the production process is dependent, both in a technical sense and in terms of economic centrality. The activity of fishing is also regulated by another key component of incorporeal property: the rights to space. It is only recently that the operation of 'sea tenure' has been recognised at all: fishermen were thought to operate in a purely individualistic way in utilising the sea as a 'common property resource' (see Alexander, 1982, for a critique). These rules of sea tenure are defined on the basis of social membership, the ooru or village one belongs to, ethical rules governing the laying of nets and the division of catch - but most importantly, and this element is usually forgotten in the study of sea tenure, on the basis of one's sex. From the vantage point of examining gender relations, sea tenure is itself a narrow component of the wider social distribution of space: norms governing the sexual distribution of space on land in fact pre-empts the question of who has rights to the sea at all. These norms prohibit women from gaining access to the sea, and even to the spaces most intimately associated with the work of fishing: the sea front and the beach. Since the skills of fishing are largely acquired in the course of the labour performed in these spaces, the sexual distribution of space governs the unequal distribution of the skills which Bordieu (1974; 1977) describes as 'cultural capital'. The same rules which govern women's exclusion from key areas of production continue to structure women's parti• cipation even in the sphere of trade, where they have traditionally enjoyed more of a niche. The female labour force is effectively segmented by categories of age, underlying which are complex cultural attitudes towards female sexuality and women's bodies.

III THE SEXUAL DISTRIBUTION OF SPACE

The indigenous perception and justification for barring women from fishing is not framed in biologistic terms - it is not claimed that women are inherently incapable of the work. Rather, the refusal to allow them to learn the skills of fishing is explained, if pressed by an outside questioner, in terms of the cultural violation such work would constitute to deeply imbued notions regarding the modesty and public invisibility proper to the respectable woman. More broadly, it is related to the cultural interpretation of the work of fishing itself. To take the latter point first, fishing is a highly ritualised form of productive activity. The relationship with nature fails to achieve even 134 Femininity and Work in South India the minimal degree of technological control offered by agriculture. In fishing, technology and skills cannot guarantee even human safety, let alone some degree of predictability and periodicity in the rela• tionship between labour and productivity. Materialist explanations of the labour process therefore stand little chance of plausibility to the fisher people themselves. Attempts to control the environment centre around ritual aimed at the supernatural forces surrounding the people. Tools of trade must receive religious propitiation before being used out at sea. The sea itself is approached as a divinity - taking its offerings humbly, as a devotee would take the left-over 'prasadam' of a diety. In this supernatural construction of work, women are seen as a particularly potent threat to the successful fruition of men's work activities. A woman crossing a man's path as he is setting out to sea is said to make the sea rough. Women must therefore stay out of sight when the men are setting out with the boats. Young girls, who were among my closest companions, would never take the shortest route between coastal villages, which lay along the beach-front itself, if they knew that men were likely to be launching their craft. Wrongful conduct on the part of women may be held responsible not only for the success of economic ventures at sea, but for the safety and welfare of the men themselves - a belief which has peculiar and terrible force in an occupation with daily risk and uncertainty. The rules of physical containment to which coastal women are subject bear some resemblance to the purdah complex of the north, written on by anthropologists such as Sharma (1978; 1980), Jacobson (1982) and Jeffrey (1979). Women are restricted to certain areas, notably in and around the domestic domain, and the onus is on them to maintain a physical separation from men if they venture outside this domestic space. Further, the rules governing the enforcement of these restrictions are nuanced according to the age and marital status of the woman. Young, unmarried girls are subject to the greatest amount of surveillance and restriction. At the other extreme, women over forty, who are usually married, enjoy considerably greater freedom of movement. Unlike the north, however, the veiling behaviour is here largely metaphoric: no actual veil or purdah is used, except in the church, where women are required to kneel and cover their heads. There is no veiling behaviour of any kind in front of affines or the people of one's husband's village. The differences may be traced back to the radically different kinship systems of north and south India. The Mukkuvars share the structural concern of southern KalpanaRam 135 kinship systems - to repeat and consolidate already established links between families through repeated marriages between affines. I come back to this point later. The female space par excellence is the domestic space in and outside the home, or in areas associated with domestic labour: the wells and taps, certain parts of the river. The male space par excellence is the sea, and the beach where all the gear and boats are stored. Many men are barely to be seen at home, preferring to spend even their nights sleeping on the beach in the cool of the open air. However, male space is not restricted to what is strictly necessary in the course of work - for relaxation they have access to public spaces such as the village square, usually located in front of the church, the toddy shop, the shady groves of coconut palm lining the beach. If they are in the mood, men may go to the cinema and the tea shops in the larger neighbouring township of Colachel. Potentially, the public venues of the world are open to them. Women, by contrast, are rarely seen loitering in public spaces. Relaxation for them must be found sitting on the front verandah of the home, or in the sandy lanes outside the home. The prohibition against young women coming anywhere near the sea is worth examining more closely. Young girls are prohibited at a very early age from swimming and playing in the surf, from familiaris• ing themselves with the sea the way boys do - most girls never learn to swim. Boys are on the other hand actively encouraged to perform small tasks for the men as soon as they are physically able to do so - pulling in the beach-seine nets, stacking the equipment, etc. In return for this, they earn small sums of money: 2 per cent of the catch is put aside to pay such young helpers. By the age of eleven, boys are actively recruited to go out to sea, although they earn their full share of the catch only when much older. Girls, by contrast, lose more and more of their access to the sea and the sea front as they grow into puberty. Young, unmarried girls are regarded as having no legitimate business on the beach. Older women, however, do sometimes work on the shore during peak fishing season to sort and dry the fish. This critical distinction between old and young women continues to surface in the work of marketing fish. Participation in the work of marketing is effectively restricted to women of forty and over. The reasons are clear in terms of the rules of feminine modesty: trading is a profession which constitutes women as permanent transgressors of male territory and norms of female propriety. In order to compete effectively women traders must constitute themselves as an active 136 Femininity and Work in South India

presence in all those spaces defined as public and male. They must wait on the sea-front, not only with men from their own village, but also with traders from outside the coastal area altogether. During the auction, women must compete in the midst of noise and physical jostling. Purchase is followed by a walk of five to ten kilometres to local markets where women must once again adopt aggressive strategies in selling their fish. The requirements effectively exclude most young women. Although over 50 per cent of households in the village I lived in depended on women's monetary contributions, only a minority (18 per cent) of women actually worked as fish traders. The age breakdown of this minority of traders speaks for itself. A little less than half were aged fifty and over. None were below thirty, and none were unmarried. A quarter of the traders are widowed, but again, one evidently has to be a widow of over thirty to take up such a profession. The sense of danger or threat a woman's presence poses to men evidently varies according to the age and marital status of the woman concerned - but it is a threat which is quite clearly and overtly stated in fishing society. However, the threat is also the basis for a kind of power which women exercise over men. The popular novel by Kerala writer Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, Chemmeen, emphasises that in fishing society the man is entrusted to a girl, rather than the other way around. It is women, by their prayers and chastity who bring the men safe home from the sea. As the mother of the heroine tells her daughter: 'Purity is the great thing, child. Purity. The strength and wealth of the fisherman lies in the purity of his wife ... My child, you must not be the cause of the ruin of the sea-front' (Pillai, 1962: 5). The construction of femininity in Mukkuvar society is a peculiarly contradictory affair: on the one hand, the view of female sexuality and the female body is one which excludes women from key areas of production (fishing) and even structures their entry into trade. On the other hand, women's exclusion and confinement to the domestic sphere as the proper locus of femininity is made into the basis for a kind of female power over men. In the next section I examine the details of this contradictory cultural logic before going on to examine its implications for women's work and consciousness. Kalpana Ram 137

IV THE CULTURAL LOGIC OF FEMININITY: CONTAINMENT AND DOMESTIC POWER

The Mukkuvar view of femininity is structured by the peculiarities of what is essentially a religious perception of the world. I have mentioned that the fisher-people's relationship to nature, in particu• lar the ocean, is modelled on humanity's relations with divinity: to be placated and feared. Women are at the centre of this religious universe. The combination of women and the ocean is too explosive to be even contemplated because women contain within themselves powers which have the same ambivalent status that nature itself has. On the one hand, women have the capacity to generate and sustain human life, and this capacity is celebrated among Mukkuvars, as throughout Tamil Nadu, with rituals of ushering in female puberty. At the same time, women are said to have the power of destroying and subverting the social order - that power called ananku by the early Tamils, which later merged with Hindu notions of female sakti. Just as nature is not conceived of in purely materialistic ways, so the female powers of creation and destruction are not reducible to the biological. Although women are thought to be biologically born with sakti, this power only exists within culture, and women exercise it within female roles that are culturally defined. In the sexual division of labour in the fishing community, these roles include women as financial managers, child carers, cooks, health carers and religious organisers. Within these roles, female sakti is actually said to mature and grow. Roles less culturally validated, such as trading, do not carry the same capacity to enhance sakti - although the potential is there for political organisation to extend such meanings. Here, biology is appropriated as always and already culturally shaped. At the same time, sakti retains the stamp of its origins in the physical materiality of women's bodies, and shows the more menacing side of its Janus-face at times when the specificity of women's bodies is most apparent: at menstruation and at birth. At such times, attempts are made to ritually control the woman, by means of symbolic and social practices that aim to bind, cool, and seclude the woman. The specific means of cooling the woman's body are taken from Ayurvedic medicine, but the interpretation is again a religious one. The menstruating, overheated female body carries strong associa• tions in Tamil popular culture with female anger, sexual vigour and the possibility of bringing affliction to humanity. To keep this potentially disorderly woman under control, Mukkuvars, and Tamils 138 Femininity and Work in South India more generally, provide the woman with cooling foods and liquids. Further, they employ various symbolic means of binding the woman's body - her hair must be oiled and bound, her body wrapped in clothing which becomes increasingly more restrictive with age and emphasises the covering of the sexual parts (David, 1980). Finally, the general restrictions on female use of space become most severe at the time of menarche (the first menstruation) and at childbirth, when the woman is strictly confined to the four walls of the home. The dangers associated with the overheated woman are dual - not only can she afflict the villagers with hostile supernatural forces, but she is simultaneously open to suffering supernatural attacks herself. It is important to preserve, rather than erase, the tension between the two categories of meaning in this view of femininity. As con• ceived by the Mukkuvars, femininity cannot be exclusively accounted for at either the level of biology (nature) or that of culture. This tension helps explain the contradictory characteristics of femininity: conservative on the one hand, the basis of social institutions (the community, the family), yet always threatening to escape boundaries and lead to the disintegration of the patriarchal order. However, there is yet another element to the local formulation of this wider paradigm. 'Officially', the Mukkuvars are Catholics. They converted in the early part of the sixteenth century along with other coastal fishing communities of south India who proved receptive to the efforts of Portuguese missionaries such as Francis Xavier. The power and ultimate cultural hegemony of the church in these coastal villages cannot be overlooked. The Church has provided a kind of filter through which the wider Tamil culture becomes refracted and absorbed by Mukkuvars. Themes, such as the containment and disciplining of female sexuality within the bonds of marriage and chastity, pass through this filter and emerge with redoubled vigour, reinforced by the Church's own punitive attitudes towards sexuality outside the bounds of marriage. Illegitimate children are refused baptism and burial in the common graveyards; couples found guilty of sex outside marriage are punished by having to parade the village while holding a cross, and must pay a fine to the church. Abortions are prohibited, and have resulted in the recent deaths of at least two women trying to procure backyard abortions, in one village alone. Reformist currents within the Church have led to some experimenta• tion with social reform on the part of individual parish priests, but the Church's teachings remain internalised by villagers, not least of all by women. Kalpana Ram 139

The elements that get left out by the Church's cultural filter are equally significant. Tamil evaluations of femininity offer diverse potentialities. Sakti, worshipped as female deity, is benevolent but, when angry, the source of illness, misfortune and affliction. The cult of the village goddess, at the heart of southern peasant religion, continues to keep alive the range of potential implicit in this image of the feminine. The Christianity of the Church offers far fewer possibilities of this nature. In its phallocentric rendition of the divine, the feminine figures only as a benevolent and gracious mother of Christ, her divine son. Mukkuvars are not entirely restricted by the official doctrines of the Church, however. In their popular religion they have accom• plished a minor revolution in the divine hierarchy - Mary and the saints reign supreme. Furthermore, Mary is no longer the virgin• mother, but the fully-fledged Matha, the mother goddess of Tamil culture. Like the Tamil goddess, the Matha can possess her devotees and both afflict and heal them in the process. In this unofficial strain of popular ideology, Mukkuvar women continue to find scope for a positive identity, always within the discipline of domesticity, of course. Provided they accept this discipline, their sakti can create a force comparable to the accumulated powers of the male ascetic (Egnor, 1978; Baker-Reynolds, 1978). Among Mukkuvars the association between female strength and domesticity is further reinforced by the wide scope of responsibility and authority women wield within the domestic sphere. In these villages, men figure largely as an 'absence': society is reproduced daily on land, in the villages and within households, while men are away at sea. Even when men are back in the village, they are occupied by simple needs for physical renewal (eating and sleeping), and relaxation (gambling, drinking, etc.). Moreover, these absences of the men are becoming longer as they make seasonal migratory trips to the 'metropoles' of mechanised fishing, between two to seven months of the year. More than half the households in my village of residence contributed at least one male to this annual outftux. Men continue to rule, of course, in the symbolic order of patriar• chy, but their absences also affect the balance of power and the specific version of patriarchy which prevails. At the level of the social division of labour, women emerge as central to the tasks of physical and cultural reproduction - looking after children, cooking and processing food items, cleaning, organising health needs and religious activities. But in addition to these tasks normally associated with the 140 Femininity and Work in South India

domestic sphere, women also manage all financial budgeting, con• trolling not only their own income but also the income brought in by men. The inbuilt fluctuations and uncertainties of a fishing economy mean that the daily upkeep of the household, a female responsibility, is met by an all-woman credit network in which women utilise a range of relationships based on kinship, work associations and friendships in order to mobilise small amounts of credit from a number of sources. Women are considered more reliable as caretakers, both by their parents and by their husband's family. Parents endeavour to marry their daughters close to home, both as a way of consolidating intra-village relationships, but also as a way of securing their own well-being in their old age. Parents also regularly rely on married daughters to help out financially in matters such as raising dowry for younger, unmarried daughters. Definitions of the female domestic sphere need to be radically redefined in this context. It is clear that we are referring to a sphere which includes a much wider set of responsibilities than is often assumed, and confers on women a genuine degree of control. This is before we even begin to consider the various tasks women undertake in the production cycle of fishing itself: weaving nets, drying and sometimes salting fish during peak season, and for older women, the tasks of marketing a portion of the catch. This situation in fishing villages is in marked contrast to the rest of Tamil society, where the woman belongs to the domestic sphere, but is not in real control over it. This division of power between the sexes is in the process of being historically altered even as we write about it. As men increasingly earn and spend their money in places far away from local fishing sites, the traditional female control over cash is being replaced by a passive wait for remittances sent home by the men. Once women are reliant on male discretion, they are no longer in a position to make the primary decisions as to how to allocate the income as a whole. Given traditional male inexperience in handling cash, the tendency is for men to give a very low priority to the needs of the family waiting in Kanyakumari, and to spend it instead on the pleasures of the moment. As yet, however, these changes have not registered in the consciousness of the community, nor reshaped the ideology of femininity. That ideology is still one which sets boundaries for female roles, but allows for a certain degree of positivity in women's consciousness and subjectivity. Kalpana Ram 141

V WOMEN'S WORK AND CONSCIOUSNESS

If we look at women's participation in activities that are meant to bring income into the household pool, the objective constraints imposed by the sexual codification of women's bodies are high• lighted. Let us take first of all that group of women who have been allowed to make limited transgressions of the norms of femininity by virtue of their age and presumed loss of sexual potency: the fish traders. These women are a minority - not only in the numerical sense already referred to, but in a deeper symbolic sense. As described earlier, such women encroach on male territory and also take on personality traits designated as 'masculine'. As a result they lose the dubious security of feminine respectability. Young children may mock them for their unfeminine gait, men look askance at their propensity for abuse and fight, and most damning of all, their own daughters reject the traders as role models to be aspired to. Unprotected by the norm of respectability, the traders continue to be haunted by its restrictions. Women traders are the bottom rung of the market hierarchy. Immediately above them are the 'cycle loaders', men on bicycles from the agricultural hinterlands. With the ownership of their own means of transport, the men supply a wider radius, over forty kilometres in scope, and carry heavier loads: 50-60 kilos of fish as against the 10 kilos women are able to carry. Certainly, lack of capital is part of the problem which prevents women from making similar purchases, but they are also hampered by the fear of public ridicule at the sight of women on bicycles. At the moment, women are dependent on public transport systems which allow the transport of rural produce at the discretion of the conductor. The offensive smell of the fish traders' cargo renders them more susceptible to being turned away. In peak fishing seasons, the volume of trade turnover is sufficient to justify a larger capital outlay - at such times, women traders will hire small trucks and taxis. Such collective endeavours are entirely in the spirit of flexible co-operation which characterises the traditional work patterns of the vendors, who work alone or in groups of four and five, depending on the volume of trade. The small volume of trade which prevents women from making such capital outlays in other seasons is partly dependent on the vagaries of seasonality, but it is also partly a function, again, of norms of modesty. Male traders can stay overnight in strange townships or market centres in order to make purchases or sales; women, even if 142 Femininity and Work in South India over forty, are afraid to take such risks with their reputation. We cannot leave the problems of women traders in fish, without mentioning the impact of the shift in the fishing economy on the women. The growth of an international market, tending to replace local markets, attracts a new layer of traders, both medium and large-scale. These are well-equipped with lorries and agents who come out to coastal villages and 'pre-book' the catch before it ever comes to auction. Women, who survive largely on the basis of their familial contacts with the fishing crews, generally buy on credit and pay the auctioneer a day later when the sales have been completed. Their competitors are now in a position to pay cash in advance, at prices higher than women could afford. Transgressions of the ruling ideology by the fish traders - low as they are in social esteem - have not had the effect of significantly reshaping the nature of that ideology. The power potentially to be derived from an important role in the extra-domestic world of trade and exchange has not been actualised. I am here contrasting the Mukkuvar trading women with similar categories of trading women in Manipur (Chaki-Sircar, 1984) and parts of Western Africa such as Nigeria (Iffeka, 1975) and Ghana (Westwood, 1984), who have used their position as traders to exert key pressure in situations of political mobilisation. Recent community-based agitations involving women have seen vendors participate in a sporadic and elusive fashion, always as followers rather than mobilising agencies. Those women who attempt to earn a living within the boundaries of respectability- usually the younger women (married and unmarried) -still face severe economic penalties for doing so. These are forms of paid work that can be conducted within the home, or from the front porch of the home: tailoring and weaving nets for piece-rate wages; selling vegetables, spices and betel or trading in rice, selling items of cooked food, lending money at interest to other villagers. These young women selling rice and vegetables within the village are under stricter rules of modesty than the fish traders: therefore they cannot even buy their supplies directly from rural markets. All these forms of petty trade are severely restricted by the small clientele within the village that they service- the wider markets outside the boundaries of the village have been effectively barred for younger women. Many give up attempts to trade as a result of its unprofitable nature: dilemmas similar to those of women vegetable vendors in larger urban centres such as Madras, as described by Lessinger (Chapter 4). The discrepancy in male and female incomes tells its own story, with KalpanaRam 143

Table 5.1 Average incomes of women in untrained work Female incomes Nature of job (Rs.) Trade in: rice, spices and cooked food 5(}-75 vegetables and cooked food 3(}-90 vegetables and spices 25-120 fish 5(}-75 Net-making 15--40 Tailoring 6(}-200 Cook or ayah at local school 60 women earning no more than a third of a fisherman's average income. Calculating men's income in fishing presents a severe problem, given the fluctuations of monthly catch: the figure of Rs. 300 a month was given by most households and must be taken with a certain degree of scepticism, but would not be altogether unrealistic if taken as an average figure. Compare this with Table 5.1 which shows incomes for untrained, non-professional female jobs. The younger generation of unmarried girls present an interesting case. As mentioned earlier, they are extremely loath to adopt the rough and tough life of fish-trading women. Instead they hope for respectable employment as educated women outside the community, and in this they get encouragement from the Church and from families desperate for any additional income. 'The Church is making Brahmins of our girls,' complained an articulate and embittered villager, educated and critical of Church power. Certainly the Church is partly responsible for offering limited avenues of encouragement for young girls to find training and employment outside the coastal belt - training as schoolteachers in a Christian college, and then finding employment in convents. However, the families themselves can perceive that girls have no ready-made economic niche in the changing structure of Mukkuvar society: boys can still be readily absorbed into apprenticeship as fishermen. The under-utilisation of female labour power is increasingly such as to encourage families to allow girls to stay in school. In my village of residence the number of boys who had studied up till the school leaving certificate was 41- the number of girls was not far behind at 36. Further, such girls may travel far from the village to undertake training and employment, provided they once again meet the criteria of respectability. The available jobs fall within the well-known range of feminine occupa• tions in the modern industrial economies: jobs such as secretarial 144 Femininity and Work in South India work, teaching, nursing, social work, jobs which replicate the female role of servicing men and extending nurturant and maternal care to the community instead of the family. (Boys who move into the modern industrial economy, by contrast, receive training in mecha• nical skills, to be employed as drivers and mechanics on fishing craft, or taking up jobs in engineering - jobs and skills which are not only higher paid, but in greater demand.) The travel undertaken by young girls is accompanied by stringent safeguards of chaperonage and the guarantee of social networks at the other end. The jobs themselves must provide similar guarantees if they involve living away from home. For coastal people with few contacts outside their community, the Church once again intervenes to provide the contacts and the chaperonage. Employment in distant towns, supervised closely by Church authorities has in some cases proved even more restrictive and isolating than life back in the village itself. If we look at the situation in terms of economic opportunities and income-generation, then the plight of women is desperate indeed. However, this is to some extent a purely external view of the matter. Certainly women voice the question of economic need and survival - in fact, more frequently and with more urgency than the men. But this very difference in the emphasis placed by women and men alerts us to the fact that women's consciousness is not simply shaped by the economic circumstances of the caste, class or community as a whole. Rather, it is shaped by the specific cultural roles assumed by Mukkuvar women- as the mainstays of the families, as the ones who manage finances and ensure cultural and physical survival of the households. Women's non-participation in fishing, and the restrictions placed on their access to trade, could of course be discussed as so many 'economic facts'. To do so would limit us to accepting social processes as reified structures. While the sexual distribution of space is one of the key constituents of one's access to the means of production, it cannot be discussed in economic terms alone - for it is as much a cultural construct as an economic resource. It is in the name of a gender-specific ideology that women's dependency is constituted and sustained. Further, since space is simultaneously an economic re• source in itself and a cultural construct, ideologies of sexual seques• tration cannot be relegated to a merely reproductive status, as legitimising an economic dependency accomplished 'elsewhere', as it were. The contradiction here- to refer to the concerns of the book as a whole - is not merely between 'poverty' on the one hand and Kalpana Ram 145

'ideology' on the other, but is to be found in the very make-up of a culture which simultaneously enjoins women with the primary re• sponsibilities of the household and limits their capacity to fulfil this role. At the same time, the very contradictoriness of culture allows it to be reshaped and reinterpreted to a certain extent, from within. I am suggesting that we cease to view ideology and culture as purely repressive, external constraints. Rather, culture also produces a positive identity and a subjectivity which has a stake in the current system. This positive identity - which in the case of Mukkuvar women is their identity as the wives, mothers and mainstays of the household- can also empower them in the social struggle. Although the subject is well outside the scope of this chapter, Mukkuvar women have mobilised around issues of concern to them as women in the community: in bringing greater sanitation, electricity and water to the villages, and in fighting against the sand-mining which is eroding the beaches they live on. The confidence that women experience from remaining within culturally validated roles as modest daughter/ wife/mother is less available to the marginalised figure of the market woman. Paradoxically, then, it is those women who lead more restricted lives who have been prepared to fight to maintain their homes and village environment. The same logic, of familial responsi• bility, is utilised by young girls in their travel far outside the confines of the domestic spaces inhabited by their mothers. Certainly they are being trained in new versions of the old female roles, and they are supervised and chaperoned in the process. However, the very process of travel and exposure to new places and people gives a fresh gloss of confidence when it comes to dealing with supra-village agencies and institutions such as banks and development agencies. It would therefore be as much of a mistake to overlook the tacit struggle over cultural meanings, a crucial component of political change, as it would be to view ideology as irrelevant to the lives of the economical• ly dispossessed.

