113

Parliaments Representation
of Women:
A Selective Review ofSri Lankas Hansards
from 2005-2014

Parliaments Representation
of Women:
A Selective Review ofSri Lankas Hansards
from 2005-2014

The Women and Media Collective

Parliaments Representation of Women:

A Selective Review ofSri Lankas Hansards from 2005-2014

First Print - 2016

The Women and Media Collective
ISBN 978-955-1770-27-3
Design & layout

Velayudan Jayachithra

Printed by

Globe Printing Works

Supported by
Published by

Women and Media Collective

56/1, Sarasavi Lane, Castle Street, Colombo 8, Sri Lanka.

Email:wmcsrilanka@gmail.com
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Twitter:http://twitter.com/womenandmedia
iv4

Content

Chapter 1
Introduction :
Women and Parliamentary Talk:
Representation, Conceptualizations, and Discursive Framings
Esther Surenthiraraj .....................................................09
Chapter 2
How Women Count:
The Construction of Women and Gender Relations in Budget
Speeches in Sri Lanka (2005-2014)
Vijay Nagaraj and Chulani Kodikara ..................................27
Chapter 3
Women Men and War Talk:
The Gendered nature of Parliamentary speech on the war.
Farzana Haniffa and Kumudini Samuel ..............................45
Chapter 4
Breast Milk and the Sari:
Conceptualisations of Womens Issues in Parliament
Shermal Wijewardene and Pradeep Peiris .......................... 61
Chapter
Debating Women
Sepali Kottegoda

.......................................................

About the authors

87

109
5v

vi
6

Foreword

his study on how speeches made in Parliament portray women

is an outcome of the Women and Media Collectives (WMCs)
engagement in advocacy, activism, and participation in formal
processes to address how womens interests are represented by the
countrys legislature.
The representation of women in Sri Lankas Parliament has been
historically low; for over 5 decades it has fallen below 7 per cent.
A number of other womens organizations, researchers, and
activists have been involved in advocating this issue, often sharing
strategies and coming together at different fora to highlight,
demand, and, where necessary, submit, carefully worked out
proposals to political parties and to respective governments. In the
course of discussing and reviewing our own approaches, the WMC
recognised that as much as we should persist with this external
lobbying, we should also attempt to understand how these efforts
in the public sphere are reflected at the level of discourse within
Parliament. The result was the coming together of 8 researchers
to focus on two key areas of parliamentary discourse: (a) how do
members of Parliament speak on issues related to women (b) what
issues do women parliamentarians speak on during parliamentary
debates. This book is based on readings of selected Hansard reports
over the period 2005 2014. The objective is to be able to get a
measure of Parliamentarians understandings of and commitment
to addressing gender in/equality in the country, and to explore the
role of womens organizations, rights activists, and researchers in
this arena.
We would like to thank the UN Women South Asia office for
supporting the WMC to embark on this research and to publish
this book. We would like to express our sincere thanks to all the
writers whose active engagement and commitment were integral
to this exercise.
7

We would like to express our appreciation to Prof. JayadevaUyangoda

for undertaking the peer review of the chapters and to Shalini
Abayasekara for copy editing each chapter. Our thanks also go
to the two research assistants, Thakshala Tissera and Thilini de
Alwis. At WMC, we greatly appreciate the efforts of Sulochana
Colombage and Manori Vitharana to coordinate this book project,
and the contributions made by Velayudan Jayachithra to create
the layout and cover design.
This is a bold and critical study, and, as always, the WMC draws
strength from the support of all our colleagues as we venture into
new areas of feminist inquiry and advocacy for rights.

Sepali Kottegoda
Women and Media Collective
January 2016.

Chapter 1

Introduction:
Women and Parliamentary talk:
Representation, Conceptualizations, and
Discursive Framings
Esther Surenthiraraj

ri Lanka has a rich tradition of research on women and womens

issues. Of these studies, one of the chief areas of concern that
has received much attention in terms of research is the discussion
of womens participation in politics. Explorations of how women
are discussed and alluded to in general social discourses have
been studied via film and media; however, a qualitative study
of gender as expressed in the Sri Lankan Parliamentary speech
settings is a novel initiative. This book aims to position itself as
contributing to feminist writing by studying the discussion on
women presented in the Sri Lankan Parliament between 2005
and 2014, focusing on four key areas: budget speeches, the latter
stages of the war and post-war discussions, interventions made
by the former Minister of Child Development and Women Affairs,
and the Parliamentary debate on womens issues. These chapters,
though not an exhaustive exploration of Parliamentary talk in its
entire form, offer snapshots of the various gendered discourses
9

present in specific Sri Lankan Parliaments namely, the sixth and

seventh Parliaments which were headed by a strong coalition
and President, and situated in a period of transition between war
and the end of the war. By providing particular insights into the
discourses around gender that were circulating in the Parliament,
they highlight the hegemonic discourses that continue to
characterize the framing of women and womens issues in the
highest governing body of the country.
In Foucaults theorization of power (Foucault in Rabinow, 1984),
he understands power to be manifested through everyday social
practices. This is an expansion of the construct of power that
was previously confined to institutional practices. Foucaults
exploration of power blurs demarcations between traditional
political structures and everyday practices, and argues that routine
manifestations and influences of these structures permeate society
through discourse.
The chapters of this book reveal that discourses circulating in
the Sri Lankan Parliament are representative of such notions
of power; they constitute and are constituted by discourses on
women in everyday Sri Lankan social practices. Therefore, this
volume is an attempt at creating awareness about the manner in
which women are spoken of in the Sri Lankan Parliament, through
which it demands the transformation of Parliamentary discourse
on women. It hopes that a shift of discourse in this institution will
in turn be reflected in the discussion on women in its auxiliary
branches, such as Ministries and Commissions, as well as in
general society.
This chapter draws on three primary areas of discussion: womens
representation in Sri Lanka, discourses present in the Mahinda
Chintana that provide the framing of subsequent government
policies, and the operational nature of general Parliamentary
discourse. These explorations set the background for and mediate
the following chapters foci on aspects of Sri Lankan Parliamentary
discourses on women between the years 2005 and 2014.
10

Womens Representation in Sri Lanka

Although this volume does not consider representation as its focal
point, it is not disconnected from the call for representation. The
mention of some of the key arguments in this area foreground
what womens movements in Sri Lanka have fought for and
outline the current status of these struggles. Research on womens
representation in Sri Lanka reveal the need for a deeper, qualitative
understanding of the concept of women, thereby forming the
basis on which this book was conceptualized.
Since the granting of universal suffrage, womens representation
in Sri Lanka in National Legislature as well as in Provincial
Councils and Local Government has been poor. Although Adeleine
Molamure contested and won the Ruwanwella seat in as early
as 1931 in the formation of the first State Council (de Alwis &
Jayawardena, 2001), over the years womens overall representation
in the political institutions of Parliament, Provincial, and local
government politics has been low. With regard to the period under
study in this volume, as the table below reveals, women have
had neither as many nominations nor as much representation as
expected in Parliament.

Year

Total
elected

2004
2010
2015

225
225
225

No. of
women
elected
13
10
11

No. of
women on
National List
3
2

% of
women in
Parliament
5.8
5.8
5.8

Table 1: Women elected to Parliament (adapted from Kodikara, 2009 and www.parliament.
lk with inclusions made by author)

As noted in the Shadow Report to the Committee on the

Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW) by Women and Media Collective, statistical data on
political nomination and representation in Sri Lanka in both
Parliamentary elections of 2004 and 2010 have painted a dismal
11

picture. The system of Proportional Representation seems to have

failed in the election of women, revealing that for it to effect any
positive difference, it needs to be assisted by structural change in
political parties, societies, and cultures within which it operates
(Pinto Jayawardena & Kodikara, 2003, p. 13). In spite of womens
groups continuously agitating for womens representation in
politics1, and both major coalitions main party manifestos (UNP
and SLFP) carrying promises to increase womens representations
in the 2010 elections (qtd. in Women and Media Collective, 2010)
and one coalition reiterating this promise in its 2015 manifesto2,
their assurances do not inspire confidence (Women and Media
Collective, 2010, p. 14). As revealed by statistics above, this
criticism rings true for the recently concluded Parliamentary
elections as well. In a report that studied political representation
of women in Sri Lanka, Kodikara (2009) notes that there has been
no substantial change in womens representation over the years
(p. 14). Although the Parliamentary elections of 2015 were held
amidst renewed and positive political climate, its influence on an
increase in womens representation was non-existent.
The impediments for women choosing to participate in active
politics have been documented elsewhere in detail (Kodikara,
2009; Pinto Jayawardena & Kodikara 2003; Gomez & Gomez,
2001). A common vein runs through these studies. They seem to
indicate that, with a few exceptions, many women enter national
politics through patriarchal social structures as they are connected
to political families. Pinto Jayawardena & Kodikara (2003) refer to
this as the widows, wives, and daughters syndrome. As they point
out, however, in contrast to women who engaged in politics in the
1930s through the 1950s, whose career in politics was relatively
independent from that of their male family members, current
female politicians seem to be proxy women politicians with
little or no political will of their own, and instead are happy to
embrace their relationship with male politicians in their family as
the central focus of their entrance into and continuance in politics
1. See for example, Women & Media Collective Vote for Women campaign in 2015
2. See Deshodaya Movement party manifestos summary for General Elections of 2015
12

(p. 25-26). Womens entrance into politics via family ties, they
argue, is characteristic of dynastic politics that have influenced
and continue to influence South Asian politics. Overall, womens
entrance into politics seems to be representative of their familyled constituency rather than their gender (Wickremasinghe &
Kodikara, 2012, p. 778). Others who are not directly connected
to political families are still beholden to male patrons and support
bases, revealing the strongly patriarchal structures within which
women need to garner support for election (Pinto Jayawardena &
Kodikara, 2003).
Two responses to womens more common entrance into politics
as proxy candidates, however, could be advanced. Firstly, in spite
of being admitted into active politics in the roles of widow, wife
or daughter of male counterparts, women have had to contend
constantly with patriarchal norms within politics. In fact, while
these positions themselves are constructed within patriarchal
political systems, their alternatives (i.e. sex symbol, whore etc.)
are also applied to the same women politicians. De Alwis (1995)
elucidates this stance in her analysis of the construction of a
respectable lady in relation to two prominent women politicians
of the past: Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Hema Premadasa. In her
discussion of this figure, she makes reference to important works
that engage with motherhood and the nation, and highlights
its centrality to her own counter argument. In response to the
argument advanced by Chatterjee (qtd. in de Alwis, 1995), that it is
the signs of motherhood as manifesting spiritual qualities such as
sacrifice and devotion that permit a woman to navigate the public
space, de Alwis own stance is that in spite of this spirituality that
women embrace, they are constantly prey to counter-discourses
that sexualize them (p. 138). She argues that spirituality, or what
she refers to as respectability, is both created and dismantled by
social practices. She notes that the patriarchal gaze of the nation
upholds a woman in the public sphere as both sacred and sexual in
such ways that a woman is unable to break away from both these
symbols when she traverses politics.
13

Kumudini Samuel (in personal communication and informal

discussions) has advanced a second critique to highlighting
womens links to political families. She argues that male
politicians association to political families, though present, is
hardly emphasized and that it is only womens links to political
families that is given prominence. Wickramasinghe & Kodikara
(2012) also reveal that contrary to common understanding, many
women politicians (24 of 59 in their study) are not connected to
political families. Additionally, they point out that political parties
themselves exploit family connections, regardless of the gender of
the candidates they wield.
It seems, therefore, that even if women are permitted into politics,
their very roles as entrypoints as well as the structures within
which they are subsequently required to operate are problematic
patriarchal constructs. Does this call for the envisioning of a new
political structure or can women work within these constraints?
Thiruchandran (1997) provides an insightful critique on this.
Beginning from early philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle
and later discourses of Enlightenment, she notes that women
have continuously been relegated to non-citizen or partial-citizen
status due to dichotomous and hierarchical ordering buttressed by
the construction of binaries such as rational/irrational, political/
personal, family/state, and masculine/feminine. While feminist
critiques of these binary positions do exist, Thiruchandran
argues that the State itself does not occupy polarized spaces.
The State is not a monolithic coherent entity [but] a complex
body with multi-dimensional facets (p. 8). The State in its
complexity uses a variety of mechanisms to exercise and maintain
its hegemonic control over citizens. Thiruchandran advocates
Gramscis perspective of power especially his argument about
the consensual nature of power, through which the State coopts
sections of civil society including social institutions to legitimize
State hegemony as a tool that could assist womens struggle
against oppression. She admits, however, that whether such power
can be wielded successfully by civil society to mediate government
is still an unanswered question. Thiruchandran seems to argue
14

that working within current State structures via civil society

is possible; by calling for a shift in discourse employed by State
bodies this volume is also a type of engagement with the State.
The chapters in this book are based on the premise that creating
awareness of State language practices is an important aspect of
reworking existing discourses, and though they may continue to
wield power, they could also enable empowering discourses on
women.

Gendered ideals in the Mahinda Chintana

The Mahinda Chintana is a document that shaped most political
activity during the time under review in this volume, and hence
has an immense impact on both the discussions in Parliament on
and by women as well the representation women had in national
legislature. These perspectives are present not only in sections
that outline specific plans for women, but emerge throughout the
Chintana and had profound influence on development policies
designed for and implemented in the country within the decade.
Therefore, it warrants analysis as a document that frames the
discussion presented through this book.
The Chintana of 2005 was produced primarily for the 2005 elections
and was subsequently adopted as a document that informed
national policies. The next articulation of the Chintana in 2010
sought to recreate a post war nation and envisioned development
activities within international, neoliberal discourses3 (Bastian,
2013; Gunawardena, 2013). In the Chintanas first articulation,
the family is the nucleus of society and national interests are
enunciated through policies that target the family. Under the
section titled An affectionate family, foremost place is provided
to women as mothers:
Our societys foundation is the family, in which the Mother
takes the prime place. It is only through the improvement
of the close and intimate family bonds that we can ensure
a pleasant society. It is my belief that economic hardships
3. For critiques of post-war development policies see Kadirgamar, 2013; Liyanage, 2012.
15

and pressures erode such intimate bonds between

family members. Therefore, I have prepared a plan to
overcome such obstacles, relieve the sufferings of every
member of the family, and thereby strengthen the family,
economically. (Mahinda Chintana, 2005, p. 5)
The woman provides a solid foundation to the family as
well as to the society. She devotes her life to raise children,
manage the family budget and ensure peace in the family.
Therefore, the empowerment of women leads to the
empowerment of the entire society. (Mahinda Chintana,
2005, p. 13)
The role of women in this expression, and in other references that
follow, is significant. The mother figure is central to the family
and familial ties are integral to the national economy. In other
words, the family as the unit of production intricately linked to the
creation and maintenance of a productive labour force that in turn
fuels economic growth, is dependent on the reproductive role of
the woman as mother. The woman as contributing to reproductive
labour is not a new concept4. As Duffy (2005) notes, this strand of
analysis on womens role in production ma[de] visible the critical
role of domestic labor in maintaining the productivity of current
workers as well as providing the care needed to prepare future
workers for the labor force (p. 70). The principal status given to
the link between the economy and the woman in a family unit in
a document such as the Mahinda Chintana is telling as this mode
of interpretation permeates all other policies outlined in this
document. Subsequent policy recommendations for women made
in the document (e.g. the Diriya Kantha program and program
for expectant mothers) are centred around the womans role in
the family unit. Other promises, such as the Womens Charter of
Rights, and increase in nominations as well as 25% representation
in government may appear to strike a discordant note; however,
when articulated within this same framework of understanding
the family as the support structure of the nation, it falls prey to a
4. See Rubin, 1975 for further discussion of this argument.
16

similar discourse pattern of limiting the contribution of women to

that of their familial role.
In the Mahinda Chintana of 2010 too, family and women, are
positioned similarly. For example it notes that
[t]he very existence of the world depends on the affection
and love of the mother It is my belief that whatever
may be our achievements, our focus should be on the
family, consisting of the mother, father, and the children
(Mahinda Chintana, 2010, p. 22).
Although acknowledging the role of women in non-domestic
arenas such as employment outside the home, and articulating a
slightly more advanced understanding of womens issues than the
previous document, a woman is still framed in a limiting manner.
The focus of her role is still family-centred. However, the sequencing
of sentences in the particular section that acknowledges womens
contribution to the labour market outside the home adds an
interesting dimension to this construction:
Women make a major contribution to the economy of our
country. The contribution of women in the plantation
sector, in foreign employment and the apparel sector has
increased in significance over the years. In such a context,
I believe that the women in our country should not be
afforded equal status, but should be given higher
priority. Towards this end, I will implement the following
measures (Mahinda Chintana, 2010, p. 22)
There are multiple ideas being deployed here. By being placed
under the section titled Pride of place to the mother there is
implicit veneration of the role of motherhood. Additionally, while
praising the contribution of women to the economy, the section
title under which this is placed also functions as a subtle critique
of non-domestic employment, privileging one over the other. As
noted in the executive summary of the Shadow Report to CEDAW,
this framing of women:
17

encourages viewing women only vis--vis their

reproductive roles as mothers and prevents recognizing
women as individuals in their own rights, resulting in
conflicting ideologies in policy making (Women and
Media Collective, 2010, p. 7).
Gunewardena (2013) suggests that in post-war settings, following
victory in the civil war, there arises a need to wage and win the
economic war that has crippled the country. The focus on
achieving this feat results in the creation of yet another link
the village to the framing of the family and the woman. She
notes that the agrarian village is set up as a pristine space and
a utopia that symbolizes uncorrupted, non-Western, Sinhala
Buddhist nationalist ideals; rural women become important
identity-bearers of this village space. This idealized rural trope is
central to the creation of State development policy through the
Chintana and within its agenda, it is through the understanding
of womens reproductive roles as wives and mothers that gender
policies are articulated. In the Chintana of 2010, therefore, there
is an advanced and concentrated effort to preserve the village
as the ideal nation although as a marketizable space, embedded
in the global economy (Gunawardena, 2013, p. 73). In spite of
their contribution to the economy in non-familial roles, however,
Sri Lankan rural womens economic participation continues to
be confined to and understood through the household economy,
argues Gunawardena (p. 65-67). It is this natural role that
continues to be advanced in the post-war Mahinda Chintana of
2010.

