Prof. Maithree Wickremesinghe-Prof. Nilanthi De Silva
We have to drive a stake into the heart of Gender Inequality. There is no doubt about that. First we need to identify this enemy. Gender Inequality is an attitude. A thought pattern. It is a mindset. It is definitely a form of prejudice and it is destructive and harmful. It has a crippling effect on the development of boys and girls. It prevents girls and boys from realizing their full potential. And both men and women are guilty of Gender Inequality, sometimes unwittingly. Since not everyone is willing to look inwardly and correct their fault, there needs to be a discourse in society amongst individuals from various backgrounds. The Daily News recently attended the Inauguration Ceremony of the 2nd International Conference on Gender Disparities 2023, organized by the Center for Gender Studies of the University of Kelaniya, where academics shared their views on Gender Disparities in Sri Lanka.
Director of the Center for Gender Studies of the University of Kelaniya Senior Lecturer, Dr. Anusha Edirisinghe, pointed out that the objective of this conference is to have a discourse and promote a deeper understanding about gender disparities with a specific focus on Sri Lanka.
“We are honoured to have delegates from around the world who will engage in discussion and share their views concerning gender disparities and its impact. There will be group discussions and informative talks. With the changing dynamics of society, we understand the importance of this conference. Those who participate in this conference will gain valuable insight into gender disparities. With over 70 submissions/ research papers received, this conference is of special significance to the academic community. This is an overwhelming response. There is a special discussion on prevention of gender based and sexual violence. This shows that we are committed to fostering a safe and more inclusive society. Many of our participants come from distant lands to be a part of this conference so that they may share their knowledge and vast experience on the highly sensitive issue of gender disparities. Let us strive to create a society where there is gender equality,” said Dr. Edirisinghe.
Founding Director of the Centre for Gender Studies, University of Kelaniya, Chair and Senior Professor of English, Department of English, Maithree Wickremesinghe, who delivered the keynote address, called gender disparities a ‘persistent’ topic, and added that it is a subject that has continued to challenge all of us.
“When I was invited to give this lecture, I thought it may be timely to briefly revisit our understandings of the length, breadth and depth of the concepts of gender and gender disparities. It is a theoretical keynote. One reason for me to take up this subject is the multitude of theories on gender that have come into being as well as the popularization of some gender concepts, sometimes quite indiscriminately and erroneously in the collective public imagination. In the late 1970’s when I first became aware of gender issues, any allusion to gender had to be clarified in relation to the concept of sex. Life has changed drastically since then and these days references to gender can be found in poverty assessments, in politics, in algorithms, in family interactions and in transitional justice processes, especially if you choose to look for it. As feminists and gender scholars today we tend to take gender as a given. But what exactly do we take as given? This keynote then is a reflection on the pertinent assumptions, historical evolution and current understanding of gender disparities as well as the significance of it for research, teaching, training, advocacy, activism and action. Let me begin by articulating the breakdown of the questions that are fueling this conference – What do we mean by gender and what do we mean by gender disparities? Now you will agree with me that gender is a conflated if not complicated word. I hope you will bear with me while I trace the term theoretically according to my currentepistemological standpoint,” said Prof. Wickremesinghe.
She pointed out that before the turn of the 21st century and onset of the post- modern or even the “post post- modern ethos” scholars and theorists were seen to accept gender as a fact of reality. Or an analytical category founded on the socially constructed binary between the two sexes of men and women, and as the principle division or grouping or stratification in societies.
