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WOMEN IN KHAM AND TIBET

by Pamela Logan
June 28, 1999

Tibetan women, like Tibetan men, during the last few decades have ridden China's economic and social roller coaster: "liberation" of Tibet, religious persecution, the Cultural Revolution, economic opening, revival of Buddhism, and the arrival of foreign tourists to their homeland. In this report I will not address women's experiences where they are shared by men, but instead address differences. What is the status of women in Tibetan society, and how is it changing?

Women's status in the past: education as a litmus test

Accounts differ starkly on the status of women in Tibet prior to 1950. A Chinese government document on the Web tells us that: "Among the Tibetan women, 90 per cent were Tralpa and Duiqion (serfs), and 5 per cent were Nangsen (house slave)" [sic]. By contrast, the Tibetan Women's Association (an exile group) writes, "Traditionally, Tibetan women enjoyed a higher social status than their counterparts in many other societies. They also played an active part in the affairs of family and society."

Setting aside politically motivated rhetoric, one thing is clear. Prior to 1950, a Tibetan girl had little chance of receiving an education. There were virtually no secular schools--for boys or girls--in Tibet on account of opposition from the lamas. If a girl was religious and her parents approved, she might enter a nunnery and receive a Buddhist education, however nunneries were few in number and girls less encouraged than their brothers to take vows of celibacy. If her parents were wealthy, they might send her to India for an education, or if her parents were educated they might school her at home. By and large, few women had such opportunities, and the great majority were illiterate.

Boys, on the other hand, entered monasteries in great numbers; for the lower classes especially, this opportunity offered a crucial ladder up in society. Education is not the only factor that determines status, but it is key. The dearth of educational opportunities for women in Tibet prior to 1950 must have been a huge handicap to their advancement.

Despite lack of education, women were not mistreated as they have been in some other cultures through foot-binding, veils, concubinage, or confinement inside the home. While some wealthy men had more than one wife, there were also cases of women having more than one husband. (Usually, the reasons for this were economic: a woman would marry several brothers of the same family, thus keeping family property intact). Women were not chattel: they could and did leave bad marriages, and they had considerable voice in deciding family affairs. This was necessary, as circumstances often demanded that men travel away from home as herdsmen, traders, pilgrims, bandits, or monks. Women, therefore, needed to be self-sufficient.

Education for girls now

During visits to schools on behalf of KAF programs, I invariably take note of the proportion of boys versus girls. Schools in towns and cities have roughly equal proportions; in some girls even exceed boys. Out in the countryside, however, the situation is different. For example, the Athri Village School, located an hour's uphill hike from the nearest motorable road, had 23 boys and five girls enrolled in 1998. Rural parents still don't see much benefit in educating their daughters. One educated woman I interviewed cited religion as a reason why people hang on to these old-fashioned attitudes. This surprised me, because I was unaware of any Buddhist teachings that are explicitly repressive of women. It's my feeling that, in the minds of uneducated farmers and herdsmen, low status of women and devotion to Buddhism are lumped together because they both are part of a longed-for "ideal"

Classroom in Derge County.

society of the vanished past--not unlike sentiments expressed by the Religious Right in America.

Education in Kham and the rest of Tibet has been hugely problematic for the government, because of the large expense in opening and staffing schools in remote areas, coupled with parents' resistance to sending their children. Despite preferential admission policies for minorities, so far few Tibetan women have gotten all the way through the system and emerged as college graduates, but the numbers are increasing. Government propaganda boasts of 9,307 college graduates in Tibet Autonomous Region between 1959 and 1988. It's unclear whether this figure includes both sexes, or just women. In any event, compared to a total population of 1.2 million women in TAR, the number is extremely small.

Careers for Tibetan women

The majority of Tibetan women who graduate from college end up as teachers. Because Beijing wants minorities and especially minority women to be well represented in government, many college-educated Tibetan women are funneled into careers as officials. I've seen a lot of women working in government offices as minor functionaries; presumably in time a few of these will make their way up to positions of real authority. (The current Kangding county chief is a woman, but I believe she is Han and not Tibetan).

I've run into quite a few Tibetan women doctors and nurses, and a handful of police officers. I know one who works in a publishing house and another who is a successful artist--but they both owe their success at least in part to influential fathers. I know a Tibetan woman who worked her way up to director of a travel agency, and subsequently started her own company. I know one Tibetan woman who studied chemistry, and now curates the thanka collection of the Sichuan University Museum. But such unconventional careers are still extremely rare, and are available only to women who leave their Tibetan homeland and emigrate to a large city such as Chengdu. Back at home, most women are still fulfilling traditional female roles on farms and pasturelands.

Marriage

Among grassland people, marriage is young: generally 18 or 19 for girls, 23 or 24 for boys. Those in towns wait a few more years before taking the plunge. Some couples begin having children right away; others use birth control and wait. According to law, marriages are supposed to be freely contracted; however in practice young people, out of filial respect, sometimes agree to marry spouses selected by their parents. One college educated, town-dwelling male friend of mine was recently married to a woman he barely knew and didn't want. He did so, he told me, out of respect for his widowed mother, who experienced great hardship is raising him alone. However his home life has been rendered very uncomfortable by this unlucky marriage, and he now spends as much time as possible away.

