Myanmar Women and Cultural Issues

Introduction
 

Culture is a loaded word pregnant with many possible meanings. The word, ‘culture’ derives from the Latin word, ‘colere’ meaning inhabit, cultivate, protect; honor with worship. From this root word came, ‘cultura,’ which means piece of tilled land, intellectual training, and refinement. The German word, ‘kultur’ means proper refined way of acting.  Out of various definitions, Dictionary of Feminist Theology simply defines it as:
 

Culture is the totality of any given society’s way of life. …Most cultures relegate the woman to secondary position in society for some, “ curious” reasons such as the perceived dictates of religion, her lesser physical strength, or some mystical value allotted to the female versus the male.

Of different characteristics of culture, it is generally composed of two distinct elements: life affirming elements and life rejecting elements. As Myanmar is a melting pot of racial diversity where 135 ethnic groups living, this paper will be divided into two sections: the first section will mainly deal with gender discrimination among the major ethnic groups particularly  of the Chin  and the second part will point out some cultural issues on gender inequality among the Burmese whose religion is Buddhism. Thus, this paper is an attempt for doing gender equality for Myanmar people through abandoning culturally-stereotyped bad and negative elements predominantly-rooted in their social world.

1.    Cultural Issues among Ethnic Groups
 

As Chin society is culturally male-dominated, the inferiority complex has been rooted in the minds and concepts of almost all Chin women. Actually, there are some unproductive elements for gender equality in culture whereas there are some liberative elements as well. In Chin community, one could vividly see the negative elements that destroy the concept of equality between men and women, which will be figured out in proverbs and sayings as:
The sun never rises when the hen cackles, it only rises when the roaster crows. Wives are for beat, as the gong is. The world of women is like the home of a jungle deer.  No one dances with the request of a woman. The voice of women is worthless and meaningless. A woman’s word cannot reach up to the gate. A woman’s words are similar to the horns of a female mithun. Cheating women is as easy as cheating quails. The price of a woman is as equal as a smoking pipe. A brave woman is afraid of a hen. A wandering woman brings bad news. A woman is unclean as long as she menstruates. A woman can destroy a city.

In the social world of Chin people, women are not allowed to eat food given during the celebration for killing a tiger or in the feast made after a new field is cleared. Females do not have rights of inheritance from their parents. They are not allowed to attend at school since they have to leave home when getting married. Women must marry the person whom the parents betroth. Wives could be divorced at any time for any reason.   A woman’s dignity is measured by bearing male children. A woman could be divorced if she is barren and could not bear male children. Genealogy never counts women though it cannot come up with without them. Women are supposed to be unclean and excluded from religious and social spheres of life due to menstruation. It is believed that if an unclean woman climbs up on a tree, the fruit will rot or trees will not bear.  A Chin damsel must equally hospitalize the bachelors when they are visiting at her.

In the southern part of Chin State, every grown up female has to tattoo on her beautiful face. It is said that tattooing is to save the lives of women from capturing of neighboring powerful. When it has passed through many years, it becomes a part of their culture.

In other ethnic groups among Kachin and Kayin, patriarchy is still practiced not only in the community but also in the church. Kachin women’s lives are described as drudgery and toil. They are prohibited from participation in religious ceremonies, to sit in the front parlor: climb trees lest the fruit fall before it is ripe or enter a newly built house because they might defile it. In Lahu society men make all the decisions and women are expected to stay at home, be submissive and obedient to their husbands, pleasing and glorifying them. Most husbands resent taking care of children and doing household chores degrades his manliness and dignity.

2. Cultural Issues among Burmese
 

Comparing with other ethnic groups, Burmese women seem to have more equal status with men in terms of inheriting properties, marriage and divorce. But, it is not always true at all in daily life. They are also living under patriarchy, which will be seen in all walks of life. In Burmese society, husband is regarded as head of the family known as ein-oo-nat. The innate concept of ein-oo-nat is the underlying factor of gender inequality among the Burmese, which then is the composite of cultural and religious elements. The term ein-oo-nat or spirit head of the house indicates the higher spiritual plane on which the man is placed, which creates social hierarchy between men and women. The second defective factor for gender equality in Burmese society is the concept of hpon possessed only by males. With regard to it, Mi Mi Khaing aptly said:
 

Although the women of Burma figure as actively and have the same rights as men in the fields of business, property, and professions of modern world …we are ‘below’ mankind. It is not so much a feeling that women are a lower race as that a man as has the nobility of manhood in him. We call it hpon, the glory, the holiness of a man, and we respect this not with subservience but with the same feelings as we respect monks and parents.

According to Sayama Aye Nwe, the beliefs of male’s hpon leads Myanmar women to accept their husband as ‘ain-oo-nat’ that is the spirit of the house. Therefore, it gives men an inherent superiority to women that they can mentally achieve higher power than women. Moreover, it can make women alienated from religious and cultural spheres. Consequently, boys go through a ceremony of shinphu or initiation into Buddhist novice-hood with great pomp and ceremony as a rite of passage. Girls might get an ear-boring ceremony, which is no way compared with the shinphu.

In Burmese society, a cultured girl should not laugh aloud; neither should she climb a tree nor play in the street. She should respect her husband and serve him. In order to become a noble woman, she needs to be equipped with loyalty, wisdom, compassion, alertness, good health, and affections towards her husband. In this sense, religion and culture have so dominated the Burmese woman’s life that even an educated woman will believe that she is less worthy than a man. Those who could live with cultural values are titled as  eindaray-shin, holder of dignity.

Conclusion
Due to the impacts of culturally-stereotyped bad elements, women are brought up with inferiority complex of mindset, idiosyncratic concept of lower status and psychological trauma, which make them blind in everything. When these negative cultural elements speak in the community, it automatically becomes culture against women and gender discrimination even in the church.  Thus, Myanmar women have neither rights nor space for voices for equal status with men due to misconception of biological distinction of femaleness, culturally-stereotyped life-rejecting elements and religiously negative attitudes towards women. For these reasons,  women became subject to three kinds of obedience (1) to father, husband and son, (2) the four virtues, namely  to be humble, silent, clean and adorned to please the husband, and (3) hardworking. Myanmar is religiously, socially and culturally andocentric where women are regarded as inferior to men and assigned to take subordinate role in daily livings.  It is over due to prune such kinds of cultural evils and to do gender equality by using life-promoting cultural elements in light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Suang Khen Pau