Parliamentary discourse
Parliamentary discourse is one of the many genres of political
discourse, and much has been written about this genre from a
discourse analytical perspective5. Although most of these studies
focus on Western systems of governance, they focus also on
5. For a collection of scholarly work on parliamentary discourse see Bayley (2004)
and Ilie 2006; see Wodak (2009) for an ethnographic approach to the workings of
language in the EU.
18

language usage in the Parliament. According to Bayley (2004), [p]

arliamentary talk represents its most formal and institutionalised
variety (p. 1). The focus on Parliamentary discourse stems from
it being the most important place of discussion and debate on
national issues. This is the space in which policy is debated and
passed, and the language used to construct issues dealt with in
Parliament is crucial as it sustains and shapes the discourses that
will influence the manner in which they are expressed in policy,
and perhaps also subsequently in public domains via the media.
As such, Parliamentarians linguistic performances in the space of
Parliament are not only politically-charged within this location,
but also have ramifications in terms of formulating discourses on
issues under discussion in wider society.
Although the discourses and operation of the sixth and seventh
Sri Lankan Parliaments have not been the object of study in this
volume, authors of the four chapters comment generally on the
lackadaisical attitudes and engagement with issues on gender by
Members of Parliament. A common trend in the chapters is the
haphazard and nonchalant way in which Ministers engage with
womens issues, which speaks to the general operational conduct of
the Parliament itself. Another feature they note is the propagation
and sustenance of binaries in Parliamentary talk. This disallows
dialogue that progresses beyond polarities and is a clever ploy to
deviate from serious issues under discussion. Not only does this
strategy shape public discourses on the matter at hand but it also
borrows from discourses circulating in society to support itself. In
other words, the use of dualistic discourse disambiguates issues
that require a nuanced approach, thereby reducing these issues to
dangerously simplistic and polarized discussions.

19

On this volume
This intervention on talk in the Sri Lankan Parliament employs
critical discourse analysis as its primary methodological tool.
According to Fairclough (1995) this tool integrat[es] (a) analysis of
text, (b) analysis of processes of text production, consumption and
distribution, and (c) sociocultural analysis of the discursive event
as a whole (p. 23). While the chapters in this book primarily
consider texts and the discursive event/s within which they are
manifested, it still subscribes to the underlying principles of critical
discourse analysis i.e. textual analysis and social issues carry equal
weight in the process of performing analysis (Fairclough, 2003). In
considering speech, however, it is the text recorded in the Hansards
that function as the text that is analyzed. While the Hansards are
heavily edited for grammar and sentence structure, and sections
of Parliamentary proceedings are expunged on the order of the
Chair, it is still a powerful record that provides a wealth of material
for scrutiny. Although the performative aspects of a speech act are
not considered in its analysis, the chapters of this book illustrate
the richness of material present in the Hansards when it is viewed
as a discursive document.
This book provides a thick description of the references made
to women in Parliament. In this regard, it is different to other
attempts at quantifying Parliamentary discourses around women6,
adopting instead a qualitative approach. While recognizing the
value of quantitative research, the aim of this volume is to unpack
and understand the ideological underpinnings of discourses
surrounding the understanding of and engagement with the
woman-citizen. Through its findings this study also calls for a
transformation of Parliamentary talk on women. As such, the
texts it reads and the approach it takes exemplifies its objectives.
The period selected for analysis 2005 to 2014 could be
characterized in general as having a stable and well-established
government headed by President Mahinda Rajapakse. The
6. See for example www.manthri.lk which ranks MPs based on their interventions on a
variety of topics including Children/Women/Elders Rights.
20

decade was also a time during which the government introduced

and implemented its political and economic policies, ended the
three-decade war, and introduced development plans for postwar Sri Lanka. Different chapters in this book deal with different
time periods within this general time frame, depending on their
specific focus. However, the general period covered by the chapters
provides the opportunity to examine and comment on systematic
interventions made by a government within the overview of their
political ideology. As such it permits a general comment not only
on women and womens issues but also on sustained political
ideology driving such viewpoints.
This book consists of four chapters. Each includes a methodology
and focus of its own and examines varied issues with gender as
a central analytical category. Holistically the chapters speak to
dismal attitudes towards women and womens issues, reflected
continually through discourse patterns present in Parliamentary
talk discussing women.
In How Women Count, Nagaraj and Kodikara comment on the
construction of women and womens issues via budget speeches.
They read these speeches through the lens of the Mahinda
Chintana, which they find reflective of the notions expressed
through the allocation of fiscal resources. Their chapter is
organized around five themes that provide a gendered reading
of budget speeches. Womens entitlement to resources are linked
to their responsibilities in a patriarchal and pastoral State. This
chapter reveals that the family takes centrestage; it is around the
family that the role of the woman is organized. It is primarily the
role of women in the production and maintenance of children
that is resourced, and the site through which other developmental
activities based on neoliberal policies are enacted.
Women, Men and War Talk examines gender in war discourse,
taking into account speech around the military operation engaged
in by the State during the last stages of the war. Haniffa and
Samuel find that militarism continues to be masculinized and
women are primarily made reference to through care discourse,
21

which frames them as either victim or dependent. As part of this

discourse they note that the enemy is seen as the destroyer of
both pregnant female bodies and the male hero, both of which are
valourized. Women, according to their findings, are thereby fitted
into protectionist discourse in war talk. Unpacking sexualized
metaphors alluding to war, the authors also comment on the sexist
language associated with women, concluding that women continue
to be marginalized even during discussions on the impact of war
on women.
In Breast Milk and the Sari Wijewardene and Peiris study the
interventions made by former Minster of Child Development
and Womens Affairs, Tissa Karaliyadda. A man representing
the Ministry of Womens Affairs being a unique and historical
phenomenon, they note that Karaliyadda invites a move away
from the focus on the gender of the representative to what is
being represented. However, they find that he undermines his own
invitation by falling back to his connectedness to the women in his
family as justification of him occupying this particular Ministerial
position. The authors find that the former Minister employs two
voices the official position of the Ministry and his personal voice
to present his interventions. However, at certain times, one voice is
indiscernible from the other, creating a problematic fusion of what
should remain as two distinct and different voices. The authors
categorise the Ministers interventions on three broad themes:
welfare, violence against women, and political representation. In
all three areas the authors note the Ministers limited discursive
framework which shows that his lack of engagement with and
knowledge of the politics of gender severely restrict meaningful
conversations on womens issues.
Debating Women studies the debate of 22 March 2012 on womens
issues in recognition of March as Womens Month. As the only
time during which the Parliament allotted time for a debate on
women, Kottegoda foregrounds its importance as not only a
singular event, but also a significant one in framing discussions
on women. She highlights common themes that emerge through
22

the debate, and flags discussions that may have implications on

national policy. Focusing on six key phrases, the author comments
on the discursive richness that the few Members of Parliament who
do participate in the debate draw on to discuss womens issues.
Though the arguments made fall short of feminist demands, and
different Members express varied definitions of issues discussed,
Kottegoda notes that this debate functions as a rare opening to
discuss and highlight issues related specifically to women that are
generally assimilated into other deliberations in the Parliament.
The chapters discussed above reiterate that Sri Lankan
Parliamentary discourse on and around women seems not to
have moved beyond discourses that second wave feminists fought
against. Second wave feminism fought for the rejection of patriarchal
sociocultural views such as the imposition of heteronormative
conditions on women and traditional assumptions regarding
gendered roles, and advocated representation and equality
for women. As such, our struggle at least at the Sri Lankan
Parliamentary level continues to lag behind current feminist
struggles, rejecting well-established and accepted feminist calls
not only for equality in representation but also for justice and the
recognition of women as equal political citizens in the language
framing discussions on women and womens issues. What, through
these different studies, does this volume call for? It demands a
change in the conventions of Parliamentary talk regarding women.
It calls for reform in the use of language and stresses the need
to develop and sustain progressive language. At the very least it
insists that Members of Parliament refrain from using derogatory,
sexist, and discriminatory language with reference to women and
womens issues. As such, this volume hopes to be read as a catalyst
to spur initiatives on transforming Parliamentary discourse on
gender.

23

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Ilie, C. (2006). Parliamentary discourses. In Encyclopedia of

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Kodikara, C. (2009). The Struggle for Equal Political Representation
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Thiruchandran, S. (1997). The politics of gender and womens agency
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Wickramasinghe, M. & Kodikara, C. (2012). Representation

in Politics: Women and Gender in the Sri Lankan Republic. In
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Against Women. Colombo.

26

Chapter 2

How Women Count:

The Construction of Women
and Gender Relations in Budget
Speeches in Sri Lanka (2005-2014)
Vijay Nagaraj and Chulani Kodikara

Introduction and approach

his chapter focuses on the ways in which women and gender

relations are constructed by and talked about in budget
speeches made by President Mahinda Rajapakse in his capacity
as the Minister of Finance between 2005 and 2014. Budget
speeches are political highpoints in Parliamentary discourse
and are signal events in so far as they are ideological statements
outlining the most salient political and fiscal commitments of
a government. They set out policy approaches, priorities and
programmes of governments and are therefore strongly agendasetting.
Since budgets speeches are also backed by resource commitments,
they are important statements of fiscal ideology. They are
often the primary platform for the announcement of key new
27

programmes and schemes. This is especially true in the period

under consideration because the Minister of Finance, who
delivered the Budget Speech in Parliament, was also the President,
the countrys highest executive political authority. As Dutil
(2011) underlines, budget speeches are political texts that reveal
significant information about their authors and their positions (p.
8).
We approach budget speeches as policy discourses that constitute
problems and solutions as well as subjects and subjectivities.
Following from Gill (2012) we distinguish between rational policymaking, focused on problem-solving, and policy-as-discourse, i.e.
how policies represent problems in particular ways that have
effects on people and social relations. (Ibid. 79). We take budget
speeches as exemplars of the latter. This allows us to understand
policy proposals and fiscal allocations contained in these speeches
not as a response to existing conditions and problems but more as
discourse in which problems and solutions are created. In other
words the government is not merely responding to problems
out there or discovering/uncovering social problems. Rather,
problems are created and given shape in the very policy proposals
that are offered as a response (Bachchi, 2000).
Policy discourses such as budget speeches also constitute subjects
and subjectivities by assigning positions and values to individuals
and groups within society as needy, as disadvantaged, as credit
worthy, as entrepreneurs etc., and by enrolling them as allies in
the pursuit of political, economic or social objectives. As Miller
and Rose (1993) point out
To this end, many and varied programmes have placed
a high value upon capacities of subjects and a range of
technologies have sought to act on the personal capacities
of subjects - as producers, consumers, parents and
citizens, organizing and orienting them in decisions and
actions that seem most personal and that confront them
in the multitude of everyday tasks entailed in managing
their won existence (p. 93).
28

Following from the idea that some discourses have greater status
than others, we approach the budget speeches delivered by the
President as a particularly powerful policy discourse. While
most people will exercise control over their daily conversations
with family members, friends, or colleagues, they rarely make a
contribution to public discourse (van Dijk, 1993). In contrast,
leaders of powerful social groups and political institutions have
more or less exclusive access to and greater control over public
discourse. These discourses are thus also the means through which
individuals and groups convince others to consent to a certain
ordering of society (Cooper, 2003). Such a view directs attention
to the institutional mechanisms that allows some knowledge
to become dominant in the struggle for control over discourses
(Bachchi and Eveline, 2010).
We are not engaged in this essay with actual resource allocations,
or the gender dimensions of budgets as a whole, but with how
budget speeches as discourse invoke, hail, subjectify and bear
on women and gender relations. We are conscious that budget
speeches are not isolated political statements. Rather they emerge
from, are connected to, and form part of a larger body of power
speech within the context of Parliamentary discourse, procedure
and politics in general. Connecting and referencing budget speech
to other politically significant speech acts, policy statements and
the broader political context is therefore important. In this regard,
this chapter looks particularly to the Mahinda Chintana (initially
Rajapakses election manifesto but subsequently the national
policy framework) of 2005 as well as 2010.
It also takes the post-war political context, especially a resurgent
militarised Sinhala Buddhist post-war nationalism, as a key
referent. The end of Sri Lankas war in May 2009 inaugurated a
resurgence of nationalism and attempts to redefine national
identity on the basis of a hegemonic Sinhala-Buddhist identity
premised on the victory over the Tamil Tigers (LTTE), the
valorization of the military, the binary construction of traitors
and patriots, and the lack of tolerance for all dissent. Central
29

to this project was the celebration of a glorious past as well as

definition of gender roles and identities based on the conception
of an ideal woman in Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist ideology and
historiography (Kodikara, 2014). Typical of ethno-religious
nationalisms around the world, the family emerged as the
most important unit of society, and mothers and wives became
privileged subjects as carers of the family, keepers of family
values, and bearers of national identity (Moghadam, 1999). It is
our contention that this ideology seeped into government policy
during the Rajapakse regime (2009-2014) in different ways and
influenced the construction of women and gender relations in
political speeches in general, and thereby also budget speeches.
It is from this perspective that we approach our analysis of budget
speeches between 2005 and 2014 with regard to women and
gender relations. We considered every occurrence of the following
keywords in the speeches: women/woman, female, girl, mother,
motherhood, maternal, parents, and family. We then considered
the discursive significance of each occurrence in the context of the
overall aim of this analysis, i.e., understanding how women and
gender relations are constructed and talked about. We present
our findings under the following five themes: familial ideology,
motherhood and nutrition, gender essentialism and generalized
narratives of vulnerability and development, women as reproducers
of micro-financial capital and micro-entrepreneurship, and
violence against women.

Familial Ideology
The family and its preservation and welfare are a recurring theme
in several of the budget speeches analysed for this study. This is
not surprising as familial ideology was a key pillar of government
policy during the period 2005-2014. Rajapakse had signaled to the
importance of the family in his first election manifesto of 2005.
In the section An Affectionate Family, the 2005 manifesto noted:

30

Our societys foundation is the family in which the Mother

takes the prime place. It is only through the improvement
of the close and intimate family bonds that we can ensure
a pleasant society. It is my belief that economic hardship
and pressures erode such intimate bonds between
family members. Therefore, I have prepared a plan to
overcome such obstacles, relieve the sufferings of every
member of the family, and thereby strengthen the family,
economically (Rajapakse 2005: 5).
It further goes on to note:
The woman provides a solid foundation to the family
as well as to the society. She devotes her life to raise
children, manage the family budget and ensure peace in
the family. Therefore, the empowerment of women leads
to the empowerment of the entire society . . . (Rajapakse
2005: 13).
As Kodikara (2012) points out, the conception of the family as
propagated by the Mahinda Chintana sees threats to the family as
essentially external, economic hardships and pressures, while it
is the primary responsibility of the woman to uphold and protect
the family. Thus, even while the Chintana refers to womens
empowerment, it is in fact circumscribed by womens roles as
child-rearers, managers of the family budget, and custodians of
domestic peace and harmony. Some of these provisions about the
family were reiterated in Mahinda Chintana 2010 and became the
regimes official national policy framework.
Budget speeches echo and re-entrench the sentiments about
the family expressed in Mahinda Chintana 2005 and 2010. For
instance:

31

Hon. Speaker, I stated the following in Mahinda

Chinthana - my work program. Blending all your thoughts,
develop man towards preserving the family, develop
family towards preserving the village, develop the village
towards preserving the country and develop the country
to win the world (2009: para 50, p. 27).
I also propose to allocate Rs.100 million to provide
financial grants to film producers and artists to make films
and teledramas promoting success stories of traditional
family values towards elders (2015: para 44.1, pp. 43-44).
It is important to underline that family in this discourse does
not simply describe the empirical reality of kinship or household
structures, but has specific ideological dimensions and meanings.
They hail women and men in particular ways towards and into
relationships that naturalize and universalize certain specific
relations or a particular set of kinship and household structures.
Typically these are patriarchal in nature and entail a sexual division
of labour wherein women are constructed as wives and mothers,
primarily responsible for child rearing and domestic labour - while
obscuring and legitimizing unequal power relationships within
those structures (Kapur and Cossman, 1996, p. 89).
The ranaviru or war-hero family and its welfare is a trope that also
recurs in a number of speeches (see for instance budget speeches
2009 and 2013). Post the end of war in 2009, the role of women
in these families is to enlarge these families. Thus women begin
to be constructed not merely as carers of the family but also as
reproducers of the nation. This trope finds expression in the
budget speeches in terms of rewards for families of military and
police personnel who have a third child. The 2011 budget speech
announced a reward of Rs. 100,000 for families of military
personnel who had a third child awarded and the 2012 budget
extended this to families of police personnel. The 2015 budget
speech extended this reward for a further three years. While no
research has been done on the impact of this on fertility rates
32

of women in these families, it would likely have left women,

especially from families who are poor, facing additional pressure
to have a third child. The explicit bias in favour of the expansion
of military families, overwhelmingly Sinhalese and largely rural or
peri-urban, may also be seen as targeted attempts at reproducing
both an ethnic and a political base.
Given that Sri Lankas family planning policy, which emphasized
that small families are like gold (Punchi pavula raththaran), can be
traced to the 1950s,1 and has been a model for other developing
countries, the question is whether these cash incentives represent
a major policy shift that would have the effect of reversing the gains
from Sri Lankas population policy with adverse implications for
other socio-economic rights of women and girls such as education,
health etc.