Divorce is not common but becoming more so, and the stigma is decreasing. Two Tibetan women friends of mine have been divorced from their husbands.

Family Planning

Huge international publicity given to the "one-child" rule has given rise to widespread misunderstanding of what China's family planning policy really is. The fact is, only urban- dwelling Han Chinese are restricted to one child. Rural Han may have two children. Tibetans and other minorities can have one child more than their Han neighbors. Thus, farmers and herdsmen--which make up the majority of Tibetan families--may legally have three children without sanction.

Parents with their three children

Those are the rules. Enforcement is another issue. There have been horrifying reports of forced abortion and sterilization perpetrated on Tibetan women. I can't say of my own knowledge how often such things occur, but it's my feeling that they are not common. There are simply not enough family planning watchdogs, police, and doctors to keep an eye on everybody, especially nomads. Besides; the government has recognized the enormous political cost of such atrocities, and its policy seems to be rule with a light hand in family planning among minorities. Punishment for excess births is far more common than intervention. Families with excess children are denied access to education and medical care--but Tibetans living far from population centers do not have these benefits, so threats of withholding them carry little force.

According to a Tibetan woman doctor, Dorje Tso, who runs a medical clinic in the small and rustic town of Dzogchen, many Tibetan women are voluntarily accepting birth control because they simply do not want large families. The pill, and IUDs, are the most popular methods. Other women eschew birth control, and consequently have many children. The head of Dzongsar Monastery's Tibetan Medicine Hospital, Lodru Pentsok (a friend of mine), has ten children surviving from eleven births. Families like this are exceedingly rare in towns, but not unheard of in rural areas.

Childbirth and health care

These days, where possible, births take place in a medical clinic or hospital, and are supervised by a trained midwife. In clinics without female medical personnel, Tibetan women are often embarrassed to seek care for pregnancies and other medical problems, and so go untreated. Women in remote areas give birth at home, and childbirth deaths do occasionally occur. As in many aspects of Tibetan life, improvements in health care are limited by the inadequate educational system, by difficulty of travel, and by poverty. Medical training is cursory by Western standards--Dorje Tso studied medicine for only four years before taking a job at the Derge County Hospital. She says that women's health is improving slowly, and that many women live to be 70 or 80 years old. (A government document cites an average life expectancy of 65). For those women in public service, retirement age is 50 (it's 55 for men). The chief health complaints among rural Tibetans in general are rheumatism and stomach ailments, especially diarrhea. She claims there is no problem of spousal abuse among Tibetans in Derge.

Women's work

Tibetan women bear the greater burden of child rearing chores, however Tibetan men are, in general, good fathers who often help out. Many times I've seen Tibetan men in public with their children and not a woman in sight. Tibetan men, like Chinese men, are usually able to cook and do so uncomplainingly. Most chores, however, go by default to the woman of the family. She will fetch water, collect fuel, tend the hearth, milk livestock, care for children and old people, cook, and clean. If the family has many animals and no one else is available, she may go out with them to the pastures. If the family has fields, she will take care of most of farmwork--except plowing, which requires a man's strength. Division of tasks is not strict in Tibetan society, and men do pitch in where needed. But it's notable that leisure activities such as drinking, smoking, playing pool and mah jong, are a man's province. Women simply do not have time for them.

Women stop for tea on their way up a mountain-side to collect caterpillar fungus, a major money-earner for families in Derge Fetching water, Ganzi County. Churning tea, in central Tibet.

Women in Buddhism

Among Tibetans in exile, Buddhist nuns and monks have the same status, but within Tibet I've observed that nuns have only a fraction of the clout enjoyed by their male counterparts. Monasteries are wealthy and numerous; nunneries poor and small. Incarnate lamas come back again and again in male form, with no possibility of rebirth as women. There are a handful of female incarnate lines such as Shuksep Tulku, but these are rare exceptions to an overwhelmingly male institution. Tulkus have tremendous influence in Tibetan society, so women's lack of access to this avenue of power is significant. A nun can gain some degree of authority and public respect through diligent study; however it is unheard of for a nun to lead a monastery; on the other hand nunneries are sometimes led by male lamas. Buddhism in Tibet is, and will probably remain, "a guy thing."

Terdrom Nunnery, one day's travel east of Lhasa

This is not to say that women are not devout. Lay women, especially the elderly, are often passionate and fervent Buddhists. They tend to dominate crowds of worshippers circumambulating sacred shrines such as the Derge Printing House or the Jokhang Temple. Widows whose children are grown sometimes shave their heads and live as nuns.

