Unacknowledged Economic Actors

A women was sobbing and her husband was insisting her to eat something in the local shop. But she was constantly denying to eat. Her cloths were very simple and she was on her bare foot. Her cracked heels and palms with very low nails was showing her hard labor as a farmer. After some time, her husband concluded the bargaining to the local butcher. He took the money from butcher and handover the boar that was being kept by his wife since the morning. She forcefully handover the boar to the butcher with very adorable look and just followed her husband unwillingly. Her happy husband brought some tobacco and other household consumable in the market. The pair left after couple of hours when the husband was fully drunken and eaten. She was still sobbing with swollen eyes, blowing nose and hiccupping throat and just silently following her husband. These kind of scenario became regular in the place I used to live after my marriage. It was a small market hub, where the men from the villages of the adjacent districts usually come and sell their local products like fruits, vegetables, eggs, hens, goats and sometime boars.After selling their products they spend fifty percent of their earning on local drinks & foods and remaining they used to buy household consumables. Sometime, they also finish their whole earning in gambling and return home with empty hands.

In my country Nepal, eighty-three percent of the population resides in the rural areas according to the Census 2011 and out of the total rural women aged ten years and above, seventy-nine percent are occupied in agriculture sector. Majority of the women don’t have direct access to the market of their product and they have to rely on their husbands or other local brokers. Most of the women get not even a single penny from their husband after selling their products. Few of them share their incomes and very less of them get some simple gifts like bangles, cloths or sweets from their husband after selling the products. Later on I came to know that, the women who accompany their husbands while coming to local market to sell the boars were forcefully taken from the village. The boar is the animal who only obey and follow to the person that feeds and take cares of them from initial period. It’s type of impossible to take them by any other person rather than their care takers. If someone take them forcefully, they usually become very violent. In case of the women in rural area, majority of the women engage in agriculture and animal husbandry. Thus, women are compelled to accompany their husband while they want to sell their boars in market. It became a very tragic moment for any women to be the witness of her domestic to be sold in the market just for selling their meat. It was not the monetary value for a woman at that time but for the very emotional attachment. I saw the women are in heavy heart while they have to sell their domestic boar in the market and they compelled to be the part of this all the way from her village to the market.

The case really sparked my mind at that moment. A true master of boar had neither any decision making power nor the ownership of money that got from selling the boar. It’s a similar case with my personal experience. I am at middle thirties now, and since my childhood, I had a dream of being an independent working woman. I started my career right after the School Leaving Certificate at the age of seventeen and continued the job even after my marriage. I convinced my husband and had jointly decided that we would be equally sharing the personal and professional work for our future. Generally, in my country, after marriage, men are responsible for take care and fulfilling wife’s requirement and women has to do all the household chores and taking care of family. Thus my maternal relatives were not positive for my hard work and continuation of the job along with household activities. They often misinterpreted on my husband’s financial status and his ability too. Even when my husband wants to help me in household, he has to do in private as there would be comments from neighbors and relatives. Being a capable I could choose my profession and work but nobody thought of my personal wish, my academic qualification and the knowledge and skills that I want to use and earn for myself and my family. In some part of my life, I was the only bread earner after my husband left his job to pursue his further study for the period of three years. My husband and I was determined for our decision and I was quite confident and happy to hold the family during those time. However, it was quite difficult to face others comments and feedback on our decision. My contribution was always a secondary and optional for them, as it was women’s earning. It’s a shame in our society that men cannot depend upon women’s earning and it is type of shameful for a man to be dependent to women and her property. This type of mentality made a woman to shoulder additional responsibility for respecting and ensuring her family members emotional feeling as well. It would be hard to claiming the contribution/achievement in front of others/society just because of ensuring their feelings.

As a woman there is already a set of specific responsibilities in households. Cooking, cleaning and caring are the stamped and primary job of daughter in law in the family. No matter how much she educated, how much she earns, how much she contributes to the family, but for the society, she is the only person responsible for every household chore. Even if there are other unemployed male members and senior women in the family want to contribute in household, they are commented and challenged. So these kind of practice made an additional double burden for women to take care of both of the personal household role as well as professional office role.

I was comparing myself as the women in the market how helpless she was and as well as I. She was struggling with her husband and I was with society. She was not being able to claim and enjoy her earning as well as mine. She was not being acknowledged as well as me. All the women in this society like from rural or urban, young or old, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, employed or (un)employed are all same with unrecognized and unacknowledged properly. Their contribution in their family from dawn to late night is never well acknowledged as an economic value in their family. A woman who wakes up early in the morning and prepares the morning chores, prepares children to go school, prepares food for whole family thrice a day, cleans all the home, take cares of senior members of family, arrange the household things are never considered into the economic value. It is obvious that if the same thing is done outside, is converted into the monitory value as well as professionalism. The work of women doing in household as cooking is nothing, but if the same cooking is done in hotel or restaurant, it is Chef. If the women sew/embroidery the cloth in house for her children is nothing, but if it is done in market, its fashion designing and it has a value. If a woman has hen, goat and use for family consumption, it’s nothing, but if it done outside by men, it’s a farm and animal husbandry. The women take cares of elder or younger members in family all the day and night, it never recognized, but the same thing if we hire a health assistance, it has huge monetary value. The women clean the cloths and home, but the same thing you do in laundry, it cost high. So we can easily see how much the women are contributing for the family, which is never considered as value and she is just known as ‘’HOUSEWIFE’’. If all of the women stops these work and have to depend upon the others for this work, the monetary value of these work would be very expensive to family.

But things are gradually changing in society now in comparison to my early days of struggle, After the completion of my husband study, he further started his work. He advised me if I wanted to stay in home but I never thought of discontinuing my work. It’s not only the matter of money, it’s also a matter of my identity, my wish and my valuable time. I truly respect my work and convince everyone in my family, friend circle and community that we all have to value our work. No matter its nine to five table work or the work that can be done in home on their leisure time that have the monetary value. It took some time, however, I started to get help from my husband and other family members in household works more openly which also inspired to other. Few of my relatives and other women initiated some handicraft work like knitting, sewing, cooking for selling as per their capability. Gradually, it became easier and inspiring to each other in community. Some of them are also building the networking among them and selling their home based products to market. It’s a great experience, that few of their husband and family members helping in household chores. I am very happy with myself however, there is still a small wish in core of my heart is to see the liberty, smile, satisfaction and enjoyment of EVERY MASTER OF A BOAR.