Voices of Islam (135 page)

What are the causes of the inequalities between men and women in Bangladesh? It seems that there is no easy answer to this question. One cause might be the consequence of unequal power relations between men and women in most aspects of their lives. Others might include culture, the psychological acceptance of unequal relations by both males and females, or the physical and biological distinctiveness of females. Religion might also contribute to the unequal power relations that result in the subordination of women in the family and in the community. Such inequalities deprive women of an equal share in society and deny them the opportunity to partici- pate in intrahousehold as well as community decision making.

Islam, Culture, and Women in a Bangladesh Village
37

How do rural women in Bangladesh perceive the limits of their power? Do they relate their perception of power or powerlessness to Islam? Do rural women in Bangladesh see themselves as an oppressed group? Do they have grievances against males? To date, few researchers have studied women’s perceptions of the infl of Islam upon their lives. In 2005, I studied women’s perceptions of power and powerlessness in a rural community in Bangladesh and investigated the influence of religion upon their perceptions. I asked, how do Muslim women of rural Bangladesh perceive Islam as a factor infl cing their ability to make decisions in their families and in their communities? As part of my study, I paid special attention to issues such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and
purdah
(
parda
in Bangla, the language of Bangladesh), which influence rural women’s participation in society. Findings from the ethnographic study and in-depth interviews discussed below suggest that deeply held beliefs, rooted in both the teachings and the culture of Islam, infl the perceptions of power and powerlessness among rural women in Bangladesh.

SITE AND PARTICIPANT SELECTION

Because the subjects of my study were rural Muslim women, I selected a site for my research based on three criteria: homogeneity of the local popula- tion, my command of the local dialect, and my ease of access to local commu- nity members and leaders. I decided to collect data from my native rural village in the subdistrict of Purbadhala in the Netrakona district. The village is homogenous in terms of religion (100 percent Muslim) and ethnic origin, I speak the same dialect of Bangla as the villagers do, and I have access to the leaders and members of that community. In fact, I spent my boyhood in this village. Many of my relatives and friends still live in that community, and I assumed that they would help me in gaining access to the people that I wanted to interview. The Purbadhala subdistrict is located approximately 100 miles north of the capital city of Dhaka, and approximately 15 miles northwest of the Netrakona district headquarters. The total population of the village I studied is 1,288.
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I studied the lifestyles of the women of the village, the influence of religion on their day-to-day lives, the extent of their personal relations, the religious rites that they practiced, the extent of their physical mobility, and the power relations in the family and in the community. During my fieldwork, I con- ducted in-depth interviews as well as informal conversations. This latter style of interview was necessary because nonliterate people in Bangladesh, and especially women, often feel uncomfortable with the prospect of structured formal interviews, tape-recorded conversations, and signing consent forms.
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I spent the period from January 2005 to July 2005 conducting fieldwork.

I selected informants who were information-rich and to whom I had

38
Voices of Life: Family, Home, and Society

relatively easy access. In all, I interviewed a randomly selected sample of 53 people, of whom 34 were women and 19 were men. In selecting the informants for the interviews, I noted the status and socioeconomic back- ground of each person. It was my assumption that the information gathered from this cross section and background of informants would make the data more reliable (Table 2.1).

METHODOLOGY

In my research, I employed qualitative methods such as participant observa- tion, informal conversations, in-depth interviews, and document collection. The theoretical aim of the study was to investigate the social construction of religious meaning among village women in Bangladesh. However, like other qualitative researchers, I was concerned with process as well as with meaning: that is, how does religion help people make sense of their lives, experiences, and structures of the world?
14
A qualitative researcher deals with the socially constructed nature of reality, the intimate relationship between the researcher and his subject, and the situational constraints that shape one’s inquiry. To put it another way, qualitative research is concerned with how social experiences provide meaning in people’s lives.
15
As Catherine Marshall and Gretchen B. Rossman have observed, a qualitative researcher is like a detective.
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Thus, by becoming a participant observer, I tried to play the role of a detective in order to discover the religious roots of the social construction of meaning among rural women in Bangladesh.

As indicated above I interviewed 53 people of the village, out of whom 34 were females and 19 were males. Among the female respondents, only 9 had either a high school education or above, and 12 were nonliterate. Among the male respondents, five had either a high-school education or above, and six

Table 2.1: Demographic Characteristics of Female Respondents

Islam, Culture, and Women in a Bangladesh Village
39

were nonliterate. The respondents were randomly selected and represented each neighborhood of the village. In addition, I interviewed two government officials (a Joint Secretary and a Senior Assistant Secretary) from the Ministry of Women’s and Children’s Affairs.

While interviewing the female respondents, I was often assisted by one of my female cousins, a married graduate student majoring in Sociology. She carried out five interviews by herself. Interviews with the female respondents mostly took place in the daytime in open places that were visible to others but separate from the home. Interviews with male respondents mostly took place during the evening when they returned home from work. These interviews were conducted in more secluded places than were the women’s interviews, although the crowded situation of many households sometimes made privacy diffi t. In most cases, while conducting interviews, we insisted that the respondents focus on the relevant issues, but we intervened directly only when it was necessary to keep the respondents on track.