Note

1. See, for example, the work of Goody (1976) and, in slightly different form, Boserup (1970). Even theorists who, dealing with caste-based societies, are reluctant to reduce the problem to economic terms, see the concern with female purity merely as a by-product of maintaining the caste privileges of the community as a whole, see, e.g. Yalman (1963). 146 Femininity and Work in South India

References

Alexander, P. (1982) Sri Lankan Fishermen. Rural Capitalism and Peasant Society, ANU Monographs on South Asia, no. 7, Canberra, Australia. Baker-Reynolds, H. (1978) '"To Keep the Tali Strong": Women's Rituals in Tamil Nadu, South India', unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wis• consin-Madison. Baker-Reynolds, H. (1980) 'The auspicious married woman', in Wadley (1980). Bordieu, P. (1974) 'Cultural reproduction and social reproduction', in R. Brown (ed.) Knowledge, Education and Cultural Change (London: Tavistock) pp. 710-12. Bordieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology (Cambridge: CUP). Boserup, E. (1970) Women's Role in Economic Development (London: Allen and Unwin). Chaki-Sircar, M. (1984) Feminism in a Traditional Society. Women of the Manipur Valley (Delhi: Shakthi Books). Coward, R. (1983) Patriarchal Precedents. Sexuality and Social Relations (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). David, K. (1980) 'Hidden powers: cultural and socio-economic accounts of Jaffna women' in Wadley (ed.) (1980). Egnor, M. (1978) 'The Sacred Spell and Other Conceptions of Life in Tamil Culture', unpublished PhD thesis, University of Chicago. Egnor, M. (1980) 'On the meaning of sakti to women in Tamil Nadu', in Wadley (1980). Engels, F. (1884) The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, republished by Pathfinder Press, New York, 1972. Goody, J. (1976) Production and Reproduction- A Comparative Study of the Domestic Domain (Cambridge: CUP). Hirschon, R. (ed.) (1984) Women and Poverty - Women as Property (London and Canberra: Croom Helm). Iffeka, C. (1975) 'Female militancy and colonial revolt- the women's war of 1929, Eastern Nigeria', in S. Ardener (ed.), Perceiving Women (New York: John Wiley) pp. 127-58. Jacobson, D. (1982) 'Purdah and the Hindu family in central India', in Papanek and Minault (1982). Jeffrey, P. (1979) Frogs in a Well. Indian Women in Purdah (London: Zed Books). Lessinger, J. (1984) 'Caught between work and modesty: the dilemma of women traders in Madras', Manushi no. 29, vol. 5. Lowie, R. H. (1929) Primitive Society (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). Papanek, H. and G. Minault (1982) Separate Worlds, Studies of Purdah in South Asia (New Delhi: Chanakaya Publications). Pillai, S. (1962) Chemmeen (New York: Harper and Row). Sharma, U. (1978) 'Segregation and its consequences in India', in P. Caplan and J. Bujra (eds) Women United, Women Divided (London: Tavistock). Sharma, U. (1980) Women, Work and Property in North-West India (Lon• don: Tavistock). Kalpana Ram 147

Vatuk, S. (1982) 'Purdah re-visited: a comparison of Hindu and Muslim interpretations of the cultural meaning of purdah in South Asia', in Papanek and Minault (eds) (1982). Wadley, S. (ed.) (1980) The Powers of Tamil Women (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press). Westwood, S. (1984) '"Fear Women": property and modes of production in urban Ghana', in Hirschon (ed.) (1984). Yalman, N. (1963) 'On the purity of women in the castes of Ceylon and Malabar', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 93, Jan/Dec. , pp. 25-58. 6 Internal Colonisation and the Fate of Female Divers in Cheju Island, South Korea Hae-Joang Cho

I INTRODUCTION

Once, gender revolution seemed to be very near to us but it is now very far from us. This paper discusses the 'rise and fall' of female autonomy enjoyed by the women divers on Cheju Island, South Korea, during the last hundred years of modernisation. Women themselves may not have experienced the change so dramatically since it has been occurring gradually through generations. But it is quite clear to me, having lived with them at the time of the very peak of their economic power and autonomy. 1 I attempt here to recon• struct the long-term historical change in these women's experiences with a special focus on the transformation of gender structure. This chapter is divided into three main parts. It starts with a general historical introduction including the forms of the island's economy and its relationship to the mainland state and culture. In the second part, the rural community life where women enjoyed tremendous economic advantages is described, based on the 1976 field research. It presents a picture of a community which is far from the patriarchal ideal. In the third part, the focus shifts from the village to the urban areas. The assimilation of Cheju local culture to the mainland mainstream culture along with the emergence of a new model of gender roles and femininity becomes vivid at this stage of national development. Suggestions are made for a more desirable develop• ment plan that might replace the current uniform and authoritarian model.

148 Hae-Joang Cho 149

HISTORICAL OUTLINE

Cheju is a volcanic island with poor natural resources, located at the south of the Korean peninsula, near Japan. The population of Cheju in 1986 was 462 941, which represents 1.3 per cent of the total South Korean population. The islanders have a tradition of political rebel• lion and the reputation of a matriarchal society. W. F. Sands (1931), in his memoirs of diplomatic service in Korea at the turn of the century, described Cheju island under the title of 'The Amazons'. This quotation from his writing may serve as an introduction to island life:

It is not known even how the names of Quelpaert originated since the native name is Che-ju. On old Chinese or Japanese maps it is indicated as the island of women . . . In recent years its only European visitors had been some rare missionary who had wan• dered over from the mainland only to be promptly expelled, or some surveying party landed from a passing man-of-war, which did its work as quickly as possible in the face of plain hostility and got aboard again. It was known only that the coast was so difficult and the inhabitants so unfriendly that even the Korean steamship company never landed there, but ran in a boat as near as they dared at long intervals, to take on from local junks whatever cargo the weather permitted, of dried fish, mother-of-pearl shell and thick-skinned bitter shattuck fruit. What trade there was in these things and in potash got from seaweed, was carried to market mainly by the stout little craft of Japanese smugglers, half junk, half schooner, or in the frail native fishing boats fastened together with wooden bolts and carrying sails of straw matting, which are drawn up on the shore well out of the reach of the sea when the weather threatens ... Because of its isolation, the island was used by Seoul as a penal colony for political prisoners. It was nominally administered from Seoul but only nominally, for not only this tradition of independence but another curious custom made it a difficult place to govern. Man, in this lost corner of the world, was the inferior being; the woman was everything. She was the real house-bond. She owned all the property; her children bore her family name, and she never took a permanent husband ... A few men lived in the three cities, almost as foreigners lived in the open ports of China, on sufferance. These and the political prisoners made up the whole male population, and the women dominated 150 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea

the life of the island even in public matters. It was more than a matriarchy; it was a real Amazon community, for the women were always ready to assert their power and uphold it by force .... The political exiles could not leave the island, but were other• wise free and unsupervised. They could live where they liked and make their living as they pleased. The native men were hunters, fishers, coast traders and smug• glers. They stayed away from the women as much as possible, either at sea or in the mountain forest, and left all land work to them ... The women were fine swimmers and divers. Young and old would swim out through the breakers, leave a basket buoyed by gourds floating on the surface and dive fathoms down for abalone shell or a bunch of edible seaweed. They would cut it out with a short sickle (the same weapon they used on the men when annoyed), attach an empty gourd to it, drop the stone with which they had weighted the gourd and let it float to the surface to be picked up when they were ready to come up themselves. They could swim and float about for hours, dive as simply as a duck, and work or move about from place to place under the water as easily and as long as so many sea fowl. While resting on the surface they would keep up a monotonous whistling in different keys to warn chance men in the fishing boats to keep their distance. (Sands, 1931: 166f)

The story Sands tells is exaggerated and often ridiculous but provides enough information on the island life and on how the islanders have been perceived by outsiders. Three themes come out of the Sands discussion which need further elaboration: different ecological and economic bases, political dependence, and the dominance of women. First of all, it is important to notice that Cheju has a very different ecological and economic base from the mainland. It is a volcanic island. All around the coast are sunken, needle-pointed reefs, and the foreshore is not very different. The whole island rises abruptly to the Halla mountain, 1806 metres high. The land is not suitable for irrigation farming. Unlike most mainland rice-cultivating communi• ties, virtually all Cheju villages participated in a 'female farming system' as classified by Boserup (1971; 1977). This ensured women's active participation in subsistence economy. Moreover, the ocean was not favourable for fishing with rudimentary equipment and boats. Instead, villages near the seashore heavily depended on diving Hae-Joang Cho 151 for their income. The diving products were traded to the mainland and even to Japan at least from the latter part of the nineteenth century. Some men were engaged in hunting and tending cattle, but these activities were never the major part of Cheju economy. For the last hundred years, two major economic transitions were identified. Firstly, the subsistence economy has been replaced by a market economy as Japanese colonial rule (1910--45) expanded its capitalist economy. Japan's initial policy was to increase agricultural produc• tion in Korea to meet Japan's growing need for rice. Japan had also begun to build industries in Korea in the 1930s as part of the 'empire-wide' programme of economic self-sufficiency and war pre• paration. Between 1939 and 1941, the manufacturing sector repre• sented 29 per cent of total economic production (Chong Sik, Lee, 1981: 19). However, expansion of the industrial sector did not affect the island economy directly. But to the divers' families, the expanded market meant an increase of cash income since the shellfish and the seaweed were high demand materials for the food industry. The increased income enabled the young to receive public higher educa• tion. However, the Cheju province provided few jobs for this educated population, except for jobs at government offices and in the educational area. The economy still remained largely female• dominated. The second transition began around the 1970s. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Government was determined to achieve economic growth to the detriment of democratic development. Much of this growth was achieved through reliance on external resources, making the Korean economy heavily dependent on international trade. The specific development plan for Cheju during the 1960s was to increase the cash crops such as bananas, pineapples, carrots and mandarin oranges, and the sea-products from diving and fishing. The focus of the Cheju development plan was shifted to tertiary industry in the 1970s with the aim of making Cheju an international leisure resort. Capital from the mainland and foreign countries penetrated into the island, resulting in a double structure of the local economy. This structural change of the local economic system, along with the general economic expansion of Korean society, altered the landscape of Cheju life drastically. This transition is sharply differentiated from the first one in its degree of integrating local life into the urban and national system. The second characteristic of Cheju society derives from the fact that it has been politically under the control of the mainland state for 152 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea over ten centuries. The major concern of the mainland state was to collect taxes and to use the island as a buffer against Japanese 'smugglers' (Kim, T. N., 1982: 515). Frequent rebellions were another historical feature of this island province (Merrill, 1980; Cho, S. Y., 1987). Since the sixteenth century, rebellions were frequently organised to expel the magistrate from the mainland in reaction to heavy taxation. The exiled political prisoners discussed by Sands also had a significant influence on the political culture of the island. Even now, many families of the island consider themselves descendants of those famous political exiles or of their students, and play a leading role in their locality as their ancestors had done by 'civilising' Cheju, i.e. implanting the Confucian ideology of the mainland during the last dynasty. Islanders generally share the feeling that Cheju has been always treated as an 'illegitimate' child by the mainland state. Thus the feeling of the Cheju people toward the mainland has been very ambivalent in the sense that the elite class has always looked up to the 'high' culture of the mainland on the one hand, and wanted to get away from its political domination on the other. The third and the most distinctive characteristic of Cheju is the visibility of women. Cheju is not a matriarchy but has definitely developed a comparatively egalitarian socio-economic system. General egalitarianism is well reflected in Cheju dialect and its kinship structure. Cheju egalitarianism and gender relations are the major themes to be discussed in this chapter.

II GENDER STRUCTURE OF A DIVERS' VILLAGE IN 1976

The place where my major fieldwork was carried out is Y ong Dong3 village on the east coast of Chejo Do. The population of Yong Dong was 346 in 66 households in 1976. Diving and farming are the major economic activities. Performing chesa (ancestral memorial services) is the most important social activity. Major economic and social activities are diving, farming, and performance of Confucian rituals and child care.

Division of labour

Diving Diving is an exclusively female activity for cash income. Divers dive Hae-Joang Cho 153 for top-shells, abalone, lobster, octopus and various kinds of seaweed including ch'onch'o (the raw material for gelatine), gamt'ae (fertilis• er), miyok and t'ol (both for food). Divers started wearing wetsuits in the 1970s. Divers are called 'honyo' or 'chomsu', which means 'woman of the sea' or 'diving person'. They strongly identify them• selves as career women. The number of active divers in Yong Dong was ninety-two which included virtually all women in the village over fifteen years old. Divers even dive during their menstrual periods and pregnancy. They dive up to the very date of delivery and resume diving one or two weeks after delivery. Women spend four to six hours a day diving, an average of fifteen days a month, and they dive all year around. A person's right to dive in the village site is acquired through residence. All the divers in the village were members of the Women's Association of the village. Regular meetings of the association were held on the beach while members changed their clothes. Divers discussed the ocean conditions and the proper harvesting periods for seaweed. At the end of the year, there was a formal meeting to elect a president, a vice-president and a treasurer. At least one diver from each household becomes a registered member of the Fishing Co• operative Union. On becoming a member, one can sell one's products through the Union and borrow money from the Union. Diving is skilled labour. It needs a long period of training and learning. A girl starts diving around the age of seven, becomes a professional diver around the age of eighteen and retires from diving in her sixties. The prime years of diving activity are between twenty-five and forty-five. When one reaches the age of fifty-five, one stops deep diving for top-shells and abalone. At around sixty one is supposed to stop diving completely. But in reality it depends on each person. While I was in the field, several women over sixty were still diving. They said they were diving 'since there's not much else to do in this good weather'. Companionship is very important in diving. Divers seldom go to the diving site alone. Changing clothes was an especially joyful hour. Divers spent unnecessarily long hours changing clothes. They ex• changed information, talked about their family problems, joked and sometimes sang. It was noisy and lively. Divers enjoy diving and are proud of their jobs. When they could not go diving for several days, owing to the weather conditions, they said they were having body-aches and wanted to dive as soon as 154 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea

possible. Some divers preferred farming to diving, mentioning the danger involved in diving. But the majority of divers preferred diving to farming. I asked students of the middle school to write about their future aspirations. The following was written by a girl in the junior class: I want to be a diver in the future. I would go to the sea with many friends. I may study some at night to learn what I don't know. At the sea, we'll collect many kinds of seaweed. How happy I will be, working and laughing together with my friends. When I think about the danger we may have in the sea, I become scared. But we will cooperate and guide one another for safe and enjoyable diving. My hope is to be here with friends who will go diving together. To sum up, diving is skilled labour and highly valued work in the village. Moreover, diving is not drudgery. Village women enjoy diving and comradeship with other diving women.

Farming Cheju Island is a volcanic island. The land is not suitable for irrigation farming, which has been the major subsistence basis in mainland Korea. The main crops of Yang Dong are drought-resistant and include barley, yuch'ae and sweet potatoes. Barley is the subsistence crop. Yuch'ae, from which oil is extracted, and sweet potatoes are cash crops. The sexual division of labour in farming is clearly made. Virtually all farming, including weeding, cutting potato branches and the stems of ripened crops, and drying the sliced potatoes, is done by women. Women are also engaged in carrying heavy loads on their backs, levelling the land, seeding, and using manual slicing machines. Most of women's work is time-consuming and requires endurance and stamina. If a man is involved in farming, he is usually doing most of the work in a standing position, such as carrying, ploughing, or clearing the sweet potato branches. Most work which has to do with animals or machines, such as ploughing, driving small tractors or horse-carts, or using motorised slicing machines, is done by men. Men tend to work when they feel like working. But women work in order to have a good harvest. Men's contribution to farming varies greatly depending on the person. A woman with a co-operative husband can make much more income than a woman with an Hae-Joang Cho 155 uncooperative husband. Although village men say their occupation is farming, a careful analysis of the division of labour and the villagers' attitude towards farming reveals that women are the major farm workers. In terms of knowledge, both men and women know the proper time to plant and harvest. Husband and wife discuss and make decisions over farming matters together. But in practice it is usually the wife who takes the initiative and carries out the work on schedule. She asks or coaxes her husband to help her, or sometimes has to remind him several times a day to plough the field before the work gets done. Since one can hire men for man's work such as ploughing and threshing, men's presence is not crucial for undertaking farming. A woman can farm all by herself. In fact, many village women, especially widows, successfully cultivate crops, while no men can do without their wives. Regarding the ownership of farming plots, 90 per cent of land was registered under men's names. Men have a stronger voice in claiming the income from farming than in claiming the income from diving, owing to the land ownership and the fact that they 'helped' farm. It is usually the man who gets money for the farm produce from the Union. With their name stamps men can also borrow money from the Union. It was interesting to know that gambling becomes most popular soon after the Farming Co-operative pays cash for the farm produce.

Chesa (ancestral rites)

Performing Confucian rituals is the most important male activity. Men spend a great deal of their time performing and attending rituals. In Yong Dong, changrye (the funeral ceremony) and chesa (the ancestral memorial ceremony) are the most elaborate rituals and the centres of social activity. Ten or twenty per cent of the family budget is spent as bujo (mutual-aid allowance) for these social occasions. A village elder said proudly, 'I've been in many places, and I found out that Cheju people perform changrye more properly and elaborately than any other people in Korea.' Changrye is performed when a person dies. It lasts for three to seven days depending on the instructions of a geomancer. After the 156 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea funeral, a ritual called sak-mang chesa is performed twice a month, on the first day and full moon, for two years. The first year memorial (so-sang) and the second year memorial (dae-sang) are other elabo• rated rituals similar to changrye, attracting over 150 guests from neighbouring villages. From the third year, the regular memorial ritual (ki-chesa) is performed. Besides at ki-chesa, the deceased is also memorialised on New Year's Day, Ancestor's Day and ch'usok, the festival day of harvest. Ki-chesa is performed for ancestors up to four generations above the performer's generation. For ancestors from the fifth generation, si-chesa is performed. At si-chesa, ancestors are collectively memor• ialised in a day in October after cleaning the ancestor's graveyard. A large and flourishing patrilineage has a ritual house for this occasion. In Yong Dong there is one such house. A typical day of ki-chesa begins when a man goes shopping on the main island to buy pork, fish, fruits and cakes, and his wife prepares various kinds of rice cakes. The hostess of the day's ceremony may not be able to go diving. Other women, usually her relatives, may have a rather short dive and come to help the hostess. Sometime during the afternoon, the host prepares the ritual meat and fish dishes. Around sunset, village men and relatives gather at the house. Children, asked by their mothers, bring baskets of rice, bread or soju (white liquor). Men, occupying the main room ofthe house, converse while drinking. Women who are closely related to the commemo• rated come and help the hostess to prepare the evening meal. Unless they have to help the hostess, women usually do not come. Several hours pass as men drink and converse, children play with one another or sleep in the corners of the house, and women talk and cook. The ceremony is performed at midnight by four men: samhon (the three offerers who are direct descendants to the memorialised) and a superintendent. After making an offer of food, descendants wait for about thirty minutes. Then all the male guests bow at the alter and distribute and serve the food of the sacrifice. From the kitchen, rice and soup are brought. Elderly men are served first. Once all the men have been served the remainder goes to the boys and lastly women and little children. Chesa is over now. Fathers give their left-over food to their children so that children can carry it home in their baskets. The people, usually more than thirty in number, disperse. The next morning, the food is brought to villagers who did not attend the chesa. Hae-Joang Cho 157

A man attends several chesa a month. On the other hand, a woman does not attend chesa unless it is for her very close relatives including parents and parents' siblings. It is not considered 'proper' for a woman to eat chesa too often. In a sense, women are excluded from chesa as long as they live. After death, however, women are commemorated like their male counterparts. Chesa has a profound meaning for village life. Men do not consider chesa as an absolutely sacred occasion, but consider it to be more than merely a social occasion; they say that it is 'just an occasion for memorialising ancestors'. But they are well aware of the importance of chesa and the consequent importance of themselves as the ritual specialists. A man has great pride in himself if he has many chesa and performs them properly.

Child care and other activities

Cooking, cleaning and washing are basically considered women's work. But depending on the situation, they are shared to a great extent. During the busy season of diving, the husbands or children of divers prepare meals, wash dishes and clothes, and clean the house. Child care is a shared activity of both men and women. Baby-care during the day is mostly a man's job. After the women have gone to dive the village is very quiet and empty. Men with their babies visit each other, talk, and drink. They may discuss international affairs, national policies, and local politics, but they also talk about the difficulties involved in baby-care. A forty-five year old man said, 'Baby-care looks like an easy job. But it is one of the most difficult jobs. You will realise it when you actually take care of a baby.' Village men are, in general, very fond of children, especially little children and babies, and take good care of them, which their women recognise and appreciate. Villagers raise domestic animals such as horses, cows, pigs and fowl. Tending horses and cattle is said to be a man's job. But many women and children tend the animals too.

Social organisation

Village leadership is held by men. Village elders, who have know• ledge of Confucian ethics and rituals and who can read the classic 158 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea

Chinese books, have influence on decision-making in village affairs. On occasions such as funerals and weddings, they are invited to supervise the ceremonies. They also play a role as consultants to villagers, especially to women whose husbands have died or have gone away. Recent social changes through modernisation, however, have undermined this traditional pattern of leadership by the elders. A village manager is elected every year by villagers. He works as a mediator between villagers, governmental organisations and unions as the head of the Village Association. Most extra-domestic activi• ties, such as voting or road-mending, are supervised by the village manager. He gets a little pay from villagers for his services. Chesa properties and names are inherited through patrilineal line. The practice of inheritance rules is best understood in terms of chesa, since taking over the main house and farming land of a family means succeeding chesa of the family. Village exogamy and lineage exogamy are the rules of marriage on the Korean mainland. In Yong Dong, lineage exogamy is strictly practised, but village exogamy is not. As long as it does not violate the rule of lineage exogamy, villagers, especially women, prefer village-endogamous marriages (marriage within the village unit). Economic advantages and the emotional closeness between mother and daughter make them prefer marriages of village endogamy. Virilocality (the practice whereby a married couple settles in the domicile of the husband's family) is the principle rule of residence in the village, but people in the village make a choice between virilocality and uxorilocality (the practice whereby a married couple settles in the domicile of the wife's family). When there are no practical advantages to living in the husband's village, the couple may decide to settle in the wife's village. If a man has not inherited any property from his parents, the family economic condition can be improved by settling in the wife's village. The nuclear family is the basic social unit in Yong Dong. The patrilineal extended family is not activated in the village because of the particular economic condition of the female diver's village. Besides, Yong Dong provides an image of the mother-centred family. A family system where the role of the mother is ideologically and structurally central is defined as 'matrifocality', by Tanner (1974: 133). The distinction between the mother who is affectively central (as in Anglo-American 'momism') and the mother who is structurally central is made by her to clarify the nature of matrifocality. Close Hae-Joang Cho 159 examinations of mothers' roles in Yong Dong reveal the matrifocality of the Yong Dong family. Mothers are dedicated and responsible breadwinners. They do their best to insure a comfortable life for the members of their families, and to provide their children with a higher formal educa• tion. Earning money is not the only responsibility undertaken by diving mothers. Mothers prepare for chesa, plan housing construction, arrange marriages for children and save money to send sons to high school and college. Weddings and funerals, which are the biggest occasions of the village, are all managed by mothers. A woman's illness is a serious problem in the family. Once a husband who sold the farm plot for his wife's medical treatment said to her, 'If you are sick, what is the use of the farm plot?' Since the illness of a mother severely disrupts a family, a woman is very cautious about her health. Once exhausted or ill, she will go to a quiet place such as a Buddhist temple. Most of the institutionalised religions in the vicinity of Yong Dong play important functions as retreat places for women who want temporarily to get away from hard work. The cases of widows and widowers and the practice of polygyny (the marriage of a man to two or more women simultaneously) may be important in understanding the matrifocal nature of the Yong Dong family. Widows tend to remain widows, and a woman living alone is perfectly natural. Significantly, most of the female-headed house• holds belong to the higher income group in the village. In the case of young widowers, on the other hand, they do not remain long as widowers. The condition of the widower's family is too severe for relatives not to become involved: marriage is usually arranged by relatives right after the funeral of the deceased. A husband, dissatisfied with his wife, tends to leave his family instead of getting a divorce. Since the husband's presence or absence is not vital for the maintenance of the household, men seem to leave home rather casually. They may go to cities or to the mainland, trying to do some business and probably getting a second wife. A man gets a second wife ('little wife' in the local terminology) rather carelessly. The social responsibilities of men to their 'little wives' are basically the same as those to their first wives. They are expected to play roles as lovers to the women and as genealogical fathers to their children. 160 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea

No economic support is expected from men. 'Two wives means two purses' in Yang Dong. This folk saying tells what roles a 'little wife' plays. She does not get anything economically from her husband but is herself the provider.

