‘I have to ask my husband for literally everything’: How a warmer climate is changing gender roles
Story and photographs by Bikash Kumar Bhattacharya for CNN
Editor’s note: This story is part of As Equals, CNN’s ongoing series on gender inequality. For information about how the series is funded and more, check out our FAQs.
West Kameng, India — Dressed in a black sweatshirt and pink chugba – a traditional long gown – Tashi Lhamo, 53, cuts a striking figure. Sitting in her kitchen, smoke from the firewood billowing in her face, she tells CNN: “Now that’s all I do most of the time: cooking.”
Twenty years prior, Lhamo’s daily routine was very different. She spent her days tending to her yaks in the pastures atop the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh, the easternmost state of India. As she remembers the names of her favorite yaks (Karjamu, Pema, Dokpa…) Tashi nostalgically adds: “It was an entirely different life. It was freezing cold in the mountains. We would keep moving up the mountains with the yaks as summer set in and my routine wasn’t confined to any specific daily work as a woman (in the way) it is now.”
“I was my own boss. I could sell churpi [yak cheese] if I needed any money. Now I have to ask my husband for literally everything. It’s like yak calves asking their mothers for milk,” she says with a sigh.
Tashi Lhamo, a former yak herder who is now a housewife, is pictured in her kitchen in Rama Camp, West Kameng, India.
Today, Tashi Lhamo is a homemaker, and her husband Tashi Phuntsu, 56, works various jobs. At time of writing, Phuntsu works on a local road construction project.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/asequals/climate-change-himalayas-yak-women-as-equals-intl-cmd/
