KATHMANDU: At a recent kulpuja in my family, I watched as male Brahmin priests conducted every ritual, their voices chanting mantras while women sat on the sidelines preparing offerings or serving food.

When my cousin who was a girl, cracked a coconut as prasad and offered it to a priest, he recoiled saying, “Keti le chadaunu hudaina” (a girl shouldn’t offer it) I was stunned. This wasn’t just a rejection of her gesture, it was a rejection of her place in a sacred space.

The kulpuja incident is not isolated. In Nepal, religious rituals whether Hindu pujas or other ceremonies are overwhelmingly led by men. At my family’s kulpuja, every Brahmin priests were males, the old traditions that reserve spiritual authority for men. Hindu texts like the Manusmriti historically limit women’s access to Vedic rituals framing them as impure or unfit to lead.

A 2024 study by the Nepal Women’s Association found that 95% of registered priests in Hindu temples across Nepal are male despite no legal barrier to women’s participation.

The priest’s refusal to accept my cousin’s prasad dismissing her offering with “Keti le chadaunu hudaina” is a microcosm of this exclusion. The phrase implies that a woman’s touch or agency taints the sacred. For instance, 32 year old Radhika Sharma, a female priest trained in 2023 told The Kathmandu Post, “People are shocked when I lead a puja. They think only men can speak to God.”

This male monopoly on spirituality not only excludes women but also devalues their spiritual worth reinforcing their subordination in both religious and social spheres.

This patriarchal mindset extends beyond rituals to everyday interactions. When my father proudly says “Euta chori, Euta chori” when they ask about the children they have, the inevitable response “Chora chaina?” reveals a cultural obsession with sons.

This question asked casually but loaded with expectation reflects a society that sees daughters as lesser their value tied to marriage rather than their own potential. This preference has real consequence, a 2024 case in Dang saw a woman Saraswati, pressured into multiple pregnancies by her in-laws to produce a male heir enduring verbal abuse for “failing.”

When women defy these norms by speaking out they face character assassination. A young activist Maya, used ‘X’ to critique dowry practices in Biratnagar. Her posts were flooded with comments calling her arrogant, unmarriageable or disrespectful to tradition.

This mirrors historical patterns where women’s voices were curtailed through ideals like pativrata which glorifies silent, obedient wives. Today outspoken women like Onsari Gharti Magar, Nepal’s first female Speaker of Parliament, face media scrutiny over their personal lives rather than their achievements.

Even in progressive and educative households where both parents work, women bear the brunt of domestic labor. A 2023 WOREC study found that 78% of working women in urban Nepal spend 3-5 hours daily on unpaid domestic work compared to less than an hour for men.

This inequity is rooted in marriage’s patriarchal structure. Rituals like ‘Kanyadan’ where a bride is “given” to her husband’s family set the tone for a lifetime of service. Serials like Sajha Sawal glorify women who juggle careers and kitchens framing it as empowerment while ignoring the exhaustion.

Male dominated rituals, son preference, silenced voices and unequal labor are rooted in Nepal’s patriarchal traditions. Divorce carries stigma for women but not men. When singer Eleena Chauhan filed for divorce against Bishnu Sapkota in January 2025 at Kathmandu District Court citing suspicion and character attacks, the flood of negative comments on her social media wasn’t surprising.

Films like Prem Geet romanticize women’s sacrifice while real life women who defy norms like my cousin or Maya are punished. The reel life myth of harmonious traditions clashes with the real life reality of exclusion and inequity leaving women to navigate a society that devalues them from the altar to the home.

The 2024 Nepali film ‘Boksi Ko Ghar’ starkly exposes the patriarchal oppression embedded in Nepal’s societal fabric portraying a rural woman accused of witchcraft and subjected to violence and ostracism. The film’s ending deliberately unresolved, underscores the never ending cycle of gendered marginalization.

In Nepal sex workers are vilified, branded as immoral outcasts while the societal forces (can be told men), compelling their choices are conveniently ignored. Poverty, lack of property rights and abusive marriages often leave women with no alternative yet they bear the blame for surviving in a system stacked against them.

Men, whose desires sustain the trade escape scrutiny, their actions normalized as natural urges. Meanwhile sex workers are stripped of dignity, judged through a lens of patriarchal hypocrisy that demands female purity but excuses male indulgence. Of course there are exceptions let’s not argue about the minorities here.

As a group of friends, we ride scooters to college embracing the freedom of the open road only to face a barrage of gendered hostility. Boys on bikes taunt us, racing to overtake or jeering as if our driving is a spectacle, a “miracle” because we’re girls. My friend Aslesha, who drives a car endures this even more intensely.

Negative comments like “pakkai keti le chalayeko hunu parcha” follow her every mistake, real or perceived, especially when parking or navigating traffic. Such attitudes trap us in a cycle of scrutiny, undermining our confidence and right to move freely. To shed more light on this, in her book “Why Men Rape” Tara Kaushal recounts a man’s reaction as he teaches his wife to ride a scooter, he says, “dus saal pehle toh yeh aurat ghoonghat mein hoti, ghar se bahar nahi nikalti, aur ab scooter pe scooter chalayegi.”

While Nepal’s constitution promises equality, our lived experiences tell a different story. This gap between legal promise and daily reality demands more than gradual cultural change, it requires decisive action.

This fight is not about labels, it’s about humanity. We know the exhaustion of being dismissed, the weight of proving our worth in a world that assumes we are less. This isn’t just our battle, it’s a call for a society where no one’s dignity is mocked or sidelined. So laugh it off or roll your eyes but we are pushing for a world where empathy isn’t a miracle and equality isn’t a punch line.

As a law student, I understand that legislation alone cannot transform mindsets built over generations. But strong laws create protected spaces where new narratives can take root. We need courts that consistently reject “tradition” as justification for discrimination, harassment statutes that are actually enforced and media regulations that demand representation beyond stereotypes.

We must actively dismantle it, in our temples, our homes, our courts and our consciousness. Not gradually, not eventually, but now. Our daughters aren’t just inheriting our struggles, they are watching to see if we have the courage to end them. This isn’t merely about equality, it’s about reclaiming our collective humanity from a system that diminishes us all. The time for polite requests has passed. The time for transformation is here.

(Writer is a third-year law student studying at Kathmandu School of Law.)