International Women's Day: how can we make the world more equal?

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello campers,

As lots of you will already know, Tuesday March 8 is International Women's Day. MNHQ has been working with the EQUALS coalition this year, and they've asked us to ask you to suggest small ways in which you think we could all work to make men and women more equal, whether locally, nationally or globally.

Examples would be: go and support your local woman's football team; write to a television station to ask why women presenters are 20 years younger than their male counterparts; or make a donation to an organisation that supports women in developing countries. (If you're feeling extrovert, you could also consider organising an EQUALS soul train in your area this coming Friday.)

Your contributions might end up on the EQUALS blog.

Thanks,

MNHQ x

The title of the thread is about the world.

How about starting with providing clean drinking water and basic sanitation to every settlement in the world, so girls can do something other than walk 10 hours a day to fetch water?

Provide immunisation and malaria deaths so mothers do not have to watch their children die so often?

Ensure education for all girls, at least to age 10?

I think that some of SurreyDad's points are fine although perhaps a bit oddly worded (women need to understand that men need to do some housework for example, should just be men need to do housework). Part of feminism is about recognising that the stereotypes of men vs women are unhelpful to everyone, including men.

But some 'issues' are non existent - men can take their wives names if they choose (I know a couple that have) and there is a totally simple solution to the getting to know the GP better 'problem', just take your child to the doctor every now and then rather than (apparently) leaving it to your wife (visiting the doctor to have a smear is only once every three years and familiarises only with the procedure for having a smear, not something generally very useful for men, lucky them). Oh, and there is a gender neutral term for senior nurses previously known as 'Sister', it's Charge Nurse or more often Nurse Manager.

I think that all of the issues / required changes cited (with a few exceptions from the men and women are different and so equality is a bad thing posters) are valid. For myself I guess right now I'm just role modeling for my children (I work and dh looks after the children, so that I hope is fairly powerful, for my children and their friends too) and challenging misogyny and sexism where I encounter it.

Oh yes, worldwide education, safe drinking water and basic freely (or at least cheaply) available healthcare are vital.

The cessation of war would help hugely with all of the above, given the general destruction, lack of stability for development, wastage of resources as well as the directly negative affect on women (widespread rape and violence towards women being a standard in most of the longer running conflicts).

Every woman can be authentically herself and still be seen as equal to any man.

ie. We don't have to act like men to achieve equality, we can be ourselves.

Hi, as a Yorks. biz woman I was shocked by the response in the last few days of a group of biz "men" claiming to be a biz "mafia" to my comments about the lack of females (i.e. none) in their publicity campaign. Their responses did intimidate me but then I got angry! I sent off a couple of press releases about this, no one has yet picked up the story. Perhaps if I had shown my breasts the story would have been published? If this had happened in a country known for opression of women that would have been bad, but it happened here in the UK. Today I shall be working on projects aimd at giving females & men confidence & self belief, I'm also looking out for a female journalist who might publish the real story, maybe you can help me to help women in the UK?

hi aim4u2b!

have you got in touch with a local feminist group? there are groups all over Yorkshire now; whereabouts are you? (You can send me a PM if you don't want to say on here.)

thank you for that. Still getting into blogs & techy stuff (just not my dept!)what's a PM?

it's a personal message, you just click on 'message poster' on the top right of someone's post.

at the top left of the Mumsnet page you will see a little envelope, this turns red when you have got a message waiting for you - I'll send one to you.

"Every woman can be authentically herself and still be seen as equal to any man"

I've been authentically myself for many years now. It doesn't seem to be working. Can you explain how you have achieved this equality? I'd be interested to know

On a worldwide basis, I'd like every woman to have control over her own body - no rape, obviously, and no unwanted births due to unavailability of birth control or pressure from their men.

I'd also like no woman to be punished for the acts of men, as we read about regularly when a woman is raped and then punished - by men of course - for her "adultery".

No forced marriage.

No discrimination in education or opportunity.

Yorkshire feminist groups for Aim4u2b

Back to the question, the only way we will ever achieve equality is if men bear and nurse babies. Until that staggering day we'll still be fighting i.e till hell freezes.

We will achieve equality when we decide that we actualy want it.

We expect to be equal in the Board Room, but want part time and flexible hours. We expect to be equal to our husbands around the house, but continue to pander to their needs. We expect to have equal pay with men, but don't put the hours in or think we can be a SAHM Mum for years and then walk into a well paid job. We expect to share the childcare, but don't put our foot down and ensure our 'men' do their share. We xpect our sons to do the same things as our daughters, but then we continur to do their waching and making their packed lunch until they leave home and get married.

I don't have any issue with equality. I decided a long time ago that this was not going to be an issue and I have stuck to it. I work hard and I have a good job (gender is irrelevant), I expected my Husband to take an equal share of child care and household tasks - he didn't, so he is no longer my husband. My DS, who is 5, is expected to help out around the house and he already understands that there are no such thing as 'girls' jobs and 'boys' jobs. He had a pram when he was younger and a play kitchen.

We all make choices in life and I chose to ensure I had equality in all things.

Why do you say that vs?

Why should the fact that what we do which should be our biggest strength - bear and nurture the human race - be the one thing which makes us weak?

Isn't that something to do with how we have responded to the ability of one half of the human race to give life, rather than the fact that we give life per se?

Shouldn't we be trying to design a society where bearing and nurturing children is valued and celebrated, rather than used as an excuse to oppress those who do it?

