Shitty days -- global women's rights

[probonbon]

Hi, I'm interested in how much we should campaign for women's rights outside our own country and culture. It's very relevant if you live overseas. I live in India where sometimes the condition of poor women's rights seems to be worsening, while middle and upper class women are benefitting from the increased freedom that comes with prosperity.

India is not like some other countries where discrimination is enshrined in law. The opposite really. It remains societal and cultural -- while legislation has forged ahead.

Of course you then run into the question of whether we have a responsibility, a duty, or any right at all to "interfere". Perhaps I am allowed to interefere, as a local taxpayer, but others should keep their distance?

But doesn't that mean we have to focus on things that doesn't really affect anyone, like say, blue ink instead of blood in tampax adverts -- when so many women lead very painful, very sad, sometimes very horrific lives around the world, just because they are women?

While I'm on the subject can I just try to raise awareness of a campaign that will some of the most unfortunate women of this country.

95pc of people doing this job are women. It's an offence against human dignity. There's a declared aim to end it by the Commonwealth Games but it's highly unlikely to happen.

This is the sort of change that can be effected.

bump

My best friend now lives in Bangalore. I think it's changed her to see the conditions there. When she left, she was against having staff for example, then she realised that there was a woman attached to the rented house that she wouldn't want to make unemployed. He has struggled with having a housekeeper since, but has now paid for her to go to college to train to work in a call centre (which she really wants to do).

I think we have a responsiblity to try to protect women but we have to work within a context too. I have another friend who works with Buddhist organisations to help women convert from Hinduism to Buddhism as a way to escape the grinding poverty of the suti class. These women have to be re-housed miles away with their families to escape reprisals.

There are consequences to any help because any change to the status quo (individually or socially) entails fall out.

I admire anyone with the guts to try and make some change at any level really.

Yes.. in some ways the biggest and least controversial way we can help is to employ as many people as possible at a good wage, house them too. At least that way there is no suspicion of covert colonialism.

I'm very unsure about the religious conversions though. Discrimination in India crosses religions -- there can be Moslem untouchables, for instance. Educated people find caste very difficult to talk about. It is always "discrimination" rather than caste. Carrying out religious conversations sounds like taking things out of context completely.

So far I can only think of one uncontroversial way of "campaigning", and that is to give money to Indian run or Dalit run campaigning charities. But it doesn't feel like enough.

I'm just thinking about women, specifically. We interfered from outside with South Africa and apartheid. I don't know why this feels different.

bump because it's not just relevant for people living overseas -- we should all be concerned about women's rights around the world

shouldn't we?

Agree with you probonbon, of course we should be concerned with women's rights abroad, especially as most women in developing countries get a much worse than we do in the UK, but I think we are scared to get involved because the sexism they experience is usually cultural and we don't wish to be seen as racist. I find it interesting that, as you say, it's usually seen to be ok to stand up for general human rights but not specifically for women.

Also, it's interesting to note sexism is so far ingrained that middle class and educated females don't always manage to escape it.

The Economist had a feature on the "missing" baby girls in India and China a few weeks ago, and raised the issue that educated and richer women are more likely to abort a girl child than poorer women. Also the daughters of educated women are more likely to die in infancy than their sons.

link

Thanks happy, you have hit the nail on the head for me: it's "judging" as it were, from outside. Because of this I've tried to talk about it with local friends and also find out about local drives towards liberation. With the manual scavenging, for example, Sonia Gandhi has spoken against it and there is official disapproval, so I feel as though I can engage with that.

Your second point is also very interesting: one of my Indian friends told me this week that the rich can be as trapped, socially, as the poor, and it is the middle classes who are more able to choose.

Your link is excellent, thank you. During our conversation my friend showed me a similar Economist article focussed on south rather than east Asia. This term gendercide is horrific but doesn't exaggerate. It's in our faces here: the hospitals have a sign saying no one is allowed to be told the sex of the baby because you might abort it. That's the unbearable end of the sentence which they (obviously) don't write.

India is very forward looking in government but there are such staunch societal barriers to progress sometimes it seems.

