Women’s struggles in Nepal face a wide-range of backlash from diverse actors and power-holders. The backlash comes primarily from the political power structure that has been dominated largely by men belonging to dominant castes. Women’s struggles also experience backlash from community power-holders, media and family members. This backlash from diverse actors’ manifests in the form of violence, threats, vilification, co-option and restriction in mobility, among others. These instances of backlash are often enacted through the support of regressive social norms and patriarchal inequalities.
In the last three decades, Nepal has witnessed drastic political shifts from absolute monarchy to multiparty democracy to currently being a federal democratic republic country. Nepal also underwent a 10-year long Maoist conflict that had a massive impact on the country’s socio-economic and political structure. Along with it, there have been several socio-economic shifts in the form of proliferation of development aid industry, rapid urbanisation, and labour out-migration in this period. These dynamic shifts have had implications on women’s movement and reactions towards them.
