You’ve heard about Tiger Mothers. But do you know about Hero Mothers?
Kyrgyzstan has a policy that designates women who have seven or more children “hero mothers” and offers those who qualify (she must have seven or more children alive, none of whom can have been convicted of crimes) indefinite monthly stipends of between 1000- 1700 Kyrgyz Som (about 17- 30 USD), akin to retirement support. The 3,434 women who received the award in 2014 were also given a vacuum cleaner and a one-time lump sum of around 175 USD.
For a country trying to modernize and democratize, this policy seems like an ill-matched means to an end. But its enduring application offers a lesson for countries like it across Central Asia: You can’t build a modern, thriving state without bringing women along for the ride.
Kyrgyzstan’s struggle to break out of poverty and overhaul its agrarian economy is hard enough with an overall birth rate of 2.68 children per woman (that number increases dramatically in rural and poor areas). Extending education and job opportunities to children is already a challenge. Although today’s hero mother policy ratchets back from the original 1996 version that stipulated 10+ children, the question remains: why do policymakers incentivize women to stay home bearing ever-more children, and thereby discourage half the population from entering the labor force?
You can’t build a modern, thriving state without bringing women along for the ride.
Two elected legislators told me on a recent trip that “Kyrgyz people want large families.” Vague reasons why included, “because it is tradition…because Kyrgyz like large families...because Islam says that having children is a good thing…because Kyrgyz tradition supports women caring for children at home.” Answers were cyclical and maddeningly unempirical for a philosophy that informs policy—especially since the officials were women themselves (who, by the way, my meeting agenda listed as “two female Parliamentarians,” not “two Parliamentarians” who then happened to be female).
On how the hero mother policy balances against their stated desire to educate and empower women, the legislators only reiterated that education is universal in Kyrgyzstan. Despite offering the topic as one of their areas of work, these leaders were even more squirrely on reproductive rights.
When I asked, “what are your programs and policies in reproductive rights?,” the official’s answer was, “women’s rights and responsibilities on reproductive issues.” Several rounds of asking for more information (really, any discernable answer) led her to state that she aims to a) provide prenatal care to pregnant women, and b) protect women’s right to have children and their responsibility to do so. When I further responded that terms like reproductive rights often include education around family planning and even contraception in the US, she giggled, seemingly embarrassed.
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A friend volunteering in Bishkek with the Peace Corps later confirmed that reproductive health as Westerners understand it is a relatively new concept in Kyrgyzstan, and that locals remain wary of discussing such topics, despite multiplying HIV/AIDS cases that underscore the need for safe sex. Ignoring contraceptives and the logistical challenges of having a half-dozen or more children certainly doesn’t help a country struggling to achieve economic security and social parity.
This seeming obliviousness to the kind of policies that can really empower women extended far beyond the government. The director of a private school system boasted to me that dormitory leaders at his 20+ schools tailor their treatment of students to their specific needs: his example was that a resident assistant would not ask a male student without a living mother to participate in a student bake sale. The notion that a child’s father could make or buy baked goods (or that a teenager could do so himself!) was dismissed on the grounds that certain norms (namely, mothers cooking and fathers working outside the home) are “expectations” in Kyrgyz society.
Later, a lunch meeting at a private university provided another example of presumably well-intentioned leaders undercutting women. The university president introduced a young woman who teaches international relations—as a translator. I subsequently re-confirmed that, yes, she is a professor, not merely a translator, and we had a long discussion comparing the scholars commonly read in American programs to her assigned readings. Even if she also does translation for the school, omitting her teaching job downplayed her role and placed her a peg below the males in the room, who were introduced one-by-one as educators.
This seeming obliviousness to the kind of policies that can really empower women extended far beyond the government.
The rector went on to describe the university’s effort to strengthen the institution of marriage through research and seminars. At first this seemed laudable – an effort, perhaps, to empower women as equal players in their marriages. The host explained that women in Kyrgyzstan used to be matched with their husbands (sometimes by force), with whom they would “go off happily.” That is, until they developed “expectations” and ambitions of working in the labor force. Today’s modern woman just wants to spend money all around town on endless handbags, the rector said, rather than stay home taking care of their homes and families. The school’s marriage seminars seemed designed to train women out of these expectations and back into their “proper” roles of deferring to male authority.
Schools producing the next generation of leaders and thinkers may want to consider creating environments of equality and inclusion, rather than reinforcing archaic gender “expectations.” Yet, people in Kyrgyzstan insisted that Kyrgyz women are free and equal as they pointed out the legal pluses afforded to them: women can vote, own property, hold public office, and seek higher education. A handful of domestic NGOs are trying to fill remaining gaps by working to combat HIV/AIDS , end violence against women, and increase women’s political participation.
But my conversations with men and women alike demonstrated that traditional gender roles persist and often prevent women from seizing the opportunities that exist on paper. And authorities are doing far too little to address domestic violence, bride kidnappings, and unregistered marriages.
The Kyrgyz government doesn’t seem to understand the connection between gender parity and economic prosperity, despite its documented link by academics. Kyrgyz leaders must not be allowed to turn a blind eye to the fact that the modernization and democratization they seek requires women’s participation. And Kyrgyz women themselves must join foreign observers and homegrown activists in forcing them to see so.
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Sarabrynn Hudgins