Asking the Woman Question of Constitutions: Insights from Sri Lanka

Abstract

What do we learn when we ask ‘the woman question’ of constitutions of the Global South? Constitutions worldwide are increasingly the subject of gender analysis, which rests on ‘asking the woman question’ to uncover the gendered implications of seemingly neutral constitutional provisions. But can gender analysis account for all forms of gender inequality in all kinds of constitutions? In this article, we place three lines of inquiry in conversation in responding to these questions: the feminist method of asking the woman question, dominant approaches to constitutional gender analysis, and the perspective(s) from the Global South. In doing so, we develop a way to understand how constitutions of the Global South are gendered in their design and operation, in ways that are perhaps distinctive. We use Sri Lanka as a case study to show how asking the woman question of Sri Lanka’s Constitution requires us to revise some fundamental assumptions about constitutions and to engage with laws, institutions and practices that are close to the constitution, but not usually considered within the constitutional remit. We argue that constitutional gender analysis needs to move beyond a focus on constitutional text and institutions to better address gender inequalities in societal institutions, such as the family, institutions relating to labour, religious institutions and the military. We describe these institutions as ‘proximate institutions’, by which we mean institutions that are close to the constitution, because of their role in constitutional governance and in the exclusion and subordination of women from it. We propose the identification and analysis of proximate institutions as a methodology that calibrates the issues of context that are critical for fully understanding the gendered nature of constitutions, in the Global South and beyond.