Realising women’s rights

DR MARGARET NAKHID-CHATOOR

THE THEME for International Women’s Day 2020 is: I am Generation Equality: Realising Women’s Rights. This day is celebrated on March 8 and marks the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – recognised as the most progressive road map for the empowerment of women and girls globally.

According to a UN Women Report (2019), “the emerging global consensus is that despite some progress, real change has been agonisingly slow for the majority of women and girls in the world…as not a single country can claim to have achieved gender equality. Multiple obstacles remain unchanged in law and in culture. Women and girls continue to be undervalued; they work more and earn less and have fewer choices (economic exclusion); and they experience multiple forms of violence at home and in public spaces” (a socio-cultural mindset).

In my opinion, knowing the difference here is crucial as the parity of full economic inclusion of women in the workplace remains farcical unless the socio-cultural mindset that gender roles are androgynous and interchangeable between the sexes is accepted and respected.

Therefore, the IWD’s campaign theme, #EachforEqual, where the bargaining power for the individual woman is in the collective power of all women, has to be continuously strived for and repeated in all circles, by both women and men. All classes and types of women must come together and enable and support each other, “challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements.”

This call for the empowerment of women and girls continues to be a social justice issue. It is the greatest human rights challenge today that is a long way from being achieved.

The IWD has also issued “a call for change and the celebration of acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.” Do women support each other enough in this society, despite their differences? I don’t think so. I have seen enough to posit that the current concept of the “patriarchy” is not only male and that women are their own worst enemy in this thrust for inclusion in the workplace and in the change for gender and social equalities.

The veneer of respectability often shadows the envy and suspicion of women toward others who do well. Thankfully, there is a new generation of young thinkers – girls and young women – who have little tolerance for agendas that exclude them and who are speaking out on issues.

In the IWD marches and rallies, highlight the names of women in this society who have achieved, so that they can be sterling examples to others. Empowering women can only increase productivity and economic growth and shape the cultural lens through which our girls view society.

What then is generation/gender equality and why has equality not been achieved to any significant extent? It is alleged that the first recognised advocacy for women’s rights globally was in 1792 – an essay written by Mary Wollstonecraft titled “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” which suggested that women should have equal access to co-educational schooling and that women’s participation in society is essential to any nation’s well-being.

More than 200 years have passed and today, the #metoo movements, conferences, protests and training sessions of empowerment for women have not moved the goalpost very far. What have been some of the obstacles to this?

Women have continued, too readily, to entrust power and privilege to men, who have little desire to move the goalpost in our favour. Despite the progress made by and for many women, men still dominate positions of power and continue to be the main decision makers in law, politics, economics and in all the circles where there are the least percentages of women who can have a voice.

Gender equality is not “a women’s issue.” Generation equality begins when both women and men choose to speak up for vulnerable groups who have been silenced, and both women and men choose to eradicate the stigma attached to beliefs and cultural traditions that spew a rhetoric of inequality against girls and women.

Men must be involved in all of the conversations and in the marches and rallies. The movements for gender equality have been too lopsided and have excluded men and boys to some extent.

Yet whilst all these debates on the issue of generation equality will continue to unfold, in TT let us observe the following on International Women’s Day 2020:

* A moment of silence for the more than 50 women who have died at the hands of their abusers over the last year from 2019 to present.

* A moment of prayer for all those who knew of the abuse and kept silent – the girlfriends, brothers, fathers, families – that they would be empowered to take action for others.

* A moment in the workplace, to institute policies and procedures for those who continue to be sexually and verbally harassed and when complaints are made, these women and men are ostracised, ridiculed and subjected to further objectification by co-workers

* A moment to have more enlightened conversations and follow-up sessions with our girls, boys, men and women on sexuality, empowerment, respect, values, work ethics and responsibility. Add to the list.

There can be no conclusion here, even to this commentary. The struggle continues.

Dr Margaret Nakhid-Chatoor is a psychologist and assistant professor. She is the immediate past president the TT Association of Psychologists