Sex, Gender and Disability in Nepal

Marginalized Narratives and Policy Reform

Tulasi Acharya

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781000701241
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book explores the sex lives of women with disabilities in Nepal, showing that many women suffer more than men despite prevailing disability policies that emphasize nondiscrimination against people with disabilities. It also argues that far from general perceptions of women as asexual, women with disabilities are capable of leading highly creative and fulfilling sexual lives.

Using critical sexual theory and postcolonial studies as critical frameworks, the book investigates the narratives of authors with disabilities, exploring policy gaps and the need for supportive gender and sexual policies through the words of those affected. In particular, the book analyzes five female Nepali authors with disabilities: Radhika Dahal, Jhamak Ghimire, Sabitri Karki, Parijaat, and Mira Sahi, demonstrating the need for supportive gender policies to address the emotional and psychological needs of women with disabilities. Overall, the book argues that disciplinary discourses in practice often consider sex or sexuality as taboo, barely recognizing women in the context of marriage and family, and therefore creating gaps between policies and marginalized narratives.

This book provides important insights into sex and disability within the context of the Global South, and as such will be of interest not only to researchers working on Nepal but also to scholars across gender studies, disability studies, international development, and postcolonialism.

1
Introduction

In this book, I have chosen to study the literary works of five individuals in the South Asian country of Nepal in the context of the Global South. I believed Nepal, representing the Global South, is an interesting case for inquiry into policies for disabled women for several reasons. First, the country has a multiethnic and caste-based patriarchal culture. Second, the 2015 earthquake in Nepal left many people disabled. Third, there was a substantial disabled population in Nepal prior to the earthquake. Many of the women with disabilities. Disability intersects with gender, culture, ethnicity, and sexist social attitudes in Nepal. The culture of sexism in Nepal (Acharya, 2005; Dhungana, 2006) begins with disparaging women as inferior and minimizing their lives. Sexism is even more pronounced in relation to disabled women. The plight of disabled women is framed by the sociocultural and sexist attitudes that restrict many women in South Asian countries, such as India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, from exercising their individual freedoms, such as making independent decisions and engaging in work beyond domestic tasks (Acharya, 1987; Sharma, 2007).

In developing countries, the lives of disabled women are hampered by gender issues and other social structural problems, such as the denial of land rights to women when compared to men, the neglect of women’s contribution to family, and the social attitudes of preferring a son to a daughter (Forum of Women and Law Development, 2006).

In the context of India, Groce (1997) asserted that disabled women’s lives “are often even more severely curtailed in much of the developing world, where poverty and traditionally negative attitudes toward women and disability are widely, although by no means universally, found” (p. 178). In a society where sons are preferred to daughters, a daughter is, so to speak, already disabled (Hans & Patri, 2003). When “the daughter is already disabled, such practices may be more pronounced, placing female children with a disabling condition at even greater risk for increased illness, multiple disabilities, or even death” (Groce, 1997, p. 180).

This problem exists even in the Western context. Disability programs in the United States affect women and men with disabilities differently (Schriner, Barnartt, & Altman, 1997). As disability intersects with gender, women with disabilities may suffer more than men with regards to the benefits they receive (Ingram, Schneider, & deLeon, 2007). In such situations, “without more insights in those complex relationships, it would be difficult to address problems of disabled women in any nation” (Schriner et al., 1997, p. 2). Thus, it is important to explore the sexed or gendered lives of women with disabilities in relation to their government.

Research has shown that women with disabilities lack political and social power in comparison to men with disabilities in the Global South (Acharya, 1987; Dhungana, 2006). Women are inherently viewed as different from men due to negative social and Hindu religious beliefs (Acharya, 1994a, 1994b, 1994c; Acharya, 2005). When women are disabled, they are seen to lack the qualities of motherhood, which is an important empowering role in the context of the Global South and especially in Nepali society. A woman who has given birth to a son and who can perform household and, often, farming chores is perceived to live a more meaningful life than women in general in Nepali society. A meaningful existence for women is defined in terms of motherhood and their capacity to have children and care for family. This is particularly the case for women from high-caste families and lineages whose remunerated labor outside the home may be viewed less favorably than that of lower-caste and ethnic women (Cameron, 1998). The social value ascribed to women who are wives and mothers influences people’s attitudes toward them and can further marginalize women with disabilities who experience barriers to marriage and motherhood. This dynamic reflects how disability intersects with gender and reinforces the need to discuss gender and sex in the context of the Global South, especially in Nepali governance, to better understand the policies and practices affecting the lives of women with disabilities.