Gender personality

Sex differences were commonly perceived and discussed in terms of role division. Notions of 'femininity' or 'masculinity' in terms of innate biology or psychology were rarely heard in ordinary life. When I asked specifically about sex differences, villagers mentioned most frequently the diligence of women and the idle life of men. Divers' songs, which used to be sung while divers rowed boats, reveal the social reality where the responsibility to carry on the daily life is upon the womens' shoulders. A song says: Leaving behind a crying baby, Leaving behind a loving husband, I've come here to dive Since money makes a better life. Working hard and making money To support children. (Chi Soon, Lee, 1974: 363-4) Although women's hard life is mentioned frequently, the image of independent and proud women as major income earners is also expressed. A sixty-five-year-old diver was making fun of mainland wives who 'drink and play and do little work'. Women's perception of work is particularly well expressed in a statement made by a fifty-three-year-old woman. She said, 'How frustrated and restless one may be who plays with all one's might! A lucky one doesn't play.' The image of independent Cheju women is widely accorded recognition by mainlanders as well as Cheju islanders. A man from the mainland who lived in Cheju for six years said he would not marry a Cheju woman 'because women here are too independent. If they do not like something, they ask for a divorce right there, and often marry again. I cannot take such a kind of woman.' Autonomy has the highest value to these women. They devalue dependence or dominance. Women's independence is not the only personality trait derived from their economic activities. Their co• operativeness and egalitarianism are also derived from it. Hae-Joang Cho 161

Compared with their hardworking and often overworked women, men in Yong Dong lead 'idle' lives. Every morning, sitting under the village tree, they seem to wonder what to do for the day. Some are engaged in baby-sitting, housekeeping, cattle-tending or trying to help wives in farming or in processing seaweed. Others spend the whole day talking, drinking and taking naps. As a symbolic example of men's idle life, men eat only half the amount of food consumed by women. An old woman said, 'How can they have a taste for food when they work so little?' Laziness in men is not considered a vice. There is an ideology that doing nothing is better than working hard for a living among men: a 'noble' man does not work. A young man, once remarking upon women with reference to merits and defects, said, 'Women are too busy to be reflective. They do not think'. The implication of this statement is that the lazy and philosophical men are superior to the hardworking and practical women. It is men's financial and psychological dependence upon their women which makes it possible for men to remain a leisurely class. Men relate to their female relatives and wives, or maybe women in general, as a solid group upon which they can depend and turn to whenever they need to. Women, on the other hand, are permissive to their husbands. Although men lead a leisurely and, in a sense, privileged life, dissatisfaction stays with them. As the TAr analysis reveals, men in Yong Dong are basically lonely and frustrated. Men cope with their frustrated reality in several ways. Some try to be hardworking farmers of village leaders. But heavy drinking, frequent trips, gambling, getting a second wife, and daydreaming are the common means through which men escape from their dissatisfac• tion with reality. In this context, it is quite easy to understand that the ideal woman is a hardworking, tough and maternal person, whereas the ideal man is good-natured, handsome and knowledgeable. These are, in fact, major qualifications in arranged marriages. In general, Yong Dong women are independent, articulate and positive in their attitude towards life. Men, on the other hand, tend to be sensitive, introspec• tive and pessimistic. 162 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea

Neither dominance

In the period described above, Yong Dong was definitely a female• centred community at the economic level but, in the name of Confucian tradition, men claimed superiority over women. The exclusive ritual world of chesa, the major Confucian ritual for patrilineal ancestors, served as the basis of the claim. In theory, men invested with these ritual roles were a privileged caste who were exempted from economic activities. But in practice, power relations between the sexes were not at all male-dominant. The selective adaptation of Confucianism clearly exemplified this. Since women were the primary economic actors and female solidarity was the most required form of collaboration, as discussed earlier, a drastically deviated pattern of social organisation was developed: namely, the nuclear family was the normal pattern of living, and practices of village endogamy, uxorilocality, neolocality, and a kind of polygyny were regarded as natural or often preferable. The other indicator is that Confucian ethics and norms were casually ignored and violated by the Yong Dong villagers. For example, deferential behaviour towards older people and towards the opposite sex strictly prescribed by Confucianism was not found. Filial piety, the core of Confucian ideology, was neither regarded as the highest virtue nor served as the acting principle guiding the villagers' familial life. Unlike the mainland, with its strong patriarchal stem family tradition, adult children were not expected to support their parents in their old age unless they became immobilised. Mothers-in• law had little power over their daughters-in-law, while a mother and her adult daughters maintained relatively close and co-operative relationships. Paternal authority was not observed in these matrifocal families. In Yong Dong, Confucianism was little more than a rationale for the male monopoly of the world of ritual Confucian values, such as high respect towards knowledge, and contempt for manual labour further served to devalue women by classifying men as a sacred noble class and women as a secular working class. I therefore suggest that the male domination of the symbolic realm of culture in Yong Dong should be seen as a sort of collective fetishism. The set of ideology and rituals were not only a 'political dogma' used by men to establish their prerogatives, but also a defensive mechanism to conceal men's fragility. Strictly speaking, Yong Dong in the 1970s was a matrifocal community with a persisting male-superiority ideology. Neither sex Hae-Joang Cho 163 dominated in this situation. The community was separated into two different domains along the male-female line. The ritual world of unchanging nature was for men, while the constantly changing ordinary life was for women. Social identities derived from men while socio-economic achievement came from women. Women were the actual 'social adults' while men were the protected privileged 'symbo• lic adults'. As a conclusion, this female divers' community is not a society of sexual equality where equal opportunities for the sexes exist. But I tend to define it as a 'neither-dominant' society where both women and men maintain their autonomy to a similar extent. Domination of either group is inhibited due to the particular ecological condition and historical background of the village.

III TRANSFORMATION OF GENDER STRUCTURE

A recent survey (Kim et al., 1985) has shown that the number of divers has been decreasing since 1974. According to the official record, there were 23 930 divers in 1970, which comprised 12.6 per cent of the total Cheju female population at that time. In 1983 the number went down to 7885, only 3.2 per cent of the total Cheju female population. Although the statistics are often inaccurate and tend towards underestimation, the situation is quite clear. The age distribution further supports this change. The majority of divers (61.2 per cent) practising in 1983 were in their thirties and forties. Only 10.2 per cent of divers were under the age of twenty-nine, while the rest (28.6 per cent) were over the age of fifty. Recently, a Cheju local newspaper (Chejusinmun, 3.11.1987) ran an article urging the Gov• ernment authorities to 'protect the disappearing traditional profes• sion', namely female diving. In the following, the gradual transforma• tion of gender structure of Y ong Dong will be discussed in the context of wider social milieu.

From village to city

As discussed in the introduction to this chapter, two stages of economic transition have been identified. In the first stage, in the 1970s, subsistence activities of the family were replaced by commer• cial production. As for the divers' families, the change meant more 164 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea cash income from diving since the shellfish and the seaweed they collected were important export goods. In fact the women gained more economic power during this period. On the other hand their husbands have gradually lost ground in claiming male superiority, owing to modern ideas and to governmental policies of simplifying traditional ritual life. An interesting shift of cultural emphasis was observed during this period: the gradual replacement of ritual life with modern education. Owing to their increased income, mothers now could afford to send their children to higher schools. In 1976 while I was in the field, almost all boys went to high school whereas most girls went only to middle school. This clear discrimination in terms of educational opportunity was, to the locals, a quite natural decision for three reasons. First of all, men have been traditionally associated with (ritual) knowledge and women with productivity. Secondly, upon graduation from middle school, girls were ready to be income-earners as divers, but boys were not. Since men did not contribute much to family income, sending boys away to school did not mean great loss for the family. The third reason was that, compared with diving activities, there were few appropriate and appealing jobs for edu• cated girls at that time. Being energetic and daring, some girls expressed a wish to be army officers. But they cared less for working in the areas of service, assistance, or other 'feminine' work. As a result, the income girls made from diving was spent on their brothers' education, enabling men to receive even higher education. However, only a few men utilised their modern education. The majority of educated men did not work in the modern sector, partly because of the lack of appropriate jobs and partly owing to their high expecta• tions of work. Men showed a tendency not to work unless their jobs were truly psychologically rewarding, such as government officers or schoolteachers. In other words, these ritual-oriented men had little interest in work and were not easily motivated to work just for money. Their educational background served more as a qualification for a good marriage than for employment. In a word, the dichotomy of the ritual world of women and the profane world of men persisted through this replacement of ritual with education. Increased enrolment of girls to higher schools, frequent urban visits, and the increased cash income furnishing village homes with motorcycles, televisions and telephones, were the most visible indica• tors of the second transition in the 1980s. A majority of the youth migrated to urban centres for education and employment. Modern Hae-Joang Cho 165 jobs and urban life-styles have been introduced to the village youth as tangible future life alternatives. At the same time, the traditional type of work and village life were devalued. First of all, the dependency of the village economy upon the national economy has been increased. The annual income from diving and farming rapidly increased from 1970 to 1980 and levelled off recently due to the Government's great emphasis on the export industry at the expense of primary industry. Villagers were much depressed about the forecast in 1980. Secondly, the growing economy for the last decade generated a large number of educated youth. According to the Cheju Educational Statistics (1984: 162-3), the number of high school students was 29 518, i.e. 79.4 per cent of the total middle school graduates of 1983. It is particularly significant that the majority of girls now go to high school. The number of female high school students was 13 507, i.e. 46 per cent of the total high school students. The rapid increase of female enrolment in high school was evident in the school record. Five out of 50 female students who graduated from Y ong Dong Middle School went to high school in 1976. In 1983, 39 out of 49 female students went to high school. This change in enrolment has a significant implication for village life. First of all, going to high school means leaving home since there is no high school near Yong Dong. Away from home, those girls missed the training period for divers on the one hand, and became more thoroughly assimilated to the so-called 'modern' culture on the other. Their assimilation was made rather smoothly since they were the first TV generation. The TV was introduced to the villagers in 1972 and now almost every home has at least one set (either colour or black -and-white). Girls are now leaving the village and abandoning diving altogether as the result of their high school education. Educated girls now regard diving as 'primitive' and 'hard labour'. Upon high school graduation, some girls went to college. Two out of five college students in Yong Dong were female. Others found jobs such as assistant nurses and clerks. Those who could not afford to go to high school went to work in mainland factories which offer high school courses at night as a part of the fringe benefits for their workers. Girls, except those in school, still contributed significantly to their family economy, but the amount was not quite the same as before because living expenses were higher in the cities while the income itself was less compared with that earned from diving. Villagers were very conscious of the discontinuity of village life. 166 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea

Diving women considered themselves as the last generation who would engage in the traditional occupation, and no longer encour• aged their daughters to be divers. Most divers were well aware of what has been going on around them and what it would be like in the future. They said that what they had to do was to ride the strong current of modernisation as quickly as possible. A diver expressed her opinion very clearly: 'My daughter is a high school graduate now. She should find jobs appropriate for the educated. Diving ends with my generation.' Since their daughters' departure, the divers' work• load increased enormously, to the detriment of their health. But, having the ruraVurban and traditionaVmodern dichotomy in their minds, they were content with their daughters' perceived advance• ment. These drastic changes inevitably led to modification of gender role prescription. A woman's labour, in the absence of her daughters' help, was not enough to support the increased expenses of children's schooling. This called for the father's active participation in farming. Men's help is absolutely necessary now, and men do work harder than before, which enables them to make more claims over farm products. Village men have become much more visible in the diving area, too. Some men have been hired to guard the diving site from intruders and to watch whether divers follow diving regulations. Diving regulations, such as when to collect what materials, when one should not dive at all, and how to sell one's product (one should not sell one's product individually to the market) have been issued and reinforced recently by the Fishing Co-operative Union. Divers do not like the rigid diving regulations. On an off-day, if the sun is shining and the ocean is calm, divers become restless and eventually go out to the beach even to collect tiny shells. These regulations are supposed to protect underwater resources from over-exploitation by frequent and longer diving, and divers' health from overwork5 • Divers and village men are very critical of the Union. They think the Union should convince the Government to issue a strong regulation to keep the diving boats owned by city capitalists away from the shore, and should be investigating pollution factors which might also be affecting sea products. The leaders of divers are very concerned about the problem of preserving underwater resources. But at the same time they feel helpless, having no alternatives to solve the problem while economic constraints force them to engage in over-exploitation. A wise and highly respected diver said: 'The worst enemy is ourselves; Hae-Joang Cho 167 since we need money, we became so greedy. Really, we no longer care for other people but earning money for children's schooling.' Besides the absolute shortage of rural labour, the mass media played an important role in bringing about such a change in sex-roles. Television dramas persistently portray the ideal man as the responsi• ble breadwinner and the powerful head of the household. Villagers, eager to be modern, try to conform to the imposed sex role pattern. Hardworking men are no longer ridiculed but respected to some degree. Once, a man remarked negatively about hardworking women, saying: 'A hardworking wife makes a lazy husband.' Women's dependence on men has been increased in the process. As local production and marketing has been heavily controlled by the government-sponsored union, the Divers' Association lost much of its decision-making function. The Fishing Co-operative, with 476 individual members, has ten employees (eight men and two women). In 1976 there were four employees for more than 600 members. The Union is becoming more and more bureaucratised and male• dominated. At meetings, the middle-aged divers with little school education have a very limited voice over issues such as price control and administration of the organisation. Even communal projects such as making the sea-beds were always carried out under the total supervision of the Co-operative and male village leaders. A good instance was found in Yong Dong when a young village leader who graduated from high school in Seoul came back to the village in 1982 to work. He promoted a plan to make beds for planting top shells and abalones: according to his calculation, they could increase the income from the sea by at least 10 per cent. Women trusted his modern knowledge and invested W5 000 000, approximately the annual in• come of an average diver. His plan failed within a year. The frequent contact with cities and the mainland also contributes to the increase of women's dependence on men. Most village men who were educated at schools can speak the standard language and are familiar with city culture. On the other hand, uneducated women know only Cheju dialect and have experienced less travelling. As villagers now take frequent trips to the mainland to visit their children or relatives who work there, many women have to depend on their husbands in many ways, such as going around the cities by public transport, making phone calls or getting along with the mainland-born daughters-in-law. Women who have never studied at schools, mostly those over the age of sixty, even refrain from talking while on their travels, ashamed of their strong Cheju accent. Often 168 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea these types of urban experience make women more attached to village life where at least they can be their own boss. On the other hand, being exposed directly to the outside world, they become much more conscious of the fact that their life-style is not considered to be normal by most Koreans, and conclude that diving is a dying vocation which should not be encouraged among the new generation. The neither-dominant structure at both the community and family level is breaking down rapidly.

From female autonomy to male dominance

When I decided to revisit Cheju in 1984 and 1987 to study the changes over the previous ten years, I was very excited about what I might find there. I anticipated that I might meet educated young women, the daughters of female divers, who would now have become active participants of the modern world either as modern professionals or innovative divers. I was asking these questions: What would be the ideas about 'work' and 'family' adhered to by the daughters of the independent divers? Will they also be working as actively and proudly as their mothers? I soon found, however, that I was too naive. A short discussion with divers' daughters in the city clearly revealed that they tried very hard to conform to the new gender role model which is more typical of the mainland. They now learned that women work only until marriage, since women's world is 'at home' while 'society' is the men's world. The housewives justified their economic inactivity by saying that mother's work negatively affects children's welfare. The concept of 'femininity' and 'masculinity' was changing. Male students were complaining about Cheju women being blunt and insensitive while female students expressed dissatisfaction with Cheju men in that they are too dependent and lacking 'gentle• manship'. A girl said: 'Cheju men should learn how to protect women while Cheju women should learn how to please men.' Of course, there was ambivalence over the newly introduced gender images. Men generally showed a distinctive distaste toward dependent and passive women. They still prefer diligent and straightforward women without facial make-up. Women, as they did ten years ago, selected 'good personality' over ability as the most important quality for future husbands. By 'good personality' they meant sociable and not too aggressive. But the exclusive identification of women's role with Hae-Joang Cho 169 the domestic domain was accepted by both men and women, and consequently the image of a docile and lovely wife was accentuated. A male college student flatly declared: 'Since a man will get a job and make an income, his wife should stay home taking care of the children and running the household.' But some young men were not so sure that Cheju women would agree with the idea: 'Of course, I want my wife to stay home, but if she doesn't want it, I can't do much about it. I have a feeling that my wife-to-be will insist on working and I might have to give in,' the man added. What needs to be emphasised here is the 'change' in ideal gender roles. Whether the ideal is something merely cherished or the actual guide for behaviour, the acceptance of new symbols has great significance in itself. My interviews revealed that typically a college-educated woman works three to four years and marries at the age of twenty-seven. She gives up work upon marriage or childbirth. When the last child reaches the age of two or three, she looks for a job again. Since re-entering the modern job market is difficult, she may try to start her own business or engage in informal income-generating activities. The number of non-working housewives is also increasing. The few outstanding young women working at highly prestigious jobs, such as TV production and news reporting, were exceptions. The high probability that a professional woman will marry an educated man who now works on the mainland also has a negative impact on a woman's career building, since moving usually forces her to leave the job. Many women, especially those who were highly educated and eager to be 'modern', have shown a fear of being identified as 'tough'. The peculiar mixture of two symbolic constructs, the 'modern' and the 'traditional' gender dichotomisation puts a heavy restriction on educated women's behaviour. A professional woman commented: 'I really feel limited by being a skirt-wearing woman when I see my male co-worker jump up the stairways for an urgent assignment'. (At her statement, I felt a terrible irony, knowing that in the village, women hardly ever wear skirts.) But she did not dare to wear trousers at work both because of peer pressure at the workplace and of her own preoccupation with being a modern 'lady'. A middle-aged women who was educated at a mainland college and works at a government office, proudly told me that she had just started to work upon completing her childrearing duty. 'The most important work for women definitely lies at home,' she said. There are other practices reinforcing sex roles in the work setting. 170 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea

For example, office cleaning was required by all the female members of the company regardless of their rank and job specification. Male bosses and co-workers either explicitly emphasised or indirectly suggested that women should do 'womanly work' in addition to their jobs. If one refused to do that, she would get a 'chorus of blame' from the men. But it seems that most women are not so sensitive about this matter. A news reporter said, 'I don't mind doing that extra work. No sweat. It doesn't bother me at all.' She and some other professional women said that a real problem at work lay elsewhere: not offending the male ego. Men, usually older than themselves, kept reminding the young female workers to be less assertive. On the grounds that they are the 'big seniors', being older and having worked longer at the job, men bluntly demand the submission of their female col• leagues. A male teacher ordered a female schoolteacher: 'Say only 70 per cent of what you want to say.' The majority of professional women in Cheju work in the area of education. This field is known to be less sex-discriminating. But a peculiar form of division of labour by sex was also found at schools. At elementary schools, male and female teachers exchange classes since women do not like to teach athletic classes while men avoid music classes. This new ideology of femininity has affected women in various other ways. As on the mainland, the majority of female college students have been selecting 'feminine' majors such as literature, home economics and education. Resignation upon mar• riage was explicitly or implicitly imposed by their employers. Nursing and education, long perceived as women's work, are the only exceptions to this rule. A woman, the first female TV producer in Cheju, was once told by her boss: 'I may still employ you as a script writer even if you marry.' By this considerate remark he implied that ideally she should leave the job upon marriage. In most cases women's resignation upon marriage is an already established rule or practice which was made at the company headquarters on the mainland. But there are also indigenous socio-economic factors relevant to this change. First of all, the narrow job market for educated youth is pushing women, more than men, into the domestic world. Secondly, the conjugal nuclear family system and women's superb adaptability seems to work negatively on women's employ• ment. A conjugal nuclear family system has a crucial implication for women's employment. Traditionally, women had worked without any interruption since children were cared for by fathers, grand• parents or siblings, in the community setting. But now, in the city, Hae-Joang Cho 171 one can hardly find alternative care-takers: only the husband and the wife have to take the responsibility of child care. Unlike on the mainland, where the extended household composition has amelio• rated the working women's child-care burden, getting help for child care becomes much more difficult in Cheju cities where the nuclear family is the prevalent form of household arrangement. The confidence of young women in their ability can also be a liability. Many young women think that they can easily find or even create jobs whenever a need arises. This kind of optimism and confidence induces women to quit their jobs rather casually, expect• ing to resume easily some kind of income-generating activity when they want to. To them, work is a part of life which does not require anything like determination to hold on to. It does not seem to occur to them that leaving a job could be the end of their working life. A female teacher once said: 'After all, women cannot beat men. People talk about strong Cheju women, but there is a clear difference between earning money and having a career. Cheju women tend to think of the work too much in terms of economy. We need to cultivate ourselves to be more of mental being.' What I am suggesting here is that the traditional arrangement of nuclear family life and supreme adaptability of Cheju women has had a negative impact on female employment, at least in the modern sector at this stage of development. Here we found transformation of the rather symmetrical male• female dichotomy into an asymmetrical one. The ritual sphere of chesa which served more as a defence mechanism for men against female dominance now seems to be a direct expression of male dominance. Chesa, education and modern employment are the same in the sense that these have been the exclusive spheres of men, but the shift of its emphasis from the symbolic to the economic means a fundamental change in gender relations. The provision of food, which was a woman's duty, has now become a man's prerogative. Men begin to have actual power as well as ritual power and their exclusive domain is no longer a defence mechanism against female dominance but a weapon of dominance in itself. Women's self-images have also been changing rapidly. Although women can now at last receive the highest education, the modern job market encourages men, not women, to work. Educated Cheju men could find jobs more easily either in Cheju or on the mainland than educated women. This condition tended to leave a group of educated women without employment, who eventually became 'housewives'. 172 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea

Also, old women in the village suffer increased labour without the support of their daughters. Men, identified with the educated, formal and modern world, now become the socio-economic centre of the family, while their wives remain either as traditional labourers in rural communities, or as economically dependent housewives in cities. Devaluing traditional work, daughters of the active and hardworking Cheju women are gradually accepting the role of the passive and leisurely housewife. For the young woman, 'housewife' means an exchange of the old village life of hard toil for a new urban life of leisure.

IV CONCLUSION

In this study I tried to reconstruct a long-term historical dynamic of the life of Cheju female divers with a focus on the conceptions of gender roles and 'femininity'. This case shows that women working in a certain traditional profession may maintain or even gain much economic power and personal autonomy in a limited period of modernisation. But at the later stage of modernisation, particularly if the national development plan is carried out under the sole aim of capitalistic expansion, local autonomy even at the minimal level can no longer be maintained, nor can female autonomy. Local culture is systematically destroyed through rapid urbanisation on the one hand, and the extremely centralised educational and mass-communication system on the other hand. Of course, industrialisation requires urbanisation and mass educa• tion. Rather than simply blaming 'modernisation' and imperial powers, one needs an insight to understand the dynamic interplay between external and internal forces in modernisation. In this specific case study, that means setting out to understand local history as a dynamic process of the indigenous dichotomy of gender domains and the internal colonisation. Traditional Cheju definitely has developed a gender-differentiated culture, but not a patriarchy. In the process of modernisation, however, a new dimension of hierarchisation of gender structure has been adjoined to its indigenous polarisation. The hierarchical nature of the locaVcentral-state relationship is crucial to an understanding of this transformation process. As a peasant community until recently, Cheju's relationship with the mainland state was that of superiority• dependency. Accordingly, a rural and urban dichotomy between Hae-Joang Cho 173 villager and elite, perceived differently as a 'great' and 'little' tradition, has existed in Cheju throughout quite a long history. Being an island, however, Cheju could preserve its autonomy considerably more than outlying regions on the mainland. The urban group and their culture, mainly affiliated with the administrating body from the mainland, had not interfered with the indigenous life of the people. Particularly in the absence of the effective means of transportation and communication, Cheju farming and diving villages remained fairly untouched. But around 1975 through rapid urbanisa• tion and mass education, and with the expansion of the powerful mass-media, both urban and rural Cheju became thoroughly inte• grated into the mainland. In the case of Cheju, education has been the major agent in bringing about drastic cultural change. When the majority of children, both male and female, receive at least twelve years' education under an educational system that totally ignores regional sub-culture and only emphasises cultural homogeneity, the destruction of local culture may be quite unavoidable. Another important fact to be recognised is that an increased number of men go to the mainland for university education. These mainland-educated elites have been playing the central role in introducing mainland culture to the island, and are responsible for reinforcing the dicho• tomy of 'modern' and 'traditional', which identifies the 'modern' culture with the more powerful and larger mainland. The centrally controlled TV has also played a role of effective assimilation. Basically all the programmes of the two stations were made at the Seoul central station and distributed among local branch stations. Only one hour per week was allocated to a genuine local programme. But I found that the local programme was not well known to the indigenous people, because the timing was bad (early Sunday morning) and the content of the programme was not attrac• tive, the villagers said. Through this type of centrally directed mass-media, mainland culture has been rapidly penetrating the villages for the past ten years. A crucial problem is that one does not adopt new culture selective• ly. The dichotomy between 'modern' and 'traditional' is such an overwhelmingly powerful means to convert village men and women into modernists. 'Being modern' to them means a total denial of 'tradition' and total acceptance of the 'new' and 'foreign', including that of mainland patriarchy. To the young women, it means denial of diving, hard work and being autonomous. Here one cannot but ask: 'Aren't there ways to carry out industrialisation without undermining 174 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea local autonomy and distorting egalitarian local sub-culture?' The task of achieving egalitarianism in Cheju depends largely on regaining local autonomy. Since Korea is a highly centralised society with a cultural preoccupation with homogeneity, Cheju, being the only very different region with its distinctive dialect, has suffered most from the national integration process. Taking the long view, it is possible that various grass-roots movements to re-establish the strength and identity of Cheju, which are in their inception, will revitalise the province. One can hope that after the period of toadyism, the members of the local community might begin to construct a more satisfying and egalitarian culture of their own style through collective efforts. In order to bring about changes in that direction, efforts should be made in two ways: critical evaluation of the national development plan and reconstruction of a genuine Cheju sub-culture. First of all, if the present national 'development' plans are re• sponsible for the disintegration of Cheju culture, with a severely distorted labour market, they must be critically re-examined and fundamentally re-evaluated. In fact, the young elites on the island have begun to offer their own evaluations. A group of Cheju intellectuals, including college students and writers, once fought against the national plan to make Cheju an international resort area. Knowing that the development plan will only benefit the mainland and foreign capitalists, a group of young indigenous elites protested and called for the withdrawal of the plan. The plan was eventually retracted, but absurdly it was more because of the budgetary deficit of the Government than because of the protest. Some of the Cheju elites are also critical about the national economic policy with its heavy emphasis on exports. Being an agricultural province, the majority of Cheju citizens suffer from the instability of prices for farm products, caused by that policy. Being aware of this economic dependency, a group of Cheju Christian elites with support from leaders of the mainland grass-roots movement on rural development began to organise farmers and initiate conscious• ness-raising programmes. But the social impact of those activities is still very low. Fortunately, the issue of decentralisation has been raised recently as a major task for socio-political reform in Korea. Cheju people have taken this issue more seriously than any other local groups. It is urged that the Government must take serious consideration of local variations into its development planning. Hae-Joang Cho 175

Diversity within the national system must be appreciated for develop• ment in the genuine sense. The second way to revitalise Cheju lies in creating a genuine Cheju sub-culture, which ultimately requires a rewriting of Cheju history. There are few local historians who have attempted to reconstruct Cheju history. Only recently has a movement among novelists begun: Gi Young Hyun (1983) offered a perceptive description, from the indigenous people's point of view, of a peasants' rebellion which resulted in a massacre on Cheju at around the turn of the century. The incident was interpreted by Hyun as a violent outburst of the masses who had been pushed too far to be tolerant of exploitation by the central government and corrupt local magistrates who came from the mainland. The French Catholic missionaries had also been responsible for aggravating the situation by abusing the power of their home Government. Hyun's novel has stirred up Korean intel• lectual circles by portraying the victimisation of a local province by the insensitive and incompetent central government and foreign imperial powers. The primary message of this novel is independence and self-reliance. Becoming aware of the problems caused by internal colonisation, Cheju elites began to search for their identity and cultural heritage. Their pursuit up to now, however, tends to be rather emotional and therefore superficial. The Cheju elites, mostly male, do not even want to recognise their unique form of traditional gender relations, perceiving it as 'uncivilised'. If the future of a people depends ultimately upon their realistic response to external pressures and insightful understanding of their own culture, overcoming pervasive helplessness and appreciating the potential of Cheju women will be the very first step towards reviving the integrity of Cheju culture.