“Some of you may remember that gender was also used interchangeably with the idea of sex. Ann Oakley in a groundbreaking text in 1972, Sex, Gender and Society, discusses how the biological differences of men and women are augmented and polarized through socially constructed differences in western cultures. This is to the extent which that there is a sex and gender binary, which in turn can lead to material, discursive and normative inequalities. For Sociologists like Nancy Chodorow, gender was related to the values, norms, behaviours and roles of social conditioning and social construction. Simone de Beauvoir, as far back as 1949 summarizes her thinking in her famous quote – ‘one is not born a woman, but becomes one’. Moira Gatens points out that the male and female bodies have been attributed differing social value and significance, which cannot help but have a distinctive effect on male and female consciousness. Expanding the idea of social construction further, West and Zimmerman suggest that gender is “a complex of socially guided perceptual interactional and micro-political activities that cast particular pursuits as expressions of masculine and feminine natures.” Nature too is a socially constructed concept. Gender is argued to be located in activities or a series of acts, and at this point not considered a possession of individuals, giving rise to the idea that you can actually do gender. This notion of gender performativity then in terms of how individuals either conform or reject certain scripts of gender, though not always consciously. Judith Butler said ‘Performativity is a matter of reiterating or repeating the norms by which one is constituted.’ Yet it does not necessarily follow that individuals who always conform to what is socially and culturally expected of their biological sex,” she explained.
Human practice
Prof. Wickremesinghe added that for more politically inclined feminists and feminist activities, gender signifies interactions, relations, ideologies and politics between and amongst people in the family, in institutions and socio-cultural structures. There is also a theory that gender consists of an order emanating from gender relations between individuals. The argument is that this gender order is an outcome of human practice or agency and similar to the concept of an economic order. The gender order could be egalitarian or patriarchal, and subject to resistance as well as conformity, contestation as well as acceptance.
“In recent times the politics of gender as identities and identifications has come to the forefront. In particular gender has been expanded, transformed and faceted to incorporate more than the two dominant sexes or genders. For example, the Buginese, a culturally ethnic group in Indonesia, have historically conformed to more than two sexes or genders. Bugis society recognizes five genders – Makkunrai, Oroané, Bissu, Calabai, and Calalai. Apart from the Makkunrai and Oroane, the Bugis society identifies Calabai (transgender males) and Calalai (transgender females) as well as Bissu. Bissu is considered a fifth gender, which can embody all genders or none of them, in the sense that it transcends gender.”
She further explained that today we talk of gender variants. Cisgender, transgender people, gender neutral and gender fluid. There is a wide spectrum of sex/gender identities and identifications. Even though Butler in 1990 says that gender performativity is not a matter of choosing of which gender one will be today, it could be argued that the concept of gender fluidity in the 21st century is one that provides ample space formaneuvering one’s manifest identity and identifications.
“So not only do we see gender identities and identifications changing according to geographical locations, time periods, ethnicity, religion as well as age, abilities and disabilities, but also that we ourselves are performing and playing out these identities and identifications according to individual perceptions, desires and capacities,” she said.
Prof. Wickremesinghe concluded by saying scholarly work has focused on gender not only as an answer but also as a question. Not only as an effect but also as a cause. Not only as a given but much more as an execution, not only as social but as individual. Not only as binary but as a spectrum.
“In the 21st century gender has come under extensive deliberation from an epistemological standpoint. As scholars began to look more and more at how knowledge is socially and culturally constructed, gender has also become understood as an epistemological tool or strategy of and for knowledge making. From unmindfully conflating gender as ontology, and as part and parcel of reality, gender has been used mindfully as a theoretical concept to frame reality for various epistemological purposes of knowledge making. Questions began to be asked as to how far our research realities construct our assumptions and understandings of gender. And in turn how far our assumptions and understandings of gender assemble our research realities? As scholars and researchers how far do we look out for gendering in our data? Discover gender as already out there in reality. It is kind of an inductive relationship. On the other hand how far do we gender our data? Or apply gender frames to reality?” she concluded.
Dedicated studies
Vice Chancellor, University of Kelaniya, Prof. Nilanthi De Silva, proudly declared that the Center for Gender Studies of the University of Kelaniya is perhaps the oldest and active centers dedicated for gender studies in the University system in Sri Lanka.
