Gender Gap, Gender Trap: Negotiations of Intersectionality and Patriarchy amongst Women Elites in Nepal

Transformation is apparent in Nepal, a country that underwent a decade of civil war 1996-2006, abolished the monarchy to become a republic in 2007, agreed on a new constitution in 2015 and is currently struggling to implement federalism. Decentralisation and minority representation are being put on the political agenda alongside efforts to rebuild infrastructure damaged through two major earthquakes. Beyond this, Nepal appears to have developed into South Asia's beacon of gender equality. Since 2016 Nepal has had a woman president, a woman chief justice and a woman speaker of parliament. Implementing a quota of 33 per cent women in politics, women politicians now come from a great variety of backgrounds reflecting Nepal's ethnic, cultural, regional and educational diversity. This study takes the entry of 197 female members into the constituent assembly of Nepal in 2008 as a baseline to study the transformation of "patriarchy" and its impact on the heterogeneous group of women politicians in high office in Nepal.