The entrepreneurial women we hear from in this book face many obstacles in running successful businesses. In many instances during this research we encountered male allies within kinship groups that supported women. However, to effectively promote women’s economic empowerment on a broader scale, the involvement of men at the community level as champions of gender equality is essential.
One such figure is Hayat Tarikov, CBT coordinator at Arslanbob. It is important to acknowledge men like Hayat who take responsibility for proactively sharing their space and platform within the CBT community to elevate and accelerate women’s empowerment. They lead by example as change agents, by reaching out to other men in the community to engage them in changing community norms for the better. Hayat recalls that:
“In 2001 CBT started primarily as a movement to help women who were motivated to make a change in their life but needed our help due to problems in their families: their husbands left them or were widowed and were taking care of their children by themselves. We trained them, and they gradually started earning good money. We now have 22 guest houses in Arslanbob, almost all are owned by women”.
While many men agree with gender equality in principle, male allies like Hayat show that real progress requires that moral support be translated into concrete action. Hayat recalls:
“We had one lady in the village whose husband left to work in the city. We persuaded her to open a guest house, but it was hard for her to manage this alone and to improve the condition of her house. With other members we built a good toilet for her so that she can start hosting foreign travellers and after that things went very well for her”.
By proactively sharing knowledge and engaging other men in gender equality initiatives, male allies can make invaluable contributions to levelling the playing field and diffusing their historical entitlement.
While men’s social legitimacy over women is at the root of the problem itself, Hayat is an example of constructively leveraging privilege to effectively challenge patriarchy. Taking on the responsibility of motivating others to approach gender equality in a new way – with men as key players – can also lessen the burden of this work on women. Hayat gives an example:
“This summer a young woman in our village lost her husband, they were farmers planting potatoes. When the harvest season came in the fall we sent tourists volunteers to help her harvest. Those tourists worked for free and in return she cooked them a delicious lunch and an afternoon snack every day. Next summer this woman's son will work as a guide for CBT”.
Hayat humbly mentions, “It makes me happy that I am in a position to help a lot of women towards achieving financial stability and they can now give better education to their children. To live in an inclusive and just Kyrgyzstan, we must leave no one behind in CBT”.