Motherhood and Nutrition

A number of speeches express pride in Sri Lankas record in
reducing maternal and infant mortality (2011, 2013), but many
bemoan the nutritional status of women/mothers and children,
and in particular, lactating and pregnant mothers. In fact in these
speeches nutrition and malnutrition among women, children, and
lactating mothers emerge as one of the most serious problems
facing women in Sri Lanka. While maternal health and nutrition
is universally recognised as a critical element of public and fiscal
policy, and Sri Lankas achievements in this regard are noteworthy
and welcome, this section is concerned with the repeated coupling
of women and children in talking about nutrition, the way the
problem of malnutrition is presented, and the political implications
of such couplings and constructions.
1

A government policy document in 1959 noted that rapid population growth was
a barrier to economic development and asked the question whether the course of
the birth rate could be influenced by a deliberate effort on the part of social policy,
which excludes at the same time all forms of compulsion? and answered it in the
affirmative (National Planning Council 1959, p. 16). Since then the government has
actively promoted and provided access to family planning. As a result fertility rates in
Sri Lanka fell from 5.32% in 1953 to 3.45% in 1981 and to 1.96 between 1995 -2000.
33

While the linkages between mother and child health bear

no belabouring, the Mahinda Chintana as well as the budget
speeches essentialise this coupling of women as mothers and child
nutrition. Such coupling of mothers and children then becomes
a key conduit for other development activities and the general
welfare of women and children: Lactating mothers and infants
of these families will be targeted for the Thriposha and such other
nutritional programs as well as for other development activities
through which the welfare of women and children will be taken
care of. (2012, para 14, pp. 6-7)
The foetal, infant and child nutrition paradigm is a key avenue
through which women are constructed as mothers and their role
in social reproduction is valorized. As Waggoner (2013:10) notes
this effectively forestalls a discussion about social investment in
womens health for women or investment in children for children.
When women and child health are thus implicated there is not
only a conflation of maternal health and womens health but also
of motherhood and womanhood. (Ibid.)
Another crucial aspect is that while women are seen as bearing
primary responsibility for child bearing and rearing, they figure as
ignorant or lacking in nutritional awareness. For instance:
Honourable Speaker, although we have implemented
many nutritional programs such as mid-day meals to
school children and nutritional food for expectant and
lactating mothers, it is reported that 33 percent of
children are underweight, in addition to many facets
of nutritional deficiencies in our country. This trend
is attributable to there being lack of awareness on
nutritional requirements and no attention being paid to
the nutritional values of food intakes. (2008: para 36, pp.
21-22)
The lack of awareness and attention responsibilises and
infantalises mothers and targets them for intervention. In none
of the budget speeches is there even a reference in this regard to
34

poverty or structural conditions that generate infant and child

malnutrition. The nutrition problem is framed essentially in terms
of ignorance and mal-consumption, which are reduced to personal
attributes or shortcomings rather than understood as socially
produced.
The speeches also display a preoccupation with pregnant and
lactating mothers. As classic subjects of welfare and state
benevolence, expectant and lactating mothers also underline
the larger social investment in pregnancy and motherhood. This
investment is deeply political for it contains within it echoes of
women as reproducers of the nation, and ideally, reproducers of a
healthy nation. It should be noted that Mahinda Chintana (2010)
goes further by referring not just to pregnant but to pre-pregnant
women:
Levels of malnutrition remain too high, particularly
in the poorest families and vulnerable groups. Hence,
nutritional levels of expectant mothers will be improved
through provision of knowledge on key practices to
promote good nutrition among pre-pregnant women
and during pregnancy and better targeting of food
supplementation. (p.153)
The Chintanas construction of pre-pregnant mothers is especially
telling as it reduces every woman to a mother-in-waiting.
Discussing the rise of the discourse on preconception care in the
United States, Waggoner (2013:11) notes that it was accompanied
by maternalismdefining womens needs or social and political
status in terms of their maternal status (Ibid: 10) - as a political
strategy. She argues that it set up a discourse of anticipatory
motherhood that sees pregnancy as inevitable and calls on
women to minimize health risks in anticipation, envisioning all
women as maternal bodies. (Ibid.) This is precisely the effect of
preconception care as it figures in the Chintanas construction of
motherhood and health.

35

Gender essentialism and generalized narratives of vulnerability and development

Another feature of budget speech in the period under review is the
constant meshing together of women with groups like children,
the elderly, or the disabledidentifying women as sharing a
generalized vulnerability to being weak and dependent. But
essentialising vulnerability apart, there is also gender essentialism
(Carpenter 2005) at play in the manner in which women are
constructed. For instance, the 2006 budget speech underlines the
importance of protecting provisions for Samurdhi, displaced
persons, disabled soldiers, pensioners, widows and orphans,
children, women and other vulnerable groups. (para 72, p. 20)
The broad brush of vulnerability simultaneously essentialises and
renders gender and women irrelevant in any specific way. Another
manifestation of this casual essentialism is the way women find
place in the most random orderings. Take for example the following
para in the 2008 budget speech:
Priority was given in this Budget to improve Sunday
school education, for broad base measures to eradicate
drug abuse and to promote religious harmony.
International Buddhist Centers and other places of
religious worship will be developed. Rs. 6,000 million
has been allocated under respective ministries to develop
sports and recreational facilities, youth affairs and skills
development, and to ensure the wellbeing of women and
children. (2008, pp. 10-11)
Women, tagged along with children, appear as an appendix in a
highly heterogeneous list of policy priorities that is lacking in any
specific gendered context. The lack of gendered contextualization
means women are merely inserted into budget speech. This
treatment is akin to tokenism rather than being included and their
entitlements or marginality by way of their gender identity being
recognised.

36

There is generally no disaggregation of the category women,

except as in the case of pregnant and lactating mothers or
widows. However, two perfunctory recognitions of difference
within women are spatial in their reference. These include, firstly,
a reference in the budget speech 2008 to the need for special
emphasis on both pregnant and lactating mothers and infants in
the eastern, estate areas as well as other difficult areas (2008:
para 36, pp21-22). A second occurs in 2009 in the context of a
reference to LTTE controlled areas in the North and East which
have been liberated and the need to look after the welfare of
innocent children, women, and youth living in such areas and to
rehabilitate LTTE members and make them useful citizens to the
society.(2009: para 46, pg 24 part II). A third refers to the need
to extend the Thriposha Programme targeting lactating mothers
and infants, as well as other development programmes, to women
and children living in the North and East who could not avail
themselves of such facilities due to the terrorist activities that
prevailed in such areas. (2012: para 14, pp. 6-7)
At the other end of this spectrum are generalized and uncontextualized references to achievements with respect womens
rights and gender equality. These appear as part of a broader set
of references that assert Sri Lankas global status as a developed
country, central to the governments preferred imagination of the
nation:
We are a proud nation that is not second to any
developed country, which respects fundamental rights,
human rights, rights of women, respect labour laws, laws
preventing the use of child labour, environmental laws,
gender equality, election and civil rights (2009: para 29,
p. 13 part I).
In this construction, progress on women rights and gender equality
are mere indicators marking Sri Lankas social development
and human rights record indeed the Sri Lankan government
has repeatedly mobilised certain indicators, especially womens
literacy, education, and access to health care, in support of this
37

claim. But not only do they function as indicators of where Sri

Lanka belongs in the community of nations but also serve to hail
women within the country in particular waysas fortunate and
privileged, calling on them to be proudly satisfied.

Women as reproducers of micro-financial capital and as

micro-entrepreneurs
Beginning 2006 there is a focus on women as targets of microfinance:
Microcredit facilities will also be directed towards women
entrepreneurs of Samurdhi families. (Budget Speech 2006, para
73, p. 20). Budget speeches for the years 2012, 2013, and 2014
also contain references to promoting womens microenterprises
through microfinance and related credit mechanisms. The stress
on women in the context of microfinance rehearses the now
well-recognised imputing of micro-financial subjectivity on to
women underlying which are gendered constructions of risk,
responsibility, and autonomy (Maclean, 2012).
The privileging of womens access to loan capital is premised on
their assumed sense of responsibility and the social collateral
that comes from microfinance group-based lending and womens
greater vulnerability to social pressures and likelihood of
compliance. Financial autonomy and independence are thus, in
fact, not only based on gendered expectations of conformity but
are also circumscribed or legitimised by their ultimate goals being
tied to familial ideology: A large number of women are engaged
in successful microenterprises involving a wide range of high
quality products while generating a good source of family income
and creating employment opportunities for our people. (Budget
Speech 2014, para 19, p. 12)
Womens income is assumed to be familial in character, just
like their enterprises. Indeed virtually all references to women
entrepreneurs in the speeches occur in relation to rural, household,
small, or micro enterprises. But womens enterprises also have a
particular character. For instance, the 2011 budget speech notes:
38

Hon. Speaker, the global demand for flowers, ornamental plants

and foliage is growing rapidly. This sector can be an attractive
employment source for women and youth. (para 63, p. 22)
Similarly, the 2012 budget speech refers approvingly to a woman
dairy-farmer. Womens enterprises in these budget speeches have
certain specific characteristics: relatively low levels of capital
investment, small scale of production, and the nature of produce
being primarily non-factory and natural resource based. These
enterprises are seen as ideal types with returns envisaged as being
ploughed into familial needs.

Women as Victims of Violence

The speeches for the 2014 and 2015 budgets include a substantial
discussion on violence against women and strengthening law
enforcement responses, including expansion of Women and
Childrens Bureau Desks in police stations and provision of safe
houses. While this may appear to be a disruption in the narrative
of familial ideology, the 2014 Budget Speech, from the very outset,
makes it clear that it is not so:
Honourable Speaker, it is disappointing to note that our
value-based society, nurtured with religion, culture and
traditions, has to witness child abuse and violence against
women. (2014, para 22.1, p.13).
In other words, violence against women and childrenagain
clubbed togetheris external to culture and tradition rather
than arising from within. Its construction as an aberration in the
otherwise harmonious social and familial milieu in fact further
emphasises familial ideology. But the discourse on violence is
also tied into other threats from other external influences and
weaknesses in traditional institutions. The 2012 budget speech
notes:

39

Parents as well as teachers should pay greater attention

to ensure that children are protected from child abuse,
molesting, and other antisocial activities that take place
with the aid of the internet, mobile telephones, and
computers. We need to extend aid to religious places
at Divisional Secretariat level, to broaden religious
education. Hence, I propose to allocate Rs. 150 million
to strengthen and expand educational programs being
conducted by such institutions for the benefit of children
and women, and to assist preschools and Daham Schools,
under the close scrutiny of the District Secretaries.
(para15, p. 7)
Here, modern communication modes, technologies, and devices
are seen as aiding and abetting in violence against children and
womenthe latter more implicitand in antisocial activities,
which remain undefined. The solution presented is strengthening
traditional religious institutions and their interventions, such as
Daham Schools, that target children and women. The inclusion
of women here is significant because it comes specifically in the
context of bolstering the capacities of these deeply patriarchal
traditional institutions for exercising social control through
education.
The importance of such social controls, especially to maintain
familial structures that may be challenged by domestic violence
against women, is also highlighted in other ways. For instance,
the budget speech 2014 notes the importance of promoting
volunteers to be engaged in family counseling (para 22.1, p.13)
to address questions of child abuse and violence against women.
The idea of family counseling is reiterated in the 2015 budget
speech as well, in terms of engaging retired public servants in
family counseling (para 45, p. 44).
The promotion of counseling in the two budget speeches is in
fact quite revealing; more than any specific fiscal commitments
they appear as important correctives to leaving violence against
women in the hands of law enforcement. Indeed this preference
40

for counseling must be seen in the light of President Rajapakses

strong aversion to enforcing the Prevention of Domestic Violence
Act (PDVA). As Kodikara (2012) notes, he had in fact repeatedly
questioned the need for it, and expressed concerns not only over its
use but also over the dangers to the family from intervention and
interference of the legal or law enforcement in domestic disputes.
At a Womens Day celebration in his constituency, Hambantota, in
2010, he said:
Some laws from the west have been introduced in Sri
Lanka. At first glance they seem very attractive. But
Sri Lankan women occupy a high status based on our
culture which is 2500 years old. . . and under current legal
regulations, our cultural values are being weakened, while
the legal bond has been strengthened.
. . . There is a saying in our culture that domestic violence
is only until the rice is cooked. When two people who
are different to each other live together under one roof
there will be problems. These problems most often will
only be until the rice is cooked. Sometimes they may last
longer and be reported to the police. According to the
existing law, the police now have to file a case in court.
Then the husband is not allowed to enter his own home.
Then the rice may get cooked, but the parties have gone to
court to file for divorce . . . we end up unable to reconcile
the husband and wife. We are now complicit in their
separation . . . 2
This then begs the question regarding these references to ending
violence against women in these two consecutive budget speeches.
Alongside the ambivalence and suspicion regarding the imposition
of the law on to the realm of gender relations sit significant
allocations in 2014 and 2015 towards physical infrastructure for
support services such as Women and Children Desks in Police
Stations, shelters, and so on. The latter most likely reflects
expenditure committed to funds provided by the United Nations,
2. Lankadeepa, 10th March 2010: 5.
41

and are not exactly inimical to maintaining familial ideology

because they are already largely domesticated by it.

Conclusion
This paper has sought to demystify the ways in which women
are talked about and womens issues are represented in budget
speeches, taking into account the broader presidential discourse
on women and gender in Sri Lanka during the period 2005-2014.
Indeed, the speeches in the period reviewed here are especially
significant because the finance minister was none other than
the President himself. It is the density of meanings rather than
the actual semantic traces or frequency of references that render
budget speeches significant as discourse.
Looking at budget speech during this period, womens fiscal
entitlements emerge as being tied into multiple frameworks
of burden and responsibility. These include motherhood;
safeguarding children, family and society; reproducing the nation,
and micro-capital accumulation. The construction of women in Sri
Lankas fiscal policy discourse as embodied in the budget speeches
under review is driven by a broader paternalism underpinned by
authoritarian or benevolent neoliberal capitalism under the aegis
of a patriarchal and pastoral state that valorises family values
and traditional gender roles. Women are cast primarily in terms
as consumers of protection, social reproducers of care or microfinancial capital, and trustees of household capital.
Drawing from Bacchi (2012), we may describe the discursive
strategy at play in these budget speeches as resembling a dividing
practice in the Foucauldian sense of the term: a practice that
sets groups of people against each other in ways that facilitate
governing of the majority and which leave the subject divided
inside herself. (Ibid:148-149). Moreover, women are positioned
as passive, with things being 'done' to them in order to 'make'
them 'goals of action' but not 'agents of action' (Fairclough, 1993
p. 181 in Jones 2010).
42

References
Bacchi, Carol. (2000). Policy as Discourse: What does it mean?
Where does it get us?, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of
Education, 21(1), 45-57.
Bacchi, Carol. (2012). Strategic interventions and ontological
politics: Research as political practice in Angelique Bletsas and
Christine Beasley (eds.) Engaging with Carol Bacchi: Strategic
Interventions and Exchanges, Univ. of Adelaide Press.
Bacchi, Carol and Eveline, Joan. (2010). Introduction. In
Mainstreaming Politics: Gendering Practices and Feminist Theory,
ed. Carol Bachchi and Joan Eveline, 1-16. Adelaide: University of
Adelaide Press.
Carpenter, Charli. (2005). Women, Children and Other Vulnerable
Groups: Gender, Strategic Frames and the Protection of Civilians
as a Transnational Issue, International Studies Quarterly, 49(2),
295-334.
Dutil, Patrice ed. (2011). The Guardian: Perspectives on the Ontario
Ministry of Finance, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Gill, Zo. (2012). Located Subjects: The daily lives of policy
workers in Angelique Bletsas and Christine Beasley (eds.) Engaging
with Carol Bacchi: Strategic Interventions and Exchanges, Univ. of
Adelaide Press.
Jones, Sally. (2012). Gendered Discourses of Entrepreneurship in
HE: The Fictive Entrepreneur and the Fictive Student, available at
www.isbe.org.uk/content/assets/Best_Conference _Paper-_Sally_
Jones.pdf retrieved 25 October 2015.
Kapur, Ratna and Brenda Cossman. (1996). Subversive Sites:
Feminist Engagements with Law in India. New Delhi: Sage
Publications.
Kodikara, Chulani. (2012). Only Until the Rice is Cooked?
The Domestic Violence Act, Familial Ideology and Cultural Narratives
in Sri Lanka. Working Paper No. 1, Colombo: International Centre
for Ethnic Studies.
43

Kodikara, Chulani. (2014). The Good Women and Bad Women

of the Post War Nation in Groundviews, 22 April 2014, http://
groundviews.org/2014/05/22/good-women-and-bad-women-ofthe-post-war-nation/
Maclean, Kate. (2013). Gender, Risk and Micro-financial
Subjectivities, Antipode, 45(2), 455473.
Mahinda Chintana (2005)
Mahinda Chintana: Vision for the Future (2010). The Development
Policy Framework, Government of Sri Lanka, Department of
National Planning, Ministry of Finance and Planning
Miller, Peter and Nicolas, Rose. (1993). Governing Economic Life,
In Mike Gane and Terry Johnson (eds) Foucaults New Domains,
London and New York: Routledge.
Moghadam, Val. (1999). Gender, National Identity and Citizenship:
Reflections on the Middle East and North Africa, Comparative
Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Spring 1999 19(1),
137-157.
van Dijk,Teun A. (1993) Elite Discourse and Racism. Newbury Park,
CA: SAGE.
Waggoner, Miranda. (2013). Motherhood Preconceived: The
Emergence of the Preconception Health and Health Care
Initiative, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 38(2),
345371.

44

Chapter 3

Women Men and War Talk:

The Gendered Nature of Parliamentary
Speech on the War
Farzana Haniffa and Kumudini Samuel

n the aftermath of the presidential elections of 2005, President

Mahinda Rajapaksa after some perfunctory attempts at
engaging the LTTE in talks reversed the previous governments
policy of negotiations and pursued the military option. The
first large-scale event that brought the war into focus after an
uneasy hiatus of 4 years was the incident of Mavil Aaru in July
2006, where the issue was about the closing of the anicut and
the control of access to water. In a bid to regain access to Mavil
Aaru the State commenced a series of aerial attacks against the
LTTE and thus began what was to become the final phase of the
war. The war effort was successful in repelling the LTTE and in
2007, the eastern province was cleared of LTTE presence. In
the years following the Mavil Aaru incident the Sri Lankan State,
under the leadership of Defense Secretary Ghotabaya Rajapaksa
and General Sarath Fonseka, escalated the war effort to defeat
the LTTE militarily in the north as well. While many observers
were skeptical about whether this would in fact happen, the LTTE
45

began to suffer significant defeats with the capture of Silawaturai

in September 2007. In 2009, the military won the war through a
push that included mobilizing massive numbers of ground troops
as well as through aerial bombardment of the north specifically
Kilinochchi and Mullaithivu the LTTEs strongholds.
This study looks at parliamentary speech on the war during the
period when the regime was committed to the military defeat of
the LTTE, and was also engaged in ideologically framing both the
need for such a war and the inevitability of a military solution.

