In Nepal, Downtrodden Women Don't Take It - They Take Up the Gun and Fight for Their Rights

Unfortunately they have had to resort to becomeing Maoist insurgents as the Nepalese culture offers no other alternatives. Women are grabbed up as fighters by both the Royal Nepal Army and by the insurgents as they could not flee their villages for jobs in other countries: they would have become vulnerable to "trafficking and sexually exploitive jobs."

Maoist women leaders argue that it is the material basis of Nepali women's downtrodden status in the feudal patriarchal order that has drawn women to the party. Yami, writing in the daily Kantipur, states: "They are denied parental property although they run rural households on their own when their husbands are away earning money. When the men return they marry other women and the wives are forced to leave. If the women marry someone else, they become outcastes." She added, "The CPN [Maoist] is reversing this feudal practice through its People's War."

But behind the rhetoric is Comrade Parvati's own criticism of the party. "Rarely are women's issues taken up as a central theme and the party neglects to implement programs developed by women's mass fronts," she told IPS. "Women associated with propaganda work and located much closer to the home seem to have less opportunities for transcending gender specific roles than women in the fighting units," she added.

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Gee, we rarely if ever hear of this mentioned in the Women's Studies Departments of our universities, great and small, nor it mentioned by NOW or other feminist groups. Hmmm. I wonder why! What would you do if faced with the same problems? Would you fight to get rights?

We are so lucky to be born and to live in America! Most take for granted our freedoms which could be lost in a heartbeat!