Archive for category: Women and Female Empowerment

information and Stories about woman and female empowerment.

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The Unwanted Women in China

Over the past few years, Chinese media has been portraying the image of an unwanted leftover woman. The term leftover woman, has been used in the media to persuade women to be less career-minded, ambitious and be more centered on matrimony. The prospect of an educated, successful women in her late 20s is made to appear more like a death sentence than a good thing.

There has been a recent backlash over the past few decades against women’s rights in China. Recent gender inequality is beginning to rear its ugly head again and perpetuating the idea that women are not focused on the traditional way, which is marriage and motherhood. Less than half of China’s women are employed and that rate continues to drop each year. The Gender Gap report stated that an average income for women is 67% of men’s income while the nation is ranked 50 out of 137 countries for equal wage. Female employment has gone down over 10% through the past 10 years, due to the gender based view of the unwanted, over-achieving women in China.

A woman facing the business marketplace in China endures discrimination based on her gender and measuring up to the beauty standards placed on women in the professional world. Some Chinese women are told from a young age not to pursue certain careers like those in the medical field, because that would make them seem undesirable to a man. The pressure increases as women finish school and grow into their mid-twenties to settle down and have a family. There is also the pressure to maintain a perfect figure instead of embracing the normalcy of aging. Women that do not fit these molds and instead gain higher education are blamed for the high numbers of unmarried men.

Leta Hong Fincher, author of “Leftover Women,” states that “the image of the left over women is everywhere and in the end it is insulting.” In her book, she explains that the Chinese government is blaming these women for the high number of single adult males. The fear is that those unmarried men will cause problems relating to the social stability in China. Moreover, problems like bride kidnapping and prostitution are increasing each year the marriage crisis continues.

The traditional view of men and women, that men are superior to women, has molded the Chinese culture today. The Chinese government passed the one child law in the 1980s and gender-based abortions have skyrocketed since 1995, when gender-confirming technology was introduced. The fact is that Chinese families prefer a son over a baby girl. This supports the overwhelming number of men under the age of thirty in China today.

China’s rapidly-changing economy is changing how women view their positions in society. Women want access to the same positions as men, and are doing so by obtaining higher degrees such as masters and PhDs. These degree programs require more time spent in school and women are not looking to marry until later in their twenties. The traditional mind-set of these women is fading and marriage is no longer the focal point. The market in China continues to be flooded with men, but the future of  highly-qualified women reaching the same opportunities is changing China’s structure and providing women with more rights.

– Rachel Cannon

Sources: The Telegraph, The Economist
Photo: Ministry of Harmony

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The “Solution” to Sexual Assault in Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan Women’s Affairs and Child Development Minister Tissa Karaliyadda remarked that female victims should marry the males who sexually assaulted them to reduce the amount of rape in Sri Lanka. If the victim is underage, he suggests that the marriage be postponed until the victim reaches the age of eighteen, the legal age of consent in the country.

Karaliyadda explained to local media that, “the idea is to ensure the victim gets justice. If she feels the rapist must marry her for what he did to her, then she must have that option.”

But why would a girl wish to marry the person who sexually assaulted her? Is it because girls who have sex before their marriage will find it extremely difficult to find a husband in the future? Does their society mark them as unclean and force them to atone for the sexual assault? Is marriage the only solution to rid them of their dishonor?

Sri Lanka’s President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has a different viewpoint. He believes that underage female rape victims should not wait until age eighteen to be married. He is quoted saying “if under aged girls are statutorily raped and the sexual act was however with consent, it may be good to have legislation that allows the perpetrator to marry the victim with her consent.”

What is most unsettling about Rajapaksa’s quote is not the part about forcing attackers to marry their underage victims, but that sexual activity between a child and an adult can be consensual.

In Sri Lanka, eighteen marks the age of consent, maturity and adulthood. Eighteen-year-olds can legally drive, smoke, drink alcohol and provide consent for sexual activity. The age of consent varies across the globe from twelve in Angola to twenty-one years old in Bahrain.

