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Sexual Harassment and Reproduction of Patriarchy in Public Space in Nepal

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Sexual Harassment and Reproduction of Patriarchy in Public Space in Nepal SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND REPRODUCTION OF PATRIARCHY IN PUBLIC SPACE IN NEPAL A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN SOCIOLOGY DECEMBER 2017 By Gita Neupane Dissertation Committee: Patricia Steinhoff, Chairperson Meda Chesney-Lind Wei Zhang Valli Kalei Kanuha Jan Brunson Keywords: Nepal, patriarchy, masculinity, social support, public space, DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Prem Neupane and Bishnu Kala Neupane, who dreamed of me pursuing this level of academic achievement and always positively reinforced me for the hard work toward this journey. II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am thankful to many people who supported me in different stages of producing this dissertation. Having frequently experienced different forms of sexual harassment in Kathmandu as a graduate student and a newly employed woman, I was not just shocked but had no idea what I could do at the moment of sexual harassment in public space. I suffered. Coming to Kathmandu from another part of the country, I had little clue for the number of such obstacles, which would harm an individual’s life in a number of ways. Like other women, I learned to take harassment as men’s nature and started looking for tricks and tips focusing on how I can be safe on my way to college or work. I learned to ignore, I learned to be scared, I learned to be skeptical of men, and I started wanting another family member to accompany me while going out. After I came to the US in 2008 and started my graduate studies in the fall of 2009, I had an opportunity to look back at the society I came from, and observed more closely some issues that touched women’s lives in many ways. To utilize a summer trip in 2012 to Nepal, I had a chance to talk to many women in Kathmandu about their experience of using public transport. This conversation gave me a useful insight to understand the problem of sexual harassment not only as a personal matter, but a social issue. As I had just finished writing a paper on this, I learned that a young girl was murdered after a gang rape in a public bus in New Delhi, India. It was an alarm for me to explore more into this issue in the context of Nepal as I felt that the incident was not something that could be dismissed or ignored any more in Kathmandu. When I shared my deepening interest on this issue with my graduate advisor Dr. Patricia G. Steinhoff, she enthusiastically encouraged me to proceed. It is my great pleasure having her as the Chair in my dissertation committee. Her continuous support, encouragement, valuable advice and her understanding helped my research endeavor to turn in to this level of academic achievement. Without her consistent support, this III dissertation would not have been possible in this form. Similarly, I am grateful to Dr. Meda Chesney-Lind and Dr. Vallie Kalei Kanuha for the insights and ideas in their classes that were instrumental to help me pursue this topic. Dr. Chesney- Lind’s continuous enthusiasm in this issue always uplifted my strength to make sure this important story got told. I am truly grateful to Dr. Kanuha for the long conversations we had about my fieldwork and afterwards while writing this dissertation. Moreover, her comments and feedback at the defense were very insightful and helpful to improve the dissertation. Similarly, I am cordially thankful to Dr. Wei Zhang, who was always available for me if I had any questions for her. She supported my work in every possible way she could. Her insightful feedback on my dissertation was not only helpful to revise this dissertation for the final version but is also beneficial for further work that can be published. Another committee member, Dr. Jan Brunson has been very helpful to guide me as her research has been based on Nepal and she knows Nepal’s cultural issues more closely. Similarly, I am also thankful to Pujan Baral, who worked as an interviewer for many male participants for this dissertation. My parents also deserve many thanks for their continuous support, encouragement and their everlasting concerns for my academic career. Their dreams for my progress always push me toward hard work and success. I cannot complete this acknowledgement without thanking my mother in-law, who took care of the household work efficiently in the later part of my dissertation writing so that I was able to concentrate fully on my writing. IV I owe my deepest gratitude to my husband, Bal Krishna Sharma, who not only made my US education possible but also provided, every possible support continuously, not only for this dissertation but for my whole academic career and personal life both