Dr. Hemang Mani Dixit
Educationalist/ Author
We were lucky in that our family had a background of beings pundits and in the traditional healing profession. It must have been in the mid 1940s when an elder sister of mine used to narrate to me, during the day, stories that she had read such as Rider Haggard's 'SHE' and 'Exploits of Haatimtai.' As evening drew near I, barely a six or seven years old youngster, would coil in terror and run to my mother during the dark evening hours as we had a very dim electric bulb then. My sister would then get a telling off from my mother for telling tales of fright to me.
My mother herself could read the rather large print Nepali of her 'paath garne kitab' and also sit down, that is when she had time from her household chores, to write 'Ram' repeatedly in an exercise book. I remember my father telling me then to study hard and his words sometimes still ring my ears. 'I will provide you the education that I can afford with the money that I have, but don't expect any inheritance from me'.
We were lucky then, my sister, I and some of our neighborhood children for we had a guru and a master to teach us the 3Rs of education. My father, unbeknown to us, paid for it.
I lived in an age when education was an affordable commodity and did not cost much. My feeling was that my daughters should be able to stand on their own feet when they grew up. The eldest started her education in a school run by missionaries paying just one and half rupees per month. Later she and her younger sister studied in a boarding school run by nuns, paying just about Rs 500 per month. After this they both joined Campus under Tribhuvan University and then went abroad on scholarship for further training.
Yes, those were the golden days of education. My feeling then was that my daughters should have an education which would empower them to stand on their own feet in the future. I'm glad that they are both now doing so in distant Canada. Unfortunately this was not true for my wife who had to discontinue her Bachelor degree as she became pregnant and subsequently has spent her years raising her children.
#Sexploration Episode 3 Discussion on Gender Markers
Dr Yubaraj Sangroula
Professor, Kathmandu School of Law
I’m father of two daughters. But I played a role of mother to them when my wife was away to study, for slightly over a year. My wife is a law teacher like me, and both my daughters chose to pursue legal education. My family is thus a ‘law firm in itself’. I always believed that ‘equality is materialized only by ‘having a stronger protected sphere’ and ‘enhanced economic vector of life’. The first emphasizes the autonomy of individual and the second the well off productivity of life and professionalism of works.
For me, individual is ‘a person’ and sex and gender counts for nothing. Any discrimination based on sex and gender is a violation of protected sphere and degradation of the economic vector of life. Competency through education is a means to build capability of an individual, which is a necessary precondition for unchallenged and unhindered protected sphere by which everyone is able to enjoy their liberties irrespective of sex and gender. The unchallenged protected sphere on the other hand is a boon for economically sound vector of life.
With this fundamental belief I trained my daughters. They are now independent, proficient and able professionals. We never thought about their sex and gender. We let them grow with all challenges and never made them feel that they were daughters. We allowed them to choose their professions and other preferences. I believe gender equality is a means of enhancing competency in thought and capability to enjoy rights not as a man and woman but as an individual.
Overemphasis on gender-based equality sometimes contributes to developing a sense of difference between man and woman as individuals. It is therefore the right approach to use feminist movement for rights as an instrument of fighting against disparity against women, but use equity as an instrument of empowering women as individuals.
While we were rearing our daughters as children, we had challenges from everywhere. My relatives even emphasized and suggested that we have a son. It was hard in the beginning. But when my daughters started scoring high performance in their pursuit of education, they were accepted as capable children rather than capable daughters. Building capability for exercising the liberties and better life economically is therefore a better approach for gender equality.
Sohan Babu Khatri
CEO, Three H management
My dear little princess, my daughter, as we celebrate your 7th birthday, I admit I became more respectful and sensitive towards the women of my life once you came in our life – a beautiful blessing. The feeling and realization of being a daughter’s father is making me a better person each day and yes, that will remain present continuous tense my entire life.
The intense state, being, emotion and responsibility that I started noting and respecting more about women is ‘motherhood’, and hence the above painting titled the same, which I dedicate to all women – for what makes them incomparable to men. I’d like you to know of my love and respect towards two ladies in my life – my mother and your mother – they have nurtured me and the entire world around me; happily having had taken the weight and burden of almost the scale and scope of the ‘entire world’.
I strongly believe no man ever went and will ever go through the stages of life and portfolio of emotions as women around him went through. Calm, simple, sacrificing, dedicated, focused yet expert at multitasking, my mother, and my idol of humility and task orientation, became the anchor reason for the success and growth of all at our home, despite being a housewife, a neglected role in men’s world.
I’d like you to know that it was only my mom, who occurred in my mind when I had to write an essay on the topic “Your Best CEO” during my MBA fresher year essay competition – and yes I won it by choosing to write on my mom as my best CEO, not because I didn’t know of any better ones in the corporate world, but I realized my mom was managing all aspects of home, people, finance, resource and emotion better than anybody.
What I think nailed it in the competition was the closing line in the essay that came from the bottom of my heart – “nobody with a bit of sanity left in them can disagree that there’s only one best CEO in this world and we all have one in the form of our mother or wife”. Now, about your mom; more of my friend than wife; an interior designer and designated CEO; who decided to have her way of productive life at age 25, an entrepreneur. Creative, task oriented, diligent, hardworking, achiever and yet family oriented, your mother, and my idol of passion and perseverance, designed our life around us so well that I’ll always remain in awe of her and get inspired, though she never forgets mentioning that she gets inspiration from me.
I wish you inherit the best of all women in the globe, plus be some more. I’d like to see you as somebody who adds a humane value to this world, somebody who makes this world a better place to be in –a true woman – a mother, a manager and a designer of a better world. My salute to all the women out there – they are behind every successful man but are getting ahead of them.
