The insurgency was led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (Nepali: नेपाल कम्युनिष्ट पार्टी (माओवादी-केन्द्र), or CPN (M-C) with the aim of establishing a People's Republic and ending the rule of the Nepalese Monarchy.
[4] The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) was able to garner such a large degree of support primarily due to its ideology which called for the equal treatment of persons irrespective of gender, ethnic, regional, or caste-based differences.
[9] This unequal access to land was aggravated by the fact that over 90 percent of female workers in 2001 were employed in the agriculture industry, the majority of whom were disproportionately tasked with hard labor and were still paid less than half the amount of their male counterparts.
This was because Nepali society's traditional view of women as homemakers meant that female activists and espionage workers were able to easily access new areas and mobilize masses of individuals in a way that male members could not.
A number of studies carried out by organizations such as the Institute of Human Rights Nepal, and researchers such as Seira Tamang, Sonal Singh, Edward Mills and Adhikari have estimated that female participation in the Maoist movement during the People's War was between 30 and 50 percent.
Judith Pettigrew and Sara Shneiderman shed light on this in their research as they describe that much of the negative sentiments towards female participants of the Maoist movement were rooted in a disapproval that women "ignored "feminine" duties such as chastity and motherhood during the conflict".
[16] The social exclusion of female participants in the Maoist movement was furthered by the fact that many of the individuals in charge of organizing post-war reintegration programs did not recognize the efforts of women in the People's War and subsequently failed to implement gender-inclusive initiatives.
These effects were most evident in economic reintegration efforts as many of the skills of combatants and other participants in the movement had either become obsolete due to automation and technological developments, or had drastically altered, requiring them to undergo training and restart their occupational trajectory.