Women with disabilities in the Global South experience high rates of poverty, negative stereotypes, and gender discrimination that exacerbate their physical disabilities, thus restricting them even further (Dhungana, 2006; Lamichhane, 2014; Sharma, 2007). Such social barriers for women with disabilities are costly to the women themselves, their families, and the greater society because these barriers limit disabled women’s free access to development of their capacity.

The Constitution of Nepal (2015) and Nepal’s disability governmental policies guarantee freedom from discrimination based on gender as well as discrimination based on disabilities. Nepal is also a signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which addresses the sexual and marital rights of the disabled, along with other rights (United Nations, 2006) (see Appendix A). However, the New Era for National Planning Commission (2001) showed that there are few effective strategies to implement disability policies in Nepal and in other South Asian countries.

Nepal: a case study

The Constitution of Nepal (2015) covers fundamental rights. Part 3, Article 18, discusses the right to equality. This section declares that there should be no discrimination against people based on physical condition, language, marital status, race, color, personal opinions, and disability. Article 39, Clause 9, provides state protection and facilities for people with disabilities. Article 42, Clause 3, emphasizes the rights of the disabled to live a life of self-respect and guarantees equal access to public facilities. The Disabled Protection and Welfare Regulation (1996) and Protection and Welfare of the Disabled Persons Act (1982) include provisions for different services and facilities for persons with disabilities, such as educational rights, health facilities, employment opportunities, self-employment facilities, tax exemption facilities, travelling facilities, and free legal aid services. Dhungana (2006) and the New Era for National Planning Commission (2001) highlighted physical impairments and called for improvement of disability-friendly infrastructure and employment services for people with disabilities. However, the policies barely recognize women in the context of marriage and family. Further, research has yet to focus on the personal concerns of the disabled, including the understanding of the disabled women’s social lives and the need to develop policies related to gender, sex, marriage, and motherhood.

An underlying problem in developing appropriate policies is disability prejudice in Nepali society. People view disability as the result of a sin committed in a past life, that is, as destiny (Sharma, 2007). Those who entertain this attitude assume that people with disabilities are incapable of or unfit for marriage and motherhood. The takeaway from this is achieving an understanding of the social, psychological, and cultural experiences of people with disabilities, and reflecting upon these understandings in policy making could reduce the problems faced by disabled women in their daily lives (Bernert, 2011; Bernert & Ogletree, 2013).

In Nepal, different political and historical upheavals bring about changes in policies and agencies’ roles in addressing the lives of women, as well as female empowerment and discrimination based on sex and gender (Acharya, 2017). However, there appears to be little progress in ameliorating the conditions of women with disabilities (Acharya, 2017). In this book, I investigate the potential mismatches between disability policies and the experiences of women with disabilities from Nepal as a case study to reflect and inform similar disability and policy situations that may exist in the Global South or around the world.

Theoretically, in this book, I have considered both critical theory and postcolonial studies as tools to assess the narratives of disabled women to determine whether policies and the agencies working for people with disabilities in Nepal are useful, consistent, and informed by, or inform, disabled Nepali women’s narratives. Critical theory and postcolonial studies frame this analysis of literary works by disabled Nepali women. Foucault’s (1990) views of biopower, biopolitics, and sexuality can help the reader better understand disability and gender-sexuality in the larger social, historical context of Nepal. Postcolonial studies compliment critical theory because postcolonial studies establish intellectual spaces for marginalized people to speak for themselves and balance the imbalanced “us versus them” binary power relationship between colonists and colonial subjects (Said, 1979; Spivak, 1992, 2010). In a postcolonial context, colonists are those who deem themselves able, and colonial subjects are those who are disabled. Spivak (2010) and Said (1979) discussed the roles of power and knowledge that name, define, and control subjects. These ideas also relate to Foucault’s (1990) concept of biopower (defined later), and the naming, defining, and controlling of subjects. These concepts are discussed fully in Chapter 3. In this book, I also use Riessman’s (2008) and Barthes’ (1975) narrative methods focusing on thematic and structural analysis of the text, study symbols, and metaphors to generate meaning, for sensemaking, and to make the implicit explicit.

