To achieve gender equality is to achieve human equality

This year’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign, an annual event currently underway, has a theme of particular relevance to Americans who are becoming increasingly aware of the problems of misogyny and sexism in our own polity.

The theme: Human Rights for Women ‹—› Human Rights for All: UDHR60.

Note the dual arrow, < - > , indicating the equivalence between human rights for women and human rights for all. In one direction, the arrow can be read quite literally: without human rights for women there will not be human rights for all persons. The other direction is equally important, but rests on a different idea: by achieving human rights for women we achieve human rights for all persons. Since not everybody is a woman, why think this the case? That is, what is the justification for a claim that by achieving human rights for women one is achieving human rights for all, including men?

Many people more learned and expert in this area have addressed this question. So, my answer must be understood as that of nonspecialist.

 Women constitute half or slightly more than half the population worldwide (slide 34), and therefore they include people of every nationality, race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, economic status etc. In this sense women are a microcosm of the entire population, except in one respect: women are still subordinate and disempowered relative to men the world over.  Two very basic examples:

• The most common form of violence experienced by women globally is physical violence inflicted by an intimate partner. On average, at least one in three or otherwise abused by an intimate partner in the course of her lifetime.

• Women aged 15-44 are more at risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, motor accidents, war and malaria, according to World Bank data.

source: UNite To End Violence Against Women fact sheet, “How Widespread is Violence Against Women?” (can be downloaded here)

One simple way of appreciating that to achieve gender equality is to achieve human equality:

Because women crosscut all demographic groups (except men) empowering women works to empower all races, religions, creeds, sexual orientations, economic levels (especially the poor).  Thus, ensuring women’s full human rights - in all areas and respects - we go a long way to empowering all the demographic groups that disempowered men also belong to.

Comments

[Shtuey]

Heidi, thank you for this post, articulating the message we need to drive home. This is the fourth wave of feminism, and hopefully the beginning of the final assault in the campaign for achieving universal human rights.

[grayslady]

Heidi, I think we're long overdue for the women's equivalent of the Anti-Defamation League. We need a watchdog group, funded by us, to take action against language or behavior that demeans women. Being polite just doesn't cut it anymore.

[JeanLouise]

Thank you, Heidi, for addressing this issue.

grayslady, I agree. We need a clearinghouse for incidents of hate-speech on the internet, too. When I think of the thousands of articles and posts that I've read this past year that demean women, I feel sick. We need to be able to say, there were x number of sexist posts on this blog or that magazine site and let people do what they will with those numbers.