Rajapaksa’s belief that sexual activity between a child and an adult can be consensual is incorrect. Not only are their brains and bodies not fully developed, most children lack the emotional maturity and awareness to make informed important decisions. This is why statutory rape laws exist. Statutory rape laws are designed to prevent adults from “exploiting the ignorance, the trust, the inexperience and the terror of children.”

Chamal Rajapaksa, current Speaker of the Parliament and also the elder brother of President Rajapaksa, believes that “nobody can make men responsible for the violence against women. Women are responsible for it.” It is exactly this kind of viewpoint that perpetuates gender inequality and sexual assault in societies where women have very little agency. Sexual assault in Sri Lanka and gender equality is not merely a women’s issue, as it affects men, women, boys and girls. Instead of focusing on finding remedies to sexual assault after it has already happened, perhaps officials should attempt to prevent sexual assault in Sri Lanka before they actually take place.

-Sarah Yan

Sources: First Post, Buzzfeed, Care 2, Sri Lanka Guardian

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Women’s Rights in Kenya

While women in Kenya take care of the majority of the agricultural and produce market work, they only earn a fraction of the income their male counterparts do. As an outcome of wage discrimination for women, 40 percent of households in Kenya that are run solely by women are in poverty.

Women’s reliance on men has greatly increased within the past few years, due to state and resource conflicts during wartime. For instance, even though Kenya suffers droughts throughout the year, women are afraid to travel to collect water for their families due to gender-based violence. As a result, young girls cannot gain an adequate education due to the deficiency of proper hygiene and clean water within the school, resulting in low literacy rates. In addition, pregnant adult females who do not have access to clean water are more likely to acquire a water-borne disease, harming both the mother and unborn child.

Women in Kenya are not only restricted in the private realm, but also face restrictions in the public realm. For example, women cannot gain any property or land regardless of their social rank. In fact, after their husband’s death, several widows lost their homes and families because of these harsh gender-based rules. If a woman tries to acquire any property or land for her family, she will be exiled from the household, or even worse, from the community.

Kenyan cultural practices also influence the threat of HIV and AIDS that plague the country. Further, in addition to the medical threats of this disease, it also lowers  women’s self-esteem. Forced sex and inheritance of a widow by male relatives is part of Kenyan culture, yet 1 in 5 adults have HIV, a rate even higher for women.

Besides the negative effects of some cultural practices, women also have a higher rate of experiencing gender inequality, discrimination, gender-based violence and rape. In particular, practices such as gang rapes or forced sexual mutilations continue to be a major issue in communities across the country. Unfortunately, even when these women file rape complaints, police often do not prosecute their perpetrators. Thus, there is no support for victims and survivors of violence.

While there have been reforms to the Kenyan constitution within the past year, such as more rights for female business owners to help grow the economy, they constantly fight to keep their business afloat to support their families. The laws may vary, yet the traditional codes are nevertheless in effect within some communities and villages.

Kenya needs to improve its legal assistance and medical care for women, while ensuring all women receive the highest degree of protection and representation. In addition, girls must have better access to education to improve literacy rates. Even though women voters make up the bulk of the voting population in Kenya, they continue to be seriously underrepresented in politics, making it difficult to achieve these tangible goals. Overall, if women are more included in Kenya’s economy, the country can progress from severe poverty. By bringing women and young girls out of poverty and providing basic political and socio-economic rights, the country can and will grow for the better.

– Rachel Cannon

Sources: The Water Project, Foundation for Sustainable Development
Photo: Buzz Kenya

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IKEA Improves Lives with Global Philanthropy

The IKEA Foundation’s 2013 annual report celebrates a year of exciting achievements and a growing commitment to global development.

Established in 2009, the IKEA Foundation is the philanthropic entity associated with IKEA, the popular Swedish home furnishings company. In the past year, the foundation has gained 12 new partners and donated 101 million euros to those partner organizations, contributing to the continued implementation of innovative children’s programs. With the support of a new Brazilian partner organization, the IKEA Foundation has also been able to reach children in South America for the first time. In addition, a number of partners have also started to develop emergency shelters for displaced refugees.

Compared to the total monetary donation in 2012 (82 million euros), the IKEA Foundation’s 2013 contribution saw a 21 percent overall increase in giving. IKEA’s Soft Toys for Education campaign raised 10.1 million euros and helped 11 million children. Moreover, the foundation’s projects throughout 2013 impacted children in 35 different countries.

The IKEA Foundation focuses on four areas of development: fighting child labor and promoting children’s rights, improving the lives of refugee children and families, empowering women and girls as well as disaster relief. The foundation also funds education projects for children and works to change current social attitudes towards child labor in developing communities. In 2013, the IKEA Foundation helped UNICEF and Save the Children fight child labor in India and Pakistan. By reaching out to farmers, families and other community leaders, the foundation hopes to raise awareness of the dangers that children face in the workplace – specifically, in the cotton, carpet and metalware industries. Additionally, the foundation’s new partnership with Care for Children is helping place orphans into supportive and loving families in Asia.

In conjunction with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the IKEA Foundation is working to develop safer and more durable emergency shelters for refugees. Innovative additions (such as solar lighting) are expected to increase the lifespan of current refugee camps. Last year, UNHCR began experimenting with the reworked shelters in Ethiopia, taking into account the feedback provided by refugee families living in the newly developed camps.

The IKEA Foundation continues to support KickStart, a partner organization that trains women in southern Africa to grow and sell crops, launch their own businesses and establish a reliable income. The foundation also expanded the number of scholarship opportunities for women and girls to get an education. Currently, the IKEA Foundation’s partnership with the Lila Poonawalla Foundation helps 1,900 poor Indian women pursue higher education in fields like engineering, agriculture and healthcare.

By giving cash grants to its partners, the IKEA Foundation strives to help families immediately after disasters and other conflicts. During the past year, partner organizations used IKEA’s grants to provide medical care to Syrian refugees. After Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, many partners brought emergency supplies to devastated communities. The IKEA Foundation itself has donated IKEA toys and products to around 1.2 million affected children around the world.

The IKEA Foundation has clearly expanded its goals and reached several new milestones in 2013, but CEO Per Heggenes believes that the foundation has more to offer. “The journey continues,” he wrote, “and we still have lots to accomplish.”

– Kristy Liao

Sources: IKEA Foundation
Photo: INiTs

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Mend: Restoring Hope One Stitch at a Time

After being abducted by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) at the age of 13, Grace survived two years in the Northern Ugandan bush before she was able to escape. Today, Grace, among 22 other formerly abducted women, are employed as seamstresses by an organization known as Mend.

Since 1987, Kony’s army has abducted over 30,000 children, forcing them to become soldiers in his army or wives to his soldiers.

Grace, among thousands of other women, suffered the physical, emotional, and mental pain of being held captive by these men. Although the seamstresses were fortunate to escape, many were ostracized by friends and family upon return due to involvement with the rebels. In order to address these issues and work through traumatization, all of the women employed by Mend received three months of counseling and tailoring training through Invisible Children.

The Invisible Children is an organization that began in 2006 as an initiative to end the LRA conflict in Uganda. In addition to establishing numerous campaigns that rehabilitate and educate formerly abducted people, Invisible Children formed Mend as a social enterprise in 2009 in order to give women employment opportunities and create awareness around circumstances in Uganda.

As their Mother’s Day promotion, Mend seamstresses created beautiful limited edition clutches for women to receive on Mother’s Day. The clutches are a thoughtful gift for a mother that supports a mother in need.

In addition to clutches, MEND seamstresses, like Grace, also sew purses, handbags, and laptop sleeves all specifically designed by the Mend design team. Mend products range anywhere from $35 to $300. “It is an immense responsibility,” designer Juan-David Quinnones shared, “to make something that will last, add value to people’s lives, and tell an amazing story.” As Quinnones refers to, each bag shares a message from the woman who created it through a tag that has her picture and story on it.

When asked “Where did you get that great bag,” customers have the opportunity to share not only where their bag is from, but also who made it and why. Exchanges like these, thanks to Mend’s dedication, has transformed consumerism into a form of activism.

“One of our bottom lines is the growth of our seamstresses in all aspects of their lives,” professed Mend director Chris Sarette. In addition to the employment opportunity, Mend provides their seamstresses with a full-time social worker, literacy classes, and financial meetings to help the women grow holistically, for themselves and their families.

The Invisible Children Shop

– Heather Klosterman

Sources: Mend
Photo: MPc Magazine 

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Women’s Education in Violence Prone Countries

In recent days, U.S. Senator Ed Royce (CA-R) announced that on April 3 the Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on Women’s education in violence prone countries and how it can promote the creation of economic opportunities and counter radicalism. The hearing will count with the presence of three experts on women’s education. In the words of Royce, the aim of the hearing is to assess “how a failure to appreciate its importance can result in missed opportunities for development and counter-radicalism.”

In the last three decades education opportunities have been greatly expanded, yet women are still at a disadvantage. The difference in countries like Pakistan can be as much as 30 points. While 70 percent of men over 15 years of age are considered literate, for women this only reaches 40 percent. In Afghanistan, this difference is even more astonishing where only 13 percent of women can read and write.

According to Royce, the hearing will reinforce the correlation between women and girl’s education and the promotion of economic growth, childhood development and an increase in life expectancy overall. There is strong evidence that connects women’s education and an increase in a country’s GDP. As women enter the labor force they increase the earning potential of their family. Moreover, as women tend to spend their income on children more than men, this helps increase a child’s survival more than twenty times than families supported only by men.

Pakistan is of special interest, which is why, after the hearing, the committee will move on to considering the Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act (H.R. 3583). In honor of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Malala Yousafzai, this bill would require that 50 percent of the scholarships awarded under it be given to Pakistani women.

This comes at the same time when private donors have pledged to donate 1 billion to Pakistan for the support of educational programs over the next three years. According the former prime minister and now UN special envoy for education Gordon Brown, the goal is to provide education to 55 million Pakistanis over the age of ten who are considered illiterate. Pakistan’s government also wants to dedicate more resources to education in order to eventually achieve universal education. This is good news for women and girls in Pakistan, since one of the major goals of the pledge is to get a step closer to the eradication of child marriage, child labor, and gender discrimination.

– Sahar Abi Hassan

Sources: House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Brown, House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Photo: Glamour

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Suicide a Growing Problem for Chinese Women

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Every two minutes a person in China commits suicide. Around a quarter of all suicide cases in the world take place in China. Out of China’s 1.3 billion population, 287,000 individuals commit suicide per year. Suicide is the leading cause of death for teenagers and individuals 15-34 years old.

These numerical statistics are merely numbers and do not reveal the humanity and the root causes of these problems. However, it is difficult to analyze problems without first collecting data and there is a lack of recent accurate official data on suicide rates in China.

Suicide cases in China are quite different from those in other countries. In Western countries, around 90 percent of suicides and attempts are brought on by long term mental illness or depression while only 60 percent of suicide cases in China are caused by mental health problems. Although mental health problems and depression increases the chance of attempts at taking one’s life, these figures demonstrate there are other factors in China causing the high rates of suicide.

In rural areas, there is less access to mental health care facilities and treatment. Suicide rates in the rural countryside are two to three times higher than the rates in urban cities. The most common way to attempt taking one’s own life in rural areas is by swallowing the pesticides used to protect their crops.

Suicide affects every demographic in the Chinese population but it is the number one cause of death for Chinese women. According to the World Health Organization, China is the only country in the world where its women commit suicide at higher rates than its men. Of all female suicides worldwide, 56 percent occur in China.

Why are so many Chinese women taking their own lives? If these women do not have mental health or depression, what spurs on these decisions to end their lives?

Studies cite martial conflict, escaping shame, poverty, pressure from their society and the one child policy as explanations to why so many women in China choose to take their own lives. Perhaps it’s a combination of these economic, social and personal factors that can explain China’s problem with mental health.

