Women’s rights- why do we care?

Women's pressure groups at "Occupy Wall Street", St. Pauls, London

Text: Katharine Tengtio
Photography: Katharine Tengtio and Caroline Hargreaves

At the onset of globalization, there has been universal acknowledgement that society has reached an innovative age of modernization, perhaps even greater than the age of industrialization. Along with the ascendency of cross-national, immediate communication and interdependency, philosophical, anthropological, and political changes have been made in the way we view and interact with different social groups, particularly in the case of gender. Although society may seem to be stunted by the stagnation of economic growth, development continues in other important areas of the world.

Since the end of the Cold War and the second-wave of feminism, the topic of women’s rights and equality has encroached on the political scene. Indeed, according to Georgina Ashworth, women are the “last colony” to be liberated. Since the beginning of history, women have been oppressed, however open acknowledgement of such inequality did not exist until the issue of a women’s right to vote arose in the 19^th century. Greater issues came to the front of the male dominated global scene during World War II and the Cold War, but during the rise of humanitarian crises in the 1990s researchers began to discover that discrimination against women was and is a major root cause of conflict. This became apparent when after the travesties of ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian war the ICC finally acknowledged that rape was an illegal weapon of war, warranting punishment as an egregious crime. Although rape has always been an aspect of war and conflict, this is the first instance in history where the international community has acknowledged the use of rape in war as inherently wrong. Rape in other conflicts, particularly in the Congo, has received considerable criticism from around the world, and there are now many NGOs that particularly address the issue.

The awareness of gender discrimination has also risen, quite rapidly, in the western world. The infidelity of President Kennedy went unacknowledged fifty years ago, and it was only forty yars later when President Clinton presided that he almost lost his job for being unfaithful to his wife. Being a man in power can sometimes go hand in hand with misogyny, and has been accepted as part of a male-dominant character for centuries. However, today, the likes of Strauss-Kahn, Berlusconi, and Assange have been under global scrutiny as perhaps now unacceptable leaders of society, and, in the particular case of Strauss-Kahn, he has been replaced by a woman: Christine Lagarde.

Gbowee at the Oslo Freedom Forum 2011

The recent winners of the Nobel peace prize, awarded jointly to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman ”for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work” has demonstrated that issues of gender is now a major trend in international relations, development, and academia.

It is true that gender discrimination remains prevalent around the world. Although there has been an increase in women in the labour market, sexual harassment and discrimination against pregnant women in the workplace remain rampant. Gender targeting and rape persist as major issues in conflict. Domestic violence, prostitution, and human trafficking continue to exist. Men and boys, in even the most ‘modern’ of societies, objectify and discriminate women to the extent that women as a whole are still seen as inferior. These issues though, have become prominent issues on the neo-liberal agenda, and are consistently being addressed in research, academia, and on the ground in fieldwork. The topic of gender equality is more prominent worldwide than ever before.
Despite the ongoing economic recession, there has been worldwide growth in social development. According to Sen (1999), development is a process of expanding freedoms equally for men and women. The 2012 World Development Report writes that women hold more rights then ever before, have a higher literacy rate, and are accepted more equally into higher education institutions. Various analyses (e.g. Collier 1999) have asserted that the empowerment of women promotes economic and social development. In our current situation, where the future of economic growth and political development looks bleak, let us acknowledge that gender equality can be a hopeful tool for growth. The slow but persistent change in gender relations demonstrates a change in values and ethics worldwide. Perhaps such a change will also have a direct effect on other unjust disparities around the world.

Katharine Tengtio is doing her post-graduate studies in Gender, Social Policy, and International Development at the London School of Economics.