being a woman, in cambodia

It's an incredibly large topic to attempt to capture, but I'm going to try anyway, and I'm going to begin it with a statement that will likely not surprise you:

It can be incredibly difficult to be a woman in Cambodia. 

In fact, I'd say that I feel very fortunate to be a foreign woman living in Cambodia for a relatively short period of time.  In a year, I get to return to America, where gender equity is a constant topic in the professional and my personal world, and I have zero concerns about societal pressure to conform to one specific gender image and role.

Simply, the same cannot be said for the majority of Cambodian women.  I hesitate to making sweeping generalizations, but after over a year of living here and witnessing firsthand (as well as often being subjected to generalizations being made about me due to me being a female) the daily life of women, young and old, in Cambodia, I do have some observations I'd like to share.  This is increasingly relevant given the documentary Half the Sky that just aired on PBS, as I saw via Twitter this morning.

For what it's worth, I am attempting to offer these insights without comment- excepting for the major one I made above about it being difficult to be a woman in Cambodia and realizing my genuine luck in being able to leave and live outside these gender norms whenever I please, as I have my own home where my husband happily cooks for us both each night and does not confine either of us to a specific gender role.  Typically, I tend to relate my experience in Cambodia to the contrast of life in America.  This time, I'm simply attempting to summarize and share what I've seen the last fourteen months.

There are defined gender roles in Cambodia.  Though there are exceptions, which I'll mention, the vast majority of women and men follow these roles.  The roles are very reminiscent of America, circa 1850.

Women are the homemakers.  They are responsible for upkeep and maintenance of the home.  They cook lunch and dinner for their husbands, and all three meals for their children.  Mainly, they are meant to get married and reproduce.  They often do work in addition to their duties at home, and many run a small store at the front of their house or in the market.  Some work in offices, but this is less typical in rural areas.

Many women run shops in markets or in their own homes.

Men work outside the home. Their main role is to make money to support their family.  They typically eat breakfast with friends outside the home, and return home to eat the lunch and dinner their wife or mother has prepared.  They live at home and are taken care of by their sister and/or mother until they save enough money to afford a wedding, and therefore, a wife. 

A woman in Cambodia is meant to be soft, feminine, polite and unassuming.  Women should be soft, like silk, an old Khmer proverb says.  They also, once sullied, cannot be cleaned- once silk is dirtied, it is ruined forever and never the same.  (In contrast, men are like diamonds or gold and are easily cleaned.)  Women should attempt to keep themselves pure, then, like silk, for as long as possible.  This translates to dressing rather demurely, covering shoulders and knees at all times; speaking softly and rarely expressing an opinion that could cause divergence; and only pursuing a relationship with a male when it is guaranteed to end in marriage.

As I mentioned above, women in Cambodia work mainly in the home or in a shop. Many also work in rice fields or other agriculture.  More importantly, though, is that there are several jobs that appear to be off limits to women here.  In all of Phnom Penh, from as far as I can tell, there is one female tuk tuk driver.  One.  There have got to be thousands of tuk tuks in the city, and the number of females in this profession is most certainly in the single digits.  Similarly, women do not drive taxis or buses or vans and do not work in transportation at all, except to sell the tickets to the bus.  Nearly all ministry officials are men, and it is very rare to find a female school director, health center director or even doctor for that matter.

Considering the higher level jobs that many women aren't a part of, leads us to consider education.  There are many varying statistics out there (feel free to google "female literacy/education in Cambodia"), but essentially, women are between 10-20% behind men in literacy rates, and are more likely to drop out of school (numbers point to the fact that men often outnumber women 2:1 in 11th and 12th grade in many high schools.)  Many young women drop out to assist their families in taking care of siblings, maintaining the house, or to enter into their own marriage and home.  Others drop out due to finances- inability to afford the necessary items to attend school, including books, uniforms, etc.  (This is also true of young men that leave school early.)  Boys outnumber girls in private classes, which leads one to consider the value placed on female vs. male education.

Most especially, this increasingly long post would be remiss without mentioning the prevalence of human trafficking and especially selling of women throughout Cambodia.  This is a topic for an even longer discussion, so I don't wish to go too in depth into this here.   However, it is a tragic and considerable problem for the young women and girls of Cambodia; prevalent, painful and perpetuated by a number of laws that are rampantly unenforced.

Finally, I have to mention the growing influence of Western culture, especially in larger towns like Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Battambang.  In many of these places, women are able to flex outside the typical gender roles and move into other professions, wear different clothing, and pursue higher education before marriage.

Young girls and boys in the market.

Each day, Chris and I attempt to live as a married couple exhibiting different gender roles and beliefs to our new family and friends in Cambodia.  We attempt to offer our own experiences, culture, and ways of tackling daily jobs without judgement of how the same things are shared and experienced for women and men in America.  It does get a bit tiring having to explain that yes, my husband cooks our food, and yes, we share the duty of doing laundry, and yes, my husband is happy to accomplish tasks that Khmer culture typically deems "female."  Usually through humor, we share how in America, men and women can choose to do whatever they like and are often not held to strict roles or defining societal positions. 

Though trying to offer these observations without judgement, I do have to share that a good deal of my work here has been centered around finding ways to empower the young women in my community, help them identify their strengths, talents, and future options (especially beyond marriage), and I do believe that adhering to very strict gender roles has a devastating and restricting impact on the development of Cambodia.  I do believe that the influence of other cultures is helping to illustrate the positive power of an empowered female population and assisting young women growing up all over the country to think a bit bigger, pursue a bit more education than was likely twenty, ten, or even five years ago.

And that's the clipped version of the story of women as seen through my eyes the last year. 

What are your thoughts on women in Cambodia specifically, or gender roles more generally?