Notes

Essentially, my point is that the Maoist party leading the civil war always had a growing need for more soldiers, and were basically abducting sons and daughters from their parents by ideology (though I believe it's force) for the cause. It is claimed that 40% of the combatants were women. This was at a time when the Nepal Army did not enlist women, and when the Nepali society was plagued with caste and class based discrimination, and sexism. This gave women from especially so-called lower castes an opportunity to stand in an almost-equal footing with men. Moreover, when the civil war ended, a significant number of female combatants became a part of the Nepal Army, and several of them succeeded in gaining positions in the newly-formed Nepali parliament. Besides from regulating a quota system that required 33% of seats in many institutions to be granted to women, these women set up a model for women in many parts of Nepal to follow, hence signalling an era of unprecedented fight for gender equality in Nepal.