Gendered nature of the discourse on war

Using Cynthia Enloes work on the gendered nature of militarism,
this paper will argue that debates on the war are inevitably
informed by a specific understanding of the roles of men and
women. Enloe (2004) notes that the participation of men in armies
and militias requires that socially sanctioned ideas of maleness
become associated with militarism. (108)
As Enloe states:
Militarization of ethnic nationalism often depends on
persuading individual men that their own manhood will
be fully validated only if they perform as soldiers, either
in the states military, or in insurgent autonomous or
quasi-autonomous forces. (108)
Enloe also points out that the maintenance of such ideals requires
supplementary definitions of femaleness that complement the
idea of the male combatant together with the institutionalized
compulsion to perform such manhood. (109) As the war effort
was promoted and justified by the State, the Sri Lankan media,
both private media and State run institutions cinema and
TV advertising came together in endorsing and valourising
militarized masculinity. (De Mel 2007, Kahandagama 2015). The
presence of ideals of manliness and womanliness that are inflected
46

with militarism in parliamentary discourse as well is therefore

unsurprising.
In analyzing the gendered nature of parliamentary speech on
the war, we have looked at the debates on extending the State of
Emergency where the justification for the extension is provided
on the grounds of public security. We looked at the debates on the
State of Emergency that took place in late 2008 and 2009 when the
military intervention in the north was escalating and the defeat of
the LTTE seemed imminent. Understanding the hawkish rhetoric
and language used at that time requires referencing the mood in
the Sinhala speaking areas of the country that was fashioned by
media interventions in support of the war (see below).
The war itself was fought away from any possible independent
monitoring. In September 2008 as the final push into the Vanni
was undertaken, the government required all UN agencies,
humanitarian and human rights organisations, to leave the Vanni,
citing security considerations. Access to the Vanni was also
prohibited to national and international civil society organisations
as well as the media, and so the war was fought with the national
media embedded with the troops and official information provided
via the website of the Ministry of Defence, which became the go
to site and sole arbiter of war news. As a consequence the actual
situation in the Vanni was unknown. The final push into the Vanni,
particularly Kilinochchi and then Mullaithivu was also conducted
under extraordinary powers conferred on the State by Emergency
Regulations under the Public Security Ordinance, renewed each
month in parliament. A few international humanitarian agencies
such as the ICRC and Medicines Sans Frontiers had limited access
to the Vanni. But national and international CSOs and media
personnel were prohibited from the area and whatever information
filtered out was through the small number of civilians who were
evacuated and through medical and humanitarian workers from
within the Vanni who were able to leave. Both State forces and the
LTTE were culpable of humanitarian and human rights violations
and civilians were trapped between the LTTE and the Military in
the war zone that kept shrinking as State troops advanced into
47

the Vanni. The war was critiqued by members of the opposition

and MPs of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) who spoke of the
destruction and deaths of civilians. International human rights
agencies such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch
as well as international humanitarian agencies such as the ICRC
and MSF did make statements and put out reports and appeals
for safe passage to civilians, and called for a no fire zone and
a humanitarian corridor that would allow civilians trapped in
the Vanni safe passage out of the war zone. This information
(considered credible despite restrictions of access) was available
to parliamentarians and the general public. However, no MPs,
whether from the government or the opposition supporting the
war effort, appeared to know of the reports, or if they did, failed
to acknowledge any information other than that which was made
public by the government.
The mention of women in the parliamentary debates about the
war was minimal and when there was a reference it was part of a
care discourse where women were cast in the role of either victim
or dependent. However, we noted the use of many sexualized
and gendered metaphors referencing the war, and therefore will
comment on the manner in which the language and tropes used in
such instances actually rendered womens voices and perspectives
absent in the debate even when the content alluded to women.
We also looked at the mention of the war in speeches where the
topic of discussion was the Ministry of Child Development and
Womens Affairs. Here we noted the most sustained discussion
about the effects of war on women and also the interventions
required of the State to alleviate the gendered repercussions of the
war on women. However, what was also clear was the marginal
place of the Ministry of Child Development and Womens Affairs in
the entire edifice of government intervention, and a question that
begs reflection is to what extent the existence of such a Ministry
continues to ghettoize State engagement with womens concerns;
more on that later.

48

War time war talk: The Analysis

This section of the paper looks at the manner in which
parliamentarians of the regime in power glorified the victory that
seemed imminent and exhibited an appalling lack of sensitivity to
the cost of the war on civilians and communities.
Achala Jagoda, MP, Hansard, 4 March 2009, column 2357:
Today many powerful countries in the world are being
defeated in the face of terrorism. While many powerful
nations are brought to their knees by terrorism, the army
of our little country, this little government (me punchi
rata, me punchi aanduwa), and the people of this country,
have been capable of establishing the record for defeating
terrorism. Before this, we all know that those who
established records in this country were either cricketers
or athletes. We have also established records in cinema
and have brought great acclaim. Today for the first time
our military has confronted the worlds most fearsome
terrorist organization, and has brought them to the brink
of defeat and has become an example to the entire world.
In 2011 the military began to organize an annual international
defense conference to celebrate the international attention it was
receiving as one of the worlds only military groups to successfully
defeat terrorism. MP Jagoda was therefore only anticipating
and perhaps prefiguring what was to occur. What is of most
importance in the MPs statement is the absence of attention
to the consequences of the war. The MPs valourisation of the
militarys activity, and the absence of any reference to the death
and destruction that the military campaign was causing, mirrored
the public discourse espoused by the regime and cultivated by
the news coverage of the wars final months. In the absence of
any independent access to the Vanni by the media, the State
carefully orchestrated visits into the war zone for some journalists
sympathetic to the war effort. In the coverage by both the State
owned Rupavahini and other media channels, reporters were seen
49

travelling with the military and were sometimes shown dressed in

military regalia including helmets, flak jackets, and, on occasion,
full military uniform. The euphoric rhetoric through which each
phase of the war was presented, the lack of any visuals of the dead,
the dying, and those who were injured or had lost limbs, sanitized
the war for the southern Sinhala public. Imagery of Tamil civilians
in the news coverage was often limited to elderly people being
rescued by military personnel or malnourished children being
treated by military doctors. Here the military and its care-giving
role are emphasized while destruction is masked by the talk of
victory. The television media coverage of the fighting limited itself
to blurry images of soldiers shooting at an invisible enemy, and
later, of relaxed military personnel showing buildings, bunkers,
and exotic military equipment like underwater scooters abandoned
by the fleeing LTTE. No deaths of civilians were ever shown or
mentioned.1 The victory celebrations in the south then were
conducted with an absence of knowledge about the destruction that
was also being inflicted. Similarly parliamentary speech absented
the death and destruction, the loss of life and limb, which was a
consequence of war. Furthermore, within a global context, where
Sri Lanka seemed to be constantly playing catch-up to discourses
of modernity and economic success, the country was achieving
global prominence through the unexpected route of showcasing
military prowess. The nature of this celebration where victory
is compared to cricket and cinema, and where stories of massive
suffering, destruction of property, and the death of civilians
and combatants, both State and LTTE, is silenced speaks to an
attempt to render war not as a horrific exception but as part of the
normal everyday. We won at cricket and now we win at war. War
is made to be like cricket where the stakes are not lives and limbs
but big money, glamour, statistics, and global renown.
1. There was one instance of a Sinhala speaking Tamil woman who was interviewed
almost immediately after she emerged from a waterway as one who was escaping
the LTTE. She spoke first of how grateful she was for being rescued and later, broke
down crying that everyone who was lying dead - the dead that she encountered on the
streets - should also be rescued.
50

The Hansards, representing the perspectives of all those elected

to parliament, reflect the existence of more than one discourse
regarding the effects of those final months of the war. There is
a corrective to the images produced by both the media and the
militaristic MPs in the speeches of representatives from the
North and East. On 5th May 2009, MP R. Sampanthan, leader
of the TNA, read out entire sections of the 2009 Human Rights
Watch report on civilian casualties, in parliament. As early as 21st
January 2009, Sampanthan called on the government to stop
the attacks of civilians and warned that he would approach the
international community if these attacks continued. On Tuesday
12th May 2009, just one week before the official end of the
war, the TNA called a press conference at which it accused the
government of committing genocide against the Tamils, stating
that 3000 Tamils had been killed and more than 1000 wounded in
the preceding three days. At this press conference the TNA called
on the international community to stop the systematic slaughter
of civilians.2 While another side of the war story was available in
parliament due to the representative nature of the institution, a
similar story did not emerge in the media.
Rohitha Abeygunewardena, MP, Hansard, 5 May 2009, column
1720:
This story was published in the Lakbima newspaper the
other day. A man tried to bring his wife who was seven
months pregnant into the army controlled areas from the
no-fire zone (yuda muktha kalapaya). While they were on
their way the person who calls himself your leader, Velupillai
Pirapaharan, his followers (sagayan), do you know what
they did? They shot that woman who was seven months
pregnant! We are not telling these stories after listening to
some people like you used to accuse us of doing. That poor
Tamil father told us himself while crying for his wife. He
is cursing them. While cursing Velupillai Pirapaharan he
is cursing everyone who has helped and associated with
Velupillai Pirapaharan. If there is anyone else who has
2. http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=29349
51

helped them to perpetrate these crimes they too will feel

the force of his curses, we heard that father saying that.
The representations in parliament, that the government forces
were committing crimes, were being countered by stories of
atrocities committed by the LTTE. In choosing such atrocities for
portrayal, the ample evidence of the LTTEs excesses are mobilized.
This narrative seeks to establish the need for such a war, and stories
about womens bodies and women as victims are mobilized in the
narrative towards establishing this need. As Kahandagama has
discussed, in the case of mainstream cinema as well, the Sinhala
soldier is portrayed as a masculine figure that protects the body
of the pregnant woman. The militarized masculinity of the LTTE
is famed only for its destruction of such pregnant female bodies.
This trope that first emerged after the 1991 Gonagala massacre
where several pregnant women were among those killed by the
LTTE - surfaces once more with the bomb attack against General
Sarath Fonseka in 2006, where the attacker masqueraded as a
pregnant woman. The trope was mobilized in the Sinhala cinema
(In the 2008 film Prabhakaran) to great effect and emerges in the
parliamentary speeches as well. The perception of the LTTEs lack
of respect for pregnant female bodies was used to establish their
lack of humanity. The military in the meanwhile was presented
as being engaged in a Maanushika Meheyuma or a humanitarian
action to liberate the Tamil people from the inhumanity of the
LTTE. Valourising the pregnant female body as the ultimate object
of regard, sanctity, protection, and the repository of our humanity,
leads the militaristic discourse to define women by their biology
and reify their position as mothers or as imminent mothers.
Pregnant women become the ultimate object of societys honor
and protection. It is not then clear if equal regard is placed on
women who are not pregnant, cannot be pregnant, or choose not
to be pregnant. Additionally mothers who are rendered destitute
when husbands are killed, mothers who, regardless of their status
as mothers, may be subjected to sexual violence, women who are
compelled to maintain care networks in the absence of men and the
52

problems they may face, are not seen as important. The questions
follow, what is the status of the humanity of women in general in a
context where the body of the pregnant woman is thus valourised?
What is the status of the humanity of other people? Further, while
protecting the pregnant female body is treated as the ultimate index
of our humanity, the series of care giving and socializing functions
that women are compelled to carry out and that are rendered
highly volatile in a time of war are again not considered. In this
celebration of a particular masculinity the 89,000 war widows who
are to be found in the Northern and Eastern provinces alone are
not referenced. Assertions about the sanctity of the female body
are especially distressing when thought about in the post-war era
where reports have drawn attention to war-time sexual violence
by the State security forces.3 What is clearest in this discourse is
that narratives about womens bodies reproductive function are
instrumentalized to justify the war and to venerate a particular
form of military masculinity. Unfortunately there is little concern
expressed about the myriad other ways in which women suffer
during and after war.4
The next example of parliamentary discourse speaks further to the
manner in which women are seen from a perspective of victimhood
or dependency. This more benign example is a response by
3. The Human Right Watch Report of February 2013 claims rapes of both men and
women in detention. https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/02/26/we-will-teach-youlesson/sexual-violence-against-tamils-sri-lankan-security-forces. For a perspective
that critiques Tamil nationalists preoccupation with womens bodies, and specifically,
of Tamil womens experience of rape see Sivamohan Sumathy, Territorial Claims,
Home, Land and Movement: womens history of violence and resistance of the war
years in Sri Lankas north.(forthcoming from Zuban)
4. Several years after the war ended in 2009, parliamentarians were able to acknowledge
the 89,000 widows and the general cost of the war, but this acknowledgement was
delivered in a tone that indicated a new discovery and not as describing an issue that
was present throughout the war.

For instance government MP Sriyani Wijewickrema had the following to say:

I went to Thirukkpovil on a fact-finding mission and met a large group of widows.
I met one mother. She had lost her husband and each one of her four children
to the war. What is the condition of these women? What is their psychological
state? Regardless of who was right or wrong this is the final result. Therefore
there is this massive problem, especially in the north and east of our country.
We have to pay special attention to this problem.

Sriyani Wijewickrema Hansard November 22nd 2012. Column 643

53

Tissa Karalliyadde who was then Minister of Womens Affairs (as

well as Child Development) to questions by MP Anoma Gamage.
The Question:
(a) Will he inform this House
(i) separately, on district basis, the number of widows in the
Eastern Province, whose husbands lost their lives while
serving in the three armed forces: the Police, the Police
Special Task Force and the Civil Security Service;
(ii) the welfare services that have been implemented by the
Government for the benefit of the aforesaid widows;
(iii) the welfare services that have been implemented by the
Government for the benefit of their children?
(b) If not, why?
Tissa Karalliyadde provided a list of services that the state offered
to roughly 750 widows in the eastern province with a district break
down.
The list of services provided is illuminating, mostly, of the manner
in which those who are understood as making the supreme sacrifice
for the sake of the nation - the war heroes - are posthumously
valourised through the services provided to their dependents.
Compensation is framed with the assumption that the woman/
wife is a dependent whose dependency ends only at the point
of remarriage. If the spouse of the dead soldier remarries, she is
entitled to 75 % of the salary for ten years after the soldiers death.
It is assumed that the woman will have a change of status after she
remarries and an additional source of financial support, assuming
that any male will inevitably be a bread-winner. While the granting
of 75% of the soldiers salary for ten years is some concession, it
is unclear as to how loss, and therefore compensation, is defined.
This compensation mechanism references the role of the male in
the family as both the breadwinner in a nuclear family and also the
54

support system for the parents. Women are framed in this discourse
as dependents and victims who run households in the absence of
the men, and as therefore deserving both the compensation and
the services of the state in order to ensure that the household
would not be affected by the death of the soldier. Again the role for
the women is assumed to be one that accommodates the absent
male required for military service.
Karaliyaddas point of reference is only framed by the war, its
needs, and its victory. His point of departure vis a vis women,
parents, and family is also framed in terms of the needs of the
victorious soldier. Even the soldier is couched in terms of his
role as a hero, a victor, a part of a triumph. He too is completely
objectified and has no identity other than that which is linked to
victory and heroism. The woman is only considered because she is
the wife and the wife of the victorious soldier or the rana viruwa,
since the soldier is objectified as the hero. He does not exist
outside this framing.
In this framing widows and children are given special consideration
when accessing State resources. There are substantial interventions
in the area of education for children. For the women, there
are psychosocial and legal services. There is assistance to
build houses. Land is given to those who do not have land and
assistance for building is also provided. Rhetorically at least, the
State is committed institutionally to maintain the gender order
that permits men to enter the military and for women to be the
caregivers in the household. The State rhetoric commits to taking
on the role of the provider in the absence of the soldier/head of
household/breadwinner. However, while the assumption behind
the discourse is one of pastoral care, whether in practice such care
does efficiently manifest itself remains a question. As MP Rosy
Senanayake pointed out, in parliament, in relation to the budget
of the Ministry of Child Development and Womens Affairs, the
budget allocated for the enhancement of the economy of womenheaded households addressed the needs of only 1,700 such women.
Senanayake stated that there are 89,000 war widows in the North
and 30,000 in the south. (Hansard, 22 November, 2012).
55

Another example of the manner in which stories about women

inform war talk relates to stereotyped, derogatory, and sexist
perceptions about women that are mobilized to make points
having nothing to do with women. Criticising those who said that
defeating the LTTE through military means is not going to be the
end of the ideology of separatism, MP Wimal Weerawansa stated
the following:
Hon. Deputy Speaker, I want to relate the following story
of the village. This is a story from the oral traditions of
the village folk. Once there was a young village girl. She
used to live at home and spend her time in contemplation.
While thus occupied she thought, I am going to be
married in a little while. I will be going with Sirimal Aiyya
who is the person I hope to marry to a new home. We
will live together in the new house. After some time I
will have a child. The child will be a son. But, oh, after a
few days the child will die! Thinking thus the young girl
starts to weep. This young girl is not even married. The
mother asked the young girl why are you crying, child?
The girl replies My mother, I got married, I then moved
to another house with my husband, I then had a child,
and then I imagined that the child died. That is why I
am crying. Now in relation to this (the war) there are
persons who are thinking of various things and trying to
find reasons to cry. (Wimal Weeravansa, MP, Hansard 9
September 2008, column 153)
Here, those who are trying to argue against a military solution to
the conflict are seen as similar to a village girl crying for a loss
that she has not even experienced. The use of the foolish village
girl metaphor is firstly an act of dismissal of the ideas of MPs
mostly men who are attempting to argue against the military
action. The fact that tropes featuring women are the choicest
insults against oppositional ideas speaks to the masculinist
nature of parliamentary discourse on the war and the fact that
emasculation is thereby the form that criticism often takes. The
56

offensive caricature of the stupid village woman is mobilized as an

insult to parliamentary opposition mostly represented by men.
The fact that it is an insult to woman as well and should ideally be
considered unparliamentary is rarely acknowledged. It seeks to
make the male MP opposing the war look ridiculous, but the fact
that at the same time it is belittling women is not acknowledged.
Sexualised metaphors to reference the war and women are also
deployed often in the course of parliamentary commentary on
the war. MP K. D. Lalkantha accuses the government of avoiding
socioeconomic and political problems under the cover of war.
He says, By showing the war and praising the war they [the
government] are avoiding the other problems that exist in society:
the other social, economic, and political problems. (Hansard,
9 September 2008, column 132). In this comment, Lalkantha
equates the war to a redde (cloth) which he says is used as a cloak
or a cover under which the government hides, or seeks not to
address other socioeconomic and political problems. The metaphor
redde in this context is a reference to, and play on, its use in
common Sinhala language parlance as a cover under which nudity
is concealed. In a more sexualized connotation the word redde is
also used to refer to the cover under which sexual intercourse or
sexual play occurs. He continues to use this term and the meaning
inscribed in it of sex and sexual frolic throughout his intervention,
and explicitly states that he prefers the word redde, and thereby
the sexual connotations associated with it, to the more appropriate
term Kadathurawa or screen, which he could have more neutrally
employed to refer to the war. In the sexualized interplay with the
word redde he refers to it in its inscribed meaning of pleasure and
sexual play (which is the war) that is enjoyed by the government.
He continues the interplay with the sexualized implications of
the word redde referring to the beautiful woman people assume
might lie hidden under it. Here the war and the potential victory
are compared to a woman of beauty and to the honda wada or the
pleasure that is derived from the war (by the government), and
the war/beautiful woman is hidden by the redde. Twisting the
metaphor yet again he claims that the people are not prepared or
57

ready to move the redde a bit and see what is actually concealed
under it.
He says:
They have made the war into the cloth (redde) better to
call it a cloth than a Kadathurawa (screen) - by saying that
the war exists under the cloth, that there is something
good going on under the cloth, and that the government
wants to get on with whatever they are doing. There is no
point in blaming the government for that. That is what a
government is like. The people are not yet in a position
to raise the cloth and actually see if there is something
going on under the cloth that matches what is being
praised and glorified. People are not yet ready to do that.
They are saying that there is a beautiful woman under
the cloth. But nobody is ready to move the cloth a little
bit and actually see if this is true. Now it is time to move
the cloth a little bit and look underneath. What is the
situation in the country now? No one is looking at that.
When they say that they are going to capture Kilinochchi
tomorrow, that they are capturing it the day after, that is
what is being accepted. (K. D. Lalkantha, MP, Hansard 9
September 2008, column 132)
The MP does not hesitate to use sexist and sexualized rhetoric to
express his critique of the war, playing on references to illicit sex,
a voyeuristic titillation of it, and the woman who is the provider
of that sex.
There was no criticism directed either by male or female MPs
to the nature of the language used by K. D. Lalkantha or Wimal
Weerawansa.