Notes

1. This research is based on two major field trips. The goal of my first field trip in 1976 of nine months duration was to understand the basic power structure of the female divers' family and community with a special focus on the sexual division of labour (Cho, H. J., 1979). The research was mainly done at the village level. The second period of field research consisted of several short trips between 1984 and 1987, which were made in a broader social context. Designed to study changes, the research was carried out both in rural and urban areas. In my fieldwork village, I 176 Internal Colonisation in Cheju Island, South Korea

interviewed schoolteachers, government officers, employees of fishing and farming co-operatives, and students who were going to college in Cheju city, as well as carrying out participant observation. In the cities, I had individual and group interviews with local intellectuals including writers, schoolteachers, college students and their parents. I also arranged various meetings of professional women to listen to and discuss their particular problems in adapting to the modem workplace. Census data and school records from high schools and the Cheju National University were gathered. Life histories of young city wives, both working and non-working, were gathered in order to gain a deeper understanding of their lives and their conceptions of work and family. 2. I thank Laurel Kendall, Hahn Lim Wha and Anne Marie Goetz for giving me valuable suggestions on this chapter. I also thank Haleh Afshar for 'urging' me to rewrite it and Cynthia Davison for proofreading it carefully. Sisterhood always makes life easier. 3. Yong Dong is a fictive name. 4. For the Thematic Apperception Test analysis, cards 2, 3, 4, 6M, 7M, 9, 11, 12F, 13, 18 and J22 were used. The Korean version of the Murray Standard Edition was drawn by Ms Song Kyong Ja. Japanese and Chinese versions were consulted. For results ofthe TAT analysis, see Cho (1979). 5. Since the rubber wetsuit was introduced, divers tend to dive much longer hours, which has been causing serious health problems.

Select bibliography

Boserup, E. (1971) Women's Role in Economic Development (New York: St Martin's Press). Boserup, E. (1977) Preface to Woman and National Development: The Complexities of Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Cho, Hae Joang (1979) An Ethnographic Study of a Female Divers' Village in Korea: Focused on the Sexual Division of Labor, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Cho, S. Y. (1987) '1898-nyon Cheju-do Minran-ui Kujo-wa Song-giok' (The Structural Characteristic of the Cheju Rebellion of 1898), in Hanguk Chontong-Sahoe-ui Kujo-wa Byondong (Structure and Change of Tradi• tional Korea) (Seoul: Munhak-kwa Jisong). Hyun, Gi Young (1983) Byonbang-ui Uginnun Se (A Bird Crying in the Border) (Seoul: Changjak-kwa Bipiong). Kim, T. N. (1982) Chejudosa Nongo (A Study of Cheju History) (Seoul: Segi Munwhasa). Kim, Y. D., B. K. Kim and K. R. So (1985) 'Henyo Chosa Yonku' (A Survey on Female Divers), Tam/a Munwha, 5 (Cheju: National University of Cheju). Lee, Chi Soon (1974) Hanguk Minsok Chonghap Chosa Pogoso (General Reports of the Studies on Korean Folk Culture), 5: Cheju-do (Seoul: Ministry of Culture and Information). Lee, Chong Sik (1981) 'Historical Setting', in South Korea: A Country Study, Hae-Joang Cho 177

American University Area Handbook Series. Merrill, John (1980) 'The Cheju-do Rebellion', Journal of Korean Studies, 2. Sands, W. F. (1931) Undiplomatic Memories: The Far East 189fr1904 (London: John Hamilton, Ltd). Tanner, Nancy (1974) 'Matrifocality in Indonesia and Africa and among black Africans', in M. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere (eds), Women, Culture and Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press). 7 Women's Work, Male Domination and Controls over Income among Plantation Workers in Sri Lanka Rachel Kurian

INTRODUCTION Attitudes and values which accord a lower status to women in society are rarely confined to the realm of ideology but are generally reflected in the power structures controlling the relations of produc• tion and reproduction. A concrete expression ofthis is, in most cases, found in the sexual division of labour prevailing in the domestic and economic sphere and the authoritative patterns of hierarchy that sustain this work pattern. In reality this implies that women are often placed in male-dominated positions, both within the household unit as well as in the sphere of waged work. At the economic level, such a categorisation or 'specialisation' of tasks results in women receiving lower incomes than men, the justification being the 'inferior' value associated with female labour. This link between the subordinate position assigned to women in society and the discrimination experi• enced in terms of income, expenditure and indebtedness will be illustrated by analysing the situation of women in the plantation sector in Sri Lanka. The first part of the paper will deal with the historical development of the plantation sector in Sri Lanka and its significance in the economic growth of the island. The second part will concentrate on the nature of the workforce, and the importance of female labour. Both these sections will provide the necessary background to analyse the contemporary situation of women in the plantations. The overall emphasis is to indicate how certain attitudes towards women in• fluenced the nature of their involvement in plantation work, the advantages this held for the management and the implications this held for their economic returns, expressed at the level of income, expenditure and indebtedness in the contemporary setting.

178 Rachel Kurian 179

THE PLANTATION SECTOR

The plantation sector was historically, and is even today, a strategic factor in the economic development of Sri Lanka. Coffee plantations were initially developed by private entrepreneurs under British colonial rule from the 1830s. They were extremely lucrative following the equalisation of import duties on West Indian and East Indian coffee in 1835 and while the depression of the 1840s affected the crop, its profitability was again soon established. However, its history on the island was brought to an early end by a blister blight which appeared in the 1860s and which completely destroyed it by the 1880s. In a short period of time, though, coffee was replaced by tea in response to the demand created in Britain for the beverage. The latter was seen as an important stimulant for the working class in Britain which was steadily growing as a result of the industrial revolution. Coconut and rubber plantations were also developed in response to the needs of the British market, and by the second decade of the twentieth century these three crops had been estab• lished on a plantation basis and dominated the subsequent economic development of the island. In fact, in spite of the decline in demand and prices that has characterised this sector from the mid-1960s, the export value of plantation crops continued to be significant. They accounted for 88 per cent of total export value and 58 per cent of total agricultural land in 1970, although this figure declined to 47 per cent and 50 per cent respectively in 1982 (Gooneratne and Wesumper• uma, 1984: 6, Table 1).

LABOUR

The problem of getting an adequate and cheap supply of labour dominated the management concerns of the planters. This was even more so with the expansion of the plantation economy and the increasing involvement of companies in the ownership of the planta• tions. Labour for the coffee plantations was not forthcoming from the neighbouring Sinhalese villages as the initial expansion of the planta• tions did not in any significant way displace the peasantry from their ties to the land, forcing them to take up waged work on the plantations. The planters could, however, find labour in the nearby Tamil districts of the Madras Presidency. These regions experienced 180 Women's Work and Income Controls in Sri Lanka famines and poverty, and the planters were able to induce workers to come across to work on the plantations. The initial migration was mainly of men, who came across on a seasonal basis and returned to their villages in India. It was estimated that between 1843 and 1877 an average of 56 000 men, 10 300 women and 8000 children migrated to the island with returns to India of a comparable magnitude. 1 However, with the expansion ofthe planta• tion production, women were encouraged to migrate with the men and stay for longer periods in the island. This was also in line with the labour requirements of the plantation crops, both tea and rubber being more perennial (though with a degree of seasonality) and requiring more labour. In fact a pattern of circulatory migration was set up with workers moving between the estates and their villages. While women comprised a relatively small proportion of the migra• tory cycle they were more numerous as a proportion of the estate population. A report in 1917 noted that the percentages of men, women and children among the arrivals over a sixty-two-year period had been 73 per cent, 16.75 per cent and 9.8 per cent respectively. At the same time the labour force in 1911 comprised 234 594 males and 205 708 females. There were several economic advantages based on this pattern of circulatory migration. It allowed planters to pay workers a 'living' wage (as opposed to the 'family' wage, characteristic of industrial development in Britain) as those who migrated supported the old and infirm in the villages. When more members of a family migrated as workers it allowed the planters to pay an even lower 'living' wage. Furthermore, household units were set up in the villages and in the estates. As work within these units was unpaid and not even recognised as work (something that was characteristic of most patriarchal market economies) female labour basically subsidised real wages. There were also clear economic advantages as far as the planters were concerned in hiring women. Women were associated with the creation of a more stable workforce and a reliable supply of labour.2 Furthermore, they were viewed as more controllable and docile. The Agent in India for the Immigrant Labour Commission that was set up to persuade workers to migrate to the plantations noted that potential women workers were 'more steady and regular labourers' than the men, and that they were in any case paid less. 3 This circulatory pattern of migration was stopped by a ban imposed by the Indian Government in 1939. This halted movements of workers between India and Sri Lanka, and their subsequent immobil- Rachel Kurian 181 ity created a more permanent workforce on the estates. In time, relatives of these workers were allowed to join them on the island, giving rise to a more clearly structured household unit within the geographical boundary of the estate. This implied that the support structure that was provided by the household unit in India was now transfered within the plantation. After independence in 1948 the majority of the workers from India were disenfranchised by the Citizenship Acts of 1948 and 1949 as well as the Parliamentary Elections Act of 1952 (Kodikara, 1965: 107-22). In time they were given Sri Lankan or Indian citizenship under agreements signed in 1964 and 1974 between the Governments of the two countries. However, for a long time (until1986) there remained a large group of citizenless persons who worked on the estates. The Employment Survey of 1980 indicated that in June 1980 there were 283 168 Sri Lankan citizens and 253 197 non-citizens in tea cultiva• tion, the corresponding figures for rubber cultivation being 208 235 and 236 253 respectively. Coconut plantations employed far fewer workers: 54 541 citizens and 15 907 non-citizens. Furthermore, these workers faced many forms of economic discri• mination. In spite of the fact that the plantations were nationalised under the Land Reform Acts of 1972 and 1975, the level of wages remained abysmally low. Many benefits provided for other workers were not given to those on plantations. For example, a wage increase of Rs. 70 was given to all government workers in 1981 but denied to the plantation workers. Subsequent increases were not given to them, including the allowance of Rs. 2 a month for every point increase in the cost of living in 1982. An idea of the living standards can be gathered from the fact that in March 1984 (just prior to the strike which changed the wage structure on the plantations) the wage rate on tea plantations (over 100 acres) was Rs. 18.43 and Rs. 15.31 for men and women respectively, the comparable figure for the rubber plantations being Rs. 20.18 and Rs. 17.21. This worked out to less than one US dollar a day. The paper so far has indicated that, in spite of servicing a strategic sector of the economy, the plantation workers were subject to many forms of economic and political discrimination. Women, in addition to this, experienced disadvantages in relation to the men, most importantly in terms of income. This pattern was, as we shall see in the following section, to continue and influence their contemporary earnings. 182 Women's Work and Income Controls in Sri Lanka

CASTE AND RELIGION

While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to analyse in detail the social background of the plantation workers, it is nevertheless important to identify certain features in their existence that influence the attitude towards women. This is in order to place in context the values associated with female labour and the implications this holds for the control and pattern of their incomes. Of significance in this aspect is the role played by caste. The Reports of the Controller of Indian Immigrant Labour (from 1923) have shown that the Adi-Dravidas were, by far, the most numerically significant group on the estates. Green's study indicated that the Pallans, Paraiyans and the Chakiliyans constituted the main sub-groups within the Adi-Dravidas (Green, 1925: Ch. 2). Studies have also indicated that caste continued to be an organising principle on the estates even at a much later date (Jayaraman, 1975; Kurian, 1982: 40-57). This was expressed in the religious festivals (for example, if an Adi-Dravida cooked the food, it was often the case that the relatively higher castes, the Sudras, would not eat it) and even in the living arrangements (in the earlier days, housing was often allocated on the basis of caste, the higher castes not wanting to live in the same line as the lower castes). The crucial aspect was that as far as women were concerned, the values of caste ascribed them to an inferior position to men. Caste as well as social practices and rituals of the Tamil community reinforced the subordinate position of women to men in society (Kurian, 1982: 40-51). Studies have also shown that the position of women in the traditional Sinhalese society was not very much different. Comment• ing on this, Ryan was to note that the position of the husband-father was, in theory and to a considerable extent in practice, one of a patriarch, and that his dominant position was formally recognised in all expressions of family values, and in the behaviour patterns of wives, sons and daughters. (Ryan, 1958: 41). The most clear way this dominance was expressed was through the sexual division of labour in the domestic and economic sphere and the controls that governed the different tasks. We shall see that in the case of the plantation workers this was the main channel through which economic discrimination was concretised. Rachel Kurian 183

THE SEXUAL DIVISION OF LABOUR IN THE HOUSEHOLD

There was a fairly clear and standard division of tasks within the household. This was particularly so amongst the labour resident on the estates who were predominently Tamil. Here the men were primarily responsible for the shopping (which often meant leaving the boundary of the estate) while the women did the cooking, cleaning, caring for the children, fetching water and firewood, and in general catering to the needs and services of the men and children. Girls were taught early to help the mother, and the sexual division of labour was maintained. Given the peculiar situation of having the household within the boundary of the estate allowed the tasks to be done intermittently with the work on the field. All women did these tasks whether they were tea-pluckers, rubber• tappers or workers on the coconut plantations. Although the actual timing of these tasks differed according to the crop there was very little variation of this sexual division of labour within the household. Girls took over some of the burden of the mother as soon as they were able to and this was regarded as important in providing relief to the mother. And while there were some cases when the men helped collect wood for the fire they were by and large reluctant to do any chores within the house. The non-resident women (who were mainly Sinhalese), while being more independent in doing the shopping and generally being more socially mobile, did not experience substantial differences in the sexual division of labour within the household. The tasks done within the household were simply not considered as work but seen as something 'natural' to women. It was taken for granted that the women would have the responsibility for these activities which were concentrated on taking care of the production and reproduction needs of the family. These tasks were at best seen as duties, something that all women did simply because they were women. Thus the nature and intensity of the fieldwork and the household tasks placed the women in a well-defined, limited and highly control• led situation. At the same time this implied that women were to some extent dependent on the men for external (and even sometimes political) contact. This dependence was often the rationalisation for keeping women at a lower level. It is only a short step from this to an acceptance that women are weaker (and thus inferior) to men. 184 Women's Work and Income Controls in Sri Lanka

THE SEXUAL DIVISION OF LABOUR IN THE FIELDS

On the tea estates which constituted the most important part of the plantation sector, women were concentrated in labour-intensive tasks. These included plucking of the tea and the tipping of the tea bush. The former, which was more significant as it was done throughout the year, was more or less considered the major domain of female labour on the estate. Although there were different types of plucking standards, the job essentially consisted of picking the tender bud and surrounding leaves and putting it in a basket carried on the back. Tipping was the process by which the young tea bush was kept at a convenient level and the job consisted of levelling the bush with a small tipping knife. Weeding was sometimes done by older women. All the jobs were done in a gang under supervision. Until recently this was done under the male kangany or supervisor. In recent years a few female kanganies were instituted but these were comparatively few. The women normally worked from 7 in the morning until 5 in the evening although this could easily increase at times when the tea bush was in flush and there were relatively more leaves to be plucked. In contrast, the men were mainly involved in activities that required tools, even if these were not sophisticated or of high productivity. An important task was the pruning of the bush which was done with a pruning knife and which was considered to be a 'skilled' job. This was also the case for manuring, forking, terracing and draining, all of which were done with tools. The jobs of the men were also different from that of the women in so far as they were based on the 'task' and not on the time. For example they were asked to prune a certain number of bushes per day after which they were free to leave. This normally implied that the work day ended around 2p.m. The most important task on the rubber estates was the tapping of rubber which was done by both men and women. Most of the other tasks (apart from weeding) were done by men. Few women were employed on the coconut plantations and they were concentrated in weeding and gathering the nuts. On the whole the rubber and coconut labour requirements were far less than that of tea. It had been accepted prior to 1977 that tea cultivation required 1 worker per acre, the corresponding figures for rubber and coconut being 0.5 and 0.1 respectively. This was raised in a conscious policy to increase employment in the post-1977 period. Rachel Kurian 185

PATIERN OF INCOME

In discussing income we will concentrate on the situation on the tea and rubber plantations rather than on coconut, as the latter employed very few people and even fewer women. Also the analysis will be restricted to the pre-1984 period. This is because the wage structure underwent a revision in that year and for the first time in the history of plantation development in the island male and female workers were officially given equal wages. From 1944 the wages on the estates have been guided by the decisions of the Wages Board which was set up specifically to advise and monitor this matter. This Board had representatives from the employers and the trade unions as well as members appointed by the Government. The wages constituted a basic rate to which a number of allowances were added over time which were meant to compensate the worker for the increased cost of living. From 1944 until 1984 this legally stated minimum wage was different for men and women, the latter receiving some 25 per cent less even if they did the same work (and had greater productivity) than the men. A fairly rigid sexual division of labour on the estates normally meant that comparison in terms of male/female labour productivity was not easy. However, this was possible in times of increasing demand for a certain task when this rigidity had to be somewhat loosened. A typical example was the plucking of the flush. It was not unknown for estates (particularly in the up-country regions where quality tea was grown) to experience a deficit of labour in order to gather all the flush in time. In these cases men would often be asked to pluck the tea bush, a task for which they received higher wages than the women. It must be noted that most management considered this to be an expensive and often less productive option than employing women, and therefore less attractive on a regular basis. This initial disadvantage of unequal wages was worsened over time as increments were added to take account of the increased cost of living. The latter was incorporated in an index and the minimum wage was multiplied by this index. As the men had a higher initial wage they received in turn a higher supplement. In other words, wage differentials actually increased over time. It must also be noted that this index often did not reflect the main items of the diet of the estate workers which added an extra dimension of difficulty in a situation of rising prices. It has also been argued that in cases where 186 Women's Work and Income Controls in Sri Lanka the head of the household was a widow (and there was no male wage-earner), increasing differentials placed greater financial strains upon these families in periods of rapidly rising living costs. (Abell, 1978: 17). The third feature of disadvantage had to do with the payment of the earned income. While the minimum daily wage was fixed, the workers were paid only once a month and what they received depended on the numbers of days of work that they had done. This was in turn influenced by the days of work offered by the manage• ment, who did this on the basis of their demand for labour. This varied according to the crop, the area, the season and the quality of the individual estate (estates with high-yielding varieties demanding high input of labour). These elements gave rise to a situation when the actual income earned every month varied over the year. It had been observed by the Minister of Plantation Industries that prior to nationalisation (under the 1972 and 1975 Land Reform Acts) of estates, 40-50 per cent of the estates had offered work for three days or less, 40 per cent could offer only four days work and only 10 per cent were in a position to offer five days or more (Economic Review, March 1980: 13). Variations according to elevation were also noted by the Tea Master Plan which showed that the average number of days' work offered in April1978 varied from 16.4 to 21.9 in four high elevation estates, 17.0 to 19.3 in five mid-elevation estates and 13.2 to 15.5 in three low-elevation estates (Abell, 1978: 20). Similar variations were observed in the course of the fieldwork. What is also important in this context (apart from the general uncertainty of income) is the fact that women experience wider variations in incomes received. Using the data provided in the Tea Master Plan we see that in April 1978 the difference in income in up-country estates among female workers was 34 per cent, the corresponding figure for men being 13 per cent. For low-country estates the figures were 17 per cent amongst women and 12 per cent between men. The difference between the highest up-country and lowest low-country incomes was a remarkable 66 per cent in both cases. This variation of wages was between months and over years. A recent study done on income movements between 1947 and 1981 showed that there were considerable differences in the amount of money workers earned in March and September and, at least until nationalisation in 1972, the differences in female earnings in a year were wider in most cases than differences between male earnings on Rachel Kurian 187 tea estates. (The figures in the post-nationalisation period are more questionable and reveal a more confused picture, but as there have been few structural changes there is little reason to believe that this pattern had essentially been altered.) The case of the rubber estates was more biased towards female labour, at least as far as variations were concerned. However, rubber incomes on the whole fluctuated more over the years than tea incomes (Kurian, forth• coming). As a response to trade union agitation, the Government in 1974 stipulated that all estates would be bound to provide 108 days of work to its registered labour every six months. However, this work had to be averaged over the half-year and did not imply that 108 days of work was guaranteed to the workers. In any case any such enforce• ment contradicted the clauses of the 1889 Estate Labour Ordinance which legally bound the estates to provide six days of work a week. The net effect was therefore a situation where there continued to be insecurity of earnings each month, which in the absence of savings implied having to be in a state of indebtedness. When this was so, and incomes were low, it was particularly hard for a woman to make up the loss as there were few alternative sources of employment open to her. This was also the plight of casual workers to whom even this legal requirement did not apply. A large propor• tion of casual labour on all estates was female and they had to face considerable difficulty because of the high rate of unemployment in the villages and remain without income for long periods of time. The net result of this was the fact that the division of labour on tea estates where the majority of the estate women worked was often such that - given the structure of wages and the nature of the tasks - women worked longer hours than men and yet earned less. This was analysed for the period between 1947 and 1981 which showed that female tea estate workers were placed in a considerably discriminated position vis-a-vis their male counterparts on this score. It under• scored the idea that men were placed in tasks which had a higher earning potential, while women were placed in time-consuming, labour intensive work, and were also less expensive (Kurian, forthcoming). Women were also not compensated proportionately for any extra efforts which they made in trying to increase their monthly earnings. This was reflected in the system of norms under which their work was done. For example, tea-pluckers were required to pick a daily norm or a particular weight of tea leaves as a minimum requirement for the 188 Women's Work and Income Controls in Sri Lanka day. When women brought in more than this norm they were paid for these 'overkilos' at a basic rate of Rs. 0.17 per kilo, though this was raised to Rs. 0.25 if they had 'turned out' for more than 80 per cent of the days on which work had been offered. Up until 1984 it was the case that the general rate per overkilo worked out to be 30-40 per cent lower than the rate per kilo during the normal day. In actual fact we see that, in this situation, pluckers (and these are by-and-large women) received a declining rate of return for each additional kilo they brought in over the norm. In other words, women who were struggling for additional income through greater effort were not only paid for this at a lower rate, but a rate that became lower the more work they put in. At the same time in a somewhat ironical turn of events the rate of decline in this payment for the extra work was faster in the lean months when the crop had a relatively lower norm. Thus in those months in which they had difficulty in reaching the norm (due to the inavailability of the flush) were also those months when the payment per additional kilo was falling the fastest. A similar pattern was also experienced in the case of the rubber estates. The rubber-tapper was allocated a plot of some 200 trees to tap and for that she/he was given a standard norm of latex to collect. The overkilo payment followed the same system as the one that prevailed on the tea estates. (It must be noted that both men and women were subject to this pattern of discrimination. Apart from the fact that few men pluck tea, the important issue was that women were concentrated in such jobs that allowed exploitation of this system. In Marxist terminology this is a way by which absolute surplus value was increased.)