"We expect to be equal in the Board Room, but want part time and flexible hours"

In other words, we expect a society which enables us to earn our living AND function as mothers.

At the moment the board room is set up so that only those who have no caring responsibilities can function. We want EVERYONE to be able to function as workers without giving up their right to parent their children.

That is not unreasonable. It is made to seem unreasonable because we are so used to accepting the 1950's out of date version of how life is - if you want to compete in the boardrooom, you have to have a servant or wife at home, so that you can opt out of your parenting role.

Well no parent, male or female, should have the option ot opt out of parenting and work should be structured around the needs of families, not the other way round.

I benefit from part-time hours (not a lot of flexibility mind you) and would love my husband to have the same. He would too! We are prevented from this partly by finances, as he earns a lot more per hour than I do, and partly I think by employers expectations - they do not look well on men working part-time.

"Every woman can be authentically herself and still be seen as equal to any man"

"I've been authentically myself for many years now. It doesn't seem to be working. Can you explain how you have achieved this equality? I'd be interested to know"

I think jugglingjo was saying that that is when we would have equality. That we shouldn't have to be the same as men to be equal as a human being. If I feel that I am better at caring and housework and doing 'women's' work then I shouldn't be made to feel like I'm letting the side down or that I am inferior. Likewise if a man wanted to do that then he shouldn;t be made to feel less than either. We all have different strengths and we should be allowed to play to them without feeling like more or less of a 'person' or a citizen.

Due to my ill-health I have only recently gone back to work, so my husband earns far more than I do, plus which he is educated to a far higher level, but he and I have a healthy respect for each other and I feel more equal in my marriage than I do in the public sphere. It would be nice if society as a whole could have the same respect for me that my husband has, but it doesn't. I feel like I have to justify myself for not earning as much, working as many hours, for the fact that (heaven forfend) I get satisfaction out of cooking and doing the ironing.

We will be equal when any contribution made is seen as a contribution to society, whether we receive pay for it or not, and whichever sex is doing it.

that should have been 'less than' in inverted commas

Yes HerBeX - I expect a society which enables me to earn my living and function as a Mother. I expect a society where, if I choose to do that, then I can.

We have to find a balance, but I find (with a lot of the women I work with), they want it all, without realising that you actually have to work for it. High pay, regular promotions, but flexible hours, time off whenever the kids are ill, immediate right to annual leave when the kids are on holidays etc. There has to be a balance for both men and women, but you have to put the work in and not complain that women don't get promotion or end up in the Board Room without realising that it comes with hard work and dedication.

We also assume that all women want this - but that is not the case. Within my old team, there were 2 men and 8 women. The 2 men and 1 of the women were very focused on their career and actively seeked out promotions. The other 7 women were not bothered. One even took a step down to an Admin role when she had her first child. We can't fight a battle for people who do not always want it.

On the up-side, our Legal Director took 2 days leave last week because his kids had a bug and he looked after them. More men should take a leaf out of his book.

Lucy I think we need to organise the whole of the workplace so that there is much more flexibility for everyone and both men and women who want the high flying thing can have it and those who don't want it can chug along happily earning less money without responsibility. Also that people can have ebbs and flows as they do in other areas of their lives - career breaks, taking a few years out occasionally to do other stuff and then bringing those experiences back into the marketplace... our work set up is so limited and is wasting the potential of so many of us - not jsut women, men who don't fit the alpha male psycho template as well - it is ludicrous. We need to stop thinking that the way we have organised the workplace at the moment, is the norm and that we can be much more creative about using everyone's potential at the time when it is most valuable to society and them, to use it. But I'm rambling now...

Just wanted to say that it is not about making everyone 'equal' as everyone is unique. It is about giving everyone equal opportunities.

"I think jugglingjo was saying that that is when we would have equality. That we shouldn't have to be the same as men to be equal as a human being. If I feel that I am better at caring and housework and doing 'women's' work then I shouldn't be made to feel like I'm letting the side down or that I am inferior. Likewise if a man wanted to do that then he shouldn;t be made to feel less than either. We all have different strengths and we should be allowed to play to them without feeling like more or less of a 'person' or a citizen."

Yes I appreciate that, but we're not equal are we?. Caring and housework are seen as inferior and always will be until men walk in our shoes. No you should be made to feel inferior but that is how a large proportion of the world sees you as you yourself allude. We are not arguing from different perspectives as such you are saying the exact same thing as me.

The only difference I can see is that you say 'when' this happens. I don't think it's going to happen in the next thousand years. I'm not sure whether JugglingJo is answering the OP's question

Q:"How can we make the world more equal?"
A: 'By promoting caring and housework as being on the same footing as paid work'

Or suggesting that liberal feminism (in this case)is no longer needed because all we need to do now is 'be authentically ourselves'

Maybe I have the wrong end of the stick. Not unusual for me

We'd be able to get rid of a lot of issues by following the Swedish model and spitting maternity leave down the middle with both sexes being forced to take a 50/50 share in it. There would be no arguments about women "wanting it all" (herbex) and no more talk about women's lack of "hard work and dedication"

Last but one post should read "no you should not be made to feel inferior"

--When the sports pages of a newspaper actually are the sports pages, not the men's football pages.

Trivial I know, but it's just a mirror of how invisible women are in the media and somehow seems to underline the way women's bodies are never seen in anything other than a sexualised context.