People commit suicide because they believe it is the only option available for them. When they are drowning from their problems, from the weight of the world and they want their pain to stop, they can choose to take their own life. From their view, taking their own life offers a way out, for their problems to go away.

But suicide is never the only option. They need someone to tell them that things will get better, that their problems can get fixed. They need someone to tell them that their lives are worthwhile. They need support from their families and loved ones. These women need to be told, whether by their government, their families or their friends, that they are not alone and that suicide is not the answer.

– Sarah Yan

Sources: The World of Chinese, WHO
Photo: Flickr

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Grace Amey-Obeng: Promoting Natural Beauty

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No one should feel shame about their skin, no matter their pigment and no matter their race. That is precisely what Grace Amey-Obeng believes.

Amey-Obeng is the founder of an extremely successful cosmetics company that aims to help women feel confidence and accepting of their natural beauty. She began her business in Ghana after going to college for beauty therapy in the UK. She loved the way women glowed when they got dressed up, and had their makeup and hair done.

Gaining success in Ghana was not an easy road for Amey-Obeng. When she returned to Africa after college, she had to figure out how to work around the demand for skin-bleaching, which is quite common in certain countries in Africa.

“[Women] associated being light-skinned with being affluent…and I thought that I can do something about that by going on an anti-bleaching campaign,” stated Amey-Obeng.

The process of skin-bleaching has been found to be harmful and risky to the body, especially to those living in area with lots of sun. Bleaching, which requires chemical usage, strips the layers of the skin causing unnatural exposure to the harmful ultra violet rays. The process can range in side effects, including acne, skin cancer, exposed capillaries and easy bruising.

In some countries, selling creams that should require a prescription are sold over the counter, where they are easily accessible to women and often times extremely popular.

When these prescriptions are not available, some women will go so far as to concoct their own cream “using perming creams and all kinds of chemicals to bleach,” says Amey-Obeng.

Amey-Obeng endorses a healthy glow, one based on exercising, eating healthy and sleeping well. She promotes her concept through an educational program that she set in motion. In order to discuss natural ways to take care of one’s skin, she gives advice through a newspaper column, which is published on a weekly basis. She also trains students about skin care at her beauty school, one of the three branches of her cosmetic foundation known as FC (Forever Clair) Group of Companies. Her company also includes a cosmetics line and a few clinics.

The FC Group of Companies goal far surpasses the campaign against skin-bleaching. It also advocates for pride in one’s natural beauty not limited to skin color, but mainly one’s ability to accomplish and succeed. Since the launch of the FC beauty colleges, more than 5,000 students, the majority being young women, have been able to graduate and become beauticians.

“On the day of graduation, I always cry because I see the joy in their faces that they have accomplished something. They’ve been through challenges,” Amey-Obeng says.

And although Amey-Obeng went through her fair share of challenges and struggles as an aspiring businesswoman, she always shares her own story in hopes that it will help another young woman find the confidence she needs to reject harmful beauty standards and embrace their own natural beauty.

You can watch a video about Grace Amey-Obeng by Ghana Culture Politics here.

– Becka Felcon

Sources: Ghana Culture Politics, The Voice, CNN, The New York Times
Photo: Sankofa Online

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Female Education & Ending Global Poverty

The book “Half the Sky” introduces an idea that education is the key to ending global poverty worldwide. The title of the book comes from the founding father of the Republic of China, Mao Zedong, meaning “women hold up half the sky”; unfortunately, millions of these women are living in poverty.

Women make up half of the world’s population, yet more than half of these women are more likely to have an unequal place in society. These women are more likely to be poverty-stricken in these communities than men and are excluded from the public domain which leads to domestic violence.

Because of the inequality placed on women living in poverty in developing nations women tend to not have access which is a key aspect of society. Humans need to have access to healthcare, job opportunities, and basic human rights like clean water and food. In order to fight global poverty, an emphasis of education and access is key to bring an end to poverty and the pain these communities suffer from on a daily basis.

Accordingly, Ph.D. student Katie Conrad at the University of Tennessee believes that women need access to resources in these developing countries where there is also a lack of education for these women. Conrad is a teaching associate for child and family studies at the university, and has based her research in Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender as well as family studies.

