[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about discrimination, violence, underpaid work and gender norms violated for women the world over. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
—Pitiable those in power who have women against them. (J. L. Melenchon)
–“I am a woman; let no one tell me that something is impossible”. (Cristina Fallaras)
1. The challenge in the present historical period is to end the multiple discriminations against women. This will only be possible if men and women of the workers’ class are organized, unified and mobilized behind these objectives. This ought to be our commitment, namely, to pay a true tribute to the thousands of women who have fallen around the world fighting for their rights. (Luis Mesina)
2. But, you see, discrimination against women is a theme inseparable from the male ego. Think about the education we receive on gender issues; it is mostly composed of slogans and is not really the education needed to cover the subject in a way that has a chance to change ingrained attitudes. (The same goes for machismo: there is neither training nor exemplification highlighting the daily male ‘macho’ behavior). I add that anthropology and left-wing politics do not look each other in the eye with respect to this issue… (Luis Weinstein).
3. Add to the above the fact that gender norms are often unwritten, but are widely taken for granted.* Without specific attention to the gendered-character-of-social-harm (e.g., in the criminal justice, health care, education, political and other sectors), the potential of human rights (HR) discourse –and its practice to transform these norms and protect women– is and will be diminished.
*: Gendered norms serve to maintain some people at the top of the pile and relegate others to the bottom. Without addressing these structural factors, needs-based diagnoses and implementation can only ever be partial solutions. If long-term viable solutions to gendered harms and violations are to be sought, it is necessary to attend to their deeper context. Standards do not work simply by appealing to them –they must be interpreted and translated into everyday interpersonal and institutional practice in every specific context. (Andrew Jefferson, Micah Grzywnowicz)
4. Discrimination and violence experienced by women**, as well as by people with nonbinary gender identities, are found in all spheres of life. Even HR actors still have a long way to go in incorporating in their analysis how power underlies the enjoyment and violation of the rights of women and girls –let alone LGBTQ people.
**: Would you not agree?: Women often do not realize they are in a circle of violence. Their brains normalize the situation. (Alina Narcizo)
5. Family law everywhere has not kept up a) with social shifts (i.e., what was called the gendered-character-of-social-harm above), b) with marital rape, c) with child marriage and d) with a lack of property and custody rights, among other. These are all persistent problems that we need to urgently address. [Actually, discriminatory family laws are stalling progress on women’s rights in many countries]. (Caroline Kimeu)
The work of women is more often than not invisible and unvalued
6. Let us look at different contexts:
- Existing models have long insisted on narrow definitions of family and gender, giving exploited male blue-collar workers only very limited power within their homes. As relates to women blue-collar workers, the system equally exploits them mainly ensuring the reproduction and survival of the workforce (particularly women already marginalized by racism).
- In most countries, care workers are underpaid and still not fully recognized or given adequate labor protection seemingly due to domestic workers being predominantly women and often from marginalized and/or migrant communities.
- And then, there are microfinance schemes. These schemes offer only an elusive promise to impoverished women, i.e., promises to become prosperous entrepreneurs. But this is at the cost of exorbitant interest rates that impinge on the basic survival of their families.
- Furthermore, in some of our contexts, women are excluded-from or not meaningfully engaged in formal and informal decision-making processes.
- Patriarchal patterns limit women’s access to land, territory and other common goods despite their frequent central role as claim holders in struggles against dispossession.
- The inequalities all women face are often compounded by other forms of marginalization or oppression, for instance, for women from indigenous and/or Afro-descendant backgrounds and/or women with discapacities.
Opening elections to female candidates is really not sufficient
7. Women still face difficult access to the political and HR education needed for an effective leadership. Furthermore, focus needs to be much more on historically marginalized women by fostering mutual learning and solidarity particularly between women and non-binary leaders. We cannot forget that women are disproportionately impacted by climate-induced disasters and their multiple impacts on health and wellbeing. This, since they perform the majority of care work for their families, communities and territories. Yet their overall political clout is negligible.
8. Do not forget that women HR defenders are at the forefront of territorial defense actions confronting the aggression and dispossession of development schemes that are often carried out by paramilitary, private security forces and military apparatuses. Yet their overall political clout is negligible. (ESCR-net)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
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Postscript/Marginalia
—The Extreme Right is growing.*** It does not fall from the sky, it flourishes here and there with its racism, inequalities, silences and lies, warmongering, homophobia and misogyny –that is why they grow strong and above all, fast. Now, they try to sell us the idea that this shift is unavoidable –and one is almost tempted to think the same, to believe that nothing good can grow anymore from the current state of affairs in this world that sows hatred, death and creates artificial borders. But beware: It is indeed possible to defeat this turn to the extreme right. I learned it from the women who came before me. One of the weapons of the Extreme Right –which has already overrun the more traditional Right in general– lies in violence; in lies that create fears that allow hatred to grow; for me, the most dangerous is its speed. That is why, lately, I insist so much on the idea of urgency. Because if we do not stop this avalanche here and now, the Extreme Right will put an end to all the good things we have built including the rights of women and of the LGBTQ collective, the right to abortion, an end to the very idea of equality in general including gender equality, and an end to public education and health, as well as an end to compassion. We simply still have so much progress to make… Our historic duty is to make this world a better place. Of course, it can be done. …I learned this from the women who came before me. (C. Fallaras)
***: Note that the anti-rights-Extreme-Right is where misogyny and Capitalism meet. (ESCR-net)