Non-estate and household income The main sources of non-estate income varied from region to region and from estate to estate. The principal avenues open to them were vegetable cultivation on kitchen gardens or allotments, cattle (and occasionally other animal) rearing, and work in the villages. If only because the women's working day was normally much longer, it was the men who were mainly responsible for these activities. In other words, given the long hours of work, there was very little opportunity for a woman to supplement her estate earnings. As men worked less hours in the field they were in a position to do this, and in many cases these activities brought in more income which they could control. Rachel Kurian 189

EXPENDITURE OF INCOME

A clear illustration of the influence of ideology on the economy was the nature of the expenditure of income on the estates. Two crucial features which reflect the inferior status accorded to women were the mechanics of control over income and the implications of the actual expenditure pattern on the average woman.

The mechanics of control over expenditure Three features of the expenditure pattern mitigated against the control of women over their income. Firstly, it was nearly always the case for resident workers that the man collected the wages of all the family members. This was found to be the case for over 90 per cent of the persons of the resident labour force. The main reason given for this was the fact that women either worked too late or too far away on the estate to be able to go to the paydesk, or that they had work to be done in the household. Men in contrast finished earlier and had therefore time to go and collect the money. In the case of the Tamil workers the only exceptions to this were when a working daughter was told to collect the wages because the father was tired, or (on a few estates) where the superintendent, confronted with disputes or other problems relating to pay, had made it a rule that every worker collect his or her own money. Even in these cases, however, it was generally true that the money collected was handed over to the eldest male of the household. The attitude that was reflected in this situation also underlay the second point, namely that at no time was this 'family' income given to the woman to run the household or to meet her own needs. The rigid division of labour in domestic activities was such that it was the man who was responsible for doing the shopping. This was justified on the grounds that he knew better how to handle money (whether this was valid was debatable, although it was true that on the whole the men had a higher standard of education than the women) and secondly that it was safer for a man to do the shopping (especially if this meant that one had to go to the nearby village to buy the provisions). If something was needed for the household, or if the woman wanted some item or other for herself, she asked the man for it. It was essentially up to the man to decide whether it should be bought or not. Thirdly, there was no indication to suggest that the woman had any real say in the way her income was spent. On the contrary, it was a 190 Women's Work and Income Controls in Sri Lanka well-known phenomenon on Sri Lankan estates to have disagree• ments on payday when often considerable sums of money were spent on liquor at the cost of essential articles. The most frequently cited cause for domestic disputes between men and women was the woman's objection to her hard-earned income being 'squandered' on drink. Thus the different working hours for men and women, which in tum were linked to the sexual division of labour in the field and the household, served to reinforce male domination in the economic sphere. It is interesting to note that while there was some resistance on the part of the women to men having total control over their income, there was no serious or organised attempt to change the division of labour. There were some cases where women, once they had had access to some of their earnings, 'cheated' on their men and did not give the entire amount to them. But by and large the male control over household income prevailed. It is instructive to look at those exceptions when this pattern did not apply. Three such circumstances could be identified, associated with economic problems of social crisis for the women concerned. The largest such group were the non-resident workers on tea and rubber estates (mainly Sinhalese) who rarely had male relatives working on the estates and who had no option but to collect their pay themselves. As work on the estates was considered to be of low status amongst the villagers, it was only if work was unavailable in the village that they (and particularly Sinhalese women) did estate work. Sample surveys in 1980 indicated that these women often belonged to a marginalised section of the village society and experienced rather difficult economic circumstances. They were in many cases the sole wage-earners in the family, their men either being unemployed or away in the urban areas seeking employment. With the responsibility for looking after the needs of the entire household resting practically entirely on their shoulders, these women controlled their incomes. They decided how the money was to be spent and in most cases this pattern continued even when the men were there. The second group which did not in many cases conform to the more general pattern were those (and this is particularly so amongst the Tamil community which was more strict on this score) who had taken independent decisions about their marriages. It was not uncommon for those women who had had 'love' marriages (as against arranged marriages which was the case with the majority) to be obstracised from the family for a period of time for having gone against the Rachel Kurian 191 wishes of the parents. These women tended on the whole to be more free with their husbands. They had a greater role and say in the way their incomes were spent, and even if the husband had the final say in matters of shopping, they were in a much better position to have their opinions taken into account. Thirdly, the position of a particular family in the caste hierarchy also had an influence on the woman's ability to determine control over income. Low-caste women were on the whole more forthright with their demands than those of the higher castes (this feature being prevalent in general caste societies in south India). Though it remained the case that men generally collected the money and spent it, lower-caste women were able to assert a far greater influence on patterns of expenditure. They voiced their opinions with greater force and had considerably more say in the way their incomes were spent. One estate manager recalled his experience of having worked on an estate with a workforce composed almost entirely of lower castes (Pallans and Paraiyans) and one with a sizeable proportion of higher castes (Vellalans). He maintained that there was a marked difference in the way the women behaved with regard to financial matters. In the former case the women collected their salaries and insisted on keeping them, while in the latter the men were in complete charge. These exceptions appear to bear out the conclusion that if tradi• tional values were in some way questioned it helped to make the woman more assertive over her income. In other words, there was a clear link between accepted norms in society and the degree of control that women had in the economic sphere.

The actual pattern of expenditure and its implications On most estates a certain proportion of the household's staple foods were supplied 'in advance' from the estate management, the corres• ponding sum being deducted from the worker's wages at the end of the working month (usually by the tenth of the calendar month). The ration of the food obtained in this manner depended on the number of persons in the households, but it was normal to obtain at least a certain quantity of rice, flour, tea and masoor dhal (lentils) 'in advance'. However, there were definite limits to the amount of foodstuffs that could be obtained in this way, as the workers' income (and thus their repayment capacity) depended also on the number of working days and the turn-out rates. It is interesting to see that there were differences in some cases 192 Women's Work and Income Controls in Sri Lanka between the men and the women on the usefulness of this system of 'advances'. While some men felt that it was possible to get better food in the villages and therefore were in favour of getting the cash equivalent which could then be used to buy articles elsewhere, most women were for this system. They felt that it guaranteed that a larger proportion of the household income was spent on necessities than might be the case if the men had the money to buy the food from outside. This automatic deduction from the payroll ensured a form of control over the expenditure of income. This was further illustrated by an instance when the union pressed for cash in lieu of kind. The women (who were consulted by the manager on their opinions) did not agree to this as they felt that they no longer had the assurance that the money would be spent on food. Other deductions from gross earnings prior to payday could include contributions to the provident fund, union subscriptions, payments to the dhoby (washerman), the barber, and contributions to the upkeep of the local temple. Also automatically deducted were the payments on outstanding debts owed to the estate by the worker or her/his family. Thus the 'net' wage actually received at the end of the month was often considerably less than the total value discussed in the previous section. This was given, as indicated earlier, to the man. The first outlay of expenditure after receiving the cash from the estate was invariably to the moneylender as repayment for outstand• ing debts. These creditors normally stood waiting near the pay office in order to receive what was owed to them. (This will be dealt with in more detail in the subsequent section.) The sum remaining with the man after this procedure was available for the remaining household expenses. It was however by no means uncommon to find them setting off from the paydesk to the nearby tavern or to purchase bottles of drink from a trader. In this way drinking could account for at least 10 per cent of the net income they collected. It was clear from the sample surveys and interviews that there were very few men who did not drink (this phenomenon not necessarily being limited to the Sri Lankan experience, but being characteristic of plantation systems in general and their associated hard way of life). Women also drank (again this was more prevalent amongst the lower-caste women) but this was restricted to their homes (or to areas near their homes) and it could not be said to be of anything like the same proportions. The adequacy of the actual diet of the estate workers has been seriously challenged by several researchers who have indicated the Rachel Kurian 193 widespread prevalence of anaemia, protein malnutrition and under• nutrition in the estates (Economic Review, March 1980; Sri Lanka Nutrition Survey, 1976.) Thus one could conclude that the level of income and the pattern of expenditure posed severe problems to having sufficient and good food. The women experienced a more difficult situation as the established cultural traits among estate families invariably gave preference to the males and then to the children in the intake of food. Thus, if there was to be decline in the nutritional standards as a result of the inadequacy of food, it was the women who suffered the most. From the interviews with the women it was clear that they felt that feeding the children was primarily their concern (and this was also the opinion of the men) and they felt that if they were to spend the income they would spend it more on food and essential articles for the household. It is important to note that the diet of the non-resident workers was somewhat better, and it appeared that the fact that it was the woman who collected the money in some way ensured that proportionately more of the income was spent on food.

Indebtedness Most estate workers (and this is particularly so with the resident workers) were invariably in debt. As we saw earlier, the system of payment, which until1984 did not guarantee them a monthly income, meant that they would have to borrow to tide over the difficult times. Thus they initially got into debt because credit was available and they had insufficient income. This situation could have also been contri• buted to by the increasing rise in the price of essential commodities, with expenditure associated with customs and ceremonies or the ingenuity of the trader or moneylender who played on the 'needs' of the workers. One way or another, over 90 per cent of the workers interviewed were in debt, the high incidence of indebtedness amongst estate labour being confirmed by other studies as well (Survey of Rural Indebtedness, 1969). The main sources of credit open to the estate worker were the estate management and the nearby boutique or kadai owner. The latter lent the money at a high rate of interest, the figure of 5 per cent per month being often quoted in the interviews. By subtle means, once in debt to the boutique the workers were not allowed to get rid of this feature. For example, debtors were compelled to buy from the shop of the trader they had credit with, and the goods sold to him were at higher prices than those prevailing in co-operative stores. In 194 Women's Work and Income Controls in Sri Lanka

some cases the boutique owner kept the workers' 'credit books'; purchases were not itemised and the system allowed the boutique owner to increase the amount due without the knowledge of the workers. If only because it was the men who did the shopping, they were the ones most involved in the transactions with the moneylender. However, this prevailing system of indebtedness had several implica• tions for a woman. Firstly, it was yet another example of the way in which her income was in the control of other persons. Secondly, when it came to pawning or selling items to obtain further money or pay off debts, it was invariably her jewellery (or whatever worthwhile items that might have been given to her by her family prior to her marriage) that had to be sacrificed. Finally, and this has been mentioned earlier, when debt repayments cut into incomes and food consumption was reduced, it was generally the woman who suffered most. Although many women were ignorant of the details of the debt transactions, they were well aware of - and in most cases deeply resented - the fact that they had to pay for this with their jewellery and other items of dowry. This was viewed with a sense of loss and inevitability, accepting the right of the husbands over their posses• sions. The women's overall concern lay in the need to somehow meet the expenditure for household necessities, as they felt that they had ultimately to bear the responsibility for the care of children and other members of the household. This case study has indicated the way in which the sexual division of labour and control mechanisms in the domestic and economic sphere reinforced male domination and female discrimination. Both were based on a system of values which viewed male labour to be superior and which 'invisibilised' and 'inferiorised' female labour. As this was undoubtedly also in the interests of the management and the State (in terms at least of lowering the wages and increasing labour control) such practices were linked to the process of accumulation and the marginalisation of labour. We saw that social values were important in giving rise to a sexual division of labour that placed women in labour intensive, time• consuming, less 'skilled', and monotonous jobs associated with low wages and under male supervision. At the same time the tasks done in the 'household', for which women had the primary responsibility, were viewed as something 'natural' and a function of her biology, rather than as 'work'. These aspects of the division of work reflected a certain ideology of male superiority and in turn furthered the Rachel Kurian 195

interests of the estate management in the following ways: In the first place it reflected the fact that women were at the social level considered to be subordinate, and therefore had to be under the guidance of men. This logic was further extended to viewing female labour as 'inferior' and thus less valuable than male labour. This meant that in concrete terms the estate management could pay the women less than the men. At the same time the overall wage costs were lowered by not paying for work done in the household and by giving women lower wages (since their labour was either 'invisible' or 'inferior'). Thus there was a clear link between social values and economic discrimination as far as women in the plantations of Sri Lanka were concerned. Notes 1. Sessional Paper no. V of 1879. 2. Sri Lanka National Archives (SLNA) 6/2144, Dawson to Graham, 6 March 1860. 3. Sri Lanka National Archives (SLNA) 6/2644, Graham to Hansbrow, 24 March 1859. Bibliography Abell, H. C. (1978) 'Labour Availability' in CIDA/Government of Sri Lanka, The Tea Master Plan Study, Colombo, Position Paper no. 4, 1978. Economic Review, March 1980. Gooneratne, W. and D. Wesumperuma (1984) Plantation Agriculture in Sri Lanka: Issues in Employment and Development (Bangkok: ILO). Green, L. (1925) The Planter's Book of Caste and Custom (Colombo: The Times of Ceylon Co. and London: Blackfriars House). Jayaraman, R. (1975) Caste Continuities in Ceylon: A Study of the Social Structure of Three Tea Plantations (Bombay: Popular Prakashan Press). Jayawardena, L. R. The Supply of Sinhalese Labour to Ceylon Plantations (1830-1930). A Study of Imperial Policy in a Peasant Society (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1963). Kodikara, S. U. (1965) Indo-Ceylon Relations Since Independence (Col• ombo: The Colombo Apothecaries Co.). Kurian, R. (1982) Women Workers in the Sri Lankan Plantation Sector (Geneva: ILO). Kurian, R. (forthcoming) Labour and Capital in the Plantation Industry in Sri Lanka 1843-I984 (draft thesis, University of Amsterdam). Majoriabanks, N. E. and Marakkayar, A. R. Report on Indian Labour Emigration to Ceylon and Malaya (Government of India, Madras, 1917). Ryan, B. (1958) (in collaboration with L. D. Jayasena and D. C. R. Wickremesinghe) Sinhalese Village (Florida: University of Miami Press). Survey of Rural Indebtedness (1969) (Colombo: Central Bank of Ceylon). Vanden Driesen, I. H. Indian Plantation Labour in Sri Lanka. Aspects of the History of Immigration in the 19th Century (University of Western Australia 1982). 8 Export-Oriented Industries and Women Workers in Sri Lanka1 Kumudhini Rosa

INTRODUCTION

The entry of large numbers of women into the labour force, as a result of the restructuring of capital in the late 1960s, has brought about a significant new dimension to the composition and organisa• tion of the working class in Sri Lanka. With the setting up of the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in 1979, a new layer of workers were added to the already existing and largely organised working class. Nearly 85 per cent of the approximate 42 000 workers (presently) in the FTZs are young women, a large percentage single, with limited or no experi• ence of waged employment. These workers, who come mainly from the rural areas, take up residence in the city close to their employ• ment in the FTZ. They leave their familiar village environments and live in boarding houses in groups of women. The case of the Sri Lankan FTZ workers is a special one. Since workers are largely women who are in waged employment for the first time in their lives, the special constraints they face in organising themselves have left them with limited options. The anxiety of the Government to create a 'stable' environment for the business com• munity, nationally and internationally, to invest in, ends up with State controls, labour controls, non-implementation of existing labour laws, the impact of which is largely felt by the workers employed within the zone. These factors of restraint play a significant role in the formation of consciousness of these workers, factors which, to the outsider, are not quite so obvious. The women are largely found on assembly lines, performing tasks which are monotonous, repetitive, fiddly and performed at an intensive pace. These tasks are performed only by women. The special recruitment patterns, as well as their perceptions for the future, largely influenced by the dominant ideology of aspiring

196 Kumudhini Rosa 197 for marriage and having a family, have clear implications on their consciousness and organisation. Their tasks as workers and their perceptions as women often bring together the interrelationship of class and gender, resulting in a contradictory nature of their con• sciousness, which is often displayed through their own methods of resistance.

SRI LANKA- IMPORT SUBSTITUTION AND THE EXPORT• ORIENTED ECONOMY

A Free Trade Zone has been described as an enclave carved out within a country, where special labour laws together with special incentives and benefits are granted to those who invest within it. It has also been referred to as an 'island within a country'. 'The archetype of this "new development" is the "force production" or "export promotion" zone, which specializes in producing textiles and electronic components for export in the "world market"' (Frank, 1980). It is against this background that the specific case of the Sri Lankan Free Trade Zone can be discussed. Sri Lanka was a relatively late comer in the adoption of the export-oriented development strategy. The present United National Party (UNP) Government, which took office in 1977, in its attempt to resolve the unemployment issue and to develop the country tech• nically, opened its doors to foreign enterprises. The period prior to 1977 was devoted to encouraging local enterprises to develop local initiatives and the Government, then the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) controlled imports and encouraged people to buy local products. Foreign travel was also restricted. Gradually the economy began to deteriorate, without sufficient nationally produced income to maintain its policies. The then Prime Minister, Ms Bandaranaike, was the designer of the 'open door policy' which the J. R. Jayewardene Government implemented in August 1977. One of the key development programmes set into operation was the Free Trade Zone, which was brought under a special authority, namely the Greater Colombo Economic Commis• sion (GCEC). The first Free Trade Zone began operation in 1979 and the plan of the authority is to set up three Free Trade Zones in total. Apart from the first FTZ set up in 1979 in Katunayake (eighteen miles north of Colombo, adjoining the airport), the second came into operation in December 1985 in Biyagama (fourteen miles east of 198 Export-Oriented Industries in Sri Lanka

Colombo). The third will be set up at Welisara (nine miles from Colombo) and is expected to come into operation shortly.

The Export Promotion Plan as pertaining specifically to the Free Trade Zone

When the UNP Government brought to light the proposal to set up the Free Trade Zone, it promised employment of over 100 000 in the first year. It was further stated that the country would flourish with the free inflow of foreign exchange and acquisition of technical know-how. In a brochure released by the GCEC authorities to those interested in investing within the FTZ, they offer (1) Political stability; (2) A booming economy; (3) Large supplies of manpower; (4) Eager hard-working people; (5) Lowest labour rates in South-East Asia; (6) High productivity; (7) Indigenous management; (8) Low setting-up costs; (9) Smooth flow of operations; (10) Investment protection. The brochure covers the extensive relief in exemptions from tax and the provision of infrastructural and other facilities to the supply of a dedicated, hardworking labour force. Statistics as of December 1986 reveal that the total number of projects approved were 221, of which 126 have already signed agreements with the GCEC. Sixty-eight enterprises were in commer• cial operation within the FTZ as of December 1986. Gross export earnings of GCEC enterprises in 1986 were 5449 million Sri Lankan rupees (Rs.), 43 per cent more than in the previous year. The textile and ready-made garment sector accounted for four-fifths of export earnings in 1986, employing up to 33 937 employees. A total of 41 614 workers were employed within the FTZ in December 1986, com• pared to 32 340 workers in December 1985 (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Annual Report, 1986). Notably, the official statistics do not reveal the employment by gender ratio although independent research has concluded that of Kumudhini Rosa 199 those employed in the FfZ, 85 per cent are women (Kantha Handa survey, April1983, data collected in 1980).

The Free Trade Zone

The first FfZ in Sri Lanka, the focus of this chapter, is located in Katunayake, adjoining the only international airport in the country. It is 18 miles (29 km.) from the Port of Colombo. At present 115 hectares (280 acres) has been developed as a first phase, while 50 more hectares is being developed as a second. 'The land is leased for a period of 99 years on a once-and-for-all payment of Rs. 300 000 (approx. US$ 20 000) per acre. A ground rent of Rs. 8000.00 (approx. US$ 500.00) per acre per annum is charged .. .' (GCEC Brochure). The GCEC office is located within the zone area. In the Sri Lankan FfZ, access to the zone is through a security checkpoint at which the workers need to produce the 'gate pass' which gives them the right to enter the zone. At this point workers can be checked; sometimes their passes are withheld and they are asked to go home. After they have finished their work, the workers have to leave the zone area. There are no provisions for residency within the zone. A police station is located also in the zone area. Recently a bus station was built to provide shelter and regular bus services for employees.

Recruitment of labour

Recruitment is channelled and controlled by the GCEC - the unit dealing specifically with employment. The labour force is recruited largely from the rural areas and for many families this is a dream come true. Strict control is maintained as to the eligibility of workers to employment in the FfZ and there is an unofficial requirement that they should obtain a letter from a member of parliament in the area where the worker resides. On this condition the worker's name will be registered on the list, which is maintained at the office of the Greater Colombo Economic Commission. The fact that women are mainly recruited to work in the Free Trade Zone is well known in the rural areas. The promise of jobs was one of the cards on which the member of parliament was elected to 200 Export-Oriented Industries in Sri Lanka

office (when the present UNP government came into power). The women themselves obtain a letter from the MP of the area and directly made application to the Greater Colombo Economic Com• mission in the Free Trade Zone. They are then sent a date and time to present themselves at the GCEC office. This process could take a fair time: up to three or six months. Often these women come to the FTZ long before they get an official letter to present themselves, with the hope that when they present themselves they have a better opportunity for getting a job earlier. They normally travel by the public buses or trains from the village, and are often accompanied by a parent or relative, as this might well be their first trip to Colombo. A significant percentage of the workers have a basic qualification of at least eight to ten years' education. This is unofficially understood to be a requirement, although it has not been categorically stated anywhere. As a large proportion of the workers are recruited from the rural Sinhala areas of the country, it is found that 97 per cent of the workers are of Sinhala origin, i.e. 56 per cent of the workers are Sinhala Buddhists and 41 per cent are Sinhala Catholic workers (as the FTZ is located in a predominantly Catholic area). It should also be noted that the percentage of Ceylon Tamils, Indian Tamils or Moors/Malays is almost negligible. The reason for this imbalance in racial representation in the FTZ labour force can be attributed to the nature of recruitment of workers. Furthermore, a fairly clear racial dominance is maintained through such recruitment patterns to the FTZ, which ensure that the minority racial groups have less than 5 per cent representation in the labour force. This has so far been successful in maintaining divisions within the working class as a job in the FTZ is seen as a privilege of the dominant Sinhala race. Eighty-five per cent of the labour force are women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, possessing a basic educational level of about eight to ten years. A large proportion are unmarried women and in wage employment for the first time in their lives. There remains a large number of women who are registered and are unable to obtain employment. The fact that there remains such a large pool of unemployed, who may have equal qualifications to obtain jobs, is a threat constantly confronting workers, and is used by the management and the GCEC to discipline workers. The GCEC brochure claims: 'A labour force of 600,000 educated highly train• able, mostly English speaking men and women. Because these jobs are important to these workers, job turnover rate and absenteeism are low and there have been reports of Sri Lankan workers volunteer- Kumudhini Rosa 201 ing to work free even on holidays just to learn new techniques ... !' Although these statements are meant to advertise labour to prospec• tive investors, they also emphasise the attitude of the authorities towards the labour force.

Familial ideology

The ideology of being a 'good' mother, a 'faithful' wife, is inculcated from childhood and is vividly displayed from playing with dolls to being married by their early twenties, as is respect for male authority - both attributes which are exploited by the companies. The disci• plined, quiet and 'submissive' attitude is a quality which makes a woman suitable to be employed in these Free Trade Zone factories. Discipline in the schools by a teacher (an authoritarian figure) and the women's subservience to a manager or supervisor in a factory are intrinsic parts of one single process. The domination of this ideology is also apparent in their own 'dreams' to be married, leave waged employment and stay at home and 'take care' of the family. This is further reinforced through religious beliefs that inculcate the view that women are second to men and they must strive to lead 'good' lives. Furthermore, women are trained from their childhood to be disciplined and engaged in monotonous, repetitive work. This socialisation process is turned to the advantage of capitalists, who are continually seeking better methods of keeping wages low in order to increase the profit margin. The inexperience and youth of the female workforce are all attributes used to maintain this 'discipline'. The coincidence of these circumstances is by no means accidental. I would argue that they are designed to reinforce the gender sub• ordination through the factory system and are manipulated to benefit the management. Interruptions in the working lives of women (e.g. marriage, having children) significantly affect the consciousness of these women, as they lead to a perception of themselves as temporary transient workers, who therefore tend to 'put up' with the conditions within which they work. The nature of the work itself 'predisposes workers to find alternatives outside', making interruptions in their lives a part and parcel of the factory system itself. In Sri Lanka, as elsewhere, the factory system reinforces the ideology that is prop• agated in the domestic sphere and has significant implications for women's consciousness. 202 Export-Oriented Industries in Sri Lanka

On the factory floor

The workers are largely concentrated in assembly-line types of operations which are repetitive, monotonous and boring. Since almost all the factories in the FfZ are involved in light industry, and a large number manufacture garments, most women work as machine-operators or helpers in a garment factory. While women will be concentrated in almost all sections of the assembly line, only a few will be recruited as cutters and none as foremen, electricians, etc. Usually women's work is classified as 'semi-skilled' or 'unskilled'. If a closer look is taken at the labour process in factories, one can easily see that 'skill' has been defined according to the gender performing the task, and not the nature of the task itself (Philips and Taylor, 1980: 79). The women work long hours, though officially it is a nine-hour day. In some factories the shift system operates from 6.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m., 2.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m. and 10.00 p.m. to 6.00 a.m. the following day, while in others a day shift is maintained. There have been occasions when the working day has extended to thirteen or fourteen hours a day. The night shift is also prevalent within and outside the FfZ and each company decides the viability of introduc• ing such a system depending on the type of machinery, items of manufacture and the labour force, etc. Certain companies in the zone impose quotas and the workers are not permitted to leave their workplace without meeting the quota, and this they do without being paid overtime for work done after regular hours. If they are paid overtime, they are entitled to receive one and a half times their hourly wage.