The purpose of the book

In this book, the focus is on understanding disability and disability policies in Nepal and on informing disability policies in the context of the Global South. It intersected the experiences of women with disabilities; sex and gender; caste, culture, and social beliefs; and how these factors impact women with disabilities and the disability policies designed for them. The purpose of the book is to:

• explore the meaning of disability and gender policy in the context of Nepal and the Global South;
• analyze current Nepali disability policies and CRPD as revealed through the literary works (narratives) of disabled women; and
• inform policies through personal narratives, specifically, literary works (Griffiths & Macleod, 2008).

Typology of narratives

In this book, literary works of disabled women are reviewed alongside disability policies. Autobiographies, biographies, and creative works by people with disabilities that inform disability policies to draw on their life stories, their life histories, and the stories of their sex lives were analyzed (Griffiths & Macleod, 2008). They were classified into four different categories to critically analyze mismatches of policies with select narratives of disabled women using the following typology (see Table 1.1). I have used Nepali disabled women’s narratives and Nepali disability policies as a case study. This typology can be a good model for any researcher in any context, most possibly in the South Asian context.

Intelligible and empirical

These are the narrative texts of people with disabilities. The narratives look reasonable, measurable, logical, coherent, concrete, and objective, and they seem to make sense to policy makers. The narratives in this category are related to the physical difficulties and problems with which disabled people must cope. They appear to be clear, explicit, and deal with issues that can be addressed easily. The possible solutions relate to policies that address infrastructure such as disabled-friendly facilities and public places, as well as employment opportunities and working conditions for the disabled.

Empirical and observational

These are governmental policy texts formulated for people with disabilities. They are logically and rationally formulated with specific objectives. They are designed to offer guidelines to the public in clear language. These policy narratives are largely formulated based on a “one size fits all” concept. Different governmental and nongovernmental disability organizations and institutions implement and enforce these policies. They mostly view policy as a means of empowering people with disabilities both economically and politically through education and employment. These policy narratives are guided by measurable, calculable, and scientifically objective rationales. They are directed toward tangible results such as providing services and facilities and removing physical barriers that may directly impact the lives of the disabled. The policies aim to address the concerns of the intelligible and empirical category.

Interpretive and heterogeneous

These narrative texts express the complexities inherent in the experiences of disabled individuals, revealing often hidden oppressive conditions. The narratives may provide neglected and subjective perspectives, including a range of experience unfamiliar to many readers. These experiences may exceed the general knowledge of the able-bodied and help policy makers

Table 1.1 Typology of narratives: typology testing

	Individual narrative texts of the disabled	Policies for the disabled
Empirical	I Intelligible: Logical, coherent, not complex Possible to understand the individual’s narratives easily Example: “If I have to go to the hospitals of Nepal, they are not disability friendly” (Ghimire, 2014, p. 26).	II Observational: Policies that can be tested or observed Example: “The Act will provide different services and facilities for persons with disabilities, such as educational rights, health facilities, employment opportunities, self-employment facilities, tax exemption facilities, travelling facilities, and free legal aid services” (Disabled Protection and Welfare Regulation, 1996, p. 4).
Interpretive	III Heterogeneous: Narrative texts based on/coming from perspectives of different caste/race/culture/gender, and different contexts Complex, incoherent, difficult to understand Examples: “Actually, all humans have the matter of sex, and no one can be separated from it. It is because I also have youth and adulthood. To be without sexual feelings is to be a person without emotion” (Ghimire, 2014, p. 36). “I bloomed like pear and guava plants in full bloom, like the blossoms of rhododendrons and marigolds” (Ghimire, 2014, p. 77).	IV Reflexive: Policies that discuss or reflect on the gender or/and marital issues of people/women with disabilities A question of research?

develop more broadly responsive policies. The narratives may appear abstract, subjective, and heterogeneous. The personal narratives of people with disabilities likely intersect with caste, ethnicit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Disability and policy problems, gender, and social construction
• 3 Critical sexual theory and postcolonial studies
• 4 Qualitative methodology
• 5 Disabled women’s narratives
• 6 Assessing narratives and disability policies
• 7 Testing the typology of narratives
• 8 Conclusions
• Appendices
• References
• Index