“There has been a lot of hard work and dedication by the staff to make this conference a reality. So I wish to congratulate them on this achievement. The University of Kelaniya as one of the largest state universities in the country, has a responsibility and an obligation to engage in research on issues of national importance and to provide a platform such as this to share expert views regarding such matters.
Even though Sri Lanka is much better placed than most of our neighbours in South Asia with regard to gender disparities in many aspects of life, and when I say that I mean disparities between men and women, leaving out all the other groups that are a subject of so much debate and dispute. I think everyone here today will agree that Sri Lanka still has areas in which there are nationally significant gender disparities which have not been adequately addressed,” said Prof. De Silva.
Her interest in this matter was aroused around 20 years ago, while invigilating exams in the Medical Faculty. “I took to counting whatever I could observe because exam invigilation is a boring job. On repeated occasions, I noticed that among the students who were taking the re-sit exams there was a much greater proportion of male students than when the same batch of students were doing the same exam for the first time. Looking for solid evidence to confirm this observation and trying to figure out why this might be so, started me off on an interesting journey across medical faculties (not just in Ragama), and studying the literature on this same kind of disparity in medical schools in other countries as well. It resulted in a series of publications which my colleagues and I published in the ‘Ceylon Medical Journal’.
You can look that up if you want to know what the results were like. As I grew in seniority in the university system, I noticed that the proportion of women in rooms where policies were discussed and high level decisions were made kept getting less and less as we went up the administrative hierarchy. In fact when I applied for the first time for the post of Vice Chancellor three years ago, and I walked into the senate room to make my presentation to the council members, I found myself in a room full of men. The Acting Vice Chancellor, the Deans, the senate nominees and the UGC appointed members – they were all men! The only woman in the room was a management assistant. And this is in a university where nearly three quarters of the students and almost half the staff are female. But this time around it was a little bit better, there were around four women in the council. Although I have never seen myself as a feminist or gender activist, this observation has always made me aware of the life experiences of girls and boys, men and women on a day-to-day basis. They may not experience or even perceive discrimination that can be directly attributed to their gender, but nevertheless there are disparities,” she explained.
Mainstream studies
Prof. De Silva added that keynote speaker Prof. Maithree Wickremesinghe took the initiative some years ago to raise awareness about gender mainstreaming within Kelaniya, of the need to adopt a university wide gender policy. Prof. De Silva was more than willing to support her efforts.
“She also persuaded the then Vice Chancellor Prof. Amunugama to establish a center for gender studies. And as you can see that center has gone from strength to strength over the years. We now have a policy framework for gender equity and equality at the University of Kelaniya and an active body of staff and students who work on implementing the policy to create a gender responsive environment that seeks to minimize disparities. We still have a long way to go, especially in strengthening the mechanism to protect all the members of our university community from sexual and gender based violence. But I think the initial objective of the CGS, that of raising awareness about the issue has been met. It seems to me that all too often the conversation about gender disparity is about how women are disadvantaged when compared to men. However, in the sphere of education when we look at the number of men and women amongst our undergraduate students and our graduates, at every convocation I have remarked on this to my colleagues, the women vastly outnumber the men. This is at least in the University of Kelaniya. When we interview applicants to fill vacancies in our academic staff cadres at Kelaniya, most of the applicants are females. And even though the selection committees are keen to keep the male and female ratios balanced, it seems increasingly difficult to find men with good academic records. And although it is a very broad generalization, I think you will agree with me, that men and women bring different competencies and perspectives to the table. For that simple reason I think it is essential to keep the numbers balanced wherever possible. Because that optimizes decision making and ensures that everyone’s needs are met. Even though the USA Supreme Court recently decided that affirmative action to correct racial imbalance in American universities is no longer acceptable, I wonder if we should consider introducing affirmative action here in Sri Lanka. This is to ensure that no young men are left behind. At least when it comes to higher education.”
Ishara Jayawardane