58

So what does all of this ultimately speak to?

The confluence of media discourse masking the wars brutality, and
parliamentary discourse regarding the records we were breaking
due to the war, helped hide this brutality of the war, sanitized
the manner in which it was carried out, and helped normalize it
like cricket as something only to be applauded, valorized, and
celebrated.
The militarism of the war cultivated an idea of combative
masculinity and a femininity that was accommodative of the
absence of soldiers from families, and provided justifications for
war through a discourse of necessary protection. The language
used to valourise, explain, and justify the war consistently
instrumentalised women (depicted only in their reproductive role)
in the description of good and bad male actions. This depiction
paid little attention to womens far broader lived experiences of
suffering and marginalization due to the war. This description
about protecting pregnant women illustrated the irrelevance of
more grounded concerns regarding women to what was essentially
a male discourse. Furthermore, the use of derogatory and
sexualized tropes about women and references to heterosexual sex
to frame criticism and opposition was evident in speeches by those
in and outside parliament. These speech acts underline both the
preponderance of males in parliament (an established fact) as well
as the manner in which parliamentarians talked to one another,
regardless of the presence of women.

59

References
de Mel, Neloufer. (2007). Militarizing Sri Lanka: Popular
Culture Memory and narrative in the armed conflict.
Los Angeles: Sage.
Kahandagama, Anushka. (2015). Depictions of Masculinity in
Sri Lankan Sinhala Cinema. (MA dissertation). Department of
Sociology, University of Colombo.
Enloe, Cynthia. (2004). The Curious Feminist: Searching for
Women in a New Age of Empire. Berkeley: University of California
Press.

60

Chapter 4

Breast Milk and the Sari:

Conceptualisations of Womens Issues
in Parliament
Shermal Wijewardene and Pradeep Peiris

Introduction

n this chapter, we focus on how the former Minister of Child

Development and Womens Affairs, Mr Tissa Karalliyadde,
instantiated certain ways of talking about women and their
issues during his tenure from 2010-2014. The former Ministers
appointment took place at a particular juncture when the issue of
the historically low political representation of women in Sri Lankas
Parliament, which has long been a concern for womens groups and
civil society, was being raised in Parliament by Opposition MPs.
The appointment of a male Minister of Womens Affairs seemed
to be a case of rubbing salt in the wound. However, this should
not be reduced to a case of bizarre political insensitivity. In fact,
the appointment of the Minister raises a very significant issue
about the discourse of womens political representation, because
61

it invites us to think consciously of the relationship between the

person who represents womens concerns and what is represented
in the name of womens concerns.
The topic of womens political representation is mapped by
distinct theorisations of the nature of representation. Scholars
understand that while representation is conceptualised as formal,
descriptive, substantive and symbolic, what feminists are most
interested in are the substantive and descriptive dimensions and
how they are connected (Celis et al, 2008, p. 99). One way in which
this relationship is theorised is a questioning of how descriptive
representation, which is said to stand for an investment in seeing
more women in politics, is in alignment with the goals of giving
voice to womens issues, which is substantive representation (Celis
et al, 2008). Given the low percentage of womens representation in
political institutions at all levels, Pradeshiya Sabha, urban councils
and provincial councils, and Parliament, the priority for feminists
on this issue has consistently been to call for the nomination and
appointment of more women in legislative bodies. We recognise
the importance of striving for descriptive representation and
the need to redress the historically unequal status of women in
terms of political participation. Our paper attempts to support
and contribute to this trajectory by arguing that descriptive
representation throws into relief the need to understand how
womens concerns are substantively represented.
When former Minister Karaliyadda was appointed as Minister of
Child Development and Womens Affairs in 2010, parliamentarians
were forced to consider an issue that had been previously taken for
granted - the question of who can and should represent womens
concerns in Parliament. On a number of occasions during debates,
the former Minister was challenged on what qualifications he
had for the job. Interestingly, in defending his appointment,
Mr. Karaliyaddas interventions inadvertently highlighted the
lack of a critical discourse about how womens concerns are
represented in Parliament. He himself initiated a discourse on the
relationship between descriptive and substantive representation,
62

which invited a shift in focus from the gender of the person

representing womens concerns to how that person represents
womens concerns. We took this seriously as an invitation to
examine how womens issues have been recognised and framed
by the former Ministers interventions, with the understanding
that Parliamentary discourse on a particular portfolio defines the
ideological parameters on that subject. We consider that what is
said about women in relation to the portfolio of Womens Affairs
has ideological force because it goes towards defining the contours
of policies which in turn have a serious bearing on the status of
women.
We take a discourse analysis approach from the position that
parliamentary speech is not just communication in any selfevident sense, but reflects a specific ordering of language and
signification within a social institution, and is underpinned by
an institutional basis of power. The corpus for our study consists
of 58 Hansards which record the former Ministers interventions
during his tenure from 2010 to 2014. The interventions were
made in Sinhala which we translated into English, and they can be
characterised as speeches on the budget, on his Ministrys budget
and programmes, responses to questions posed by Opposition
MPs, and more general contributions.
We identified his discourse and his discursive strategies from
analysing three main areas of focus: welfare, violence, and political
representation. By looking at how he talks about these issues, we
see how he constructs certain discursive strands on each debate,
touching on the nodes of development, culture, rights, and the
politics of gender. The former Minister speaks in two voices - the
Ministrys official position and his own personal ideology - and
both voices are important because they discursively construct how
the subject women gets discussed.

63

Self-fashioning as Minister and constructions of the

Ministry
Former Minister Karaliyadda initiated a discourse on whether a
parliamentarians gender should be a relevant criterion for their
fitness to lead the Ministry of Womens Affairs. His appointment
was challenged by Opposition MPs asking when Ministers were
appointed, were there no women to appoint to the Ministry
of Womens Affairs? (Hansard, 7 July 2010, column 718). The
former Minister appeared to defend his appointment on the basis
of a critique of descriptive representation, arguing that what is
relevant is not a question of whether it is a man or a woman. Rather,
no matter what the subject is, what is more important is that it is
done properly (Hansard, 22 November 2012, column 650). What
the Minister challenges is the notion that womens concerns can
only be represented by women. Ironically, despite taking this
position, the Minister attempts to justify his appointment with
the same sort of logic that he critiques here. He offers as evidence
of his credentials,as a male Minister, to lead the Ministry, his
intimate acquaintance of women from his relationships within
his family, such as with his mother, his sisters, his wife, and his
two daughters (Hansard 7 July 2010, columns 718-719; Hansard,
22 November 2012, column 650). Whereas he appears to impute
essentialism to the belief that only women can represent womens
issues, he himself resorts to an excessively biologised discourse to
talk about his role as a representative of womens concerns.
While the former Minister states that gender is not a relevant
concern, he personalises his discourse on being a representative
of the subject of Womens Affairs and of the Ministry as an
institution, and does so in ways that show a clearly masculinised
logic. Who knows more about women than men? he asks in a
speech on 7 July 2010 (Hansard, 7 July 2010, column 718). In this
interweaving of personal and official voices, he depicts himself as
the wise patriarch of a family. On 25 November 2010, in the context
of a speech about his Ministrys activities to commemorate the
64

international day against violence against women, the Minister

says,
As the Minister of Child Development and Womens
Affairs, as a husband who has been blessed with a good
wife, as someone who grew up amongst six sisters, I will
fulfil my responsibilities to my utmost ability. Ive said
this before as well. I am someone who lost my mother at
age five. My six sisters nurtured me and brought me into
social life. Therefore, I am someone who has such feelings.
(Hansard, 25 November 2010, column 742).
In his speeches, he takes it for granted that he has the right to
interpret problems affecting women and has the capacity to give
the responses, as is the prerogative of the head of the family
(Hansard, 22 March 2012, column 1520). As a result, no Ministry
position is left untouched by his personal ideology on women.
Often a Ministry view is articulated only to be modified in the next
breath by his personal views. The Minister presents his family as a
moral ideal of how women should behave and how womens issues
should be managed. It is the template or guiding lesson for women
in general and the Ministry as an institution. For instance, the
Minister repeatedly refers to his mother and sisters to illustrate
what a womans sphere should be, which is in the home (Hansard,
22 March 2012, columns 1519-1520; Hansard, 10 November 2014,
column 1091). By doing so, he constructs the category women as
familial subjects, not political subjects. By extension, the portfolio
of Womens Affairs is depoliticised and privatised as a domain
of non-ideological issues, like a family that has to be constantly
supervised by an all-knowing and vigilant father. He refers to his
strict supervision of his two daughters to illustrate that a major
part of womens issues can be solved by benevolent supervision
of women (Hansard, 22 March 2012, column 1520). The Ministry
appears like a family home and the Minister himself a patriarch
at the head of a family of women. Thus, there is a domestication
of womens issues in the sense of stereotypically making womens
issues analogous with the family and the home, as well as divesting
65

the issues of ideological import. Not only does this make the
Minister unreceptive to seeing women as autonomous political
subjects, but it also takes up all the space of the discourse and
suppresses and dismisses alternative views.
The metaphorical construction of the Ministry in the Ministers
speeches shows that he does not take it seriously as a political
institution. The Minister uses gendered metaphor to justify the need
for more financial resources for the Ministry. Ostensibly meant to
reflect the specificity of the Ministry, these are metaphors which
draw on stereotypes of women and sexist idiomatic constructions.
For instance, in the speech below, the Minister uses the sari to
symbolise women, and wanting more saris as an analogy for never
being satisfied with the resource allocation for his Ministry.
As the Minister in charge of Child Development and
Womens Affairs, I know that little children are never
satisfied with what they are given and, similarly,
women also will never be satisfied with what they get.
To get a better sari than the one she is wearing today
is her expectation. That is also my expectation. Despite
whatever allocation is given for women and children in
this country, I need to say that it is not enough. I must
say that I am not satisfied. (Hansard, 10 November 2014,
column 1091)
This use of the sari to symbolise womens issues is highly reductive
and stereotypical; it indicates the narrowly parochial framework
within which the former Minister comprehends women. This
attempted feminising of an economic issue trivialises what should
be a serious matter by making it seem cosmetic and cute. There
is a sexist assumption that womens dress is a fitting analogy for
womens issues. The analogy is presumed to be effective because it
works off a form of sexist proverbial knowledge of women, chiefly
that they are never satisfied.

66

Not only do these views divest Womens Affairs of its seriousness as

a Ministerial portfolio, but they also reduce it to the ever narrowing
scope of the family, the home, and womens bodies. Distanced
from its political implications, the portfolio is biologised, reduced
to reproductive tropes because they are seen to be the discourse
to best symbolise and represent women. A further illustration
can be discerned in a debate on 22 November 2012, when Mr.
Karaliyadda uses a breastfeeding analogy to talk proudly of his
Ministry functioning despite not having enough resources. Said
he, A poor woman feeds her child from her small breasts. Her
breasts do not need to be very big to feed her child breast milk.
Although the mothers breasts are small, the child is fed because
of her love for it (Hansard, 22 November 2012, column 649).
With this analogy where the Ministerial resources are compared
to the size of womens breasts, the Minister reaffirms that he
understands womens issues through parochial and masculinist
lenses that objectify women, seeing their issues as simply matters
requiring a firm hand from a man; as always legible with reference
to their bodies; and overall ornamental like the desire for a sari.

Development over politics

During the former Ministers tenure, the state ideology of Mahinda
Chinthanaya was the overarching vision within which Ministers
had to interpret and realise the programmes and missions for their
portfolios. As has been noted by scholars, economic development
was the dominant framework through which the Mahinda
Rajapakse government recognised social problems and their
solutions [Thaheer et al. (2013), Uyangoda (2011) Stokke (2009)].
The most prominent example of this ideology was how the ethnic
conflict, the most challenging issue which the country has faced
since independence, was framed within a post-war development
paradigm. As Stokke observes, the strategy of [d]evelopment
over politics characterized the peace process (936). Uyangoda
(2011) succinctly captures how the ethnic issue was depoliticised
when the emphasis was placed on development to the exclusion of
politics. As Uyangoda (2011) states:
67

In this understanding, what has been portrayed as

minority grievances are consequences of economic
underdevelopment. They are not unique to the minorities.
This approach sees economic development, rather than
regional autonomy and political equality, as the best way
to address minority demands. (pp. 49 - 50)
This [d]evelopment over politics paradigm was normalised
materially and discursively in all of the institutions of the state,
and former Minister Karaliyadda and his Ministry were not an
exception. His presentation of his Ministrys responsibility and
his own role were also very much in line with this same ideology:
I am happy to say that, affirming peace and development
in this country, by 2010 the status of women and children
in this country, which has become an example to the
world, has come close to that of the women and children
in most developed countries. The main reason for that
was the social, economic, and political process that was
started in 2005 in connection with Mahinda Chinthanaya.
In line with the Presidents new vision of making Sri Lanka
the miracle of Asia, we took the responsibility to create a
secure environment for children and women. [...] We are
adopting every possible strategy to secure development
and to empower women in social, economic, and political
terms in order that they can be free from violence and
harassment and enjoy the benefits of development.
Actually, what we have been bestowed with now is a
country which is fast moving towards prosperity. We
hope that the private and non-governmental sectors will
offer support to ensure that women and children can both
contribute to that and receive its outcomes. (Hansard, 6
December 2012, column 1342)
Our analysis of the Ministers discourse indicates that he is an
active agent in constructing a particular discourse about a brand
of women-specific development. Analysing this discourse is
important to understand the sort of discourse which the Minister
68

represented in the name of Womens Affairs and how he has

influenced the trajectory of Parliamentary discourse on womens
issues.
In the following section, we analyse how the former Ministers
discourse frames womens issues within narratives of development
and fends off ideological considerations such as a critique of
patriarchy, as well as issues of historical discrimination and the
structural basis of womens oppression. As we note above, the way
in which the former Minister achieves this signification is through
the twinning of his voice with the Ministry voice. The former
Minister both voices the official Ministry position and layers and
countermands it with his personal ideology about women. Where
the Ministry line has on occasion veered towards acknowledging
rights, the former Minister has both articulated it (as is his role)
and intercepted it in the same move, using his personal frame of
reference to explain what the Ministry intends and thereby often
reducing the force of Ministry statements or even undermining
them in the process. Some of these segues are signposted as
personal opinion, but more often the two voices (the Ministry
line and his personal ideology) are seamlessly melded, creating
ambivalence about where the Ministry stands and what the
Ministry is committing to in practical terms.
The Ministers interventions can be approached in relation to
three different areas of focus--welfare, violence against women,
and womens political representation.

Welfare
Welfare characterises a discourse about the state providing
benefits and resources, and it hails the recipient normatively as a
version of womanhood that maintains the patriarchal status quo.
This is a particular construction of a woman who is married, most
often a mother, who is engaged in small-scale self-employment,
and stays within the traditional patriarchal division of labour.
69

In outlining his Ministrys programmes and also in response

to Opposition questions, the Minister spoke about launching
livelihood programmes, providing rations, attending to sanitation
and so on. In this discourse, women are primarily constructed as
familial subjects--wives who are responsible for the upkeep of the
household and pregnant mothers who are in need of nutrition. Our
analysis suggests that although most of the welfare programmes
claim to target women, they are actually intended to benefit the
families of these women. That welfare benefits to women are not
exclusively for them but are extended to their families, because
women are not seen as autonomous political subjects but as an
extension of their families, seems to be the general thinking
behind the welfare discourse. It is clear that the Minister and the
Ministry envision women exclusively within the private sphere,
assisting their spouse, managing household expenses, and looking
after children, as illustrated by the Ministers speech below:
The Ministry of Child Development and Womens Affairs
has a number of programmes that aim to assist women
headed households, widows, and families living under
economic difficulties. These programmes that aim to
strengthen womens economy comprise projects such
as home gardening, small scale animal husbandry, and
cottage industries. Especially when the husband becomes
the main income earner the woman becomes the manager
at home. In this case, the woman also can contribute to
the household income. The ways in which women should
contribute to this end are communicated to them by our
Ministry, integrated in the Divi Neguma and Samurdhi
development programmes [Hansard, 3 December 2011,
column 482]
As the Minister himself asserts, ideologies about being dutiful
wives and mothers are subliminally delivered through the welfare
programmes carried out by the Ministry of Child Development and
Womens Affairs. Thus the thinking behind the welfare narratives
purporting to assist women and their families is that women are
70

to be disciplined with welfare and kept in their place. Through

a veneer of state benevolence and generosity, they advocate
controlling and supervising women by bestowing resources on
them which perpetuate gendered distinctions and maintain
what is seen as a harmonious balance of male and female roles.
Belying the assumption that the welfare discourse of women is
about development outside of politics, welfare is clearly political.
Despite remittances from migrant women being the number one
foreign income of the country, even under the regime of which the
former Minister was a part, he is critical of women who migrate
for employment leaving their children behind, and suggests more
restrictions against them.

