What Are the Challenges, Risks, and Obligations for Women in 2008 and Beyond?"
by Rounaq Jahan '68, PhD '70
Dr. Jahan's address to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study on receipt of the Graduate Society Award June 6, 2008
http://www.radcliffe.edu/alumnae/radday2008_jahan.aspx
Photo by Tony Rinaldo
Rounaq Jahan AM '68, PhD '70 is a senior research scholar and an adjunct professor of international affairs at the
I am deeply honored to receive the Graduate Society Award from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. My memories of Harvard as a graduate student living in the all-women dormitory at
The world has changed tremendously and particularly the lives of women have changed significantly since I was a graduate student in the mid-1960s. In the last 40 years, in the United States as well as in countries around the world, gender gaps in education, employment, income, decision making, and even in political leadership have been narrowed. In many countries, including the
So what are the challenges? I will focus on four which are old, but they still continue to challenge women. Our first challenge is to shape our own identity, to be our own person and not be defined by others. This is not always easy, as our families and societies are constantly telling us who we should be. But from my own experiences, I know that when we stand firm on what we want to be, we can break many barriers. When I began my academic-activist life in my country
Of course, we have to recognize that achieving our own personal goals cannot be our only challenge. We need to confront the challenges that condition the lives of the vast majority of the world's women. We need to focus specifically on areas where progress for women has been relatively slow in the last 30, 40 years. Our second challenge is then to improve the terms and conditions of women's work, both paid and unpaid. We all know that women's employment rates have increased significantly in the last 40 years, but women's share of earned income has not been at par with their employment. For example, at present in the
Our third challenge is to reduce violence against women. We have succeeded in making violence against women, particularly domestic violence, a criminal offense in many countries. But this has not resulted in any significant reduction on the incidence of violence. Even in a country such as
Our final challenge, and here we have near stagnation, is to improve women's presence in political leadership positions. With the exception of Nordic countries, where women have made significant progress; in the rest of the world progress has been extremely slow. For example, in
However we cannot effectively address these challenges without recognizing the emerging threats/risks for women's empowerment. I will now turn to the risks for women. I will be selective and focus on four major risks. The first risk is the global trend of cutting back on the role of government and the public sector and relying more and more on the market and the private sector; which can adversely affect women's—and particularly poor women's—health and education. From our past experiences, we know that government laws and policies have played a critical role in improving women's conditions. Nordic women are doing better compared to women of other regions mainly because Nordic governments have been proactive. Their equality laws, women-friendly social policies, 40/60 principle of political representation, and public sector provisioning of health and education have contributed significantly in pushing Nordic countries to the top of the women's empowerment index.
The second risk for women is the persistent and alarmingly widening inequalities between different groups of women, which has held back our overall progress and created obstacles in building a strong and cohesive political voice. The gains women have made in the last 40–50 years have not been equitably shared. Class, race, place of residence have been major markers of disparities. Let me give a few examples of these disparities: Lifetime chances of dying from maternal deaths are 1 in 2,500 in
The third and related risk for women is the narrow constituency base of the women's movements. Women's movements around the world have played a key role in mobilizing women to demand their rights and pressurize governments to enact laws, adopt policies, and take specific actions. But the constituency bases of these movements in most countries have been limited to upper- and middle-class women. Working-class and poor women have generally not been drawn into them. This gap has considerably weakened the capacity of the women's movement to work as a strong unified political force.
The task of widening the constituency base becomes particularly urgent when we consider the fourth risk for women: the backlash from conservative groups, many of whom are religious extremists. These extremists are to be found in all religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism. In recent years, the resurgence of political use of religion and the political strength of faith-based groups have directly threatened women's rights. For example, the religious extremists in the
Let me finally turn to women's obligations. Again, I will be selective and highlight four. Our first obligation is to ourselves. As I mentioned earlier, we need to always stand up for our own rights, to be constantly vigilant and ever-ready to defend and promote our rights.
Our second obligation is to assist other women who are less privileged and resourced than us in our own countries as well as globally. We may all have our own paid and unpaid work responsibilities. But we still need to volunteer time for civic and political actions that address the issues of inequities and exclusion. I became involved in the women's movement in the 1970s, when I realized that I could no longer be a silent witness to the plight of thousands of women who were raped during our war of national liberation and were socially stigmatized and abandoned by their families.
Our third obligation is to recognize the critical role that education has played in fueling women's progress. This is more crucial for us who had the privilege of receiving an excellent education. Evidence from all over the world indicates that women's education has been good not only for women; it has also led to family well-being and economic growth. But millions of girls and women around the world are still denied access to education, particularly quality education. Girls account for more than half of the 57 million children who are out of school. We and institutions such as Radcliffe and Harvard need to move beyond simple knowledge generation. We have to get involved in quiet initiatives as well as public campaigns to ensure that quality education becomes available to all of the world's citizens.
Finally, we need imagination to create a vision of a society, economy, polity, and world order that will be equal, just, and inclusive; and we need to be in the forefront and provide leadership to a shared struggle of women and men to reach that vision. We need stamina and courage, but above all, we need to be committed and have faith in our own strength to transform the world.
__._,_.___
*****************************************
Sign the Petition : Release the Arrested University Teachers Immediately : An Appeal to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/university_teachers_arrest.htm
*****************************************
Daily Star publishes an interview with Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/news/daily_star/daily_star_MM.pdf
*****************************************
MM site is blocked in Islamic countries such as UAE. Members of those theocratic states, kindly use any proxy (such as http://proxy.org/) to access mukto-mona.
*****************************************
Mukto-Mona Celebrates 5th Anniversary
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/5_yrs_anniv/index.htm
*****************************************
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Earth Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Earth_day2006/index.htm
*****************************************
Kansat Uprising : A Special Page from Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/kansat2006/members/
*****************************************
MM Project : Grand assembly of local freedom fighters at Raumari
http://www.mukto-mona.com/project/Roumari/freedom_fighters_union300306.htm
*****************************************
German Bangla Radio Interviews Mukto-Mona Members:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/german_radio/
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Darwin Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/index.htm
*****************************************
Some FAQ's about Mukto-Mona:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/new_site/mukto-mona/faq_mm.htm
****************************************************
VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/
****************************************************
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
-Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___