at the times of sorrow and joy. I am also thankful to Sabitra Neupane and Samjhana Phuyal from Action Aid Nepal and Social Empowerment by Empowering Women respectively for their warm welcome in their organizations. I benefitted a lot not only by understanding the issue more closely but also finding research participants by getting involved in their Safe City project. Moreover, I want to offer my best regard to all the people who directly or indirectly helped to complete this project. Finally, I am very grateful to the East-West Center, the Founder Region Fellowship, Open Society, AAUW Honoulu Branch, and Dai Ho Chun fellowship for the funding that was provided during my PhD coursework, dissertation fieldwork, and writing. V ABSTRACT This dissertation examines women’s lived experience of sexual harassment in public transport and streets in Kathmandu, Nepal, paying attention to how women survive such harassment on a daily basis. It also documents how both men and women make sense of harassment, and their masculine and feminine how it impacts their identities. Then the study goes into the details of social and cultural constraints that set limitations for Nepali women in fighting sexual harassment. The study site for this research is Kathmandu – the largest metropolitan city of Nepal. It employs a mixed-method approach and uses data from both women and men in order to compare accounts and perceptions of sexual harassment. Questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews and focus group interviews are used to collect data. These data are complemented by field notes and observations from places in Kathmandu where sexual harassment was most likely to take place. The central argument of this dissertation is that sexual harassment in public space in Nepal constitutes and reproduces dominant norms of patriarchy that are also observed in other social contexts such as in families and workplaces. I argue that men and women learn dominance and submission from homes, schools, peers, and society, and the norms of dominant patriarchy are maintained through sexual harassment. Power and privilege for Nepali men is invisibly reproduced through cultural socialization, and as a result, men are largely unaware of themselves as explicitly gendered. Sexual harassment in Kathmandu’s public space creates a physical and ideological separation of sexes and diminishes the possibility of public space as being suitable for women. Despite the significant economic and political gains women have made in Nepali society, men continue to use violence to dominate and control women in public space. VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements……………………….……………………….………………………...….III Abstract……………………….……………………….……………………….………………VI Chapter 1: Introduction ……………………….……………………….……………………….1 Introduction……………………………….……………………….……..………………. 1 Patriarchy and women’s access to public space in Nepali society………………………..4 Sexual harassment as a global problem……………………….…………………………13 Sexual harassment from a legal perspective……………………….…………………… 17 Research preparation and preliminary work on the topic……………………….……… 20 Research questions and significance of the research……………………….……………21 Structure of the dissertation……………………….……………………………………. 23 Chapter 2: Theoretical framework and literature review……………………….……………... 25 Social construction of space and its relevance for sexual harassment………….………. 25 The public/private distinction of space……………………….………………………….25 Analyzing space in sociology……………………….………………………………….. 28 Gendered construction of space and sexual harassment…………………………………31 The stress theory and social support……………………….…………………………….33 Masculinity and sexual violence……………………….………………………………...41 Conclusion……………………….……………………….……………………………...45 Chapter 3: Methodology……………………….……………………….………………………47 Introduction……………………….……………………….……………………………..47 Participant recruitment and data collection……………………….……………………...48 Collecting data from men……………………….………………………………………..51 VII Analysis of the data……………………….……………………….……………………..53 Chapter 4: Heterosexual encounters and masculinization of public space…………………55 Introduction……………………….……………………….……………………………..55 Normalization of sexual harassment……………………….……………………….……55 Objectification of women in verbal comments and gazes……………………….………70 Physical harassment and invasion of women’s space……………………….…………...80 Conclusion……………………….……………………….……………………………...87 Chapter 5: Responding to harassment and social support mechanisms……………………90 Introduction……………………….……………………….…………………………….90 The social constraints in responding……………………….……………………………90 The freeze and flight of harassment……………………….……………………….……95 Fight and reactions to harassment……………………….……………………………..102 Use of social support mechanisms……………………….…………………………….109 Constraints in employing social support mechanisms……………………….…………114 Social support and revictimization
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