UN: half of women do not have bodily autonomy

[Pandoraslastchance]

www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/14/nearly-half-of-women-girls-do-not-own-their-bodies-says-un

I came across this whilst reading reddit. These girls cannot identify out of female genital mutilation, martial rape and forced marriages.

How can I (as a privileged white woman in the UK) help?

Makes me even more angry when privileged, white males claim to be oppressed because of their 'gender identity'

I just wish everyone would start using the word sex and not gender now.
Grates seeing 'gender equality' and 'gender based violence'

Read and learn. Tell others and talk about it.
Charities abroad or where you live in the things you want to help. Look for % spent on doing the thing Vs admin fundraising
Write to MP about specific things in the news
Other than that. Difficult. We'd all like to solve it if we could but realistically how can I really bring about massive changes in places miles away where I have never been etc

If anyone has any more ideas please do share!

What's new the thing is the major orgs eg UN use it in the old way

It was co-opted.

It’s a sobering thought, and I feel a bit like you, nicegerbil- a sort of helpless sadness. I have lost a bit of faith recently in the power of charitable donations to effect change, and in the NGOs that I would previously have looked to to help. I have started looking into micro loans recently, as that might be more targeted and effective in helping women with financial autonomy, which might increase their overall autonomy.

I am so grateful to be born in the time and place that I was, even though things aren’t perfect, it could be a lot worse.

@NiceGerbil

What's new the thing is the major orgs eg UN use it in the old way

It was co-opted.

Now they do. But the UNWomen group either don’t know what a woman is or don’t have the guts to say they do. I hope this will prod them into standing up for our sex.

Look for % spent on doing the thing Vs admin fundraising

Don’t be too hung up on the % though. The sheer amount spent on work matters too.

Charities have to waste a lot of opportunities to bring more money into the sector on being hung up on ratios. There is a huge amount of pressure to maintain a 1:5+ fundraising to spending ratio.

In reality this can mean it’s seen as better to spend £100k on fundraising to bring in £500k and have £400k to help people. When in fact it would be better to spend £1m on fundraising to bring in £2m and have £1m to help people.

One situation has 20% being spent on fundraising and admin, the other has 50%. But the one that looks worse is helping more than double the amount of people.

The amount that is spent in admin is a factor in effectiveness but it’s fairly easy to get that coded to project spending. So with really low admin costs, could well be being allocated to a project budget. More difficult to do that with fundraising costs, as fundraisers tend to need to be based in the rich country to be effective.

And if you think getting admin costs allocated to a project sounds bad, it’s often really not. The project will take on current/former service users of the project to help out and pay them. Often helping people escape poverty, get a stable job or training, go on to help others, build a positive place in their community etc.

The obsession with ratios really limits the amounts charities can do and it is corrosive.

It’s more effective to look at impact studies, which focus on outcomes. So how much change does each £1 spent on projects have rather than how much of each £1 raised is spent on projects. It’s about the change they manage to make in an area not how virtuously they manage to code the spending.

One thing you can do is support women’s DV charities in the U.K., and laws and spending decisions the government makes to improve these services.

Many women will come into the U.K. and still have those rights denied to them within the family. Women’s charities can help those women who are facing honour based violence, fgm or forced marriage.

I was thinking mainly of the larger charities who seem to have lost sight of what they're for. Focusing heavily on raising money sometimes through dubious means (aggressive chuggers) etc.

Yes, there are some charities that seem obsessed with marketing and will no doubt be sending out chuggers again once the pandemic allows.

On things US feminists could do is campaign for their government to sign CEDAW. The vast majority of other countries have, but in some countries the US refusal to sign it is used as an excuse to not implement it. The US has the power to lead on Women’s rights if it chooses to.