International Women’s Day: Miles to Walk, in the US and Across the Seas « SpeakEasy.
International Women’s Day: Miles to Walk, in the US and Across the Seas
This post originally appeared on the Ms. Foundation for Women’s Igniting Change blog.
2011 marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day – a day for the celebration of women worldwide. In 25 nations (including China, Afghanistan, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam and Zambia), the day has become a national holiday, a time not only to cheer for women’s advances, but also to reflect upon the many global inequalities women still face.
We honor this day in the United States, too, and stand in solidarity with our sisters who are struggling to surmount injustice around the globe. But here at the Ms. Foundation, we know we must do more than look outward at the failures and fault-lines of equality beyond our borders. Today, this entire Women’s History Month, and throughout the year, we must take a hard look at our own country’s shortcomings. While we pride ourselves on our global leadership and our national ideals, there is no doubt that the US falls hideously short.
Of course, we need not look far. Whether it’s Representative Chris Smith’s (R-NJ) attempt to redefine rape and set the women’s movement – and our entire country – back decades, or Congressional attempts to defund Planned Parenthood and other Title X providers, it is clear that women’s reproductive rights and health are under blatant attack. But even before the Right’s most recent assault on women’s lives, the status of women’s health in the US has lagged far behind. Did you know, for example, that over the last 20 years, deaths from pregnancy and childbirth in the United States have doubled? And need we remind you that this is taking place in a nation that spends more than any other country in the world on health care?
And then there’s Wisconsin. While the battle over collective bargaining rights and unions is not being framed by mainstream media as a “woman’s issue,” it more than surely [E1] is. Women make up a majority of public sector workers at the state and local level – they also make up 56 per cent of the “working poor” and are most likely, alongside people of color, to benefit from union membership. As such, our friends at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research point out, women and their families stand to lose the most if workers’ rights in Wisconsin and elsewhere are dismantled. In a time of ongoing economic crisis in which women continue to lose jobs, this is an especially frightening prospect.
The current US political and economic climate alone makes women’s fate seem especially grim. But this should not obscure the fact that women have long experienced the disproportionate impact of harmful policies and gender discrimination. No matter the decade, if you’re a woman here in the US you’re more likely than a man to be poor, to earn minimum or below minimum wage, to pay more for health insurance…and the list goes on. This while only a small percentage of us are at policymaking tables where decisions are made that directly impact our lives.
And how do we compare to the rest of the world? Global statistics tell a striking story of just how poorly the US performs when it comes to promoting women’s well-being. Among 42 countries with “high human development” levels, the US currently ranks 37th — in the bottom five of such countries — in terms of gender equality according to the United Nations’ 2010 Human Development Report [pdf]. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index [pdf], which analyzes rates of economic opportunity and participation, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment to compile its ratings, puts the US in 19th place globally. That means women in America fare worse, by some measures, than our sisters in nations like Sri Lanka, South Africa and the Philippines, not to mention much of Western Europe and all of Scandinavia.
The bad news continues. The US currently ranks last among the 11 industrialized nations who are members of the Group of 10 in terms of both infant and maternal mortality rates. Our current gender wage gap of 19 cents places the US 64th [pdf] in the world. And we rank 73rd in terms of women’s political leadership, falling behind nations like Rwanda, Uganda and Pakistan, and tying with Bosnia.
Frankly, it doesn’t matter what list you turn to, or how you spin the data: check any of the published rankings of global inequality from a gendered perspective and nowhere will you see the US ranked in the top ten of nations closing the gender gap. Nowhere.
Shocking? Disappointing? Certainly — yet if you understand the realities of daily life for most women in this country, the reason we maintain our embarrassingly low rankings, year after year, is disturbingly self-evident. Just ask the nearly 150 social justice organizations we support – groups led by and for women who, either through personal experience or through the lives of their members, come face to face with this unjust reality every day. They, better than anyone else, understand how urgent the need for change is.
Across the country, our grantees are fighting to win progressive changes that women in every corner of the world should be able to call their own. In Colorado, West Virginia, and other statehouses nationwide, they are fighting for reproductive justice, and against regressive measures that devalue women’s lives. In Wisconsin, Indiana and elsewhere, they are standing on the front lines to defend the right to collective bargaining now under attack. In Arizona, in Kentucky, and in Washington, DC, they’re taking on unjust immigration policies that disproportionately impact women and families. And at every level, whether city, state or federal, they’re fighting to ensure that women’s perspectives, and women leaders, are included at policymaking tables where key decision about our nation’s future are being made.
So, today, as the world pauses to celebrate the achievements of women worldwide, we honor our remarkable grantees. They, some of our country’s most treasured social justice trailblazers, are exemplary models of the kind of change-makers we should all aspire to be. We believe in their voices. We believe in their vision. We believe in their power to promote women’s well-being and create the just and inclusive democracy our nation was meant to be.
On this 100th International Women’s Day, we stand with all women and girls — down the street and around the world — to cheer our wins and inspire us all to further action. We have come a long way… but we’ve got miles to walk, here in America and across the seas.
Anika Rahman
President & CEO
Ms. Foundation for Women














Photo taken in November 2001
Confronting rape as a weapon of war
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Confronting rape as a weapon of war
Margot Wallström (center) meets with aid agency representatives in Washington, DC.
Today, International Women’s Day, Elisabeth Roesch writes about Margot Wallström’s recent meeting with aid agencies including the International Rescue Commiitee. Wallström is the UN’s first ever Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, tasked with leading the UN’s efforts to mobilize the international community to address sexual violence.
Margot Wallström’s open style, hands-on attitude and good sense of humor are refreshing for one of the most powerful women in the United Nations. Not to mention, critically important tools for someone whose job is to confront one of the toughest and most important challenges of our time: rape in conflict.
Over the last decade, the world has woken up and been moved to action by the horrific violence that women and girls often face on an almost daily basis in countries torn apart by strife and war. Wallström, a former Swedish politician, media executive and member of the European Commission, is the leader for this action. Appointed by the U.N. Secretary General as his Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict a little over a year ago, she is tasked with mobilizing the international community to respond to sexual violence with the same seriousness and commitment used to respond to any other threat to our world’s peace and security.
Wallström is outspoken about her belief that sexual violence is a criminal act – often a war crime – and that perpetrators should not be allowed to walk free. Proof of her seriousness has been her relentless advocacy to bring some of the worst offenders to justice. Callixte Mbarushimana, for example, is a leader of one of the main rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Accused of raping women and girls, he was recently brought to justice for his crimes. He and other offenders can thank Wallström’s practice of “naming and shaming” for a portion of the international attention they have received. Yet recently Wallström met with aid agencies including the IRC in Washington, D.C., and she was candid about the challenges she faces in working toward her primary goal of ending impunity.
Wallström’s office, though growing, remains small. Having recently received generous support from the US government, she now has the ability to expand her team to 9 people. But her list of priority countries is almost as long as the size of her staff – Colombia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR), Cote d’Ivoire, Sudan and Liberia. With less than a year left in her term, she will need to engage where she can have the most impact. While sexual violence in the DRC receives much attention, it will take fierce determination to shine a spotlight on its neighbor, CAR. The situation in CAR has long suffered from neglect even though the violence committed against women and girls there is equally grave. And in Ivory Coast, where a disputed election endangers a fragile peace, Wallström is one of the few voices speaking out to condemn the attacks on women and girls that have been reported in recent months. There, a critical opportunity to prevent violence is being missed. Can one person reverse the tide?
On my most optimistic days, I see Wallström as one leader in a growing movement of people that realize women’s security is important for international security or, to quote the famous words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, recognize that “women’s rights are human rights”. When a more cynical mood overtakes me, I wonder if world leaders have opened their eyes to the atrocities being committed against women in places like Sudan or Congo only to close them again as the same scenario plays out in other countries. It is easier to recognize a problem when it is bounded by the borders of a far-off war-torn nation. Far more difficult is waking up to the fact that violence against women and girls is global in scope, vast in scale and requires not a discrete intervention but a wholesale change in the way we respond to the needs of women and girls affected by conflict. My hope is that Wallström can leverage her time with the UN to catapult the international community to the next stage in confronting this violence. This would mean not only bringing perpetrators to justice but also changing the widespread practice of allowing the basic human rights of women and girls to be violated in silence.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you about three goals that I think are critical to this fight.
Confronting rape as a weapon of war (Part 2)
Over the last decade, the world has woken up and been moved to action by the horrific violence that women and girls often face on an almost daily basis in countries torn apart by strife and war
Yesterday I wrote about Margot Wallström’s recent meeting with aid agencies including the International Rescue Committee. Wallström is the UN’s first ever Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, tasked with leading the UN’s efforts to mobilize the international community to address sexual violence.
Today I’d like to share the three goals that I think are critical to the fight not only to end sexual violence but also to extend basic human rights to women and girls all over the world:
Posted by WPWI on 03/10/2011 at 10:30 AM in COMMENTARY, GLOBAL WOMEN'S ISSUES, VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, WOMEN FAMILY CHILDREN, WOMEN MATTER | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)