Women, labour and sex
View(s):By Aruni Samarakoon
The neo capitalist world system is divided into two classes; one is the capitalist and the other is the proletariat. The capitalist class comprises few members and their aim is to accumulate more and more capital. The proletariat is the class suppressed and oppressed by the capitalists. It is an object in the capitalist subjective world. Women in this situation play a subordinate role in their family and working station. As a result of their inferiority, women have their basic rights and needs. They are not only exploited as a physical labour but also as a sexual labour.
Looking back at history, women were deprived of the right to work in a healthy environment. This was a common phenomenon for female tea pluckers in the estate sector. Managers, supervisors and all authoritative male officials exploited her sexually and physically. Many women tolerated these abuses for the sake of living. Their story never ends and this situation is prevalent in all professions irrespective of ranks. Sexual abuse of working women is a common cause for blue and white collar jobs. For example, several migrant unskilled women are raped and seduced by their superiors and some of them return to Sri Lanka with children born after rape. The university is recognised as an institution full of intellectuals, nevertheless many masculine intellectuals sexually exploit their young and junior staff.
There are various laws acting as a protective umbrella against sexual violence. Nonetheless, women are still subject to sexual violence in working places. It is a dilemma and one of the key causes behind this scenario is economic vulnerability. From the tea plucker to professionally and academically qualified women suppression is due to economic deprivation. The current Mahinda Rajapaksa regime proposed to ban married female labour migration in order to curb such migration. Though it cannot be accepted as a good policy, it should be altered to design a framework for banning female labour harassment in and out of the Sri Lankan border. Why does a woman take the risk and migrate as labourers? One principal reason is that she needs to keep her family out of starvation and uplift living standards. Other reasons include building a house, buying land, paying back loans, and recovering harvest losses. For example, recent natural disasters in the central part of Sri Lanka caused women to opt for Middle East labour migration. If the government or male breadwinner in the family can fulfill those needs, I believe no woman would want to depart from their families. In other words, even civil or state bodies can devise a sound plan to eradicate poverty and foster rapid economic growth which would in time diminish inequality in income distribution and prevent women from being subject to sexual harassment overseas.
Absence of job security and instability also lead to increased violence against women. Garments, shops, universities, private and public sectors all are the hubs of violence against women. For example, a temporary employee in any sector does her duty with full of tension as there is a possibility to lose her job under any circumstance. Therefore she never rejects or rarely opposes any kind of pressure and influence from superiors. These officers are not only male but also female. One case study found that, the owner of the shop had asked a sexual favour from the manager in the second rank. Instead of opposing it, she suggested and intimidated her junior-temporary female worker to satisfy the owner’s want. After that, her managerial post was promoted but that particular victim lost her job. It is an open secret that many teachers in educational institutions request sex as bribery to pass exams or award subjects. This is a vicious circle. If any female student denied sex with a particular teacher she would lose marks for her real talents.
Another point is that patriarchal based thinking patterns intensify violence against women. I noticed the clarification of women as good and bad; this clarification is done by men and women in patriarchal society. Both sexes defined good and bad using Gramsci‘s concept of ‘common sense’. Common sense emerged from culturally rooted society and it gives the sense of protecting cultural norms. Thereby women and men in such societies marginalised or discriminated sexually abused women. None of the women stood up to protect the rights of sexual labour or sexual violence against female victims; Why- the reason was that she was considered a bad woman; who decides she is bad? Instead of males who exercised such violence why is a woman alone accused; Similarly, women who are forced into sex in working places would be marginalised by others as ‘good’ women and men; The woman was reproached for provoking males; the way she dressed, the way she talked, the way she behaved would be used as evidence to prove that she was at fault. This pattern of thinking gives the opportunity for increasing violence as it justifies such violence.
Who should take the initiative to stand up for sexual violence against women? It should be a united action. Again it is unity of men and women from various classes, castes, provinces, regions, religions. Unfortunately, quite a lot of civil organisations for women have raised their voices individually as there is insufficient cooperation among them. Once more, this type of detachment is advantageous for male –hegemonic power for unleashing violence against women. Women become slaves and a subordinate group as a result of economic, social and political divisions in patriarchal society.
(The writer is a lecturer,
Department of Economics at the University of Ruhuna).
Follow @timesonlinelk
comments powered by Disqus