Creating “nirvanas” of equality: learning from the Nordics
Not many people I met knew about Uzbekistan. Some know Uzbekistan’s location roughly, and very few of them are familiar with its almost century-long Soviet heritage of state-imposed social realism. Most foreigners are tongue-tied. Uzbekistan, being in the heart of Central Asia, has a long history of belonging to different empires: the Kushan Empire, the Mughal Empire, and the Russian Empire most recently, among many others.
After proclaiming its independence back in the early 1990s, more than 30 years ago, the country remains far beyond what the international community can call ‘developed’. Here are some facts: the country’s GDP touched 16,000 dollars per capita in 2024, there’s an environment of fast-changing government policy that usually favours a very limited number of people related to the family of the head of state, along with that, rising poverty well-seasoned by the highest pollution indices which altogether are dashingly pulling the country back from the development track.
We all know who suffers the most from political cataclysms: the most vulnerable. And amongst them women are at the forefront, experiencing lower economic growth and rampant inflation. Women also face the additional burden of men’s mass migration for seasonal work abroad. This creates a 24/7 unpaid job for women; that of maintaining the household and providing care to young and elderly dependents.
Ferouza Nomozova for UNDP Uzbekistan, 2019
My alma mater, the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE), along with Princeton University, has just published a study that analysed the exposure to parenthood of both men and women in 134 countries over the last 15 years. It concludes that almost 34% of women worldwide had to give up their careers and drop from the labour market as they prioritize caregiving, with worst-case scenarios taking place mostly in the Global South. Despite huge progress in adopting legislation to protect women from domestic violence and creating artificial quotas to encourage women to become fully-fledged members of the political, economic, or social lives, women in Uzbekistan are still reluctant to become activists in the latter areas. After all, having two full-time jobs leaves little room for a third one.
Furthermore, building a successful career for a professional of any gender requires a lot of informal networking and peer-to-peer activities. Women simply cannot afford the latter given the conflicting domestic priorities leaving them behind in any given case.
Islam is a dominating religion in Uzbekistan with almost 90% of the population associating themselves with Sunni Islam, according to Rohan and Yee2. The literature on women in Central Asia and Uzbekistan is limited whereas the scholarship concerning women in Islamic societies is vast and abundant, thus, allowing us to track the establishment of the role of women in Uzbek society through the lenses of religion.
Certainly, Islam has a fundamental understanding of the role of women that must serve as norms. However, religion itself cannot create a historical destiny for gender relations, which vary with the influence of culture, politics as well as social and economic lives. Being very religious at all times, Uzbek women had to suddenly unveil in 1927 upon the Communist order. Out of the blue, the eternally patriarchal world, which prescribed women to be at their homes and follow their men, became gendered. Women received rights as well as responsibilities and were asked to ‘become modern’ and forget about their religion for the sake of the economic prosperity of their motherland. Here, the Soviets argued they were the ‘White Saviours’ for the women of Central
Asia for having provided them with some agency. In fact, it was another type of patriarchal oppression which served the purpose of anyone but women as they became a gear to the progress of the Soviet economic regime and left an indelible trace in the social evolution of women in Uzbekistan. When it comes to women’s agency in Uzbekistan nowadays, the Soviet legacy is very pertinent and well-relished with selective Islamic thoughts: women must be at the forefront of labour, must be caring mothers and housewives and, as per religion, must never forget their place behind men in their families; be it their father or husband (in Uzbek language husband translates as ‘ho’jayin’ which literally means master). This framework is very well described by Latham in 1988 who says that if malnutrition exists in a household, it is seen primarily as the woman’s responsibility; and when the food is distributed in the family, usually the man of the house is served first. These double standards are very much alive in Uzbek women’s lives.
The Economist, 2024
Six years ago, exactly on this day, I was in the premises of the civil affairs court sharing the misery and silent condemnation from the junior court male clerk with five other women, unknown to me, who all were very determined to apply for divorce again. You might wonder, why again? This was not the second divorce they were applying for. Rather, they needed to re-submit and appeal to get their divorce approved. Isn’t it a human right to make your own decisions about your life? One would hope but not in Uzbekistan, not yet. Here society believes that the elderly, neighbours, government, parents or/and anyone else knows better, and once a husband, or more often a wife, files for divorce, instead of getting what they want, they must prove they are entitled to their right to make their own choices.
The Family Code of Uzbekistan formally gives men and women an equal right to file for divorce. Article 39 of the Code has a specific provision preventing a husband from filing for divorce while his spouse is expecting a child. There is also a requirement whereby women have a right to seek a fair and equal share of joint property that has been acquired during the marriage. Indications are, however, that some of these rights are not fully observed in practice, with women being left with little or no joint property following divorce. The long, complex and bureaucratic nature of the divorce process in Uzbekistan often acts as an obstacle to women in particular being able to finalize their divorce.