STAGES OF DATA COLLECTION

The first stage of my data collection was gaining entry into the social life of the village. My boyhood experiences and connections allowed me to survey the community and select the range of people I wanted to talk to and inter- view. Here, personal connections and prior acquaintances were an advantage in selection as well as observation. In addition, I tried to make sure that my presence would not affect the behavior patterns of people whom I wanted to observe. I tried to accomplish this goal by living with them and by creating a bond of friendship with them. Getting entry to the village was a challenge at first. My last long-term visit to the village was in 1994. However, my family’s reputation and my status as a public servant helped me a great deal in being accepted in the community. The villagers showed real interest in my project when I told them that after the completion of my Ph.D. degree, and by dint of this research work, the name of the village would be stored forever in the body of scientific knowledge about Bangladesh.

In the second stage of my research, I began my observations by attending community meetings. I attended family and community gatherings for 24 weeks to observe interactions, language, the formation of groups, routines, rituals, and nonverbal communication. During this period, I conducted interviews and collected documents. I kept field notes and journal entries for each informant and wrote down my thoughts, queries, and confusions. I took particular note of the relevance of events that I encountered with respect to research problems and the overall theoretical framework. The third stage of my data collection was triangulation. After returning from the field, I compared observation notes with in-depth interview records and documents.

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Voices of Life: Family, Home, and Society

THE SETTING

The village that I studied in the subdistrict of Purbadhala has 1,288 inhab- itants, of which 684 are males and 604 are females. The total number of households is 264, of which 20 are headed by women. The village consists of four neighborhoods (
paras
):
Pub
(East),
Pashchim
(West),
Dakkhin
(South), and
Chawlk
(Middle). It has one registered elementary school (grades 1–5), one
maktab
(an unregistered nongovernmental and locally managed religious school), and two mosques. The overall adult literacy rate of the village is 60.13 percent.
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Among the adults in the village, only 14 (11 males and 3 females) have a baccalaureate (the equivalent of three years of college in the United States) or a higher level of education. In addition, there are five
hafizes
(those who have memorized the Qur’an), of whom only one is female.

There are also five overlapping groups of
baul
or
marfati
(folk or mystic) singers in the village. One of these groups is led by a woman. A number of men spend their leisure time in
jalsas,
gatherings of singers and listeners to folk or mystic songs, either as singers or as listeners. Mystical
marfati jalsas
are divided along the lines of the followers of
pirs,
holy mystic teachers. A few people in the village follow the strict principles of Tablighi Jama‘at, a conservative movement of Islamic reform founded in India, and spend their leisure time in prayer. Except for the female
baul
singer noted above, no women participate in communal religious activities outside of their homes.

Other groups of males are involved in politics. The two major political par- ties, the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, have followers and leaders in the village. Leaders of these parties have connections with influential urban politicians. They exercise power over community decision making, especially in selecting and electing local government representatives. Again, these are male domains; women do not have access to such political activities.

Other groups in the village are organized by microcredit providers, such as the Grameen Bank and BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee). There may be as many as six microcredit organizations working in the village at a given time. Such organizations ostensibly provide small-scale business loans to groups of poor women. However, in reality, the husbands or male family members of the borrowers control most of these funds. There are also other groups of people who borrow money from individual moneylenders or
mohajans.

The villagers hold collective observances of two religious festival days cel- ebrated by all Muslims (
Eid ul Fitr
at the end of Ramadan and
Eid ul-Adha
during the Hajj pilgrimage period), plus
Shab-i-Barat
(the fifteenth night of the Islamic month of Sha‘ban) and
Shab-i-Qadar
(the twenty-seventh night of the Islamic month of Ramadan). They also observe the fast of Ramadan and the day of
‘Ashura
(the tenth day of the Islamic month of Muharram)

Islam, Culture, and Women in a Bangladesh Village
41

on an individual basis. National holidays such as Mother Language Day (February 21), Liberation Day (March 26), and Victory Day (December

16) have little or no impact upon the villagers. Instead, they participate in the
melas
(fairs) on the eve of
Pahela Baishakh
(the first day of the new year of the Bengali calendar) or in the
austamis
(fairs in remembrance of the Hindu God Lord Krishna). The latter festival of pre-Islamic origin continues to be popular despite the long history of Islam in Bangladesh. Community participation is also visible in
janajas
(funerals),
khatnas
(circumcisions),
mehmanies
(public feasts),
bi‘e
(marriages),
miladunnabis
(rituals in honor of the Prophet’s birth and death anniversaries),
akikas
(celebrations, and also public feasts for a child’s birth), and
shalishes
or
bichars
(which are rural dispute-settlement bodies). Here again, community participation primarily means the participation of males.

The villagers maintain separate domains and spaces for males and females. In general, the division of labor is based on tradition, in which females— especially wives—are responsible for work inside the home, while males are expected to work outside the home. There are some exceptions where females work outside the home. This is especially the case for women who are extremely poor and work at a relative’s or a neighbor’s home. Spending time by oneself is not seen as desirable in village culture. People are expected to socialize with each other and frequent visits among neighbors, extended family members, or friends are much appreciated.