Holidays

It often has been the complaint of these women that it is very difficult to obtain a holiday even when they are entitled to it. The regulations provide entitlement to a holiday on Sundays, Poya days (full moon for Buddhist religious observances), seven days casual leave and fourteen days annual leave. They are also entitled to a maximum of twenty-one days leave on medical grounds, which should be granted on the production of a medical certificate given by a recognised (normally Western medicine) medical practitioner. Furthermore a factory employee is entitled to two weeks paid leave after pregnancy Kumudhini Rosa 203 on grounds of maternity leave benefits. Although legislation provides a certain degree of space for rest, workers hardly have access to these benefits. It is more likely that they will be faced with the prospect of losing their jobs should they try to take holidays. Many cases have been reported where women who went on maternity leave have not been able to return to their jobs. Women who went to their village for the festive season, and delayed to return by a day or two, were not taken back to work. The complaints, therefore, are often of monotony, inability to get rest while attending to the machine, the high quotas imposed, restrictions placed by certain companies on using toilet facilities, inadequate rest rooms or medical provisions in an emergency, long working hours, sexual harassment, thefts while going or returning after night work, inadequacy of transportation, intimidation by supervisors, inaccurate entries of overtime work, lack of holidays, penalties for speaking up or taking sick leave or staying away from work, perhaps for an extra day, etc. Certain factories maintain their own standards in relation to the above-mentioned factors, while some do provide certain basic facilities such as medical provision, rest rooms, canteens, etc.

Living conditions

Approximately 60 per cent of the women are unmarried and living in boarding houses away from their families and villages. A large proportion of the women working in the FfZ reside in adjoining villages, renting out boarding in private houses. These are called 'mat spaces', which means space to spread a mat, a mattress or a bed, and to place a suitcase containing personal belongings. Depending on the size of the room, there would be between three and six occupants in each room. The women take turns to sleep, depending on which shift they work that day. Most women learn to live out of their suitcases for almost their whole working lives. In the boarding houses, women cook sometimes to a 'shift system', taking turns to cook their individual meals. In other situations, women also cook in groups, sharing the costs, etc. Very often, women share one bath and toilet, which sometimes would mean twenty to twenty-five women for one such allocation. Women joke about it, saying it is the queue system, and if a woman should need them for emergencies, she would be late for work that day! 204 Export-Oriented Industries in Sri Lanka

Wages

The wage councils have instituted legal minimum rates determined by the Wages Board as in Table 8.1. The daily wage is insufficient for

Table 8.1 Minimum wage levels determined by GCEC Wages Board Tanning, footwear Garment and leather goods industry industry Level of skill Rs. US$ Rs. US$ Skilled 24.20 1.65 17.36 1.10 Semi-skilled 17.15 1.10 16.30 1.05 Unskilled 15.61 1.00 15.44 1.00 Trainee 13.34 0.88 12.11 0.80 1979: US $1.00 = Rs. 15.60 1986: US $1.00 = Rs. 27.50 (approx.) Source: Extracted from GCEC brochure

workers to sustain a basic existence. The cost of living per person is between Rs. 40 and Rs. 45, which makes it imperative that workers work longer hours and on Sundays, holidays, etc. Within this, certain factories give increments to workers according to the gaining of experience. Working overtime often becomes a must for workers to be able to make ends meet. Overtime does not always mean they have 'extra' to spare. As many as 90 per cent of the workers are not in a position to send money home on a monthly basis and said that they sent their families money 'off and on'. They were able to save around Rs. 50 per month if they did not fall ill or had to return home for an emergency.2 A worker said: 'I can manage with the money I receive. If there is an emergency, then I am in debt' (Malani, Laws Garments, FTZ). A little over 30 per cent of the women said they often borrowed money from their families to see them through the month, while almost every woman acknowledged that they brought dry rations from the village when they returned after visiting their families, sometimes once a month or once every two or three months. Another worker said: I can go home only once every three months. I get money from my home very often. Last month I brought Rs. 200 from them. We always bring dry rations when we come. My standard of living has not improved since coming home from this job. I expected Kumudhini Rosa 205

something else. I continue to do it because I came here. I cannot go back. The villagers would taunt me ... I have worked for one and a half years. I like to do a job. But who thought I will get a job like this? (Chitra, Kundanmals, FTZ)

REASONS FOR WORK

The workers are attracted by the glamour of the city- a job in the city is a sign of prestige for the families left behind, and the family often look forward eagerly to the money that will flow in, making life in the village more bearable. We considered it a breakthrough that I could obtain this job in the city, my mother thought that she could educate my brother and sister from the money I would be sending home, she talked about this to everyone in the village we knew ... it was considered a rare opportunity. . . . (Chitra, Kundanmals, FTZ). On the other hand, many of the women see their jobs as a solution to their own economic difficulties: 'I started working after my marriage. We could not manage with one wage .... ' (Malani, Laws Garments, FTZ). They try to avoid being a burden on their families. One way or another, it was perceived to be important for them to work and be able to send money back to the village. Although many women were not able to do this, still they hoped that they would be able to at a later stage. (Some women are able to send a small amount like Rs. 50 or Rs. 100 when they do an excessive amount of overtime. But this is by no means on a regular basis.) Another reason why they come to work in the FTZ is that they 'cannot just wait at home doing nothing'. This is often stated by women who come from lower middle-class families, and who only look after their needs and have no obligation to send money home. The lack of job opportunities within the village circumstances they live in, and their curiosity to live in the city, prompts them to find a job in the FTZ. They know little or nothing about the circumstances in which they would have to live. . . . I was lazy to stay at home. I passed my pre-university examination and could not get entrance into the University. I stayed at home several years and then decided to come to the FTZ. All my attempts to find a job were unsuccessful and the opportuni- 206 Export-Oriented Industries in Sri Lanka

ties within the village are very few. Because I do not have to be responsible to maintain my family back at home, I can survive here. It is really a life of a slave . . . look at the way we live. . . . (Manike, Smart Shirt Ltd, FfZ) The third important reason to work was that they believed that they could simultaneously follow a career once they were in the city, and then obtain a 'better' job. Many women believed that they would have the weekends and evenings free, to follow some 'classes'- to further qualify themselves: When I came to the GCEC office I asked them if I would have the weekends and evenings free, because I wanted to study further to qualify myself for another type of job. They assured me that it was 'no problem'. I also asked the factory manager at A. J. Miltons if there is overtime/weekend work. He said 'rarely'. But now I work on the night shifts, Sundays, Poya days and all public holidays (Sriyani, A. J. Mil tons, FfZ) However, the reality turned out to be quite different and the standard statement one often cannot avoid hearing from the women is that they have become 'exhausted in both mind and body' since they came to be employed in the FfZ.

Village and city life

Their inability to match the expectations with which they come to the city brings about a contradiction which has important effects on their consciousness. As stated earlier, many of the women employed in the FfZ came with high expectations: 'I thought a job in the FfZ would offer me a chance to put by lots of money for my future as well as to support the education of my brothers and sisters back home .... ' (Chitra, FfZ). It was also a select number of families in each village who had access to these jobs, as they supported the political powers. And if any of these women should return home suddenly, she would become an object of curiosity, and implications would be drawn that she had been dismissed from work or something had happened to her: 'I will not return to the village except to get married. The villagers will taunt me .... ' (Jayanthi, Laws Garments). Neverthe• less, many women consider returning to the village to get married. Here a clear distinction needs to be established between the views Kumudhini Rosa 207 expressed by FfZ workers and GCEC workers. Repeatedly, I found that while the FfZ workers stressed that they preferred the village, GCEC workers felt the city was better: 'I like to live in the city. There are a lot of problems I have to face in the village. My relatives scorn me ... so I like to live away from the village. The people in the city are not inquisitive. They don't pry into my affairs .... ' (GCEC worker). The reason for this distinction may be explained through the background of these workers and the patterns of recruitment which brought them to the city. While FfZ workers were from the more privileged families in the village, who were given employment through members of parliament because they worked for the present political powers, the GCEC workers came to be employed through their own initiatives and their employment is not controlled through political establishments. The reality within which they exist and their own likes and dislikes often conflict one another. The women claim that life in the city is free and they can follow fashions while at the same time managing on basic sustenance, claiming the village is cheaper, cleaner, etc.: Most of the food we buy in the city can be obtained freely in the village. The village environment is free from pollution. It is cleaner, fresher, there in the village.... (Hemanthi, Leather Fashion, FfZ) I like to follow fashions. I try to live like the girls in the city. I have cut my hair and also dress differently from when I first came here from the village. (Chandrika, Polytex Garment, GCEC) They also see the village as restrictive and inquisitive, while the city drains them of their income since they need to live like the other girls in the city, as otherwise they could become isolated. Once again, what becomes clear is the contradictory nature of their consciousness. They are often caught between the glamour and the freedom of the city and the cheapness and responsibilities they have towards the village.

Alternatives

Many women viewed marriage as a way out of their situations and an end to their working lives. It was an expectation they continually lived with. Some women thought that if they had another job - a 208 Export-Oriented Industries in Sri Lanka better one- then maybe they would not think of marriage yet. Some expected to leave their jobs after marriage, despite the fact that they liked the job very much: 'If I find a better job, I don't think I will get married just yet ... .' (Claris, APG Magbek, FTZ). While it seemed that marriage was viewed as a welcome relief, they felt at the same time that they might continue to work if they were offered better prospects. This brings out what they really want, but underlying it is the fear that they may never achieve it, and therefore marriage is an option. This is important to note because there were many married women working with them on the factory floor, and it undoubtedly becomes clear to them that marriage is by no means the solution to their situation: 'I will probably work all my life. Who will take care of the children if I don't? I hate my job, but what alternative do I have?' (Malani, Laws Garments, FTZ). The consent of their husbands to their working after marriage was another recurring topic. Many women saw their 'free' existence as important, as something they valued, while on the other hand claiming that anything they do after marriage would be with the consent of their husbands. On this same level, it was amply clear that many married women were driven through economic necessity to work, irrespective of whether their husbands consented or not.

FORMS OF RESISTANCE

The open invitation of the Government to foreign companies to invest within Sri Lanka is also accompanied by ensuring that trade union organisations or any form of organised resistance are not permitted into the zone. Although no legal stipulation is made to keep trade unions out, in reality workers would be dealt with severely if they should even make any attempts to form one. The repression is not simply contained within the FI'Z, but is accompanied by other legislation which is enacted to control such organised democratic activities in the rest of the country as well. The situation of control leads to women workers employing other methods of coping, of organisation and agitation, and instead of open confrontation what is more apparent is the covert, subtle forms of resistance. This is not to deny that there have been and will be open and often spontaneous actions, which have often resulted in quick responses by managements to give at least a temporary solution to their grievances. For instance the ideology of paternal influence over Kumudhini Rosa 209 the lives of women in the domestic sphere is transferred to the authority on the factory floor and to 'her duty to serve her nation'. While in some cases (e.g. many of the South Korean plants) this ideology is directly applied through devious methods of poems, songs, speeches, in some other cases it is applied through physical exercises to the music of patriotic propaganda. A South Korean plant operating in the Sri Lankan FfZ compelled its workers to sing a song outside the plant prior to resuming their work, which focused on their duty to work harder and produce more for the benefit of their country and the people. The workers, after protesting against this ritual every morning, were greeted one morning by the song, boldly written and displayed in a place the workers cannot avoid seeing each day. The workers, however, develop mechanisms through which they cope and resist these forms of control, and often jokes and pranks are methods they employ. Jokes in the local languages, organised reduction in production targets, etc., become part and parcel of their methods of survival and resistance to these circumstances. The case of the Malaysian workers, whose outbursts of 'mass hysteria' have often been interpreted as a form of protest against the oppressive nature and the intensity ofthe work they do, is an important aspect to examine here (R. Grossman, 1979). These same outbursts have been also explained as natural reactions to these conditions and not deliberately organised forms of protest. However, whatever way it has been interpreted, what is relevant is the personal, covert form it takes. Another phenomenon that can be observed within the Sri Lankan experience is that women display willingness to work at the level of the community, on issues related to the factory and the labour process. This they conceive not to pose a direct threat to their jobs, as it is carried out in the open by religious and community groups. These factors of resistance do display significant trends in the patterns of consciousness. What would be of importance to observe is the extent to which they would be willing to go. This has been displayed through spontaneous actions, strikes, etc., by women workers, who through collective organisations have displayed resist• ance. The trends cannot be drawn together into one single pattern, but can be viewed as a conflicting, unstable, uneven process, which seems often volatile, but contains elements of consciousness per• ceived through their gender and class position. 210 Export-Oriented Industries in Sri Lanka

CONCLUSION

Contradictory consciousness

Women, who have been on the factory floor, while they have been and are being trained to accept their 'natural' role in life which is often defined as ordained, have also resisted these circumstances and through individual and collective strategies create defence, toleration and persistence mechanisms. In almost every aspect discussed above it is clear that women were found to be constantly aware of the alternatives. For instance, while many women saw marriage as a way out of the circumstances of their lives in the factory, this did not prevent them from being alert to resistance, displaying militancy at the cost of even their jobs. . . . it is always this contradictory consciousness, this collision between what a woman felt she deserved or expected as a worker and as a woman, which made her approach to the workplace inherently unstable. At one (moment], gratitude for having a job ... resignation, apparent apathy, all well worn stereotypes of women as brakes on the labour movement . . . At the next, dissatisfaction, criticism, opposition might erupt . . . (Pollert, 1983: 110) The reality and the hopes and aspirations of their lives therefore interplay to bring to the fore a contradictory consciousness which often results in rebellion and spontaneous actions. The different determinants of their lives are not found in isolation to one another, but rather relating to one another. The implications of the determi• nants for class and gender relations would then be important to derive from this discussion. A seemingly stable situation has always the possibility of being volatile. As Pollert says: . . . concrete experience can quite suddenly override apparently stable practices and conceptions, and trigger a 'domino effect' whereby whole layers of self conceptions and traditions can be knocked down. Because of their gender oppression as well as class exploitation, the trigger can start from either or both experiences. In such a situation, it becomes difficult to divide the class from the gender issues as the inherent practices of both are so tightly bound Kumudhini Rosa 211 together. The oppressive characters which dominate and oppress women as workers, and as women, have both to be fought against, as the elements are interconnected and cannot be separate.

Note

1. This paper is adapted and updated from a research paper written for the Master's degree in Development Studies, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands, December 1986. 2. A survey was carried out covering 200 workers in the FfZ and GCEC areas in September 1985 and updated in January 1987.

References

Beechey, V. (1983) 'What's special about women's employment? A review of some recent studies of women's paid work', Feminist Review, no. 15. Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Annual Report 1985, Sri Lanka. Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Annual Report 1986, Sri Lanka. Elson, D and R. Pearson (1980) 'The latest phase of the internationalisation of capital and its implications for women in the Third World', Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Discussion Paper, DP.150, University of Sussex. Elson, D. and R. Pearson (1981) 'Nimble fingers make cheap workers: an analysis of women's employment in Third World manufacturing, Feminist Review, no. 7. Frank A. G. (1980) Crisis in the World Economy (London: Heinemann Educational Books). Greater Colombo Economic Commission Brochure for Investors, Sri Lanka, undated. Grossman, R. (1979) 'Women's place in the integrated circuit', Southeast Asia Chronicle, no. 66, Jan.-Feb. Qoint issue with Pacific Research, vol. 9, nos 5-{), July-Oct. 1978). ISIS--Committee for Asian Women (1985) Journal no. 4. Kantha Handa (Voice of Women) Research Study, published in 1983, data collected in 1980. Lim, L. (1985) 'Women Workers in Multinational Enterprises in Developing Countries', UNCTC/ILO, Geneva. Philips, A. and B. Taylor (1980) 'Sex and skill: notes towards a feminist economics', Feminist Review, no. 6. Pollert, A. (1981) Girls' Lives, Factory Lives (London: Macmillan). Pollert, A. (1983) 'Women, gender relations and wage labour' in Gender, Class and Work. Rosa, K. (1987) 'Organising Women Workers in the Free Trade Zone, Sri Lanka', Third World Second Sex (vol. 2) ed. Miranda Davis (London: Zed Books). 9 Poverty, Ideology and Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia1 Gillian H. C. Foo and Linda Y. C. Lim

INTRODUCfiON

The women who work in Asia's export-oriented industries are frequently presented and treated in the scholarly and popular litera• ture as dual victims of poverty and ideology. Poverty, it is argued, causes women's employment in export factories because it results in the low wages which are necessary for competitiveness on the world market, and forces poor women to take exploitative jobs in export factories in order to survive; at the same time, their low wages keep them poor. Traditional ideology, on the other hand, is thought to conflict with women's wage employment, such that even if they are economically better off as a result of their employment, they may suffer socially and psychologically from it. This chapter will take issue with these two popular hypotheses, thereby questioning the conten• tion that factory work has primarily a negative impact on women workers' lives. We argue that both poverty and ideology as they relate to these workers are in reality more complex than the prevailing hypotheses allow for. Since poverty has been extensively though incompletely explored elsewhere (e.g. ILO, 1985; Maex, 1983; Lim, 1986a; Lim, 1987b; Addison and Demery, 1988), it will be treated only briefly here. Most of our discussion will concentrate on the more complex and under-studied issue of ideology, drawing heavily on the case of Malaysia (Foo, 1987; Lim, 1987a).

POVERTY

Simplistic and inadequate definitions of poverty, and the consider-

212 Gillian H. C. Foo and Linda Y. C. Lim 213 able diversity which exists among different Asian countries, bedevil attempts to generalise about the income status of women export factory workers. For example, there is the problem of defining what constitutes poverty in a particular country, given its specific historical and cultural circumstances, and the different results obtained, de• pending on whether absolute or relative, statistical or subjective standards are used. If poverty is defined as existence at or below the subsistence level within a country, then clearly the majority of women export factory workers in Asia are not poor, simply by virtue of their employment in the relatively privileged modern wage sector. The poor are usually the unemployed or underemployed. If poverty is defined as belonging to the lowest income group in a country, then the women may or may not be poor, depending on the country, but this tells us little about their absolute living standards. Generally speaking, the poorer a country, the less likely women factory workers are to be poor relative to their fellow citizens, but the more likely they are to be poor in absolute terms, while the reverse is true in richer countries. Thus, for example, women export factory workers earning the legal minimum wage in Thailand and the Philippines are relatively well-off compared to most of their fellow citizens - especially the majority residing in rural areas where there is no minimum wage. But their absolute standard of living may seem poor to an observer from a developed country. On the other hand, women export factory workers in Singapore and Hong Kong may be among the lowest-paid workers in their countries, but their absolute standard of living may be high even to an observer from a developed country. In Singapore, for example, the typical female electronics factory worker's household belongs to an income group where in 1983: ... 96.2% of the households had a refrigerator, 95.9% had a television set, 23.1% a video cassette recorder, 12.8% a motor-car, 17.5% a motor-cycle, 44.7% a washing-machine, 3.6% an air• conditioner and 3.8% a piano/organ. (Lim, 1986b) As early as 1975 in Singapore, even a lowly-paid garment factory worker whose costs of employment exceeded 80 per cent of her monthly income could afford to employ a domestic servant (Salaff and Wong, 1984: 203). In 1981, a Singapore garment factory worker whose own wage was below the national average had with her husband purchased a three-room flat with 'marble floors, an iron• wood desk, large colour and smaller black-and-white television sets, 214 Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia

and other house fixtures that cost over S$6,000' (Salaff and Wong, 1984: 205). Studies done in other countries like Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia also show a high level of consumption of consumer durables among women export factory workers' families. The picture is further complicated by workers' subjective view of their own relative income status. Among electronics factory workers in Malaysia, for example, urban workers considered themselves to be from poor families, while rural migrants did not consider their families to be poor (Foo, 1987), despite the statistical reality that, on the whole, urban families have higher incomes than rural families. This anomaly might be explained by the fact that in urban areas, factory labour may be a low-income and low-status occupation entered only by women from the poorest urban families. But the same urban factory employment offers women from rural areas a definite step up in income and status, and may be accessible only to those from relatively well-to-do rural families who have the requisite education and contacts to obtain these jobs. Thus while objectively the urban workers may be more well-off than the rural workers, subjectively they may consider themselves to be poor, whereas the rural workers do not. Despite these definitional problems, we may attempt some brief generalisations about women export factory workers' income status, based on our own fieldwork and our reading of the extensive literature (see also ILO, 1985; Lim, 1986a; Lim, 1987b). First, in terms of their origins, the women who work in Asia's export factories are mostly not the poorest of the poor, who are typically uneducated and labour in rural occupations. Rather, most of them belong to urban or established rural-urban migrant families with better-than• average resources, although this may vary by country and over time (Lim, 1987b). Women who work in multinational electronics factor• ies are particularly well-off, since they must possess educational qualifications considerably higher than the local male or female average. Second, in terms of their motivation, while most women work out of economic need, this is usually not absolute poverty or minimum physical subsistence. Rather, there is a strong desire to improve their consumption standards, and to contribute to the upward mobility of their families. That is, the women work not for rice but for colour TVs and other consumer 'luxuries', as indicated by the following representative statements of a young single Malay factory worker in Malaysia: Gillian H. C. Foo and Linda Y. C. Lim 215

I wanted to work [in a Penang factory] because working in the village I won't earn much ... and I felt I couldn't have anything of my own. If I wanted things like beautiful dresses, cosmetics, and so on, the income that I earned in the village didn't allow me to afford any of these, so I wanted to find a job outside the village. (Foo, 1987: 191) and an older married Chinese factory worker in Singapore: By working I can afford to pay people to do things for me, and I have a little left over for pocket money. (Salaff and Wong, 1984: 203) Salaff's and Wong's study found that low-income women workers in Singapore ... spent their wages first to buy clothes and toys for their children and next to maintain the families' enveloping networks of kinship connections, such as allowances to the members of the older generation and gifts on the occasion of visits, marriages, birthdays and religious festivities. (Salaff and Wong, 1984: 205)

They also purchased 'a public sector flat, appliances and furnishings for the new home, tuition for their children' (Salaff and Wong, 1984: 198). In addition to these economic motivations, the women cite many non-economic motivations for working in export factories. Young single women say they welcome the opportunity that factory work provides to delay marriage and childbearing, to enjoy the compan• ionship of their peers and lead independent lives, and to 'broaden their horizons' through new experiences (e.g. Snow, 1975; Lin, 1986; Foo, 1987). Married women say they feel bored staying at home and miss the companionship of colleagues (e.g. Lim, 1986b). Among both single and married women are many who say they would choose to work even in the absence of economic need (e.g. Lin, 1986; Foo, 1987), and Salaff and Wong quote one Singapore woman forced to quit work because of competing family demands as saying: 'This [not working] is a sacrifice I must make for my family' (Salaff and Wong, 1984: 212-13). Third, in terms of the consequences of export factory labour, women workers are clearly economically better off as a result of their jobs than they were before. They are also better off compared to other, much more numerous, female wage workers employed as 216 Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia domestic servants, agricultural labourers, helpers in small local shops, and unpaid family labour (e.g. Palabrica-Costello, 1984). Those employed in multinationals are usually the most well off. 2 In sum, the evidence from the Asian countries which account for most of the female employment in export factories suggests that many if not most of these women do not start out poor by local standards. If they are poor, their employment lifts their families out of poverty and enhances their living standards. There are of course differences by country and industry, by individual worker, and over time, but these are readily explained, as we have done elsewhere (e.g. Lim, 1986a; Lim, 1987b).

IDEOLOGY

In much of the literature on women export factory workers, consid• eration of ideology largely focuses on ideologies governing gender and class. While these are important, we contend that a comprehen• sive assessment of the implications of ideology must also include consideration of ideologies concerning family and self. In this section, we discuss aspects of ideology as it relates to familial values, individual aspirations, gender and class - all of which interact with factory work in shaping its impact on women workers' lives. Our discussion incorporates individual-level, qualitative data from Foo's (1987) study of women export factory workers in Penang, Malaysia. It aims to demonstrate that when 'traditional' and 'modern' ideolo• gies intersect within the context of factory employment for women, contradiction and conflict do not necessarily result.