Violence Against Women: slow track of development

Next to welfare, the Ministers interventions on violence against
women offer us another window into his construction of a
development discourse that is appropriate for Womens Affairs.
Our analysis shows that on issues such as this and on womens
political representation, when the Opposition offers readings of
womens issues that require the Minister to address the ideological
basis of womens issues, as well as structural and systemic
conditions of inequality, the Minister immediately deflects them
by insisting that the discourse should be practical (prayogika)
and that these shifts cannot be undertaken in haste (kalabala
venna be, kshanikava karanna be). By these means, the Minister
re-frames what are political issues into development problems.
Often, the challenges to him are formulated from a rights-based
approach, where he is required to acknowledge that there is a
politics of gender surrounding womens concerns. By introducing
the practical framework, the Minister imposes a development
framework and negates the political understanding of the issues.
What the Minister understands by practical solutions are
underpinned by his personal ideology about women, which is of
women who stay within the patriarchal status quo, are primarily
private citizens, and maintain the gendered division of labour. It
71

is primarily derived from his narratives of his life experiences, as

we noted above. Any demand that hinges on recognising womens
political, economic and social equality is consigned as not practical,
since that is not congruent with the Ministers view of the ground
reality, and he does not advocate changing the status quo.
This gap between theory and practice is very well illustrated by the
narrative of slow and practical development which is the practical
development framework that the Minister advocates on the issue
of violence against women. Over the years, violence against
women is discursively constructed as a specific type of development
problem which has to be addressed slowly and methodically. By
stating that an issue such as violence cannot be remedied in the
way that infrastructural development can be, the Minister tries to
cement the practical and reasonable reading of and solution to
the problem. Based on this framework, one diagnosis of violence
is that it is a problem to do with the mind (manasa):
Within the development process, we can construct roads
and buildings and everything else. Mr. Speaker, this
problem is related to the mind [manasa]. We need to
focus on how we can turn our thinking towards the right
direction. (Hansard, 9 August 2012, column 912)
We cant instantly change peoples ways of thinking
[manasa] in the ways that we construct buildings, roads,
and other things. (Hansard, 5 June 2013, column 412)
It is not the construction of roads and buildings that we should
prioritise. Our dealings are with the mind [manasa]. It is in
dealing with the mind that major problems have cropped up.
This is not as easy an undertaking as it is made out to be. This
is not a Ministry where you can press a button and solve a
problem. (Hansard, 10 November 2014, column 1087)

72

Not surprisingly, this development paradigm he subscribes

to denies the existence of a politics of gender and structural
inequality to the violence that women experience. The use of the
word manasa is ambiguous, connoting attitudes, ideology, ideas,
mental states, mentalities, perceptions and so on, none of which
the Minister clearly defines as his intended meaning. We read this
fuzziness as deliberate, since it is continuous with the Ministers
line of argument that violence against women was caused by
rapid modernisation and forms of development introduced from
outside that corrupted a pristine culture and left its inhabitants
discombobulated. In this narrative, violence is disowned as
a problem arising from internal conditions; it is seen as a
development problem created by the opening up of the economy
and the effects of globalisation on local cultures. Accountability is
neutralised by the assertion that everyone, men and women, have
been victimised alike by losing their cultural bearings.
By looking for an epic first cause for violence, the Minister frames
cultural contamination as the big problem and violence against
women as a secondary symptom of that. Thus, the Minister
suggests that it is culture itself that was the first victim and
has to be repaired in order to find a solution to violence against
women. This is a typically patriarchal strategy of making womens
issues (particularly rights issues) manipulable according to the
desired culturally relative interpretations, and contingent on
and subordinate to presumed macro-cultural considerations.
Thus, to talk about violence, the Minister frames three epochal
narratives about a mythical clash between culture and rapacious
development. One idealised narrative is of the national culture
before it was open to globalisation. The tenure of Prime Minister
Sirimavo Bandaranaike in the 1970s is held up as an exemplary
narrative of cultural purity before globalisation. Relatedly, it was
also a golden age for women, when reports of sexual violence
were presumed rare and women could travel freely from Dondra
Head to Point Pedro:

73

Around the 1970s, any woman had the prerogative to

travel freely from Dondra Head to Point Pedro. At the
same time, depending on the period and time of travel,
it was only once in a way that women faced an incident
of sexual violence. Little by little, as time went on, for
different reasons, our women became busier. This is not a
criticism. (Hansard, 22 March 2012, column 1519).
We must speak with pride of the former female Prime
Minister of this country. She governed this country until
1977. Her period of governance was an era when any
woman could travel freely from Dondra Head to Point
Pedro. (Hansard, 22 November 2012, column 650)
A further epochal narrative about violence as a problem that is
created by the negative effects of development on culture is of
cultural preservation at the level of the family. The underlying
logic of preserving local traditions at the family level is of women
living according to the patriarchal status quo and protecting that
way of life, the rewards for which are the natural protections
offered to women by that system. Violence is not in evidence as
long as women fulfil their part in that contract by living privatized
and domestic roles. This narrative is primarily drawn from the
former Ministers life story, and his mother, sisters, and wife are
the moral exemplars:
Mr. Speaker, my mother brought up 9 children while
living in an extremely remote village. At that time, our
village consisted of our house and only one other house.
[...] My mother lived alone in this village, surrounded
by dense forest. This was around 1957, when bears and
elephants roamed around, and when my father was
away, my mother would keep a gun with her. That sort of
freedom existed in that environment. At the same time,
my mother did everything around the house. She took
care of her children and tidied their hair for school. When
I lost my mother at the age of five, my five sisters brought
me up. (Hansard, 22 March 2012, column 1519)
74

Our mothers managed to look after us all on their own, in

places that are considered undeveloped, in the middle of the
jungle, in an era with no electricity and no roads. They did not
allow this sort of violence to happen. In an era when we lived in
a society that was considered undeveloped, and we safeguarded
our culture and lived by the dictates of religion, there was
no violence. What we should embrace is what is best for our
children and what is appropriate for us. If there are things that
are inappropriate for our women, if there are things that are
better suited to the West, there is no point in embracing them.
(Hansard, 10 November 2014, column 1091).
Deriving inspiration from the first and second models, the third
epochal narrative about violence is concerned with prescribing how
women should preserve culture at the individual level: through
their behaviour and actions. Cultural preservation in this sense
amounts to correctly observing gendered norms and prohibitions.
The Minister asserts that women who had traditionally been used
to adhere to good cultural values lost their way when the country
opened up to the world and experienced a loss of cultural cohesion.
Women became unmoored from their cultural norms, but were not
just passive victims of development: they were also responsible for
modernising too quickly and deviating from their traditional roles:
I believe that our society was opened up to a great extent
when we considered things that were not appropriate
for us, when we embraced cultures that did not suit us,
and when certain decisions were made to rid us of our
innocence. As a result of being exposed, women moved
quickly in certain ways that were not appropriate, and
faced violence as a consequence. That is my personal
opinion. (Hansard, 25 November 2010, column 740)
In our history, when young women in the village attained
puberty, her thanapota (brassiere) is tied by her kiriamma.
There were no brassieres or anything in those days.
I am not embarrassed to say this. This was our culture.
75

When the young woman went to bed at night, her

brassiere was untied by her kiriamma. We had a culture
like that. I am saying that we used to have such cultural
affinities. This is not something that has to be viewed in a
bad spirit. Even if it is a laughing matter for the media, I
am saying that our country had such cultural aspects. No
one can deny it. We had a culture that was protected like
that. (Hansard, 9 August 2012, column 913).
In the above fantasy, the young woman is so chaste that she does not
even touch her own body; she literally embodies her prohibitions.
These narratives show that what the Minister is concerned about
when he talks about violence, is the perceived loss of cultural
conformity on the part of women as a result of modernising and
Westernising influences. Thus, rather than displaying an interest in
coming to grips with the brute realities of the problem of violence,
the former Minister is invested in making womens transgression
of their traditional gender roles seemsynonymous with not staying
true to cultural values, which is perceived as the cause of violence.
Independence and autonomy are attributed with the signification
of being modern and adopting culturally inappropriate forms of
development. From this perspective, women are seen as complicit
in a broader problem of not fulfilling their norm as custodians of
culture. Violence is then perceived as the consequence of cultural
waywardness, a form of punishment.
In our ways of dressing, we must ensure that our culture
is safeguarded. We must dress appropriately, for the
occasion. [...] When children and women are deserted,
they are subject to abuse. By being where we shouldnt
be, by wearing things we shouldnt wear, and by following
practices that are not appropriate, we were subject to
violence is what I say. (Hansard, 9 August 2012, columns
912-913).

76

The girl who arrived at the garment industry with hair

down to her waist returned to her village for the April
vacations with her hair cut short. The girl who grew her
hair out prettily goes home to her village on vacation with
her hair cut off. In the social environment in which she
interacts, this innocent woman has relationships with
men and loses her way. That sort of thing happens. It cant
be denied. The other fact is that women have embraced
things that do not suit them. Imitating has resulted in
women becoming victimised. (Hansard, 22 March 2012,
column 1519)
In constructing the issue of violence against women as a narrative
about the nexus between culture and development, the former
Minister denies the structural and historical contexts of violence.
While cultural narratives are not inherently apolitical, he takes the
license to craft certain patent fictions about violence as a shift from
a prelapsarian state to a postlapsarian state, thereby confirming
that it is an issue that cannot be solved overnight. What the former
Minister proposes as a solution, womens cultural conformity, is
part of the structural conditions that reproduce violence.
The only instance in which the issue of violence against women
shifts out of a culture-and-development paradigm and is seen in a
political light is when it is instrumentalised for political mileage.
On a number of occasions, Opposition MPs challenged the former
Minister on what action was taken over reports of sexual violence
allegedly committed by party members. In such instances, we can
see that there is a certain instrumentality to the politics, where the
issue is politicised to discredit political rivals and defend ones own
party. When the issue is made into a matter of party rivalry and
image, discussion is further deflected from the structural nature
of the problem.

77

Political representation: cant be hasty, must be

practical
The issue of increasing womens political representation is another
significant area where the former Minister plays out his thesis of a
gap between theory and practice on womens issues.
A discourse of developing womens political aptitude instead of
focusing on womens political rights and introducing legislation
towards offering quotas is underpinned by the contention
that this is something that we have to discuss and implement
practically. It cannot be done instantly. (Hansard, 22 November
2012, column 654). What the Minister couches as practical
[prayogika] thinking are his perceptions of local political realities.
The two key perceptions are, first, that rights and quotas are not
congruent with how Sri Lankan women have traditionally gained
entry to politics, which is through a family background in politics;
and second, that women themselves are reluctant to contest for
political office, and would prefer to play a supporting role, even if
a quota were established.
In response to Opposition MPs such as Rosy Senanayake and
Sajith Premadasa calling for legislative reform to introduce
quotas (MP Senanayake requests support for a legislative process
initiated by her), the Minister constructs the figure of a reluctant
and untutored female candidate who is not ready to enter politics.
Within the terms of his gendered conception of this figure, she
is depicted as ontologically unable to embrace the possibility of
being a political candidate. The Ministers understanding is that
she is indifferent to contesting because seeing herself in that role
is outside her gender norm. Citing his efforts to nominate more
women to contest at the Pradeshiya Sabha elections, he claims
that women dont seem to be interested and are not used to that
sort of thing (Hansard, 9 December 2013, column 1396)
The Minister consciously constructs a gap between theory and
practice in how the issue should be approached. One of the ways in
which we can see this happening is when the Minister interprets
78

the Ministry position as one of being favourable in theory or in

principle to increasing womens political representation, while
contradicting it for not being feasible in practical terms. A prominent
instance of this discursive strategy can be glimpsed in a debate
on increasing womens political representation on 7 July 2010.
The former Minister Karaliyadda voiced his Ministrys position,
which was to take measures to increase womens representation
in political and administrative structures (Hansard, 7 July 2010,
column 721) in accordance with the Mahinda Chinthanaya vision.
He modifies the Ministry line almost immediately with a reminder
about what he sees as practical realities and constraints:
Through these means, we will be fair by educated women.
Politics is not something that every woman can do. So it
is not advisable to force women into politics. Parties have
to take a decision about it. It would be a bad idea to give
these positions away for the sake of it. I feel that it is not
very apt to give a certain number [of nominations] in this
country just because another country gives that number.
But we are not opposed to women having opportunities
to contest for more seats in politics. We must think
carefully when engaging in these activities. (Hansard, 7
July 2010, column 721)
What the Minister advocates as the need to be aware of practical
issues is really a sexist prejudice, a gatekeeping belief that only
a special category of educated woman is capable of engaging
in politics. This gauge, which is not applied to men, reins in the
discourse on rights and quotas. In its place, the former Minister
articulates what we identify as a benevolent sexist discourse about
enhancing womens aptitude for politics.
Whether in the South or in the North and East, this figure is
infantilised as a political neophyte. Patronisingly portrayed as
child-like in lacking political experience and knowledge, she even
asks to be educated in politics. The former Minister quotes a woman
resident of Kilinochchi saying I would like to study something. I
would like to study politics but I dont want to contest. I want to
79

support the party (Hansard, 10 November 2014, column 1089).

Although unmotivated for herself, this same figure is depicted as
enthusiastic when it comes to supporting the party. The former
Minister claims that they offer their assistance to political
parties but are a little hesitant to contest elections (Hansard, 9
December 2013, column 1396). On such occasions, the Minister
claims, parties had to force women to contest [Pradeshiya Sabha]
elections, because women do not come forward to contest. They
say, We will work for the party (Hansard, 10 November 2014,
column 1089).
In place of a rights approach, the former Ministers interventions
encourage a benevolent discourse which is also sexist, about
affirming women in their traditional roles in politics. He asserts
that women are engaged in politics in this country (Hansard, 9
December 2013, column 1396), purporting to positively recognise
and value the contributions that women make to politics behind
the scenes without seeing them as lesser than contesting for
political office. Said he, we have often seen women standing
in the background of politics and supporting parties in a major
way, without themselves contesting. Womens engagement is
prominent at the grassroots level, in committees and branches
(Hansard, 21 June 2013, column 1304) From a paternalistic
perspective which purportedly desires to protect women from the
rigours of political life, the former Minister argues that quotas are
an artificial solution which is taxing for women themselvesit
is not advisable to force women into politics (Hansard, 7 July
2010, column 721). An extension of that argument is the claim
that women in Sri Lanka are not sufficiently embedded in a
womens rights framework for a rights approach to be effective.
The former Minister notes that the number of female MPs is
highest in countries that fight hard for womens rights (Hansard,
10 November 2014, column 1089) adding that a gradual process
of education and empowerment must be initiated but that, in the
meantime, there must not be any hasty legal manoeuvres such
as a private members motion towards introducing quotas (as
Opposition MP Rosy Senanayake had done).
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The politically backward female party supporter is a deflating

construct. She is the point from which the Minister makes the
discriminatory claim that quotas are unproductive because most
women do not have the capacity to exercise their political rights
and must be first educated. Thus, the right to political participation
is divested of the signification of rights and turned into a privilege
in the case of women. Denying the existence of structural
discrimination on this issue, the Minister attributes womens
low political representation to their backwardness. A small elite
group of intelligent female MPs (Hansard, 22 November 2012,
column 654), who have entered politics through the traditional
route, through a family background, is held up as the ideal. He
offers the practical example of his party unsuccessfully attempting
to nominate women for elections as evidence that quotas will not
work on the ground:
They must get the vote, no? We nominated a number
of women for the Pradeshiya Sabha elections. There are
places where even women do not vote for women. I was
saying something practical to MP Rosy Senanayake.
(Hansard, 22 November 2012, column 653)
There is no point in being hasty over this. There is no
point in an individual bringing a Bill on this. This issue
must be approached practically. (Hansard, 10 November
2014, column 1089)
Thus, a practical approach is one that naturalises the status quo
and rationalises not taking any action at the level of laws and
policy. The Minister suggests that the problem could be solved
through political education if only intelligent women, who are
female MPs who have entered Parliament through the honoured
traditional route, could groom other women to become more
politically adept:

81

Let us now look at the issue of women in politics.

A demand has been made for 30% female political
representation. I see something like this. First take
what is available without restrictions. The articulations
of the ten or twelve (women) in Parliament have set an
example, Mr. Speaker. Outside of party divisions, all of
the female ministers should have the capacity to ensure
womens progress, to strengthen women for their entry
into politics. If you could take the ability you had to
contest at village level, at Pradeshiya Sabha level, for local
government institutions, and give it to women who have
the potential to progress, any party can win. The process
should start from there. (Hansard, 25 November 2010,
column 741)
As this extract illustrates, the recognition of a systemic issue of
gender inequality is thwarted with the disingenuous suggestion
that the existing situation offers equal opportunity for women
whereas quotas would restrict them to a set number. The
injunction for women parliamentarians from the government
and the Opposition to approach the issue outside of party
divisions is very telling: it illuminates the Ministers view that
the issue is not an ideological one for either party and can be
approached in a politically neutral fashion. Furthermore, making
female parliamentarians responsible for other womens political
education divests the state of any responsibility to effect legislative
change. It is an important instance of an unintended irony which
we see reflected often in the Ministers speeches. The Minister
advocates soft approaches such as raising awareness over opting
for structural solutions (for instance, legal reform), while refusing
to recognise the systemic nature of gender inequalities and the
ideological constraints that contribute to womens problems, all of
which the awareness raising should address.

82

Conclusion
This analysis offers insights into the relationship between the
designated political representative on womens issues and the
substantive representation of womens issues in Parliament.
Because it was the first time that a male politician represented
Womens Affairs, Former Minister Karaliyaddas appointment
was considered exceptional. The understanding that he and other
Parliamentarians demonstrated was that he would have to define
his own speaking position. Not having a critical discourse about
the substantive representation of womens issues contributed to
a situation where the former Minister was able to exercise a great
deal of agency in terms of discursively constructing womens
concerns. It was in those circumstances that the former Minister
was able to personalise his role and the construction of womens
issues to the extent that he did. His discursive strategy of allowing
his personal ideology a significant role alongside his institutional
voice highlights the many gaps between the existence of an official
Ministry standpoint and how much influence it has in Parliament.
It is not unusual for Ministers to hold and voice personal views on
their subject, and they are often called upon to do so in Parliament.
This analysis illustrates the need to understand to what extent
a Minister for Womens Affairs feels bound by her or his official
Ministry script, which ideally reflects some of the policies on
which the government was voted in and is therefore a pact with the
people, and how much room there is for the Minister to interpret
Ministry business legitimately with his or her personal bias.
This chapter shows the limits of the discursive framework for
substantively addressing womens issues. Our analysis of the
debates illustrates that Parliament functions with particular
ideologies that make it seem possible to talk about womens
concerns without seeing the politics of gender. Gender ideologies,
critiques of power inequality, and structural discrimination
are hardly credited as the basis of argument, whereas culture
offers the language to talk about womens issues sans politics.
Former Minister Karaliyaddas interventions illustrated that
83

the politics of womens issues could be invisible and rendered

through cultural and development narratives. As long as culture
is instrumentalised to confer or withhold legitimacy on womens
issues, it could reinforce the very same structures and attitudes
that contribute to womens inequality. Constructing a discourse
on women in this way, where whatever politicians do not want to
change is fenced off and tagged with the label of culture, will not
lead to social transformation.
What is extended to women in the guise of benevolence either
knowingly or unknowingly reinforces the unequal positions
of women within patriarchal structures. As long as women are
infantilised and not treated like modern political subjects, there
will continue to be a perception that rights are not the first priority
for women and that paternalistic care and supervision would
benefit them better. Without a conscious critical discourse about
how womens issues are represented in Parliament, women can be
patronised as a group which requires a different pace and trend of
development: of moving slowly and looking backward.

