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Structures of Opportunity and Structures of Constraint
Box 5.2 Public and Private Power (continued)
Latata not only promotes peaceful dialogue skills, which can be used as much in public as in private, but also teaches girls about their rights and legal issues. She recounts the story of a young woman “who, after she finished school, looked after her elderly parents. Her father eventually passed away, but told her that she would be able to survive on his pension, which was held in superannuation funds in the capital. The woman found out later that her father had not legally left his pension to her and had no clue how to access the money her father had left her. [The young woman] told me that she knew I was the only one who could help her.” Latata contacted the proper offices in the capital on the young woman’s behalf and facilitated the payments. “These are the sorts of deeds Latata feels she is able to do from the knowledge and the confidence she has learned from being part of a women’s community group,” explained another woman.
Change Women Need When looking across this large dataset, it is clear that women’s life choices remain more restricted than men’s and that markets, local politics, public services, and civic action—in most communities—mainly reinforce rather than ease these inequalities. Weak local institutions and restrictive norms blunt the effects of broader progressive forces on women’s power and gender equality. On balance, though, we see more evidence of rising aspirations and relaxation and change of norms in contexts where local markets are reported to be more dynamic. Women’s local political leadership also emerges as a significant force for women’s empowerment and gender norm change. And while community-based groups do not receive high marks on balance from focus groups, a strong presence of economic collective action can make a difference, especially when paired with other supportive conditions. Women’s ability to work for pay, which most women participating in our study aspired to, may be one of the most visible and game-changing events in all communities. Women’s work, as the focus groups showed, has the potential to alter traditional definitions of gender roles, duties, and responsibilities, as well as the main components of the identity of both men and women. Yet, empowerment and agency do not directly result from economic participation, but are supported by what women experience when leaving the home to join the market. Women gain a greater sense of self-efficacy, broaden their aspirations, and forge ways to reconcile their identity as workers with their identity as mothers. In Samtse, Bhutan, Sisum’s mountain village, a young woman saw herself “completing law school and looking for a job as a lawyer” and another one believed she can be “a successful government servant.” Throughout this study we learned from the communities that the interplay of three forces influences gender equality: changes in the capacity to identify new opportunities and aspire to them, changes in the capacity to act and actively pursue those ideals or the use of those opportunities, and changes in the structure On Norms and Agency • http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-9862-3