The life stories of the women sitting there with me on that day were different. They were women from a well-off background who suffered from psychological abuse from their then husbands. Others came from remote areas where people dreamt of access to basic infrastructures like hot water or electricity and kept suffering from economic and physical abuse induced by their spouses. One thing united us: a feeling of hopelessness. I couldn’t help but think of a place where women were better off.
Given that experience, it must not be hard to believe that I was surprised to discover that laws could work in women’s favour when I relocated to Denmark. The Danish Kingdom, along with other Scandinavian countries, has been leading the gender equality index for decades now. Applauded for having the first-ever female judge, female imama, female ambassador, female mayor, Jante Law followers firmly remain on the top of all Gender Equality indices for the last decade. What is their secret if there is any? I will explain.
You may, however, wonder what the Gender Equality Indices are about, and how they are formed. The Gender Equality Index is the measurement of gender disparity, or in other words, difference in access to resources (material, financial, human, social, political, etc.). It was introduced in the 2010 Human Development Report 20th anniversary edition by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The index consists of gender indices which are compilation metrics based on three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment, and labour market.
United Nations Development Programme, 2010
Each dimension is also split into several components. For example, reproductive health is formed by the data on maternal mortality and adolescent fertility rate. Rates of empowerment are based on the share of women leading government positions and their access to higher education, while the labour market is the reflection of women’s participation in the workforce. Although the latter dimension is supposed to include both paid and unpaid work, it’s often problematic to reflect the unpaid household and caregiving workload due to the existing limitations in reporting and tracking.
Consecutively, a country can be highly ranked, if they score high on all three components put forward by the United Nations. It should be mentioned, however, that there may be some inconsistencies with this assessment framework as well. For example, the number of women who are members of parliament in Rwanda is higher than in Denmark (61% in Rwanda versus 44% in Denmark). But since other indicators are far from ideal, Rwanda scores lower.
There are ranking systems of gender disparities belonging to other entities too (for eg. EU Gender Index). They may slightly vary from the one designed by the UN. That said, they all serve the same purpose: to track progress on women’s greater participation in education, decision-making, and economic empowerment as well as independence. According to Arturo Escobar, a development scholar, “investing in women” is a cost-effective route to broader development objectives such as improved economic performance, reduction of poverty, greater family welfare and slower population growth.
In 2002, Siim and Borchorst formulated a conception of the Nordic gender equality model as one combining policies to promote high levels of participation in political life and paid work. This theory has gained popularity by defining the Nordic gender equality model, through high and equal levels of participation of both genders in political life and paid labour. Unlike many other government authorities who introduce artificial and non-functional quotas to fill in places in different government departments with women, Danish leaders’ approach tackles issues differently, based on their understanding that women will not opt for anything beyond the household until they are free from the latter. So instead of adopting annual state programmes where a quarter of places should be given to women or a certain number of girls should have access to higher education, Danes have been thinking differently and divided all of ‘traditional’ women’s responsibilities by law.
It is worth mentioning that economists who investigate Nordic model institutions establish conceptual ties between mainly increasing female labour participation since the 1960s, and welfare state expansion through public care for children and the elderly. Thus, we may conclude that the Nordic formula to gender mainstreaming is freedom and particularly freedom of choice which fosters equality and empowerment.
As I mentioned earlier, I have my own way to assess gender equality in a country in which divorce is easily accessible for women. And it turned out that divorce in Denmark is just a click away. Women can fill the application in seven minutes and apply online. If there are no disagreements between former spouses, the divorce comes into force immediately. The capability of women for self-determination, or to take control over their own circumstances and to realise their aspirations to live a life which they have reasons to value, is referred to as women’s empowerment, says Alexander Galie in the “Power Through”. In other words, empowerment is gaining agency.
Sergey Proskudin-Gorsky
Furtherly, Denmark has always been notorious for its progressive "openness". The country is known for performing first ever widely-publicized gender affirmation surgery in 1952 or being the first country to abolish censorship and legalize pornography in 1967. Ironically enough, today the pornography industry in the country is minimal compared to many other countries. This is because Denmark has been taking a liberal and very inclusive approach to the benefit of its citizens according to Christian Ydesen and Camila Kold Andersen who researched how Danish municipalities implement inclusive education policies. The sexual consent age in Denmark is 15 and sexual education starts in schools at the age of 13. The latter curriculum also includes information about the inadmissibility of harassment and violence.
So, what does power or agency mean for women and why do women in Denmark have it?