China Women's Federation

In 1950 the Women's Federation of Ganzi Prefecture (WFGP) was founded. At that time, the new government was creating women's federation branches all over China. In Ganzi, every administrative unit all the way down to the village level, has a representative to this organization who is selected by her peers. On the village level she serves for three years. Her main duty is to represent local women to the government in all matters concerning them. She is also responsible for birth control. Her authority in these areas in enforced by law. According to Tsemu, the head of WFGP, the laws are effective; but I personally doubt that birth control and other emancipating innovations successfully reach all women in Tibetan areas. Many houses and encampments are just too remote. As noted above, some women there still have large families.

According to Tsemu, women's position in society is improving, and the situation in Ganzi is much better than in some other (Han) parts of Sichuan. For example, preference for boy children is not so marked in Ganzi as it is in other places. Last year I visited an orphanage in Tagong and noticed many boys there, so it appears that girls are not being discarded the way they are in eastern China. "I would rather have a boy," said Sejia, a young husband in Derge, "but if I have a girl then I will still love her because she is mine."

Tsemu has composed a message for KAF supporters and women worldwide. If one ignores the Chinese literary flourishes such as reference to "half the sky," and the usual bluster about serfs and feudalism in pre-1949 Tibet, I feel it is fairly on-target and heartfelt. I have attached it at the bottom of this report.

Tsemu also asked for help from the Kham Aid Foundation to send some girls to middle school. Five years ago, a Hong Kong donor gave money to send 100 girls to primary school: fifty in Derong County and fifty in Dawu. The girls were selected from poor families through a county-wide search, and so they are far above average in talent. Now they will soon graduate from primary school, and the funds have run out. Tsemu asked for help to send these girls on to middle school. She was unable to give me the precise cost, because it depends on which school they attend. The girls will also need funds to cover room and board at school, and other items such as blankets and clothing. I would estimate that $700 per girl, per year is in the right ball park. If anyone is interested in helping out, please contact the Kham Aid Foundation.

Conclusions

Tibetan society is not intrinsically oppressive to women, at least compared to some other cultures. In the past, Tibetan girls have had fewer educational opportunities than boys, and this problem still lingers in rural areas. The differences are slowly being ameliorated as economic development touches more parts of Tibet. Chinese law is generally favorable toward women's advancement, but it has a harsh side in that it meddles with family life. However, the laws, whether good or bad, are poorly enforced; women in remote rural areas have seen little change over the last fifty years. Buddhism, always a powerful force in Tibetan society, does not offer equal opportunity for women practitioners, and tends to reinforce sexist attitudes. More and more people are recognizing that advancement of women is a positive thing for all Tibetan society. But they still have a long way to go.

(The following essay was written especially for Kham Aid Foundation)

For the Development and Improvement of World Woman’s Cause

by Tsemu , the Chairwoman of Woman’s Federation of Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Translated by Wu Bangfu

June 7, 1999

Tsemu

Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is located in the west of the People’s Republic of China, with a vast expanse of 153,000 square kilometers, and occupies one-third territory of Sichuan Province. This prefecture has 18 counties administrating 319 townships with 870,000 residents. The people in this prefecture are bold, industrious, simple, honest and kindhearted, woman taking up 50 percent of all the residents.

Woman is called Half Sky in the society, they created together with man the material wealth and cultural civilization for human being, they have done the same contribution to drive society developing and improving uninterruptedly. Moreover, they have done their special contribution to the human reproduction. Unfortunately, in the course of the development of human being, woman has been unequal in social status to man over a long period of time. Before Liberation (1949), the numerous women in Tibetan area had been oppressed under the governing of the feudalism and serfdom system, and led unbelievable and miserable lives. The opinion of the people had been controlled by the concept of "man is always in higher status than woman", and this concept is like invisible rope to tie the people’s mind.

After Liberation, the numerous women got free and became the master of the society and the county. The Communist Party of China and Government have paid close attention to the development and improvement of women, taken it as a fundamentally national policy to improve social status of woman equally to man, bought against the appearance of discriminating against woman, uphold and guaranteed practically the equal-to-man status and all kinds of rights of woman in the political, economic and social lives. Many outstanding women have gone out of their homes, entered into schools, colleges and factories, approached the government affairs, gone in for market economy and done all kinds of work, some of them became the leaders of the prefecture and countries, doctors, experts, entrepreneurs, etc. The achievement of improvement of woman’s status in Ganzi prefecture is attractive, and the numerous women have done great contribution in the construction of material and cultural civilization for Ganzi Prefecture.

But, in fact, there is some disparity between legal and practical equal status, sexual discrimination still exists in the minds of some people all over the world; wars also makes many women and children homeless. Many children such as Chao Nei lost their mothers, and many parents such as Zhu Ying’s Parents lost their parents. We will continue to strive for the promotion of woman’s cause.

Woman’s cause is lofty. The improvement of woman’s status and role needs not only the striving work of the governments of countries all over the world but also the international widespread cooperation. I am sure that the worldwide woman’s cause will develop and improve unceasing so long as we comply with the principles and aim of United Nations Charter, respecting one another, seeking common ground while reserving differences, strengthening cooperation, and seek the common purpose peace, development and equality put forward in the 4th World Woman’s Conference.

Information in this report was gathered through personal observations and interviews, and from the following sources: