The treatment of women

A recent blog post from New Internationalist was timely as I settle into a new culture.
http://newint.org/blog/2013/06/14/women-violence-india/
Sri Lanka is not India however there are similarities to be found.

In a country which had the privilege of having both the first female prime minister and president in the world, there are marked gaps between rhetoric and reality. The guidebooks all say that because of the influence of Buddhism here, that SL is a safe place for solo women travellers, however I haven't found it to be particularly so. Already I have had incredibly rude things shouted at me by schoolboys, been mocked by boys on the beach outside my hotel in a very explicit way, and been generally harassed by touts and drivers in a popular tourist area to a far greater extent than I have ever been subject to anywhere in the world. My colleagues have told me a few stories about women they know personally having been physically threatened whilst here too. Of course the majority of places and people are kind and welcoming but it's certainly a different atmosphere than anywhere else I've been before.

I've done a bit of research and there seems to be more of a consensus in local media that single women are socially unacceptable and generally seen as "easy prey" or "fair game". (Sunday Observer 25/02/07). A UNHCR report (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 2004) also reports that "spinsters, a term used in reference to single women, are also discriminated against and are not socially accepted in Sri Lankan society (Daily Mail, 8/08/03). One source notes that single women have in the past been referred to as an anti-social group (ibid.).

Wider than the issue of how comfortable I may feel here though is the fact that one in every five households are female-headed, due to the civil war but also the 2006 tsunami. Female-headed households are "deemed to be inauspicious and are not culturally accepted (ibid.), are seen as unlucky and are "generally not invited to community ceremonies such as weddings and festivals (Daily News, 25/03/03).  Female-headed households are always under the threat of rapists, womanizers and often become easy targets of criminals" (ibid.).  

I had a tuk-tuk driver in Negombo the other weekend who asked me if I was married and when I said that I was not, he replied "you cannot be happy if you are not a wife and have children". He was a nice friendly guy, but that was his world view and it was incomprehensible to him that I might be happy as I am.

I don't know where I am hoping this train of thought will lead, I guess it is an observation of my current experience, and we shall see what I learn and observe during my time in this country which may not be the tropical paradise it may wish to appear as.