Throughout history, many scientists, thinkers, and activists both in the Global South and the Global North have tried to define and analyse the notion of power. Some of these definitions were quite simple, and others complicated. Feminist scholars and activists took a big step forward when theyproposed that social power is not acting only in the larger world but extends to the sphere of our households and in our most intimate, personal relationships. Colonising is equal to patriarchy when reviewed through the gender lens as both pursue the same goal of changing the power dynamics: to put forward men who are allegedly more capable physically and can bring phantom economic profit. As Gajendra Kumar who thinks that both feminism and postcolonialism share the common aim of challenging forms of oppression, suggests, the process of empowerment requires to subvert and demythologise indigenous traditions and nationalist representations which seek to label women into subordination4. Elaborating Kumar’s thinking, I would add that keeping women disempowered favours men’s status quo in a dictating position or setting the tone for every aspect of life. All of the above are encompassed by a well-known word: ‘patriarchy’.
The word patriarchy comes from Greek; πατριά, ἀρχή, patria means father and arché means rule, and thus patriarchy means rule of the father. The anthropological definition of patriarchy is that men tend to dominate in society through their positions of power.
Jodi Hilton
While discussing patriarchy and its implications, I find it important not to fall into the trap that many previous scholars fell into. Liberation must not be considered in terms of certain socio-historical, and geopolitical contexts, but rather as a comparison between the Uzbek model and the ‘progressive’ social norms and customs of the West. In other words, Western feminism has an ethnocentric bias in presuming that the solutions which Western white women have advocated to combat their oppression are equally applicable to all women regardless of geopolitical and cultural circumstances; they are not. Thus, it is important to affirm that one size does not fit all.
As you know by now, until recently, Uzbekistan has never been under total Soviet autocratic control which entailed sharing vertically imposed values including those pertaining to the treatment of women. While during the first years of independence the authorities of Uzbekistan tried to introduce Western-centric, egalitarian approaches, by the end of 2010s the government gave up on gender mainstreaming efforts. As with the election of a new government in 2017, Uzbekistan started radicalising quickly. Even though religious norms in Muslim societies, particularly those emanating from Islamic law, are often regarded as sacred, they are only selectively upheld in Uzbekistan. The ‘Ulamā, Muslim Board of Uzbekistan, the organised religious experts’ group who transmits and administers religious knowledge, were compromised by their proximity to the state as they had to come to terms with the state’s vision in religious matters. Hence, for example, the law on the ban of polygamy exists only nominally. A second marriage is generally sanctioned by a mullah (religious clerk), but since it is not registered with the authorities it does not count as legal bigamy. Mullahs, in their turn, justify their misconduct by the Shariah law.
To borrow from Gayatri Spivak, how can enforced identities be converted to sovereign subjects? Or paraphrasing the last sentence, when can women become truly independent? The transformation of power relations happens when women and girls exercise agency and act on their lives, through expanded access to, and control over, resources and changes to the societal structures that ultimately shape their lives and futures. And for that to become routine, we need one little but big thing: to change our mindsets.
I suggest we start making small steps while looking out for the best practice already available in the Nordics:
- legislation that combines protection against discrimination with active duties for public authorities and employers to promote equality. The latter includes equal pay regulation and proactive work as a duty. This is a discrimination against sex. In Uzbekistan young women (under 30) have less chances to be employed because they may get married and consecutively pregnant. Women in their 30s are again very reluctant to be forerunners in the HR selection as they often have children they have to care about when minors are not well, or they might get pregnant too. (I am sorry if I formulated this vaguely).This means that no one can say no to an unmarried woman during a job interview because she might get pregnant or to a young mother because she might have more children.
- work–family policy is another great impetus to support women. Through publicly subsidized childcare arrangements (as soon as the baby is 9 months old in Denmark versus 3 years old in Uzbekistan with only the first year of maternity leave being paid), it is a distinctive life-phase policy aimed at assisting young mothers in overcoming care-based barriers to equal participation in working life. In Denmark, children are accepted to the kindergartens as they turn 9 months old. All nine months mothers and fathers receive equally split, paid maternity/paternity leave. And the childcare is free of charge. Whereas, in Uzbekistan, only mothers get to receive 4 months of paid leave after giving birth but the age when kids are accepted to the state kindergartens is 3 years old. So, there is a huge gap in social protection and support of motherhood in Uzbekistan. And most importantly, when a father’s quota is part of the parental leave scheme, it aims at assisting young fathers in gaining more equal participation in family life.
Only collective action by stakeholders across academia, policy, business and the third sector can ensure that our world is truly equal.
References
a goal hoped for but apparently unattainable, Merriam-Webster Dictionary https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nirvana#:~:text=1,of%20desire%20and%20individual%20consciousness
Rohan, Gunaratna; Yee, Kam Stefanie Li (22 June 2016). Handbook Of Terrorism In The Asia-pacific. World Scientific. pp. 404–. ISBN 978-1-78326-997-6.
NORDIC JOURNAL OF STUDIES IN EDUCATIONAL POLICY2020, VOL. 6, NO. 1, 69–78 https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2020.1733848
Kumar, Gajendra. (2007). “Empowering the Third World Women: The Postcolonial Perspective.” Presentations of Postcolonialism in English: New Orientations. Ed. Jaydeep Sarangi. Authorspress, Delhi.
