The end of poverty will come with the contributions, strength, and empowerment of half of its people - and it cannot come any other way. Women’s equality is not a special interest of just a few; the success of all of us, especially women, will determine our fate as a global society. Women have the same right as men to live free from fear, as world peace begins in the home. Enabling women to live freely with dignity will cascade into the other goals, as they use their skills and talents to help others. This narrative will show how Periclean Scholars works toward attaining Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women.
I will begin with an anecdote from Class of 2009’s experience in Zambia. All of the Periclean homeowners have been women, and this is no coincidence. When Habitat for Humanity-Zambia has the opportunity to give the keys to the man or the woman, they will choose to empower the woman. Why? If the house is in the man’s name and the man happens to die, then the man’s family (parents and other relatives) will try to repossess the house from the woman and her children – and often successfully so. By placing the name in the woman’s name instead of the man’s, Habitat for Humanity-Zambia ensures the housing of its families through generations. This experience has shown us that a woman’s place is building the home – physically constructing it, alongside volunteers and professionals – and becoming its steward (or, I should say, stewardess).
Next, I will continue with the unique work of the Class of 2012. This class has advocated for women under the age of 19 through their work at the Comprehensive Rural Health Project (CRHP) in Jamkhed, India. CRHP is home to the Adolescent Girls Program (AGP), a group that provides health education and emphasizes the importance of receiving education before marriage. Agents known as Village Health Workers (VHWs) are the backbone of the program. The Periclean Scholars saw first-hand how this type of targeted education impacted the entire community. By empowering women through this program, men began to do chores assigned traditionally to women, including child care, and women earned more income of their own.
In order to keep the program strong, the Periclean group in India worked to develop a survey on the VHWs’ self-esteem. They taught the VHWs how to administer the survey and generate data related to the outcome of the AGP. This touches on a critical element of the MDGs: adequate measuring tools for goals. Instituting this measuring tool provides a method of accountability and helps to identify areas of strength and of potential improvement. To quantify this data is to give the CRHP a baseline and target for growth.
Compared to other nations, India has many unique challenges on seeing the value in empowering women, due to the huge disconnect between political directives and practice. Some of these challenges are listed below.
- When India achieved independence, the Constitution was “caste-blind”, but castes remain as a basis for the wealthy to assert their power. The Constitution’s preamble guarantees gender equality as a fundamental right – yet it allows for legislation that discriminates against women.
- The 1994 Prenatal Diagnostic Tech Act mandates the end of sex-selective tests and female infanticide, yet India’s male-to-female ratio among infants is among the most skewed in the world at 914 girls per 1,000 boys ages 0-6.
- The government also drew up a national policy for the empowerment of women, which addresses gender discrimination. Due to the demands of husbands and families, women have a particularly hard time rising through the ranks in business – and when they do, there are far too many old boys’ clubs to overcome.
- Dowries – in which the bride’s family must pay a hefty sum to the groom’s family for the privilege of marriage – have been illegal since the passage of the Dowry Prohibition Act in 1961. Yet, dowries are alive and well; they are a major reason why families resort to infanticide, and one reason why men and their families pressure women to get married.
As the Class of 2012 enters their final year on campus together, they are considering the possibility of a conference in India to address women’s empowerment. A conference on women’s empowerment would facilitate public-private partnerships and academic discussion on the best means to achieve this goal. A forum such as this for academic discussion and critical thinking would also work to address India’s unique challenges in an honest way. Since the idea is still in its infancy, Periclean support – both by providing affirmation and by offering financial resources – is crucial to making this happen.
Since I opened on a Class of 2009 anecdote, I would like to close on one. One of the greatest blessings that I received very early on in the program was being able to work with my mentor, Steve Braye. He was the very first man who was ever described to me as being a feminist. At first, I thought this bizarre; how could a man, someone seemingly from the opposite side, be in support of women’s equality with his own kind? Then, when I had discussions with Steve in class, I realized this wasn’t such a strange concept. Steve simply wants women to have equal access to education, access to government, equal pay, and other equalities that are in many places only equalities among men. Steve has even challenged me – a strong women’s advocate and safehouse volunteer – to treat women as equals in all aspects, in ways such as using “first-year students” instead of “freshmen” and in challenging common conceptions of women’s capabilities. I believe that this goal can succeed not only because of the desire of women to see it succeed, but because of model men like my mentor, Steve. Even though women’s empowerment was not our primary goal, it was weaved into everything that we did thanks to Steve’s convictions.
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