This is a HUGE issue and I absolutely agree with the comparison with apartheid above. Racism in South Africa was also culturally ingrained but that did not stop the world from taking a stand.

If you are interested in the topic, I suggest you follow NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. He writes regularly on women's issues in the 3rd world, including a long and interesting piece in the NYT magazine in August 2009:

www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23Women-t.html?_r=1

He has also written a book (together with his Chinese wife), called Half the Sky:

www.amazon.co.uk/Half-Sky-Nicholas-D-Kristof/dp/1844086828/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268991395 &sr=8-1

Thanks mumintroll, I haven't heard of Kristof and will follow up. Great link to the Times piece.

mumintroll, that NY Times article was very interesting.

probonbon, if you are interested in getting actively involved Amnesty International has been running a campaign against violence against women. It is a global campaign and does focus on some of the issues facing women and girls in developing countries.

Thanks happy, I'll look into it. Rather horribly, things seem t o be getting worse in some respects. Who would have thought that the day after they vote to give a quota of seats to women in the Indian parliament, it would be reported that the number of acid attacks against women is rising. Rising! It should be dying out.

That probably sums up the situation perfectly In India, legally woman are equal, but the reality is that women and girls are not valued at all. And of course it's not just men that don't value women but other women as well. It's women themselves that perpetuate much of the sex discrimination in India both the Economist and NY Times articles show.

"It's women themselves that perpetuate much of the sex discrimination..." this is often the case, across cultures, now and historically. And is sometimes used as an argument to perpetuate or even just tolerate discrimination, sexism, genital mutilation etc 'Well, if women themselves want it...', not that I'm saying that's what you mean, Happysmiley.
But women too are subject to the overall traditional thinking/mindset (brainwashing, if you like) of their own societies, just like anyone else and for one reason or another don't challenge or question it - or even recognise it.
Here in the West, as we know, we have the luxury of being able to challenge and question it while many women in the world do not. Often it's a matter of their own, and their daughters, survival to just knuckle under. There was, apparently, an old saying amongst Chinese mothers from the time when, if she wanted a husband, (her only career choice), a young girl must endure foot-binding: 'If you love your daughter, you cannot love her feet'.
Going back to the first post, there is of course, a lot to be said - regarding solidarity as women for women - for campaigning "...for women's rights outside our own country and culture." But we have to be careful, don't we, that we're not interfering and even making things worse for the very women we're trying to help.
While we might rage from the relative comfort of our western armchairs, we're talking about overthrowing sometimes thousands of years of entrenched custom, values and power structures (as we did here) which isn't going to happen overnight (nor did it here). Rather, perhaps - and certainly also - support those that campaign in their own countries, as much as we can and in the ways they want us to.
Also, wider world opinion holds some weight and I would hope as women** (feminists?) become more vocal and powerful in the West, their opinions about (and refusal to tolerate) the treatment of their less privileged sisters is going to count more and more and hopefully those oppressing them are going to have to, albeit reluctantly, listen. On the other hand, our less privileged sisters may be justified in saying 'You're culpable - stop shopping in Primark'. Or even 'Keep shopping in Primark, it's our only income'.
**I would so like not to have said 'women' in that last sentence, but, it's got to be said, blokes have had most of the power so far and frankly have done fuck all about it. But then, not surprising since it's that male power we ourselves have been fighting. Looks like it's up to us girls - no change there then.
Anyway, having said that, I'm off to support the Dalit Solidarity Network. Meanwhile, please take a look at this:

www.plan-uk.org/becauseiamagirl/

www.plan-uk.org/becauseiamagirl/

"Because I am a Girl"

Over 41 million girls around the world are out of school.

Some girls are afraid to go to school because they face violence on the way or once they are there.

Others simply can?t afford to go. There might not even be a school for them to go to.

Sometimes parents don?t think girls should be educated.

We want to change all this.

Hi Gardenpath, thanks for the link. I would like to act on this.

Thank you, barefootinthepark, all support welcome. With the internet, we will overcome!

I posted it on another thread too GP (in a moment of pique!)

Ah, moments of pique are great, aren't they - perhaps if we could all synchronise our moments of pique, we could change the world!