Sri Lanka have been yo-yoing about how to tackle their discriminatory ban on women buying alcohol, and they seem to have settled on the wrong decision.
On Wenesday 10 January, Sri Lanka’s finance minister, Mangala Samaraweera, tweeted that the country was overturning it’s 1979 law prohibiting the sale of alcohol to women.
A finance ministry official told AFP that the action was taken in an effort to tackle sexist bills.
‘The idea was to restore gender neutrality,’ ministry spokesman Ali Hassen said of the decision.
Hurrah, you cry, another much needed small victory for equality.
Yet it proved to be the most short-lived attempt at anti-discriminatory action imaginable, since just days later, President Maithripala Sirisena announced that he was revoking his decision to scrap the outdated and sexist law.
Well…it was a nice for a moment there.
'From tomorrow (Monday), the minister’s order will be rescinded,' Sirisena’s office said in a statement, which did not offer any kind of explanation for the sharp U-turn in policy.
The laws concerning alcohol in the Buddhist-majority country are strict, with restrictions forbidding the sale of spirits to police or members of the armed forces in uniform, as well as controlling how many hours a day alcohol can be sold for.
The initial decision to lift the ban was one of a few changes made to relax Sri Lankan alcohol laws: allowing bars to stay open longer, and lifting the ban on women working in bars, distilleries, and breweries.
Yet the move to relax laws on alcohol was met with significant backlash from the more conservative Buddhist population. Leading monks argued that the decision would threaten Sri Lankan culture and family life by encouraging more women to drink. At a rally, the president admitted to listeners that the government withdrew its initial decision to lift the ban after facing heavy criticism.
The president may have revoked the decision to pander to religious conservatives, but as a result he now faces backlash from a different quarter. The whirlwind shift backwards has left people outraged and vocal opposition say the action insults the intelligence of women, and is a basic denial of a woman’s right to make her own decisions.
Twitter users have called out the president’s decision, rightly pointing out that to really claim an anti-alcohol stance (rather than a blatantly sexist one), he would have had to ban alcohol for both men and women. As it is, the president’s ‘intervention’ clearly doubts the intelligence of women to make their own decisions concerning alcohol consumption- blissfully ignoring the fact that men can make bad decisions concerning alcohol too.
Gender equality seems so simple when you define it- equal rights for men and women. If a man can do something, a woman should be able to do it too. Obviously. Duh.
But for some inconceivable reason, governments, and politicians, and elected officials the world over still seem to be struggling with concept. And it needs to stop. Governments need to stop exercising control over women’s rights. Women don’t need to be protected from themselves by laws men put into place- women are capable of making their own sensible and intelligent decisions.
Outdated and sexist laws that trample upon women’s rights need to be scrapped (see Saudi Arabia lifting the ban on women driving and allowing women into football stadiums for the first time, if you’re in need of inspiration), not reinstated. This is a huge step back for Sri Lanka, a popular tourist destination that should be moving with the times.
Follow Annie Simon on Twitter: @annieasimon
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.