-In our land of Oz, hypocrisy is without shame. Patriarchy rules. (JeromeKoenig)
-Women are not ‘men of the feminine sex’. (Jose Faustino Sarmiento)
-Gender relations are a form of organizing society …as is income.
1. While sex refers to biological differences between men and women, gender refers to the roles and responsibilities that society constructs, assigns and expects of women and of men on the basis of their biological and physical characteristics. The bad thing about this is that these expectations create stereotypes.
2. Gender thus refers to the attributes and opportunities associated with being male or female and to the relationships between males and females which, in-last-instance, are socially constructed and learned through socialization processes. Therefore, gender roles change over time. Ergo: society can change the gender roles!
3. As regards gender equality, this does not mean that women and men should become the same, but rather that women and men should have equal access to opportunities and to achieve equal results. Furthermore, gender equality is not a woman’s issue, but must concern and engage men as well as women.
4. Women have traditionally been relegated to the household sphere and to a subordinate status in society –on top of being generally excluded from recognized interpretations of human rights (HR). It is the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)* that sets out the measures for the achievement of equality between men and women –regardless of their marital status, in all aspects of political, economic, social and cultural life. It is thus no longer about just achieving equality and about eradicating gender discrimination, but rather about empowering women so they can become full and equal partners in all policies and decision-making processes in their communities.
*: Surprisingly, CEDAW did not include anything about violence against women. It was only fourteen years later, in 1993, that the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (DEVAW) proposed ways in which governments should act to prevent such violence, and to protect and defend women’s rights.
5. An important ad-hoc note here: It is said that not all inequalities are inequitable and not all equalities equitable: Indeed a very important and correct (although not that easy to understand) statement. We can use an Outcome/Process example relevant to women to put things in perspective and to explain this: Take the use of Affirmative Action in ensuring gender-equal outcomes in employment. The same can be defined as: The use of a morally defendable unequal (i.e., equitable) process in order to achieve a morally desirable gender equality. (UrbanJonsson)
6. We have to be aware of three additional things. Gender discrimination:
(i) is an issue that affects the realization of several HR; (ii) is an issue that ultimately relates to women’s autonomy; and (iii) both these issues call for the de-facto empowerment of women at all levels worldwide. (UNFPA)
7. What is meant by the immediately above is that women-must-propose, society-must-respect and the-state-must-guarantee. (C. Santamaría)The role of the state in this respect is paramount; among other, it needs to create enough equally paying jobs and social services that allow men and women and their families to live in security and in dignity. But this is not going to come without a struggle: in-dignation must grow from dignity being denied. Therefore, in order to eliminate the discrimination against them, women must forcefully advance the fostering of equality and of their rights.
8. In every-day terms, this means women have to fight for their right to more and better standards of living, for their sexual and reproductive rights, for their labor rights, for their right to participation and representation, as well as many other rights. What women do not want is that their achievements be measured by maternal mortality rates, by rates of violence** and of poverty only; much more is involved in their emancipation.
**: Keep in mind that there also is what is called symbolic violence against women defined as that form of violence that is perpetrated against women with their accepting it. (P. Bourdieu)
9. In last instance, using the HR framework, women seek to address the specific disadvantages and oppression that they face through discriminatory laws, policies, allocation of resources and many, many different ingrained practices of social institutions. Their empowerment entails a process of change towards them gaining greater control over their work, their mobility, their access to resources, their reproduction, their bodily integrity and their political participation.
10. The time has come to move away from the development debate focused on all encompassing growth –where marginalized groups grow invariably slower than the rich (and women amongst them slower than men!). (R.K. Murthy)
11. Let us all remember and ponder: We are born into a world of privileged and under-privileged people, of powerful and powerless people, of a patriarchal system in which injustice is justice, a world where women exchange their right to equality for mere survival. (U. Baxi)
12. Patriarchy, and many different forms of women ‘belonging’, so widespread in the East and the West, the North and the South causes mostly women (but also men), as said, to exchange their right to equality for what is mere survival. This, in an attempt to feel safe and protected in situations where, too often, injustice is the true pattern of the prevailing system of justice. (Shula Koenig)
13. As a matter of fact, gender equality needs to be understood and practiced as something that increases the size of the pie. By this I mean that gender equality is not a zero sum game; the path to equality should not be one that takes from men and gives to women until the two positions are equally constrained. Gender equality is about creating conditions where both men and women have the ability to realize their full human potential and HR. Too often, men think that the gains of women come at their expense. This is simply not true and such thinking is a real barrier to genuine progress. The case for gender equality needs to be –and is– a mutually beneficial story.
14. Agreeing with the poet Jerome Koenig, I contend that governments must protect women, certainly no less than what they protect corporations. Does that not make sense to you? Is it in any way acceptable that values governing states bend to special interests and do not address social imperatives?
15. Bottom line: Women are fighting back. Yes. But what we mostly see in the battles women have slowly won is not yet peace between women and men, but only a truce. (A. Rossi)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org