Family ideology: parent repayment

It is frequently assumed that ideologies which emphasise the primacy of women's reproductive role and, at the extreme, recommend their confinement to the domestic sphere, are in fundamental conflict with women's participation in modern factory wage-labour, which is conducted in the public sphere. It follows that women would engage• or be permitted to engage - in such wage-labour only where severe economic need dominates any ideological concerns. 3 Hence the assumption that poverty must be the motivating factor for Asian women's employment in export factories. But we have suggested Gillian H. C. Foo and Linda Y. C. Lim 217 above that women export factory workers are generally not poor in their respective local contexts, nor are they necessarily or primarily motivated by poverty. This implies that their employment directly challenges traditional ideologies about women's proper roles, with• out the mitigation afforded by economic need. In fact, studies of women export factory workers, their families and communities in many Asian countries show that traditional ideologies do not conflict with women's wage employment as much as is often assumed, and in many cases they in fact provide the motivation for such employment. It is important to note first that in nearly all countries, women, both daughters and wives, participated actively in production in the pre-capitalist 'family economy', as unpaid family labour on farms or other family economic enterprises, such as handicraft production. It is thus not their engagement in productive activities per se which represents any change from traditional norms and practices, but rather their engagement in such activities outside of the family or village context, as in an impersonal modern factory, which sometimes requires that they leave the family before marriage, migrating to distant cities for employment. Women export factory workers have merely exchanged contributions in cash or commodities for what in an earlier era would have been a contribution of labour to their families' livelihood. In the process, their economic contribution to the family increases, and despite initial ideologically-derived apprehensions or opposition from male or female family authorities, their employment in export factories is therefore generally welcomed by their families. 4 Indeed, several studies argue that Asian women's families not only encourage but practically compel daughters to work in export factories because of the very considerable economic benefits which accrue to the family as a result of this employment. It has been suggested that the women are thereby exploited by their own families, and their personal interests sacrificed for the family's good (e.g. Elson and Pearson, 1981; Salaff, 1981; Greenhalgh, 1983; McLellan, 1985, etc.). If correct, this interpretation suggests that economic interests (not necessarily absolute need, since most of the families studied were not poor, but rather interested in upward mobility) readily dominate ideology where women's wage• employment is concerned- not only in the women's own families, but also among others in the community who benefit from their employ• ment. Mather (1983), for example, has shown that the religiously conservative Islamic patriarchy in an Indonesian village not only 218 Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia

supported, but even promoted, women's factory employment, be• cause they benefited directly from it. (In Malaysia, on the other hand, the Islamic patriarchy tends to oppose such employment because they do not benefit from it (Lim, 1987a).) In the context of the family, export factory work does not seem to be viewed differently from other forms of wage-employment, except possibly more favourably than lower-income, lower-status jobs in the service, informal and agricultural sectors, and less favourably than higher-status white• collar jobs. Where not complicated by migration and residence away from the family, it has even increased women's desirability as marriage partners and the 'bride price' paid to their parents, e.g. in Malaysia (Ackerman, 1984). 5 Foo (1987) advances a different interpretation of the relationship between daughters employed in export factories and their parents. Her study of women export factory workers in Penang, Malaysia, shows that it is the women themselves who decide and choose to work in the export factories, and that they do so even in the absence of obvious family economic need. In most cases it is also the women themselves who decide and choose to give their parents a portion of their earnings, whether or not they are living with them, and whether or not the parents ask for, expect or need such a contribution. Very often the desire to give money or goods to their parents is a major reason why the women seek employment in export factories in the first place, regardless of their parents' approval or economic need. Ideology, rather than poverty, is the motivating factor here, and the women in Foo's study express this in terms of the traditional concept of 'parent repayment', which is strongly held in all three of the ethnic communities represented in this study - Muslim Malays, Confucianist Chinese, and Indians who include Muslims, Hindus and Christians - as well as in other countries in the region such as Hong Kong and Taiwan (inhabited by Confucianist Chinese), Thailand (Buddhist) and Indonesia (Muslim - Foo, 1987: 194-8). 'Parent repayment' is not viewed by the women or their families as coercive or exploitative; rather, it is voluntary, natural, logical, and a rational act of reciprocity - repaying one's parents for all that they have expended on one during one's childhood and growing years, includ• ing affection. As one of Foo's respondents put it: 'Well, our parents raised us. We should give something back to them. It's only right' (Foo, 1987: 198). Factory employment enables women to make this repayment before they marry and are caught up in family expenses of their own. They expect to be on the receiving end of this reciprocal Gillian H. C. Foo and Linda Y. C. Lim 219 relationship when their own children are grown. The ideology of 'parent repayment' is not peculiar to women only, but they appear to adhere to it more strongly than men: the anecdotal evidence presented in most studies suggests that daughters tend to contribute more to their parents than sons. From the viewpoint of traditional ideologies, this asymmetry is again seen to be rational, rather than unfair. Because of their greater participation in the domestic sphere, and lesser freedom to participate in the public sphere of social life, daughters tend to be closer to their parents, especially their mothers, than sons. They are more likely to live with their parents until marriage, and to spend more time at home and thus to share in the consumption of possessions that their monetary contributions help acquire for the family. Since the expectation is that men will later support their wives, their spending most of their incomes on themselves while still unmarried is accepted. On the other hand, daughters' independent income is likely to cease when they quit work to marry and raise their own children, making parent repayment more difficult later. For those women who continue working after marriage, cash contributions to their own and even their husbands' families continue (e.g. Salaff and Wong, 1984).

Individual ideology: consumer autonomy and independence

Family ideology is not the only reason why women export factory workers do not view their wage-employment as a coercive or unpleasant obligation which diminishes their personal autonomy, as suggested by some Western writers (e.g. Elson and Pearson, 1981). They additionally see the ability to work as an opportunity to exercise and express their personal autonomy, especially in the sphere of consumer purchases, and to acquire economic independence and valued life experiences, both of which are radical departures from the lives of women in traditional society. In the words of respondents from Foo's (1987) study: When we earn our own money, we don't have to depend on others. We have the freedom to spend it as we wish, and I like it this way ... I feel this freedom is very important. Everyone must stand on their own two feet rather than being dependent on someone else. (p. 329) Whatever I want, I can buy because I have a job and can earn a 220 Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia

living of my own. Whenever I was at home, whatever I wanted, I couldn't get because I didn't have my own money, and I had to ask my parents ... I have more freedom now because I don't have to ask from my father for money. I can buy whatever I need. (p. 175) Yes, I enjoy being able to make money on my own and decide what I myself want to spend it on, because being able to make money on my own, I can buy anything that I like such as clothes and jewelry, and can go anywhere for tour that I desire. (p. 329) Now that I have economic independence, I can do anything and learn anything I want without asking from my parents. But last time, not only did I have to ask permission to do anything, I had to ask money from them as well. So I dared not tell my mother that I was taking up 'L' license. [A learner's licence for operating a scooter or motorbike.] Now I need simply inform them that I want to learn how to operate a motorbike, and that's it. (p. 174) Although consumer purchases are the main arena in which factory wage-employment enables young women workers to exercise person• al autonomy, it is not the only one, and they are not only materialistic in their goals and desires. They also appreciate independence, experience and broader horizons, from which they derive greater confidence and self-esteem. The main reasons for my working here are first, to be independent; second, to try to gain experience outside; third, to lessen my parents' burden. (p. 194) I've gained experience in my working life mixing with people. I've learnt how to interact with others. I feel that I've lots more friends now and am more daring and not so shy - I'm more independent and more mature. I have my own money so I'm more independent. If I stayed at home, it'd be boring, and there'd be nothing to do. I'd also be more dependent, especially on my mother. (p. 334) Before I started working, I was very timid, whatever I did, I was scared. I was scared of the supervisor, of my work, and so on. Now, I'm brave enough to speak up, to explain and to clarify my mistakes, to speak my objections and to lead the society that I'm a member of.... After working in a factory, I've met a lot of friends and got to know a lot of people so I'm not scared of asking questions and making my points to others. I'm not shy about doing Gillian H. C. Foo and Linda Y. C. Lim 221

whatever I think is right. I'm brave enough to be a party leader in politics too. (pp. 335-6) Note that the women's values of independence and individualism revealed here are clearly at odds with those of their traditional cultures and society - rural Muslim Malay and urban Confucianist Chinese - yet they appear to be firmly and universally6 entrenched without causing conflict. These values presumably derive from the women's relatively high level of education (mid-secondary or better) and the pervasiveness of modern media in Malaysia, even in rural areas.

Gender ideology: women's roles

Scholars have been most interested in gender ideology as it affects women's employment in export factories. Ideologies about women's roles do play an important role in structuring the female labour market. On the demand side of the labour market, employers hire young women for assembly work in labour-intensive export factories in part because of their presumed feminine characteristics. These include manual dexterity, experience with precise manual tasks such as sewing and food processing, conscientiousness, docility, and an expected short working life due to voluntary quits at marriage or childbearing. These characteristics make women efficient, produc• tive, well-behaved and low-cost workers. Their short working life, for example, ensures low average seniority and hence low wages, as well as a weak commitment to the labour force and high group turnover, making labour organisation difficult (e.g. Lim, 1978). Ideology also causes sex discrimination by employers in the structuring of the labour force, e.g. restricting managerial and supervisory positions in female-intensive industries to males (e.g. Wong and Ko, 1984). Asian export factories, especially multinationals, are also well known for factory social and cultural practices and fringe benefits designed to appeal to young women, such as fashion and make-up classes, beauty contests and dinner-dances (e.g. Lim, 1978; Grossman, 1979). On the supply side of the female labour market, ideologies which emphasise the primacy of women's role in reproduction and the domestic sphere, and the secondary importance of their role in production, reduce the supply price of female labour (i.e. the wage at which women are willing to work). These ideologies restrict women 222 Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia to relatively· short working lives between school-leaving and marriage (perhaps followed by lower-paid home-work and informal sector employment later), and to jobs considered suitable for women: mainly 'light', low-skilled, sex-segregated female occupations and industries. The resulting low seniority of female workers and 'over• crowding' in the segregated female industries also contribute to the low supply price of female labour. Women both have few job opportunities and do not view themselves as either primary or long-term breadwinners for their families; they are therefore willing to work for relatively low wages. Although there are variations by country and over time, these effects of gender ideology on women's employment in export factor• ies are found virtually everywhere, and the traditional ideologies themselves remain fairly intact. This does not, however, mean that women workers' 'gender subordination' has merely been modified or even intensified by their factory employment, as claimed by some Western writers (e.g. Elson and Pearson, 1981). On the contrary, there is evidence that wage employment for women has lessened, though not completely undermined or eliminated, traditional pat• terns of gender subordination. For example, the women become less dependent on their families, especially if their jobs require migration: Now, girls who move to the city and live away from their families learn to manage their lives by themselves and learn how to be independent. Once in a while, they may consult their elders, but they are not totally dependent on their opinions. When one stays away from the family, one begins to do anything for oneself, making her own decisions and being independent on oneself. As time goes by, you begin to enjoy making your own decisions and don't want to consult your parents. Just like me, I oon't like to ask my mother's opinion about a lot of things because some of the things I want to do are beyond the knowledge of my mother. (Foo, 1987: 220-1) Both urban Chinese and rural Malay women in Foo's (1987) Malaysian sample clearly view their life circumstances as an improve• ment over those of their mothers: In our mothers' time girls married young, were narrow-minded, restricted by their parents, were less knowledgeable, and had no experience of life. There were no advantages at all. In our generation, we shoulder the same responsibility as a man in the Gillian H. C. Foo and Linda Y. C. Lim 223

family, we get a good job, we have the opportunity to learn. (p. 339) We are better than our mothers' time - we have greater job opportunities, we are free to do what we want, we can choose our own husbands, we have better educational opportunities, we have the chance of travelling and seeing the world outside. My mother's - they had less freedom, they had to obey the elders and submit to arranged marriage and marrying at a very young age. They could only stay at home doing housework, looking after their husband and children for their whole life. They couldn't wear whatever clothes they wanted to and they couldn't associate with boys freely. They had little chance of education and working outside. But they are better than us in certain ways. They are fantastic cooks and domestic workers. They've spent their entire lives cooking so they are very good cooks now. They are less complicated. (p. 339) In virtually all the Asian countries, factory employment has resulted in or contributed to a later age of marriage, and to a switch from arranged to self-made marriages. 7 The evolution of a dating culture (which is not, however, peculiar to women employed in export factories) represents a clear change from traditional patterns of mate-selection (by parents) and relations between the sexes (non-existent outside the family). In most cases it has not produced any pronounced conflicts for the women or their families (but see the discussion on Malaysia below). Rather, self-selection of one's mar• riage partner through dating is seen by the women themselves as a progressive development, one which reflects a further exercise of personal autonomy, choice and freedom by young women, rather than their 'commoditization' on the 'marriage market' as suggested by Elson and Pearson (1981). To quote one of Foo's (1987) respon• dents: Our generation is marrying a lot later than our mothers' genera• tion. I think we are luckier because our mothers' generation followed arranged marriage and we don't have to. Our generation wouldn't agree to the idea of meet once and then get married. Our generation has a lot of new ideas, not like our mothers' generation. They are simple and less complicated. Our generation's involve• ment in economic activities and education is more common than in our mothers' time. So we are more conscious about our rights and the gap between male and female is not as great among the present 224 Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia

generation. So a girl won't be happy following an arranged marriage. (p. 425) Although this and similar comments were made by Muslim Malay women in Malaysia, many of them do face a conflict between the proper - modest and chaste - conduct expected of young unmarried females in traditional ideology, and behaviour such as dating which results from their exposure to more 'modern' ways through factory work and urban living. At an extreme, this conflict has led to outbreaks of 'mass hysteria' among factory workers - an affliction peculiar to Muslim Malay women in Malaysia which does not affect their Chinese or Indian colleagues but is also found in other (non-industrial) Malay female group settings (Lim, 1987a). It should be noted here that young Asian factory women's concerns with beauty, sexual attractiveness and relationships with men (e.g. Fatimah, 1985) do not necessarily originate with the emphasis in some factory social activities on fashion, beauty, romance and intermingling between the sexes, as many writers have claimed. On the contrary, beauty and sexual attractiveness are important in traditional Asian cultures, with the exception of those which practise feminine seclusion. In South-East Asia especially there has long been a cult of feminine beauty involving among other things the use of traditional cosmetics and herbal treatments; the weakness of the marriage bond (with traditionally high divorce and remarriage rates) may be one reason for this. In any event, export factory women are not the only young women in these societies to wear fashionable Western dress and make-up, patronise cinemas and discos, and date men - all of which are common in the urban areas and have even been disseminated to rural areas through the mass media. Most of the workers do not even participate in factory social and cultural activities (e.g. Lim, 1987a), and remain fairly traditional in their beliefs and behaviour (e.g. Foo, 1987). Despite the primacy of marriage in their own ideology, the factory women's views on this institution are not altogether traditional. The rural-urban migrants voice their reluctance to marry men who are less educated than they are or who have rural occupations. And here are what two of Foo's (unmarried) respondents, a Chinese and a Malay respectively, have to say about the relationship between husband and wife: I think it's a partnership. The couple must have equal say in discussions - for example, about the children's education. When Gillian H. C. Foo and Linda Y. C. Lim 225

you have a child, you'll talk to the husband about how many you want. One can't agree with everything he says. He should respect you too. Nobody is perfect. Even if he is the head of the family, I don't think you have to follow whatever he demands. (p. 429) Family heads are both husband and wife. They both must plan and discuss all issues and problems. Both must respect each other and understand. Man has the right to be the main head because he has to earn for the family as a whole. And it's also traditional. (p. 429) In Foo's larger sample of 385 women, the majority of Chinese respondents disagreed with the statement that 'The husband is the head of the household and it is the wife's duty to obey him', while the majority of Malay and Indian respondents agreed, revealing the importance of ethnic and cultural differences in influencing gender ideology, despite similar objective circumstances. Salaff and Wong's (1981) study of married Chinese women in Singapore shows a similar pattern of preference for joint decision-making between husband and wife in the working-class family.

Class ideology

Factory women's ideology and behaviour related to class conscious• ness and action varies considerably from situation to situation, and over time, a subject which cannot be fully discussed here.8 The Malaysian case is usually presented as an extreme example of docility and lack of class consciousness, compared, for example to the highly-unionised and often militant female and female-led unions found in export industries in South Korea, the Philippines and even Thailand. The reasons for this have been explored elsewhere (e.g. Blake, 1984; Lim, 1987a), and here we will merely present in their own words the Malaysian women's views of factory work (Foo, 1987), which suggest why class ideology is underdeveloped among them. Firstly, as predicted by Marx and Engels, the women clearly regard their employment in capitalist factories as a progressive development over their pre-capitalist circumstances: I prefer working in a factory because with relatives there is not much freedom. (p. 332) 226 Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia

... Working for a member of the family, I wouldn't be able to earn much money. (p. 332) I still prefer factory work. It's not so nice working for the family. If they pay less, I wouldn't dare to complain. With factory work, if I'm not satisfied, I can quit and change jobs. (p. 332) I prefer working outside. If you work in the family, it's very difficult ... If you work in the factory, you have some form of independence. (p. 332)

Second, most of the workers see the exchange of their labour for wages as a fair one: I feel that it's quite fair that they pay certain wages in the hopes that we'll work hard, produce better quality cloth. And it's still fair that even though they earn a lot of income, they still pay us salary. It doesn't mean that they earn profit and they don't give salary to workers. (p. 301) I think it's fair enough for them to pay us certain wages that are worth our work. Everywhere it's the same - that the workers will get certain wages. So long as we do our part, I feel they should pay us accordingly. (pp. 301-2)

They also see the necessity for factory rules and regulations: ... those rules and discipline are necessary. Example, we can't talk while we are working and we can't move around while we are in the factory ... All this is quite reasonable for we need to concentrate on our work ... these rules and regulations are necessary to ensure that the work will be carried out smoothly and efficiently. (p. 307)

Third, at least some workers take pride in their job-related skills and the outcome of the tasks they perform: Yes, I'm certainly proud of the work I do. Using scope (micro• scope) and bonding requires a lot of skill and speed. It's not easy, you know. (p. 320) ... at Intertech, we say that our work puts men on the moon! The management told us that at one point one of the buyers was using our chips for building something with the space program in U.S. It's quite amazing to think that something as small from us is used for something so big. (p. 320) Gillian H. C. Foo and Linda Y. C. Lim 227

The workers did have complaints about various aspects of their factory jobs, but these were usually targeted at individual supervisors or employers who were seen to be 'unfair'; the complaints did not translate into objections to wage-labour in general or into any sense of class antagonism.

THE RATIONALITY OF IDEOLOGY

Women factory workers subscribe to the various traditional and modern ideologies which condition their attitudes and behaviour, largely because these ideologies are rational in their given socio• economic context, and not because they are victims of so-called 'false consciousness'. Where family ideology is concerned, parent-child reciprocity provides for social security where the State does not, and where traditional forms of social security, such as patron-client relationships in rural areas, are breaking down with development and 'modernisation'. For the women in Foo's study, parent-child recip• rocity is particularly important in guaranteeing them emotional and financial security in a situation where marriage bonds are weak. 9 Where gender ideology is concerned, the traditional division of labour between husband and wife is also rational in a situation where men have more and better employment opportunities and earn higher wages. Women are additionally restricted by their responsibi• lities for child care, especially since in urban areas traditional extended family and kin networks are less readily available to assist with child care. Working-class women's jobs are also intrinsically unsatisfying, and so hold little long-term attraction compared with the traditional elite ideal of full-time wife and mother. As for class ideology, in a situation where modern factory wage• labour represents an improvement over alternative forms of capitalist or pre-capitalist employment, where workers because of their accept• ance of the traditional sexual division of labour within marriage do not have a lifelong commitment to the labour force, and where an individualist ideology is in the ascendancy, it is not surprising that a collective proletarian consciousness and class antagonism do not develop. Whereas women factory workers' ideology as it relates to family, gender roles and class may be typified as a variant of the 'traditional', the same cannot be said of their adherence to the distinctly non• traditional ideology of individual freedom and independence. Histor- 228 Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia

ically, this ideology has evolved as a concomitant of the rise of free labour markets and the demise of pre-capitalist forms of labour organisation. But in the situation of women export factory workers in Asia today, gender is an additional, and central, underpinning of this and the other ideologies to which the women subscribe. The onerous nature of women's traditional confinement within the home and family causes them to appreciate greatly the independence and experience that wage-employment affords for an at least temporary escape from such confinement, and therefore to accept the terms and conditions on which such employment is offered. The importance of children as social security, especially where marriage bonds are weak and men cannot be relied on for lifelong maintenance, also results in women's strong support of the ideology and practice of parent-child reciprocity, a major motivation for their desire for factory jobs. Women's disadvantaged position in the labour market, because of the constraints imposed on them by traditional gender roles within the family (that is, responsibility for housework and child care), causes them to accept the role of the husband as primary breadwin• ner, and therefore the temporary nature of their own employment. This in turn results in a relatively weak commitment to the labour force and an underdeveloped proletarian consciousness. In short, the ideology of women workers which so conditions their employment in export factories in Asia is a product of gender inequality within their societies. Factory employment does not create or worsen such inequality, nor does it destroy it. It does, however, alleviate, at least temporarily, the subordination that women suffer as a result of gender inequality. But these 'liberating' effects are the combined result of education, migration and wage-employment per se, rather than of export factory jobs in particular. Factory employ• ment contributes by making available the wage-employment, necessi• tating the migration, and motivating the education. This last point is illustrated by one of Foo's (1987) respondents: Before, parents in the kampong (Malay village) would only educate their daughters up till Primary Standard Four - they felt there was no point in giving girls further schooling since daughters were married off at 13 or 14. They are now willing to educate daughters for longer and then let them go and work. (p. 212) Factory employment is significant because it is generally superior to other forms of wage-employment for women (Lim, 1986a, 1987b). Export factories are important because, unlike many other indus- Gillian H. C. Foo and Linda Y. C. Lim 229 tries, they employ a high proportion of women and in some countries include many multinationals, which have better terms and conditions of employment than local firms. It remains to consider if the Malaysian women's attitudes pre• sented here differ significantly from those of women working in export factories in other Asian countries. Studies done in the other middle- and upper-income Asian developing countries where export manufacturing is concentrated and has been long-established reveal considerable similarities in the factory women's attitudes and motivations. 10 The Malaysian case itself is more representative than most because it includes women of different cultures and back• grounds: Muslim Malays, Confucianist Chinese and Hindu, Muslim and Christian Indians, from both urban and rural backgrounds. The greatest difference among women in different countries appears to be in class ideology, which depends on a host of economic, legal, political and cultural factors which vary considerably from case to case (e.g. Blake, 1984). The Malaysian women appear to be more underdeveloped in their class ideology than women in other Asian locations, particularly Thailand, the Philippines and South Korea (e.g. Lim, 1987a). The Asian countries not considered here, which may turn out to be significantly different even after export manufacturing has matured in them as it has in the more established countries, are those of South and West Asia, from Bangladesh to Turkey. These countries are much poorer than the East and South-East Asian countries discussed here, have very conservative traditional cultures which are much more oppressive of women (e.g. which practise feminine seclusion), and a much smaller and more recent experience with export manufac• turing and with modern wage-employment for women. They are mostly involved in textile and garment exports undertaken by local or other developing-country firms, rather than in electronics manufac• ture by developed-country multinationals. More systematic research needs to be done on these 'newer' countries before we can attempt to assess their situation.

CONCLUSION

This chapter has made the following arguments about poverty, ideology and women export factory workers in Asia, drawing on the existing literature and our own research. First, in the context of their 230 Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia

own countries, these women are mostly not poor by origin, or as a consequence of their employment, which is motivated by reasons other than absolute poverty or desperate economic need, and in fact lifts the women and their families out of poverty, substantially enhancing their living standards. Second, the sexual division of labour, pre-existing gender inequality, and prevailing ideologies about women's proper roles, constrict their labour market opportuni• ties and participation, thereby determining the pattern of their employment in female-intensive export factories. Third, although they emphasise women's reproductive role in the domestic sphere, traditional ideologies do not necessarily conflict with and may even foster women's productive role in the public sphere, such as their employment in export factories. Many women welcome this employ• ment as an opportunity to fulfil certain traditional obligations, even in the absence of economic need, and ideology- such as the ideology of parent repayment- may be more important than poverty in motivat• ing their employment. Fourth, wage-employment in modern export factories does not drastically change women's ideologies with respect to the family and women's roles within it, but it does endow them with greater personal autonomy which they value and exercise, as in independent living and the choice of a marriage partner. Some of them also expect more shared responsibility between husband and wife than is common in traditional society. This perhaps partial embrace of 'modern' values of independence, individualism and equality represents the biggest break with traditional values resulting from modern wage-employment for women and its concomitants of higher education and rural-urban migration. Fifth, at least in the Malaysian case, class ideology remains underdeveloped among the women factory workers, as a result of gender-specific ideologies and role constraints, and the locally- and historically-specific circumst• ances of export manufacturing in this country (Lim, 1987a). In short, the existing evidence from the Asian countries which have the longest experience in female-intensive export manufacturing and the largest number of women employed in such manufacturing strongly challenges the common assumption that women export factory workers in Asia suffer from poverty, backward ideology and a hypothesised conflict between the two. 11 We suggest instead that poverty is both less serious than is often assumed, and less important than ideology in motivating women's factory employment. Women factory workers' ideology itself is both rational and facilitates rather than conflicts with their employment. Factory employment, by Gillian H. C. Foo and Linda Y. C. Lim 231 improving the economic status of women workers and their families, and by contributing to changes in ideology in a more individualistic and egalitarian direction, may also be seen as a historically progres• sive development for the women and their societies.