Furthermore, Conrad’s area of interest is creating courses for first-year students on campus designed to educate not just women, but men, about sex, dating violence, alcohol and rape culture awareness. She feels as though teaching women in society cannot be done without reaching women globally and stated “education is the major form of empowerment and is a good place to start.”

In particular to teaching women’s studies courses in these devolving countries, Conrad remarks that “being educated on their culture and maintain cultural sensitivity to understand what issues they face” would be a good place to start to bringing education to women in those areas. Conrad believes that women in developing countries need not just access to basic resources but access to support when in an abusive situation. In particular, community support systems are needed to help cope with domestic violence in their society.

In addition, both Conrad and the authors of “Half the Sky” understand that bringing access to resources like female education can help improve all corners of the world and drastically reduce poverty. Therefore the book introduces three steps to bring access to these areas. The first step would be a $10 billion effort over five years to educate girls around the world and reduce the gender gap in education.

The second step would be for the United States to sponsor a global drive to iodize salt in poor countries to prevent tens of millions of children from losing approximately 10 IQ points each as a result of iodine deficiency while their brains are still being formed in the uterus; finally, the third step would be a 12-year, $1.6 billion project to eradicate obstetric fistula while laying the groundwork for a major international assault on maternal mortality.

The need to stress issues like female education are indeed crucial to develop of not only developing nations but our own nation at home.

– Rachel Cannon

Sources: Vialogue, University of Tennessee
Photo: Staci Jae Johnson

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India’s Sanitary Pad Revolution

Arunachalam Muruganantham is leading a sanitary pad revolution in rural India, changing women and girls’ sanitary practices. Out of 355 million females in India who menstruate, only 12 percent of them use sanitary napkins. The others use ash, newspapers, old fabric or sand. In India, women are considered untouchables at the time of their menstruation, and they face stigma and ostracism during their periods. They are banned from public places during menstruation, so they stay indoors, oftentimes reusing their dirty rags. Poor menstrual hygiene not only causes 70 percent of all reproductive diseases in India, but also can lead to maternal mortality, a lower rate of females enrolled in schools and fewer women in the workforce.

In 1998, Muruganantham discovered that his wife, Shanthi, chose to use dirty menstruation rages, rather than sanitary napkins, because sanitary napkins were too expensive. He decided to make a sanitary napkin that his wife and other women in rural India could afford to buy.

He surveyed female medical students, studied used sanitary napkins, and fashioned a fake uterus from a soccer ball filled with goat’s blood. Tucking the soccer ball under his clothing with a tube feeding the blood into his underwear, he ran and walked around to experience having a period. During his mission to create a low cost sanitary napkin, his wife, his mother and his village would abandon him. Due to his unique experiments, he was labeled a mad pervert, but Muruganatham did not give up.

By contacting multiple large sanitary pad manufacturing companies, he discovered what sanitary napkins were made of: cellulose from tree bark. However, the machines needed to break the cellulose down and make the cellulose into sanitary pads were extremely expensive.

After years of hard work, Muruganatham invented a low-cost wooden machine that could break down the hard cellulose to make sanitary napkins, increase sanitary napkin use and create thousands of jobs for rural women. One of his manual machines costs 75,000 rupees, and provides employment for approximately 10 individuals. They can produce 200-250 pads a day, selling for around 2.5 rupees each. Although his invention could have brought him enormous profits, he chose not to sell the machines to big companies. He continues to sell the machines mainly to NGOs and women’s self-help groups.

Muruganatham’s family and community are now supporting his endeavors. He is currently expanding his machines to 106 other countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, and the Philippines. His low cost, locally produced sanitary napkins are empowering women and girls in developing countries while giving them the opportunity to contribute to their local economy. These sanitary napkins reduce unsanitary menstruation practices and are beginning to chip away at the cultural taboo of menstruation that forces women to feel unclean and untouchable because of a completely natural bodily function.

–Sarah Yan

Sources: Business Week, BBC
Photo: The Globe And Mail