84

References
Celis, K., Childs, S., Kantola, J., & Lena, M. (2008). Rethinking
Womens Substantive Representation. Representation, 44(2), 99110.
Stokke, K. (2009). Crafting Liberal Peace? International Peace
Promotion and the Contextual Politics of Peace in Sri Lanka.
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 932-939.
Thaheer, M., Peiris. P., & Pathiraja. K. (2013). Reconciliation in
Sri Lanka: Voices from Former War Zones. International Centre for
Ethnic Studies.
Uyangoda. J. (2011). Travails of State Reform in the Context of
Protracted Civil War in Sri Lanka. In Stokke K., & Uyangoda, J
(Eds.), Liberal Peace in Question: Politics of State and Market Reform
in Sri Lanka, New York and London: Anthem Press, 35-62.

85

86

Chapter 5

Debating Women
Sepali Kottegoda

1. Introduction: scope and method

1.1. Scope

deological approaches and subjective biases among national

politicians pertaining to the Woman Question are perhaps most
revealed in a parliamentary debate specifically focussed on the
subject.
Parliament is the nations highest policy-making and law-making
forum and is, therefore, the most influential and decisive in
governance and social ordering. It is also the forum with the
greatest exposure to public monitoring. The countrys current
economic developmental status, the decades-long successive
waves of insurgency, and a protracted ethnic conflict contribute
to such themes predominating in deliberations in Parliament.
Debates specifically focussing on the subject of women/gender are
very rare, and hence, noteworthy when they do occur.
87

This chapter looks at the parliamentary debate on womens issues

which took place on 22 March 2012. This was a unique occasion,
in the period of selective parliamentary debates between 2005
and 2014, that is studied in this book, when parliamentarians
were allocated time to debate specifically on the subject of women.
The debate titled Social Justice to Women had been fixed on
that day in response to a request by the then Deputy Chair of the
Parliamentary Womens Caucus, MP Chandrani Bandara, for a
special debate to celebrate March as Womens Month.
The debate was open to all members, as with all debates scheduled in
Parliament. Significantly, out of 225 members only 10 participated
in the time slot provided: 7 women and 3 men. Given the ethnic
composition of the current Parliament, the bulk of speeches in
Parliament during debates are made in the Sinhala language. Far
fewer interventions are made in Tamil or English.
The record of the debate under study is extracted from the
Hansard Volume 207 No.9 of Thursday 22nd March 2012, under
the heading Adjournment Motion: Social Justice to Women. The
record of the debate was translated into English from the Sinhala
and Tamil. Quoted extracts of speeches made in Sinhala/Tamil are
transcribed in the paper.

1.2. Method of Analysis

In this brief sample case study, I attempt to:- (a) highlight some
salient themes common to the speeches by Members; (b) assess the
significance of the issues raised in these speeches in comparison
with the issues of women/gender apparent in the larger national
context; (c) assess the richness of the quality of the debate by
examining the conceptual depth to which the discourse is taken;
and, (d) draw out any policy-oriented points made that could have
policy or legislative repercussions.

88

I use discourse analysis tools in examining the speeches made

during this debate. In particular, I draw on Moitras (2002)
understanding of communication in analysing these speeches in
Parliament. Moitra observes that:
All kinds of communication, including routine communication,
depend on certain webs of belief. Broadly speaking, these webs
can be classified into wider and narrower structures. The wider
structures of belief are paradigmatic in the sense that they
provide the basic schemata for communication. The narrower
context is a local one of culturally shared beliefs. These contexts
help stabililze meaning and understanding. (81)
As the analysis of key issues taken up in this Parliamentary debate
illutrates, these culturally shared beliefs are reference points
used by parliamentarians, as women or as men, in articulating
perspectives on womens issues.
Furthermore, given the public attention paid to speeches in
Parliament, the socio-political location of these Members of
Parliament (MPs) as elected legislators with corresponding powers
and privileges invests their speeches with a societal authority. Due
to public attention, the formulations and contentions in their
speeches become authoritative inputs into the larger mainstream
discourse on the subject in this case, women/gender. As Moitra
notes:
The social aspects of meaning-understanding are guided
by the geographical or spatial position of the speaker,
more importantly, by the power position of the speaker.
A speaker in a power position stipulates an interpretation
or meaning to be followed by all without questioning
appropriateness.
A reading of the debate discourse through a Feminist perspective
enabled the identification of several conceptual themes in the
general discourse on Women/Gender being exploited by the
parliamentarians participating in the debate. Six such key words
or key phrases have been identified as terms used in the debate
89

discourse and the rest of this chapter will discuss how they have
been used by the speakers.
Finally, some conclusions will be drawn about the significance (if
any) of the parliamentary debate discourse in contributing to the
framing of the current national discourse on women/gender.
The six identified key phrases/words are:
Our Country
Ethnicity, Religion, and Sexuality
Social Justice
Patriarchy
Gender, Womens Rights, and Equality
Womens Liberation.

2. Our Country
The word Our (Sinhala = ap) is used by almost all the speakers
studied and is often coupled with the word Country (Ape Rata).
There are, however, differences in the way the female and male
parliamentarians relate to these words.
In their speeches during this debate, the women Parliamentarians
acknowledge womens achievements in the administrative sphere,
but also highlight their low representation in politics and the need
for measures to rectify this. They also point out the challenges that
women face, the pervasive incidents of violence against women,
the inadequacy of laws in place, and the poor implementation of
legislation.
These issues are spoken of in relation to the concept of belonging,
of being a part of the identity of the country. The women
parliamentarians focussed, variously, on the high educational
achievements of women, the high health indicators for women,
the first woman prime minister in the world being from Sri Lanka,
and, of queens and female warriors in ancient times. This was done
by these speakers expressly to consolidate their own vision and
goal of uplifting womens current status in the country.
90

MP Kamala Ranatunga declares:

If we look back at our history, every time there has
been a threat to our country, women have come forward
to protect the country. Viharamaha Devi, Soma Devi,
Anula Devi are such heroines. (Hansard, 22 March 2012,
Column 1514).There is acknowledgment of womens
achievements but all the speakers stop short of claiming
that these indicate a current better enjoyment of gender
equality as opposed to the past.
Both male parliamentarians who referred to our country
acknowledge the gravity of violence against women. One terms
this as oppression while the other uses the word abuse.
Anura Kumara Dissanayake MP argues for the need to understand
womens oppression as being an outcome of patriarchal and male
dominated social structures of what he called an Asiatic Mode of
Production (a 19th century European Marxian analytical term, now
rarely used), and the failure to integrate women into the capitalist
system of production during British colonialism (Hansard, 22
March 2012, Column 1494).1
Tissa Karaliyadda, Minister of Child Development and Womens
Affairs, takes a different view when he says:
In our society as a whole, there are more women we
can be proud of in this, our country, compared to other
countries. The kind of freedoms that women in our
country have is not found in our neighbouring countries.
Hansard 22 March 2012, Column 1520)2

1. Ape rate kaanthaavo godanegune asiyatika nishpaadana samaaja rataavak thula bava api
dannava
2. Samastha samajayatama aadambara viya heki Kaanthaavan lokaye anek ratavalata vadaa
ada ape rate innava. Hebai ape rate kaanthavanta thibena nidhahasa apata aasannaye
pihita thibena ratavalvalath nehe.
91

The phrase our country is often used as a powerful symbolic

tool of nationalist discourse to invoke cultural subjectivity and
collective belonging for the purpose of defending (justifying)
existing social practices that have been targeted for reform. It
must be noted, interestingly, that, in this particular parliamentary
debate, none of the speakers used the phrase in that way. Rather,
the past was indeed invoked in the debate but done to highlight
the capacities of women (warriors, queens) as being equal to that
of men. This phrase our country was also used in the debate as a
means of comparing the positive achievements of gender equality
in Sri Lanka with the more backward conditions in (some) other
developing countries. This usage in itself is a significant departure
from the more common, habitual, invocation of history, tradition,
and collective subjectivity to defend current oppressive gender
structures.

3. Social Justice
The concepts and arguments presented in this debate on Social
Justice to Women focussed on the socio-economic positioning
of women and the need to ensure justice for example, the
need to recognise womens worth and the protection of women
from violence. Issues of womens role in the economy, in the
family, women as victims of physical and sexual abuse, womens
representation in politics, women as mothers are all woven into
the interventions by the MPs.
MP Chandrani Bandaras3 opening remarks comprehensively
set out the main concerns for women. They include: womens
accepted social role looking after children in the family; the social
division between women and men coming from ancient times,
differentiating their roles (Hansard 22 March 2012, Column
1486).)4; the need to recognize that these lead to discrimination
3. United National Party MP Chandrani Bandara was appointed Minister of Womens
Affairs & Child Development in 2015.
4. .. sita sthree purusha samaaja bedeema padanam kota ganimin kaanthavata
purushayaata vadaa venas kaarya bharryan resak himi viya
92

and affect the space women have to enjoy their rights. (Ibid.)5;
womens enormous contribution to the economic development of
the country, such as foreign exchange earnings through foreign
employment, employment in the garment industry and, in the tea
industry; the high educational and health indicators for women;
and the poor representation of women in politics.
The debate that follows flows along these lines for the most part.
Speaker after speaker pointed out the pervasive trend (at the time)
in acts of violence against women and the need to bring justice for
survivors. MP Thalatha Atukorale observes that despite the Chief
Justice (at the time) being a woman and some women holding high
positions, the cases of violence against women are not resolved
because the law is not allowed to take its own course. (Hansard,
22 March 2012, Column 1506)6 MP Sumedha Jayasena notes
that the laws pertaining to rape are not implemented strongly.
She argues that because of this, males in our society are able to
commit crimes and be released. (Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column
1501) ).7
The importance of increasing the political representation of
women was seen by most as a key avenue to bring about legislative
directives for womens justice. Rosy Senenayake informs the house
of the reforms being drafted to increase womens representation
to at least a mandatory 20% in the political arena through a
proposed mix electoral system (Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column
1490)8. Nirupama Rajapakse reiterates the urgency of:

5. .. Kaanthaava siya aithivaasikam bhukthi vindeeme idakada thulada purushayan ha

sesendeemedi venaskamvalata muhuna paamin sitei
6 ayata, nidhahase avashya vidhiyata e neethiya kriyaathmaka karannata ida harinna one
7. Ada ape samaajaye vedi vashayen pirimi paarshavaya eveni aparaadha kara e
aparaadavalin nikamma nedhahas vela yana mattamata path vela thibeneva
8. Kaantha neyojanaya avama vashayen 20%k anivaarya kireemak ethulu karanna yojana
kara thibenava. Api keval kramaya saha samaanupaathika kramayakata yanavanam
samaanupaathika laisthuve palamuveni thun dena ho hathara dena Kaanthavan bavata
anivaarya kireemak thulin..
93

having more women in parliament as the seat of decision

making in the country. This goes beyond quotas on
nomination lists. It requires a total change of our political
culture. (Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column 1492)9.
MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake cautions against women
overlooking the importance of a broad socio-political systemic
transformation as a pre-requisite for achieving justice for women::
It is going to be necessary to have a united struggle. That is what we
ask of women who face violence, who become victims of violence,
of abuse. It is only by changing this unjust society, that you will
be able to get justice. (Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column 1497).10

4. Gender, Womens Rights and Equality

Interestingly, among the ten members who participated in this
debate, womens rights are explicitly mentioned only by three out
of the seven women and two out of the three men.
The concept of Gender is brought into the debate by Chandrani
Bandara who speaks about social identities and roles of women
and men being the basis of discrimination, that these practices
curtail womens enjoyment of their rights (see above). Rosy
Senanayake, speaking on the role of women pre-school teachers,
notes that these women help form the foundation of a persons
life showing no gender bias in their teaching (Hansard, 22 March
2012, Column 1489).11 Hers is the sole voice that introduces the
concept of human rights to the debate when she points to the
human rights conventions that Sri Lanka is signatory to despite
which women and children face violence across the country. She
9. .Naama yojanavalata siyayata gananak theeranaya karala apekshikaavan ethulath kalaa
kiyala me prashnaya visadhanna behe. Me sandaha saadaarana visandhumak labanna nam
ape deshapaalana sanskrutiya sampoornayenma venas kala yuthu bava apata piliganna
sidu venava
10 Eksath aragalayak thibiya yuthu venava. . prachandayathvayata path vena
prchandandathvayata goduru vena kaantha parapuren api illa sitinne an kavarakvath
novei. Obage saadaranavathvaya itu vanne me asaadharana samaaja kramaya venas
kireemen pamanai)
11. Sthree purusha bhavayakin thorava me rate siyalu denaatama thaman ge jeevithayata
avashshya karana vedagathma aththivaarama damanne).
94

further refers to the institutional mechanisms already in place and

those for which legislation is needed: the Womens Charter (1993)
and the draft Womens Rights Bill (2001-2004).
Womens rights within Buddhism are brought into focus by
Sumedha Jayasena, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs. She affirms
that:,
Our country is a Buddhist country. Most of the population
is Buddhist. Yet, we speak less of the rights of women in
Buddhism, about a womans worth. We must not forget
that then, there were Buddhist women clergy who were
also able to attain enlightenment. (Hansard, 22 March
2012, Column 1498).12
However, on the issue of Equality, Jayasena expresses the view
that is often heard in the parliamentary arena regarding the term
Equity. She categorically states that:
Today, we always ask for equity for women, not equality.
The appropriate place, a place that is suitable. We have
always had this in Sri Lanka. (Hansard 22 March 2012,
Column 1499)13
This is soon followed by an espousing of a morally sanctioned
role for women. Kamala Ranatunga, speaking on the effort and
commitment of women to the successful implementation of the
governments Divineguma programme, asserts that:
just like the women working in the Middle East who
remit foreign exchange, women get up at 4 am. They
must start work of the children, for her husband. She
must do the housework, make sure that everything is
in stock; she must wash clothes, engage in social work,
engage in temple activities. (Hansard, 22 March 2012,
Column 1517)
12. Ape rata Budu dahamath ekka bandunu, bahutharayak bauddhayan vaasaya karana ratak.
Budhu dhahama thula Kaanthaavanta labaa dun eithiya,. Eda Bhikkshuni Shaasanaya
thula rahath pala lebuvan sitiya bava api amathaka karanna honda nehe
13. Kaanthaavanta ada sama thena novei, api hema velaavema illanne nisi thenai,
sudusukamata thenai. thena apita Shri Lankave hema daamath lebila thibeneva.
95

As the only Tamil speaker, MP Selvam Adaikkalanathan approaches

the issue of rights as something that women are entitled to.
His remarks, though, appear to be a challenge for womens
organizations to take up:
If women needed equal rights, they should fight for it.
Currently many girl children and women are raped and
harassed. Even though there are many women related
organizations, they only make statements to media and
do nothing. If you take India, women do protest. When
they come to the street to protest, it has been seen as
a big issue. It has the potential of stopping the crimes.
(Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column 1511)
Anura Kumara Dissanayake declares his position on womens
rights:
If we leave biological differences aside, a woman as a citizen
of this country must be a person whose equal opportunities,
equal rights, equal respect is protected. We accept that there
is a difference. The problem we have now is how we can resolve
this. (Hansard, 22 March 2012, (Columns 1494-1495)..14

5. Ethnicity, Religion, and Sexuality

In many fora in Sri Lanka, given decades of ethnic conflict and war,
womens roles in society, in politics, and within households are
often spoken of in relation to their marital status, religious identity,
and ethnic identity. Much research and policy have been produced
over the last three decades that set out needs and concerns of
women from these perspectives. (Ruwanpura, 2003) Sexuality and
sexual identities, in contrast, are issues that are generally outside
the purview of public discourse, with the exception perhaps of
reference to HIV/Aids programmes. Sexual rights, however,
remain in focus among a small number of womens organisations
and civil society organisations. As can be seen in the discussion
14. Me rate samaajaye jeevath vana puravesiyek hetiyata, samaana avastha, samaana
aitheen,.. viya yuthui. nisa, ehi bhedayak thiyana bava api piligannava
96

below, even in this debate, concepts of ethnic, religious, or sexual

identities are referred to marginally. However, I have used these
remarks as key pointers to these Parliamentarians views on the
subject.
Significantly, in the entire debate, women are consistently referred
to free of any ethnic or religious affiliation except for a few specific
instances. MP Selvam Adaikkalanathan, speaking on the role of
Tamil women in the ethnic conflict, says,
Women also achieved as much as men. Especially if you
take Tamil women, during our past struggle, womens
role was not lesser than mens. In the armed forces, too,
women play an important role. (Hansard, 22 March
2012, column 1511)
Throughout this debate this is the only mention of womens role
in armed conflict. It is spoken about as a factor that needs to be
acknowledged and appreciated. Other speakers bring up ethnic
identities of women in a circuitous manner; Rosy Senanayake
notes that:
the Panchayat system introduced in India cut across
religious, ethnic, and caste differences to enable women
to come into politics. (Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column
1489)
With reference to Sri Lanka, Tamil women are referred to as
women in the North, where there is an estimated 89,000 war
widows. (Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column 1490)
Sudharshani Fernandopulle states that while Sri Lanka has
very high status in relation to women, discrimination does take
place, sometimes against some ethnic groups, sometimes against
women in some districts.15 It is noteworthy that this is the only
intervention linking discrimination and ethnicity.
15. . Yam yam asaadharanakam siddha venava. Yam yam jana kotas valata asaadharanakam
siddha venava. Yam Yam disthrikka vala inna Kaanthaavant asaadharanakam
siddhavenava)
97