Notes

1. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the panel on Export• Oriented Industrialization at the annual meeting of the Association of Women in Development, Washington, DC, 15 April1987. Please do not cite or circulate without the authors' permission. Address any corres• pondence to Linda Lim, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, 130 Lane Hall, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA. 2. A partial exception would be workers employed in third world multi• nationals from other developing countries, whose wages and working conditions would approximate those of local firms. 3. See, for example, Siraj, 1984, which presents the views of various Islamic authorities on Malay women's work in multinational export factories. All recognised that economic need provides valid justification for women's wage employment; only the most extreme fundamentalist interpretation called for home-work as the preferred alternative. 4. Evidence for this comes, for example, from studies in Taiwan (Kung, 1983; Greenhalgh, 1983), Hong Kong (Salaff, 1981), Singapore (Salaff and Wong, 1984); Malaysia (Ackerman, 1984; McLellan, 1985; Foo, 1987, etc.) and Indonesia (Wolf, 1984). 5. Even in the case of women prostitutes in Thailand, Phongpaichit (1982) has clearly shown that not only the women's families, but their home communities in general, readily accept economic need as a justification for prostitution, and the women are not discriminated against in mar• riage when they eventually leave this occupation. 6. In addition to in-depth interviews, Foo's study includes a survey of 385 women factory workers. 7. Most studies cite these developments, which have been noted in the Philippines (Snow, 1975), Hong Kong (Salaff, 1981), Taiwan (Kung, 1983), Malaysia (Ackerman, 1984; Foo, 1987), Singapore and other countries. 8. See ILO, 1985 and Lim, 1986a for more discussion. 9. Polygamy is permitted among the Muslim Malays, while the immigrant origins of the Chinese have weakened traditional extended family/kin/ village relationships enforcing the permanence of marriage. 10. See, for example, Kung (1983) on Taiwan, Salaff (1981) on Hong Kong, Wong and Ko (1984) on Singapore, Snow (1975) on the Philippines, and the various articles in Jones (1984) on these and other Asian countries such as Thailand and Indonesia. Similar findings have also been reported from Latin America and North Africa. 232 Women Export Factory Workers in South-East Asia

11. This contradiction between theory and reality is itself a notable feature of scholarship on the subject of women export factory workers in Asia, and has been explored and explained elsewhere (Lim, 1987b).

Bibliography

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Lim, Linda Y. C. (1986b) 'Export-Led Industrialisation, Labour Welfare and International Labour Standards in Singapore', paper prepared for Tony Addison and Lionel Demery ( eds), Wages and Labour Conditions in the Newly-Industrialising Countries of Asia (London: Overseas Development Institute, 1988). Lim, Linda Y. C. (1987a) 'Women industrial workers: the specificities of the Malaysian case' in Jamilah Ariffin and Wendy Smith (eds), Malaysian Women in the Urban and Industrial Labour Force (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies), forthcoming. Lim, Linda Y. C. (1987b) 'Women's work in export factories: a review and critique', forthcoming in a book edited by Irene Tinker. Lin, Vivian (1986) 'Health, Women's Work, and Industrialization: Women Workers in the Semiconductor Industry in Singapore and Malaysia', Women in International Development Working Paper no. 130 (East Lansing, Michigan: Women in International Development Program, Michigan State University). Maex, Rudy (1983) Employment and Multinationals in Asian Export Proces• sing Zones, Multinational Enterprises Programme Working Paper no. 26 (Geneva: ILO). Mather, Celia (1983) 'Industrialization in the Tangerang Regency of West Java: women workers and the Islamic patriarchy', Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, vol.15, no. 2, pp. 2-17, and in H. Afshar (ed) (1985), Women, Work and Ideology (London: Tavistock) pp. 153-80. McLellan, Susan (1985) 'Reciprocity or Exploitation? Mothers and Daugh• ters in the Changing Economy of Rural Malaysia', Women in International Development Working Paper no. 93 (East Lansing, Michigan: Women in International Development Program, Michigan State University). Palabrica-Costello, Marilou (1984) 'Female domestic servants in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines: social and economic implications of employment in a 'premodern' occupational role', in Gavin W. Jones (ed.) (1984), pp. 235- 50. Phongpaichit, Pasuk (1982) From Peasant Girls to Bangkok Masseuses, Women, Work and Development no. 2 (Geneva: ILO). Salaff, Janet (1981) Working Daughters of Hong Kong: Filial Piety or Power in the Family? (New York: CUP). Salaff, Janet and Aline Wong (1984) 'Women's work: factory, family and social class in an industrializing order', in Gavin W. Jones (ed.) (1984), pp. 189--214. Siraj, Mehrun (1984) 'Islamic attitudes to female employment in industrializ• ing economies: some notes from Malaysia', in Gavin W. Jones (ed.) (1984), pp. 163-74. Snow, Robert T. (1975) 'Dependent Development and the New Industrial Worker', PhD dissertation in sociology, Harvard University. Wolf, Diane L. (1984) 'Making the bread and bringing it home: female factory workers and the family economy in rural Java', in Gavin W. Jones (ed.) (1984), pp. 215-31. Wong, Aline K. and Yiu-Chung Ko (1984) 'Women's Work and Family Life: The Case of Electronics Workers in Singapore', Women in International Development Working Paper (East Lansing, Michigan: Women in Inter• national Development Program, Michigan State University). Index

Africa, women traders in, 104--5, 142 beggars, women, in Iran, 45, 46, Afshar, Haleh, viii, 10, 43-69 47-8,52 Agarwal, Bina, viii, 5-6, 9, 12, 15n4, Behzisti (Better Living 70-98 Organisation), Iran, 47, 52, 53-- age 4,57 and attitude to purdah Bihar, India observance, 33--5 Bodhgaya movement, 70, 73, 74, care of elderly, Iran, 52-3 83--4,89 and degree of seclusion, 7, 28, Ho people, 84, 88 108,109,118-19,134 Oraon people, 87 of female divers, Cheju Island, bisaparastan ('the unprotected'), 153,163 Iran,42,50-1,53,54-6 of home workers, Lahore, 29 Biyagama, Sri Lanka, 197 increased mobility with, 7, 85, Bodhgaya movement, see Bihar 109,134,135--6,141,142 Bonyadeh Mostaazafin (Foundation of Sri Lankan factory workers, 200 for the Needy), Iran, 52 agricultural communities, 6, 70-90 Bordieu, P., 133 passim Boserup, E., 145n1, 150 male-female avoidance in, 19, 108 Brara, R., 73--4 agriculture, 25, 48 Bromley, R., 124n6 cash crops, 73--4, 151, 154, 179 Buddhists, 202,218 changes in methods, 12, 78, 79 Bulatoa, Elizabeth, 20, 27 on Cheju Island, 150, 154-5, 166 burqa (veil), 19 male control over surplus from, 12,79,88 cash crops, 73--4, 151, 154, 179 women disadvantaged in, 5, 6, 12, caste 73,79,84-90 and female seclusion, 107, 110-11 see also plantation workers in plantation life, 182, 191 Ali, I., 91n9 cattle raising, 151, 161, 188 All-India Dravida Munnetra chaddor(veil),3,19,40n6 Kazhagam, 120 changrye (Confucian funeral Andhra Pradesh, India, 74, 91n6 ceremony), 155--6 Anjomaneh Hemayate as chardewari (four walls), 21 Khanevadeh Zendanian Cheju Island, 7, 9, 10, 148-77 (Society for the Protection of history and economy, 149-52 the Families of Prisoners), Iran, chesa (Confucian memorial rites), 55 152,155-7,162,171 Assam, India, 75 Chetti communities, south India, 75 child care Bandaranaike, Mrs Sirimavo, 197 lack of provision for, 48, 58-9, 60, Bangladesh, 90 62,63--4,170-1 Bant communities, India, 75 men involved in, 157, 161 beauty, feminine, 224 seen as women's work, 49, 183, Beck, Brenda, 110 227,228

235 236 Index

Childe, G., 87 Daniels, Sheryl, 107, 125n17 children David, Kenneth, 124nll in Confucian memorial rites, 156 debt,183,193-4,204 as intermediaries for home descent, ideologies of, 5--6, 75-9 workers, 27 diet, 72-3,189-90,191-3 nutrition of, dependent on disabled persons, provision for, 52 mother's income, 72-3 divers, female, 7, 9, 12-13, 14&-77 orphan,53-4 divorce Tamil migrants in Sri Lanka, 180 on Cheju Island, 159-60 working, 29,48 high rate in SE Asia, 224 China, 74-5 in matrilineal communities, 78, 79 Chinese migrant workers in SE Asia, in Islamic theocracies, 50--1, 65 2-5,218,221,222,224-5,229 drug addiction, 46-7 Chipko movement, India, 74 Dube, Leela, 95n26 Cho, Hae-Joang, viii, 7, 9, 12, 14&- Dumont, L., 77 77 duppatta (veil), 19 Christians, 27, 40n8, 13&-9, 229 class and cultural practices, 1-2, 109- economic independence of women, 10,12&-30 219-21,227--'d and female employment, 65, 109, education 123 effect on traditional ideology, 13, and female seclusion, 20, 26, 37-8, 125n18,143-4,164-6,173,221 107-8, 109-10 factory workers' levels of, 200, class consciousness, lack of, 210--11, 214,228,230 225-7,229,230 gender differences in, 22, 164-6, clerical work, 25, 33, 57, 143-4, 165 189 clothing industry, workers in purdah observance and, 26-7 in Iran, 43, 60 result of increased income, 12, in Pakistan, 29-31 151,163-5 in Sri Lanka, 198, 202,204 women employed in, 144, 170 see also textile industry elderly, care of, in Iran, 52-3 coconut plantations, 10, 179, 181, electronics industry, 197, 229 183, 184 workersin,22-3,213,214 coconut plantations, 179 Elson, Diane, 223 Colachel, India, 135 employment of women Colombo, Sri Lanka, 197, 198, 199 choice of work, 14, 105-6, 121, Confucianism, 152, 162, 218, 221, 143-4, 171, 227 229 clerical work, 25, 33, 57, 143-4, rituals, 155-7 165 construction workers, female, 21, in domestic service, 25, 43, 44, 105 49-50,105,215-16,218 consumer goods, purchase of, 213- factory workers, see under factory 14,214-15,219-20 workers co-operative land management, 89- non-economic motivations for, 35, 90 215,21&-21 Coward, R., 129 outside home, 13-14,21-3, 32-3, cross-cousin marriage, 5--6,77-8 99-101,217 professional, 25, 169, 170 Index 237

restricted by ideology, 3-4, 22-3, in Pakistan, 37-8 56-9,230 of SE Asian factory workers, 221- seen as immoral, 23, 28, 50 5 Engels, F., 129, 225 of Sri Lankan factory workers, 201 exclusion, ideologies of, 6-7, 80, 87- of Tamil plantation workers, 183, 8 189, 194-5 in urban south India, 99, 107, 110- factory workers, female 12, 121, 122-3 in Iran, 43, 44, 59--61 gender division of labour, see sexual in Lahore, 4, 22-3 division of labour self-concept of, 13-14 gender division of space in SE Asia, 11-12, 13-14,165, in Mukkavar society, 133-6, 138, 212-33 144 in Sri Lanka, 196-211 in north India, 5, 85--6 farming, see agriculture in Pakistan, 18, 19-20, 21, 38 femininity, ideological constructs of, in urban south India, 6, 108 7-9 see also male-female avoidance on Cheju Island, 13, 160-1, 168, Gerry, C. , 124n6 170 ghunghat, 3 in Mukkavar society, 13, 136-40 Goody, J., 145nl in Sri Lanka, 201 government policies, see State in SE Asia, 221,224 policies 15th Khordad Foundation, Iran, 52 Grameen Bank, Bangladesh, 90 fish traders, women, 8, 135--6, 141-3 Greater Colombo Economic fishing, taboos against women, 6-7, Commission (GCEC), 197-201, 133-4 204,206-7 fishing communities, 130-47 Green, L., 182 see also divers, female Gujarat, India, 91n6 Foo, Gillian Hwei-Chuan, viii-ix, 10,11,13,14,212-33 health care services, Iran, 63 footwear industry, Sri Lanka, 204 Himachali communities, India, 87-8 forests, 70, 72, 74, 92nl0 Hindus, 3, 7, 75,80 Free Trade Zone (FTZ), Sri Lanka, migrant workers in SE Asia, 218, 196-209 229 funeral ceremony, 155-6,159 Hirschon, R., 129 Ho communities, India, 84,88 Gaiha, R., 91n9 Hobsbawm, Eric, 124n2 garment industry, see clothing home workers industry in Lahore, 3-4, 23-37 Garos communities, India, 9, 12, 75, in Madras, 105, 112-14 76,78--9,84 in rural south India, 142 GCEC, see Greater Colombo in SE Asia, 222 Economic Commission self-concept of, 13, 36-7, 38 gender ideology, 7-12,13, 130; Hong Kong, 11, 213,214,218 on Cheju Island, 13, 157, 158-63, housework seen as women's work, 165-75 10,62,85,157,180,183,228 in Iran, 49,56--64 housing, shortages of, Iran, 62 in Mukkavar society, 13, 133-4, Humphrey, John, 40n10 137-40 Hyun, Gi Young, 175 238 Index

ideology of male-female roles, see Iran gender ideology effects oflran-Iraq war, 45,51-2, income 54,56,63,65,66 of Cheju Island divers, 165 male unemployment in, 56 effect on women's self-esteem of, restricted employment for women, 13, 3fr.7, 219-21 4-5,5fr.64 of factory workers: SE Asia, 212- women and poverty in, 43-69 16,217-18, 219; Sri Lanka, 11, Islam 204-8 ideology of women's role, 3, 10, of fishing communities, south 45-6,47-8,217-18,231n3 India, 131, 139-40, 143 traditional law, 75 of home-based pieceworkers, see also Muslims Lahore, 13,28-32,35-6,38-9 Islamic theocracies, policies towards male control over, 10, 19-20, 189- women in, 1, 43,45-8,51-61, 94 64-6 male refusal to acknowledge izzat (family and personal honour), women's, 13, 36 3,28,38 plantation workers, Sri Lanka, 185-8 Japan,151 of petty traders, Madras, 142-3 Jayewardene, J. R., 197 restrictions on women's ability to Jeffers, Hilde, 124n15 earn, 10,19-20,22-3,60-1, Jeffery, P., 128, 134 185-8,195 Jodha, N. S., 92n10 of rural households, India, 72-3 Joekes,Susan,15n6,40n10 of traders, Iran, 48 of women working outside home, Pakistan, 23,32-3 Kanyakumari, India, 7, 130-45 India Kamataka, India, 75 cultural regions, 92-3n16 Katunayake, Sri Lanka, 197, 199 female seclusion in, 5-6 Kazmi, N. A., 91n9 fishing communities in, 130-47 Kerala, India, 73, 75, 78, 91n7, land ownership and use in, 70-98 92n12,132 women traders, Madras, 99-127 Khasi communities, India, 75, 78 see also under individual states Kishwar, M., 84, 90n3 Indian migrant workers Komiteh Emdadeh Imam, Iran, 52, in SE Asia, 218, 225 55 in Sri Lanka, 179-81 Korea, see South Korea Indonesia, 218 Kot Lakhput, Lahore, 26 industrialisation, 151, 19fr.9 Kottuwal Chavadi, Madras, 102, informal sector, 14 11fr.17 in India, 105-6, 113 Kurian, Rachel, ix, 10, 178-95 in Iran, 44-50 in SE Asia, 218 labour inheritance, rules of, 75-9, 158 industrial, 11-12, 14, 24, 196, 199- intermediaries 201,221-2 dependence of home workers on, sexual division of, see sexual 27,48 division oflabour effect on income of home workers, on plantations, 179-81, 185-8, 29,30,31,36 194-5 Index 239

Lahore, female unemployment, 3-4, marriage 17,26--37 arranged by parents, 161, 190, Lalung communities, India, 75 223-4 land ownership and use, 5, 12, 44, cross-cousin, 5--6,77-8 70--98, 154-5 and female disinheritance, 5, 79- leather industry, Sri Lanka, 204 84 Lessinger, Johanna, ix, 6, 14,99-127 polygamous, effects of, 50, 51, 54 levirate, 77,82-3 self-selection of partnerfor, 9, 79, Lim, Linda Yuen-Ching, ix, 10, 11, 223-4,230 13, 14, 212-33 see also divorce Lipton, M., 91n6 Marx, Karl, 225 literacy levels masculinity, ideologies of, 7, 9, 13, of home workers, Pakistan, 26, 27 28,161,168-9 in pre-revolutionary Iran, 43 mass media, effects on ideology of, of women in rural India, 86, 87 13,165,167,173-4,221,224 Lowie, R. H., 132 maternity leave, 58-9,202-3 Mather, Celia, 217-18 matrifocality, 158-9, 162 matrilineal communities, 9, 75-9, 84 Madhya Pradesh, India, 82 Mayer, A. C., 82 Madras, women petty traders in, 6, Meghalaya, India, 75 99,127 Mencher, J. P., 92n12 Maharashtra, India, 70, 73 middle persons (middlemen), see Mahjoub, Mr (Iranian Adviser on intermediaries Labour Affairs), 56,57 Mies, M., 74, 113, 124n8 mahre (payment for consumation of Mintz, Sidney, 124n10 marriage), 51 Moaveneh Hemayatieh Sazemaneh Malaysia, women export factory Behzisti, see Behzisti workers,ll-12,216,229 mobility, restrictions on women's, education of, 228 5-6,20,21,85 income status of, 214-15 hamper economic activity, 86-7, independence of, 222-3 112,115,117,119-20,124n10 lack of class consciousness of, 225- limit claims to land, 5 7,229,230 prevent collective action, 35-6, 39 reasons for working, 218-19, 219- reduce access to skills, 38 21 Motbahri, Hojatoleslam, 57 Malaysian migrant workers, 209, 224 motherhood, ideals of, 58, 65, 111- male and female roles, see gender 12,122-3,159,201 ideology Mukkavar, communities, India, 7, 8, male-female avoidance, 3, 5--6, 106- 13,130--47 21 Murray, Sandra, 85-6 managerial and supervisory Muslims positions, lack of women in, 11, use of chaddor, 3 12,25,221 Indian, 218, 229 Manipur, India, 142 Malays, 218, 221,224,229 Manushi (Indian journal), 124n4 see also Islam Mappila communities, India, 75 Markandaya, Kamala, 124n13 Nangudi Vellalar communities, markets in Madras, 101-6 India, 75, 77 240 Index

Nayar communities, India, 75, 78 material and non-material, 'neither-dominant' society, 162-3 131-3 neolocality, 162 prostitution, 4, 45, 46, 47, 231n5 nursing, 144, 165, 170 Punjab, 80, 82-3, 85-6 nutrition, 72-3, 189-90, 191-3 purdah home workers observing, 23-39 old people's homes, Iran, 52 interpretations of, 20-1,37-8, Omvedt, G., 72 129-30 Oraon communities, India, 87 opinions of, 33-5, 39 orphanages,Iran,53-4 restricts women's choice of Orumieh, Iran, 61,62 employment, 20-3 Oudh tribe, 40n8 patterns adopted by non-Muslims, 41n15 Pahlavi, Shah Reza, 43,45 rules of, 17-21 Paite, communities, India, 76 Pakistan Raj, K. N., 91n7 female labour force in, 24-5 Rajasthan, India, 70, 73, 92n3, 80, home-based workers, 23-39 83-4,86,90 purdahin,3-4,17-42 Raju, S., 124n8 veiling of women, 3, 18-19, 33-5 Ram, Kalpana, ix, 7, 8, 13,128-47 Women's Division, 39n1 Ramachandran, M. G., 120 Papanek,llanna,20,27 Ranger, Terrance, 124n2 'parent repayment' ideology, 11, rape, 110-11 216-19,227,228,230 Ravesh, Dr Yarigar, 53 Pathans, 19 rituals patrilineal inheritance, 75-7, 158 Confucian, 152, 162 Pearson, Ruth, 223 in Mukhavar society, 134, 137-8 Phadia communities, India, 75 see also taboos Philippines, 213, 225, 229 roles, male and female, see gender Phongpaichit, Pasuk, 231n5 ideology Pillai, Thakazhi Sivasankara, 136 Rosa, Kumudhini, ix, 10, 11, 14, Pirzada women, 128 196-211 plantation workers in Sri Lanka, rubber plantations, 10, 179, 181, 178-95 183,184,188,190 ploughing, 6-7,87-8, 154,155 Ryan, B., 182 Pnar communities, India, 75 political rebellion, 151-2 Salaff, Janet, 215, 225 pollution, ritual, 7, 80, 87-9 Sands, W.F.,149-50 polygamy (polygyny), 51, 61, 65, Sazemaneh Behzisti (Better Living 159,162 Organisation), Iran, see Behzisti post-marital residence, 75-82, 158 seclusion, female, 2--6, 128-30, 224, potter communities, India, 7, 88-9 228,229 poverty, problems of defining, 212- conflict with economic needs, 1, 16,230 216 poverty levels in India, 91n9 as mark of status, 6, 19, 20, 107-8, prisoners,46-7,52,55 109-10, 114-15, 121 property handicap in land management, 85- inheritance of in India, 75-9,80 7 male control over women's, 194 see also purdah Index 241 segregation Cheju Island, 7, 9, 10, 12-13, 148-- male-female avoidance, 3, 5--6, 77 106--21 South-East Asia, vvomen factory ofvvorkforce,22-3,56,59 vvorkers in, 212-33 service sector, 25, 43, 44,49--50, 105, see also under individual countries 215--16 spaces, gender division of, see Setaeh Sarparasti va Ershad gender division of space (Protection and Guidance SriLanka,78,124n11 Headquarters), Iran, 52, 53, 55 factory vvorkers, 11, 196-211 sex roles, see gender ideology plantation vvorkers in, 10, 178--95 sexual division of labour, 227, 230 Sri Lanka Freedom Party, 197 on Cheju Island, 152-5, 157 State policies in Mukkavar society, 133-4, 135- economic development, 12-13, 6, 139--42 132,151,172-5,197-9 on plantations, 10, 178, 183--8, on labour control, 180-1, 187, 194, 194-5 196 vvomen's vvork seen as unskilled, on land ovvnership and use, 12, 10-12,22,43,54,59--61,178, 78--9,83-4,89 184,202 tovvards ritual life, 164 sexual harassment, 50, 65, 110-11 tovvards vvomen, 1, 4-5,43,45--8, sexuality, female 51--61, 64--6, 113 ideals of chastity and modesty, 8, street svveepers, female, 21 78, 86,106 Sundaram, K., 91n9 male control over, 3, 86-7, 128-- 30,138 taboos,6-7,80,87-9 Shah, Nazra M., 20, 27 Taivvan, 214, 218 Shaheed,Farida,3,10,13,14,17-42 TamilNadu Sharma, Ursula, 88, 90n3, 93-4n23, agricultural labour households in, 106, 134 92n12, 105, 110 Sikhs, 3 fishing communities of, 8, 13, 130- Singapore, 11,213,225 45 Sinhalese Madras, 101-23 factory vvorkers, 200 Nangudi Vellalar communities in, plantation vvorkers, 183, 190 75 Siraj, Mehrun, 231n3 Tamils skills and training, 54-5, 153-4 factory vvorkers, 200 handling money, 124n16, 140 migrants in Sri Lanka, 179--80, vvomen's reduced access to, 3, 10, 182, 183, 189, 190-1 22,38,132-3,221-2 Tanner, N., 158 vvomen's vvork seen as not tea cultivation requiring, 10-12, 22, 43, 54, 59-- establishment of plantations, 179 61,178,184,202 migrant labour, 180, 181 social chaperonage, 6, 110, 115--18 vvomen vvorkers in, 10, 48, 184, social prestige 185, 187-8 and female seclusion, 6, 19, 20, teaching, 144, 170 107-8,109--10,114-15,121 Tehran,45,47,59,61 of jobs, 13,21 Tendulkar, S., 91n9 South Korea, 149, 151-2, 174-5, textile industry 225,229 in Iran, 43, 59--61 242 Index textile industry - cont. village endogamy, 5-6,81, 82, 87, in South and West Asia, 229 108, 158, 162 in Sri Lanka, 197, 198 village exogamy, 79-80,81, 82, 85, Thailand, 213,218,225,229, 231n5 158 Tharakan, M., 91n7 virilocality, 158 Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), Visaria, P. and L., 91n6 161 Tiyyar communities, India, 75 wages, see income tobacco industry, 61, 62 weaving communities, 7, 88-9 trade unions, 187, 192, 208, 225 weddings, 159 traders, women see also marriage in Iran, 48-9 welfare provision in Madras, 99-127 in Iran, 4, 52-6, 58-9, 60 training, see skills and training in Sri Lankan Free Trade Zone, 202-3 unemployment, 11, 187, 2()(}-1 Welisara, Sri Lanka, 198 United National Party (UNP), Sri West Bengal, India, 90 Lanka, 197,198,200 widows urbanisation on Cheju Island, 155, 158, 159 effects on traditional ideology, 13, in India, 77,82-3,84, 86, 88, 136 101,102,164-6,172-4,224 in Iran, 49, 50, 51-2, 55, 62 and practice of purdah, 20, 38 plantation workers in Sri Lanka, of rural migrants, 44, 205-6, 214, 186 222,224,230 women's roles, see femininity, Uttar Pradesh, India, 70, 74 ideologies of; gender ideology uxorilocality, 158, 162 Wong, Aline, 215, 225 Working Women's Forum, Madras, Vatuk, S., 129-30 120 veil allows wotnen outside home, 4, Yalman, Nur, 129, 145n1 18,20-1,33 Yazdi, Mohamad, 57 differences in use, 3, 5, 134 'Yong Dong', Cheju Island, 152-68 as indicator of social status, 27 see also purdah Zaneh Rouz, 45,56