Exploring Theories of Patriarchy: A Perspective from Contemporary Bangladesh

Abstract

n 1984 I visited Bangladesh to begin research on female garment workers. The image that remains deeply embedded in my consciousness is the dramatic change that characterized the streets of Dacca since I had left the country only eighteen months earlier. Perhaps most striking were the number of women who now walked along the road, often in groups of six or more, especially after a shift change at the recently opened garment factories that dotted the streets throughout the city. The image of women dressed in cotton saris leaving work in the early evening was in stark contrast to my earlier experience when I was one of only a few, if any, women walking quickly along these same roads. It also was a change from the time when I was the only woman in a government or commercial office, or in some of the smaller fresh produce or fish markets, unchaperoned by either an older or younger male companion. At first I could hardly make sense of this now strange and different place that had been my home for five years. Was I mistaken? Did I remember incorrectly? Did I get caught by the Western image of Bangladesh and Bangladeshi women dominated by purdah (female seclusion), only to confront the everyday lives of young women struggling to make a living? How was I to understand this apparently fantastic change in the course of a mere eighteen months? I have been challenged ever since to make sense of this dramatic reorganization of women's lives. Certain facts were self-evident: a growing number of garment factories were now part of the city, Dacca was an internationally recognized export-processing enclave, and thousands of women