Exiled Tibetan Women- Journal Entry

For my field study prep class, we were asked to find an article or source relating to gender, families, or marriage that's related to our area. I looked for a long time and found a few sources on Indian gender roles, but it has been very hard to find much on exiled Tibetan population. This has been a frustration of mine during research; that not a lot is said on the people I will be living with and studying in the upcoming months. I know that I will be studying in India, but because my project deals primarily with the Tibetan population, I wanted to find something that I can really understand in context while I'm abroad.

There is a book called Feminism, Nationalism, and Tibetan Women in Exile written by Alex Butler.

This book is a source that I stumbled upon after much time of searching. It looks at the relationship between nationalism and feminism. It talks about the Tibetan Women's Association and how their role in exile is becoming different and more involved than in Tibet. It is interesting how things change and adjust with time. Even the TWA has changed their Aims and Objectives list between when the book was written (in 1996) and now.

In 1996, their Aims and Objectives include:

-To support and uphold principles laid down in our draft constitution, the policies of our government, and to fulfill the wishes of His Holiness the Dalia Lama
-To preserve and promote Tibetan culture, especially among the youngsters
-To promote general awareness of relevant issues within the community through talks and films
-To create adult literacy and other education programs
-To improve the conditions of the poorer and weaker sections of society, such as widows, divorcees, the very poor, and the needy new arrivals from Tibet
-To ensure that women have access to health and child care education
-To join hands with the women in the world in the hope that we may learn from each other and work towards the promotion of peace and justice so that the world may be a better place to live in.

Now, their Aims and Objectives are:

• To raise global awareness of the critical situation inside Tibet, and to exert international pressure for the improvement of Human Rights conditions for Tibetans living in occupied Tibet.
• Social, political and economic empowerment of women in exile.
• Addressing the drastic human rights abuses committed against Tibetan women in Tibet including rape, physical violence, and the denial of fundamental reproductive, religious and political freedoms.
• To ensure Tibetan women have access to adequate educational information about health care, childcare and family planning.
• Preservation and promotion of Tibetan culture, language, tradition and the arts through community education, literacy and publications.
• Assisting the needy in the community through sponsorship programs that help to support economically disadvantaged families, single parents, children, nuns, the handicapped, the sick and the elderly.
• To join hands with the women of the world to promote peace and justice for all.

It is very interesting to see the changes along the years of this organization, and to see that they definitely have a stronger focus on protection and promotion of women in the society.

And so we see that the woman's role is changing in Tibetan exile communities. To relate this to my project, it will be interesting to see this change in the home of Tibetan families, and to see that if the role of mother is different because of these feminist movements, as we have seen here in the United States.