MP Kamala Ranatunga uses ethnicity as a unifying factor in

the face of war and in the face of international inquiry into Sri
Lanka. Expressing her displeasure at the inquiry on Sri Lanka
by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva during this period,
she maintains that the war was ended through women standing
shoulder to shoulder with men, across ethnic and religious lines.
(Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column 1514) 16
The association of the country or of women with religion is
articulated by only two speakers at this debate. Sumedha Jayasena
observes that Sri Lankan Buddhists popularly tended to describe
the mother as the Buddha in the home following ancient Buddhist
tradition. (Hansard 22 March 2012, Column 1498).17
A sharply contrasting positioning of Buddhists in the country
is given by Thalatha Atukorale as she speaks on the widespread
incidents of violence against women and girls, highlighting
the string of rapes and murders in her own district, Ratnapura.
Atukorale declares:
this country, where the majority is Buddhist, is
unbeatable in the numbers who listen to Buddhist
sermons. Similarly we are unbeaten when it comes to
sermonising. This is applicable across religions. But in
the end, there cannot be another Buddhist country which
has such a record of crimes. (Hansard, 22 March 2012,
Column 1505).18

16. Shri Lankaave Kaanthaavo siyalu denaama pirimi pakshaya samnga urenura getila
thaman ipadichcha, thamange maubima venuven paksha bhedayen, jaathi bhedayakin, kula
bhedayakin, aagam bhedayakin thorava viruddhatvaya prakaasha karannata yeduna
17. Api gederan Budun amma lesa kaanthaavanta selakuve Buddhu dhahamin lath aabhashaya
nisai).
18. Sinhala Bauddha janathaava bahutharayak jeevath vana me ape rate vaage bana ahana
jaathiyak nehe. Bana kiyana jaathiyak nehe. . Hebai avasaanaye me vage anthima
vidhiyata naraka veda karana Bauddha ratakuth nethiva ethi.
98

Sexuality is mentioned only once in this entire debate. It is used as

a reference point to the range of groups who are oppressed within
the prevailing unjust social system. Anura Kumara Dissanayake
argues:
In a society which is drowning in injustice, to focus only on
injustices against women is wrong. In this social system,
people are oppressed by their poverty, through education,
through health, by the law, and by their sexual identity. If
this is the case, what should the struggle be for? Now the
struggle seems to be for women to organize against men.
What should be the struggle? The struggle should be a
united one of everyone who is being oppressed, who is
being subject to violence, to harassment, and to abuse.
(Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column 1498).19

6. Patriarchy
While among feminists, there is at times concern that womens
rights activists in the larger society overlook or lack an
understanding of Patriarchy as an ideology as well as a structuring
of relationships of power, this Parliamentary debate sees the word
being interpreted in different ways.
MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake remarks that unlike the political
changes that took place in Europe, Sri Lankan politics, with regard
to women, remained within the patriarchal structures and male
dominated society of the Asiatic Mode of Production. He illustrates
his argument by pointing to the image of the Asian woman as
one clothed in the Kandyan saree and puffed sleeve blouse, and
braided hair. (Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column 1494).20

19. .assadharanayen gilila thibena samaajayake Kaanthavange asaadharanathvaya

kiyana karuna venamama galava ganna eka veradei. E samaajaya thula hema kenaama
athi nethi paratharaya visin, adhyapanaya visin, saukya visin, neethiya visin, thaman
niyojanaya karana lingikathvaya visin peedavata lak vee thibenavi
20. Aasiyave Kaanthaava pilibanda hedi thibena chithraya balanna. Osariya andina, borichchi
hetta andina, kondaya dekata bedala gothaagena sitina hedaruvak thamai . hadala
thibena arthakathanaya
99

MP Sudharshani Fernandopulle also uses the term patriarchy,

to illustrate a different aspect. She agrees that Sri Lanka is a
patriarchal society, but qualifies it by elaborating that in fact, our
culture is mother-centred. (Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column
1507).21
In contrast, Kamala Ranatunga, MP, states that women were
confined to cooking and caring for children under patriarchy, but
maintains that this is a thing of the past:
...there was a Patriarchal era when women were confined
to cooking and looking after children. But today, as the
other women parliamentarians have observed, women
in our society hold very high positions across different
sectors. It was said that women are less represented
in positions of decision-making. But if we look at the
Judiciary, all the key positions are held by women.

7. Womens Liberation
The analytical understanding of the concept of patriarchy is core
to mainstream feminist politics. But given that this debate was
not expected to and did not materialise into a feminist debate, it
is noteworthy that organised activism for womens rights was,
nevertheless, articulated as womens liberation. There are two
references, both by male Parliamentarians, to womens liberation.
The involvement of these two MPs in long-term major social
movements for systemic change one for socio-economic class
liberation and the other for ethno-national liberation - is likely
to be the common ideological denominator here. This also brings
to light the lack of engagement of the women speakers with such
social transformational movements as different from membership
in political parties.

21. .... ape sanskrutiya thula ada thibenne peethru mulika namuth, amma Kendra kara gath
samaajayak
100

The JVP Leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake argues:

We must see whether it is the increasing of the
representation of women in the legislative bodies,
or whether we should bring strong laws to prevent
harassment of women, or, whether, in a patriarchal
society, oppressed and disempowered women should
group together to struggle against men. In reality, none
of these will bring womens liberation or social justice.
(Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column 1497)
He argues further:
That is why there is absolutely no use fighting solely for
womens justice in a society that is unjust. By doing that
it will only be possible to become womens liberationists
or womens activists. Apart from that they will not be able
to bring about genuine liberation or justice. (Ibid.) 22
MP Selvam Adaikkalanathan refers several times to the violence
faced by women and children, and also recognises the role of
womens organisations and their role in bringing about social
change:
Currently many girl children and women are raped and
harassed. Womens organizations should take to the
streets for rights. Then only they will get the opportunities
for their liberation. (Hansard 22 March 2012, Column
1511).

22. Ema nisaa asaadharana sammajayak ethule,. kaanthavange saadharanathvaya venuven

pamanak aragala kireema .. kisi sema prayojanayak nethi deyak. Ese kireemen Kaantha
vimukthikaamin ho Kantha aragalaye niyamuvan ho bavata path vane puluvankama
thibenava. E herunu kota ovunta sebe vimukthiyak ho saadharanthvayak labaa ganne behe
101

Conclusion
As shown above in the examination of the actual parliamentary
discourse, this debate brings out an array of views in
parliamentarians understanding of the issues that women face in
the country. The concept of women is set out in the title of the
debate as a homogenous, uncontested category. The debate however
provides a unique platform for articulations of a multiplicity of
identities and facets of what it means to be a woman in modern
Sri Lanka. The number and range of key terms used by the speakers
indicates a somewhat elaborate understanding of womens issues
even if this understanding by these parliamentarians does not
meet the exacting analytical benchmarks of Feminism.
(a) Common themes: There was unanimity among all the speakers
on several issues: violence perpetrated against women and
girls women as victims and as survivors of violence; women
as contributors to the countrys economy as migrant workers,
garment factory workers, and workers in the plantation sectors;
and the contradictions between high social development indicators
(education, health) and the low representation of women in the
political arena and decision making.
The debate also allowed parliamentarians to venture into
topics hitherto subsumed in Parliamentary debates: topics of
patriarchy, equality, gender, and womens liberation. There are
clearly differences in the understanding of these concepts in the
many voices coming together to highlight some issues (violence
against women and children) and in the understanding of others
using their political experience to focus on other issues (rights,
oppression, patriarchy, and sexuality).
(b) Issues raised in these speeches in the larger national context:
Positioning this debate within the context of some of the issues
that were being reported on and discussed in the public sphere
is also helpful in drawing links between the public and the policy
discourse at the time (2012).
102

This debate showed a keen effort by these parliamentarians to

express their concerns about the major incidents of violence
against women - sexual harassment, rape and abuse - that were
being reported in the news media from across the country, and, at
times, concentrated in particular districts. (Kottegoda, 2012)
The identities of the alleged perpetrators ranged from chairmen
of local government councils to army deserters to ordinary male
citizens. The victims ranged from young girls to older women,
single women to mothers and grandmothers. Girls as young as
7 years were being sexually abused and murdered. Mothers and
daughters were being raped and murdered in their own homes.
Men with their bodies covered in grease (grease yakas) were
stalking and terrorising women. Calls for effective implementation
of the law appeared to be falling on deaf ears and there was much
concern among the public as to the safety of women and girls.
This was also a period which witnessed an intensification of
ethno-religious nationalist rhetoric, primarily orchestrated by a
group of Sinhalese Buddhist monks calling itself the Bodu Bala
Sena (Buddhist Power Army/BBS). This group used mainstream
electronic media and social media Facebookand other websites
- to communicate its ideology of Sinhala-Buddhist supremacy.23
Included in its media projections was a sustained focus on inciting
the exercise of control over Sinhala Buddhist women who were
seen to have taken on western values or were deemed vulnerable
to conversion to Islam. The group demanded that Sinhala Buddhist
women must adhere to their version of Buddhism that calls on
women to bear more children and to conform to religio-social
norms stipulated by the group. Feminists, womens rights groups,
and social activists were routinely condemned as forces that were
not relevant to Sinhala Buddhist women.
23. Amarasuriya, H. (2014). Protests and counter protests: Competing civil society spaces
in post-war Sri Lanka (Draft). Paper presented at the 13th Annual Symposium of the
Centre for Poverty Analysis: Post-war Development in Asia and Africa. 1-3 September;
Women and Media Collective. Religious Fundamentalism/Extremism And Sexual And
Reproductive Health And Rights: Ethno-Religious Nationalism and Sexual and Reproductive
Health and Rights in Sri Lanka (Forthcoming)
103

What is significant in this Parliamentary debate, that took place

in this volatile social context, is the MPs carefully modulated
comments on Buddhism and women. This could have been a
deliberate caution by the MPs to not resonate with the orchestrated
ethno-religious rhetoric in the public arena. It could have also
been an outcome of government and opposition party discipline
to avoid direct engagement with this socially divisive discourse.
Moreover, it is notable that there were no specific references to
Hindu women or to Muslim women in the debate.
With over a million Sri Lankans employed overseas, mostly women
employed as housemaids in West Asia, the unfair treatment and
abuse of women became a focus of discussion, activism, and
government concern. The lengthy trial and the sentencing to
death of a young Sri Lankan woman housemaid in Saudi Arabia
for allegedly causing the death of an infant in the household
where she was employed, brought in a keen focus on the situation
of women taking up employment in West Asian countries and
being vulnerable to various types of abuse while in employment
overseas.
(c) The conceptual depth of the discourse;
Two observations come out of this debate that could be considered
forward looking in terms of possible building blocks for a vision
and gender equality. Sumedha Jayasena, speaking on violence
against women, states:
We must all come together to stop these (incidents)
- women, especially our members of parliament, and the
whole of society - and bring about attitudinal change that
will lead to a reduction of harassment and of oppression
faced by women. (Hansard, 22 March 2012, Column
1498).24
24. Kohoma namuth meva velakveema sandahaa api siyaluma dena eka raashi vela, methi
emathivarunuth, mulu mahath samaajayath ekata ekathuvela aakalpamaya venasak ethi
kaloth Kaanthaavanta vena hinsa saha peeda avama karanna puluvankamak lebenava
104

Selvam Adaikalanathan states:

Men should not think that they can treat women as slaves.
It is wrong that men think women should work and men
should be bossA working mother, after finishing
her office work, goes back to the house and tends to her
children. She must wake up early to get her children
ready for school, and also to take care of her husbands
needs. After returning home in the evening, she needs to
prepare tea and dinner.Men go out to work and after
work, without thinking that his wife is tired, asks her
to bring him tea. To eliminate issues faced by women,
male domination should be eliminated. Men should
come forward to give equal rights to women. Womens
organizations should follow proper protocols to bring out
the injustices to women. In the future women should play
a vital role in Divisional Secretariats, Provincial Councils,
and other higher assemblies. (Hansard, 22 March 2012,
Column 1513)
he overall approach of women MPs was, however, distinct to
that of the male MPs. Several women MPs used the terminology
of Gender as a fundamental factor for violence against women.
Many of them argued for the need to increase and consolidate
the representation of women in the legislature because of the
current skewed composition. They also advocated for change
in the prevalent male dominated political culture to ensure the
implementation of laws and policies to end violence against
women. However, none of them referred to womens organisations
(there was one reference to NGOs) or to womens rights activism.
Two male MPs made interventions that showed their keen
awareness about the role of womens organisations; one thought
that organising for womens justice only, would isolate women,
while the other articulated critical support for the work of womens
organisations. The third male parliamentarian did not appear to
have any understanding of the role of socio-political movements
for justice to women.
105

The absence of reference to the womens rights activism25/

movement (as different from womens organisations) in a
debate on social justice to women signals a significant division
between these individuals elected to Parliament and the womens
movement. The law on Domestic Violence is mentioned but
there is no acknowledgment of the effective advocacy work done
by womens organisations to bring about such a law. (Hansard
22 March 2012, Column 1500)26 Increasing womens political
representation is repeatedly raised but there is no effort made by
any of the speakers to acknowledge the comprehensive advocacy
that womens organisations have been engaged in for almost two
decades. Women migrant worker issues are raised but with no
reference to womens rights activists and organisations that have
been campaigning for years about the rights of migrant workers.
This reluctance of parliamentarians in general, and of the members
of the womens caucus in Parliament in particular, is compelling
evidence of the need for parliamentarians to take stock of who
they represent and what their accountability is to women as
citizens of this country. It brings into question the depth of their
understanding of and commitment to gender equality. A further
inquiry into current approaches to the issue would be an important
contribution to on-going feminist debates in the country.
(d) Policy or legislative directions: In terms of a policy agenda,
the one constructive proposal that came out of this debate was
on measures to increase womens representation in politics. This
subject was taken up by a number of women parliamentarians
and two of the male parliamentarians. In hindsight, this could be
considered a benchmark in the overall advocacy on this subject;
in 2016 the government in power is attempting to constructively
structure in avenues for women to enter the mainstream political
arena.

25. The only reference was by Mr. Adaikkalananthan.

26. ...eda gruhastha hinsanayat pilimbadava panath ketumpathak be parlimentuve sammatha
kala...
106

Participants at the Debate. (In order of speeches)

Ms. Chandrani Bandara, MP
United National Party
Ms. Rosy Senanayake, MP
United National Party
Ms. Nirupama Rajapakse, Deputy Minister
United Peoples Freedom Alliance
Mr. Anura Dissanayake, MP
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna
Ms. Sumedha Jayasena, Minister
United Peoples Freedom Alliance
Ms. Thalatha Atukorale, MP
United National Party
Dr. Sudharshani Fernandopulle, MP
United Peoples Freedom Alliance
Mr. Selvam Adaikkalanathan, MP
Tamil National Alliance
Ms. Kamala Ranatunga, MP
United Peoples Freedom Alliance
Mr. Tissa Karaliyadda, Minister
United Peoples Freedom Alliance

107

References
Amarasuriya, H. (2014). Protests and counter protests: Competing
civil society spaces in post-war Sri Lanka (Draft). Paper presented
at the 13th Annual Symposium of the Centre for Poverty Analysis:
Post-war Development in Asia and Africa. 1-3 September.
Government of Sri Lanka (2015). The Role of Women in Peacebuilding: a Sri Lankan Perspective. Address by Ambassador
Ravinath P. Ariyasinghe. Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka
to the UN and other International Organisations iin Geneva.
Geneva Peace Commission.2 April.
Kottegoda, S. (2012). Do Women play a role in Reconciliation?:
Gender dynamics in the transition from war to peace. National
Conference on the Role of Women in Reconciliation. Colombo:
Lakshman Kadirgama Institute.
Moitra S. (2002). Feminist Thought: Androcentrism, Communication
and Objectivity. Kolkata: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers &
Jadavpur University.
Ruwanpura, K. (2003). The survival strategies of Sinhala female
heads in conflict-affected eastern Sri Lanka. ILO Working Paper
11. Geneva.
Women and Media Collective and ARROW. Ethno-Religious
Nationalism and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Sri
Lanka. (Forthcoming).

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About the authors

Farzana Haniffa is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University

of Colombo. Haniffa obtained her Ph.D in Anthropology from
Columbia University, NY. Haniffas research and activist interests
have prioritized issues of minority politics and gender. Her
research addresses the politics of dress, women in Islamic reform
movements, issues of gender and sexuality among war affected
Muslim communities, and the gendered nature of anti-Muslim
rhetoric.

Chulani Kodikara is a researcherat the International Center for

Ethnic Studies, Colombo. She studied law at the University of
Colombo, and Development and Governance at IDS, University of
Sussex, UK. Her research focuses on womens rights in the context
of law, nationalism, political representation, transitional justice,
and minority rights. Her publications include Only Until the Rice is
Cooked?(2012)on domestic violence andBalancing Acts (2014)on
counseling practices.

Sepali Kottegoda is a founder member and the Executive

Director of the Women and Media Collective. She is a visiting
lecturer on on the Womens Studies at the University of Colombo.
She holds an MPhil and a DPhil in Development Studies from the
IDS, University of Sussex. Her publications include, Gender, Power
and Politics in Sri Lanka. In, Power and Politics: In the Shadow of Sri
Lankas Ethnic Conflict. (2010).

Vijay Kumar Nagaraj (vijayknagaraj[at]gmail[dot]com) is

engaged in research on urban geographies, political economic
relations, security-development dynamics, and law. Apart from
regular commentaries in the print and electronic media, he has
most recentlypublished in theEconomic and Political Weekly,Journal
of Human RightsPracticeandDevelopment and Change.
111

Dr. Pradeep Peiris is a Senior Researcher at as well as the

Treasurer of the Social Scientists Association. He obtained his
PhD in Political Science from the University of Colombo where
he is currently part of the visiting faculty. Dr. Peiris has coauthored two books and published numerous journal papers and
book chapters on themes such as Reconciliation, Gender, Electoral
Politics and Political parties.

Kumudini Samuel is a founder member of the Women and

Media Collective and former Co-Executive Director. She works
on womens rights and conflict resolution. She holds a Masters
in Womens Studies, University of Colombo and authored Hidden
from History: Womens Activism for Peace in Sri Lanka (2006);
Women in the Sri Lankan Peace Process: Included but Unequal,
in Rethinking Transitions, Equality and Social Justice in Societies
Emerging from Conflict (2011)
Esther Surenthiraraj is a Probationary Lecturer at the
Department of English, University of Colombo. She obtained an
MA in Linguistics at Georgetown University and is reading for
her PhD at the University of Lausanne. Her research interests are
discourse analysis, narrative, and memory studies.

Shermal Wijewardene is Senior Lecturer at the Department of

English, University of Colombo. She holds an MPhil in English
Literature from the University of Oxford, UK, and a PhD in Gender
Studies from Monash University, Australia. Together with Vijay K.
Nagaraj, she is co-author of the monograph,Human Rights Practice
in Sri Lanka: Towards a Thick Description(2014).

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