a bonobo humanity?

Myanmar students finding inspiration in The Hunger Games in their fight against the coup

I mentioned the 30% rule in a previous essay – an idea that’s been bruited about, suggesting that it takes 30% female infiltration to change the culture of an organisation. This is obviously a rule of thumb, but it’s worth applying to those organisations that have power in the land, whatever land that might be.

Such organisations, institutions or sectors include government, law, business, military, health, science, education and welfare. Without doing any research, I would guess that, of those eight sectors, four – law, health, education and welfare – might have significant female infiltration, the other four not so much. Though I might be wrong about science, and of course all these sectors are much more open to women when we take the long view, of centuries. Social evolution is relatively quick, but not always relative to our short, impatient lives. 

Since I first learned of this rule of thumb in an essay about Myanmar’s military, I’ll first look at Myanmar society, currently still in upheaval due to the Min Aung Hlaing coup and its aftermath. Considering that Aung San Suu Kyi recently won a landslide election and is very popular, especially among the Buddhist majority, it might seem surprising to those of us in settled democracies that a military coup could be staged there with such apparent ease, but of course the military – entirely male until recently, and still entirely male in its hierarchy – has been massively interfering in this fledgling democracy from the start. We in Australia have only to think of our nearest neighbour, Indonesia, to be aware of how dangerous a politicised and corrupt military can be. 

There’s much international reporting about how disappointing Aung San Suu Kyi, the recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her championing of democracy, has apparently turned out to be. She’s been criticised for cosying up to the military and doing little to stop the Rohingya massacres, but seriously, to expect one woman to transform her fragmented (with at least 14 major ethnic groups), impoverished society into a go-ahead democratic concern is a bit like expecting one or two forceful, charismatic proto-bonobos to transform their world from a hunt-em-down, beat-em-up chimp arena into a paradise of tree-hugging, child-friendly libertine vegos. You don’t need a few, you need a barmy army with sex appeal to spare. Above all, the over-arching power of the military needs to be addressed. 

I’m being a bit unjust to chimps here, and I’m sure the Myanmar military aren’t all bad, especially now that women are joining the (lowest) ranks, but my point is that the country needs more female monks (they can only be thilashin in Myanmar, a lower order than the male bhikkhu), intellectuals and political leaders.

In 2016 the Asian Development Bank (ADB) released a paper, Gender equality and women’s rights in Myanmar: a situation analysis. In light of recent events, this positive and hopeful document, dealing with (admittedly limited) advances made and to be made in the future, makes for difficult reading. 

Not that pre-coup Myanmar was anything to be proud of, woman-wise. For example, the nation’s 2008 Constitution, while prohibiting gender discrimination in the appointment to government posts, states that ‘nothing in this section shall prevent appointment of men to positions that are naturally suitable to men only’. It may well be this clause in the Constitution that prevented Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming the nation’s President.

What would Simone de Beauvoir say? (My next bumper sticker or customised t-shirt). According to the ADB paper:

Global and regional indices and national data reflect continuing gender inequalities in Myanmar. The 2013 Gender Inequality Index ranked Myanmar 83rd of 187 countries, while the 2012 Social Institutions and Gender Index placed the country at 44th of 86 countries and 8th of nine countries in East Asia and the Pacific.

The nation’s labour force participation rate for males is almost double that for women – though you can bet that, as always, women are doing the majority of at-home work and ‘informal job sector’ work, with the usual inadequate and unreliable remuneration from their male bosses. Government ministries experienced female staff levels of just over 50% in the 2000s, though this fell away for mid-management staff and higher, and gender wage gaps are greater than in developed countries. 

Literacy rates nationwide are slightly lower for females than males, but this masks major disparities between urban and rural areas and between subcultures. Outside the major urban areas the disparity between male and female literacy is greater. 

Violence against women, human trafficking, and ‘rape in conflict’ were described as under-reported problems in a 2008 report by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The report singled out Rakhine province (later the scene of genocidal violence against its Muslim Rohingya population), stating that, ‘in addition to being subject to multiple forms of discrimination by the authorities, [women and girls] were also subject to conservative traditions and a restrictive interpretation of religious norms, which contribute to the suppression of their rights’.

In reading this ADB document, I’ve learned that the 30% rule (actually a target) came from the Beijing Platform for Action of 1995, though I don’t like to credit Beijing, or China, for anything much to do with the advancement of women (I’ll look at the situation in China in an upcoming post). The Beijing Platform for Action emerged from the Fourth World Conference on Women, which happened to be held in that city. 

The ADB report points out that female representation in parliament in Myanmar, though increasing, lags behind neighbours Cambodia and Laos (both of which are profoundly corrupt non-democracies). Remember we’re talking 2016 here. Thein Sein, the moderate President of Myanmar from 2011 to 2016, increased female representation in government towards the end of his period in office. I doubt if Min Aung Hlaing will be considering female representation a major focus as he fights, and doubtless butchers, to maintain power.

So, sadly, few points for bonobohood in Myanmar at present. It’s perhaps ironic, and in a strange way inspiring, that a lot of young women in the country are joining militias to fight for more recognition for their minority cultures. It could well be that the transformation that occurred to create bonobo society involved a bit of group female biffo too. After all, making love not war is something worth fighting for. 

References

https://www.adb.org/documents/gender-equality-and-womens-rights-myanmar-situation-analysis

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-thailand-now-myanmar-asia-163833714.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHvx0y6PoiU83ZZP-ypfUZv8YQDEt3uSXjtYBQT-xhVASJ3WZmlDIwj9J5ulBBN5rRyRZ63YLmmhYsMg-oQ3fu6fxXQFCYloMimnQ3AFChDpBxbrYabr_9gTnMKuUtZtBo4nhQG0zVvKRsndL-etL-9XdTbYe4VC8-UAdA5MvjiT

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/myanmar-military-coup-joe-biden/617997/