Unless policymakers put their money where their mouths are, the position of women in the new century looks set to be as bleak as the previous one, writes Khadija Magardie
Decades have passed and generations have grown up since the feminist movement first burst on to the world arena, promising women change and revolution in their private and public lives.
The sight of emboldened females asserting their emotional, sexual, financial and other rights was certainly one of the most significant social movements of the 20th century. But to properly assess the impact of feminism it is necessary to measure its effect on the lives of not a minority, but a majority of the world’s women. For unless it succeeds in changing the lives and conditions of the poorest and most oppressed of women, its advances among the more fortunate will ring hollow.
Unfortunately, it is clear that worldwide, despite advances made by governments, NGOs and women’s advocacy groups, countless problems still face women.
In South Africa, one of the world’s youngest democracies, the world’s eyes have been focused on the racial transformation within society. The gender inequity that continues to exist has attracted far less attention.
South Africa now has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world and, coupled with a vigilant NGO sector, the rights of women have been bitterly fought for – and gained.
In the last year of the century, South African women have been given a host of progressive laws. Legislation such as the Maintenance Act and the Domestic Violence Act are all designed to protect women in financially inequitable and abusive relationships; in resource allocation, customary law, marriage, sexual orientation and maternity. It could now be said that South African women’s rights are fully guaranteed by the state.
But in many cases, the laws, though a step in the right direction, simply lay the groundwork, and do not provide the infrastructure for their implementation. In fact, South Africa remains one of the most violent, dangerous places in the world for women and girls. The past several years have been marked by an increase in violence against women. Aside from harrowing domestic abuse statistics, it is estimated that every 26 seconds a woman is raped in South Africa.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg. According to a recently released Institute for Security Studies report on violence against women in metropolitan South Africa, the increasing frequency of violence and sexual assaults against women only reflects a small percentage of the actual incidence of sexual victimisation. Sexual crimes such as rape frequently go unreported.
For many women, the many laws intended to protect them remain effective without a government able or committed to providing alternatives, such as shelters and safe houses for abused women.
But it is not only in protecting women from direct violence that action is needed.
In apartheid South Africa, racial discrimination and a myriad protection mechanisms ensured that among women, white Afrikaners, in particular, reaped the benefits of South Africa’s education and labour markets and health care. The new government aimed to reverse this by implementing, for instance, affirmative action policies that ensured effective representation.
But, by and large, this has been the monopoly of the few. Thousands of women in rural areas still lack the necessities of life, while their “sisters in the cities” walk into boardrooms, advanced degrees in hand, ready to rise to the top of the management hierarchy. The majority of South Africa’s women still form for the most part an economically subject underclass, whose living conditions have changed little.
Nor are they alone. In December 1979, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, in effect an international Bill of Rights for women. The directive, ratified by more than 160 countries, set forth guidelines for states with regard to gender policy, and was a de jure prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex.
But the UN convention, like much legislation before and after it, has proven to be little more than a cosmetic change to the gender status quo.
Grim statistics issued by the UN Development Fund for Women (Unifem) indicate that the political, personal, economic and social circumstances of women worldwide have indeed changed little. Women’s advocacy groups will continue to battle what Unifem calls “the feminisation of poverty”. Women currently constitute 70% of the world’s 1,3-billion people living in absolute poverty. Nearly 100-million women have incomes of less than $1 a day.
The association between gender and poverty is the single biggest obstacle in the way of the development of women in a rapidly changing, technologically advancing world. Luxury goods and designer labels seen on the bodies of Hollywood stars are are too often produced by underpaid, overworked adolescent girls labouring in poor countries in South-East Asia.
What’s more, such economic abuse often goes hand in hand with other forms of abuse, particularly within the household.
Worldwide, a quarter of all women will be raped during their lifetime. Depending on the country, 25% to 75% of women are beaten at home. Over 120-million women have undergone genital mutilation. Rape has been used as a weapon of war and ethnic cleansing in war-torn countries such as the former Yugoslavia.
This year, November 25 was designated by the UN as the first International Day to Eliminate Violence against Women, in response to a worldwide epidemic that continues to devastate the lives of women and girls. This will have had little, if any, effect on the millions of women and girls who are subjected to sexual slavery, forced prostitution, rape and other forms of sexual abuse, because in many countries these issues are regarded as falling within the ambit of religion, culture and “the home”.
Millions of women can still not expect to have access to safe, accessible and quality reproductive health care, despite attempts by individual governments and NGOs to provide it. Under the guise of religion and custom, women will continue to be subjected to forced pregnancy, confinement and the like.
Religious leaders have made it clear they plan to continue to espouse views that cause women suffering in conservative societies. The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, carries its uncompromising stance on contraception into the new century. In Muslim-majority countries such as Taliban- controlled Afghanistan, women are confined to their homes, denied employment and treated as non-citizens – in the name of religion.
The alarming increase of HIV/Aids infections in women can be expected to rise as more and more women, denied any means of protection, are infected. Despite this, leaders in some countries will continue to deny them access to anti-retroviral treatment in cases of rape or to prevent foetal infection. Inadequate research into female barrier contraceptive methods means that millions of women risk not only pregnancy through sexual contact, but death as well. Reproductive health advocates have neglected to involve male responsibility. The same is true of moves to end gender- based violence.
More integrative approaches to women in development, as opposed to those that define women’s conditions in isolation, seek to improve women’s access to and control of resources, both within the household and in the marketplace.
The 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing led to the establishment of a platform for the debate on gender equality and development in the context of global change. The five-year review of the Beijing Platform for Action is coming up next year.
But these efforts do not signal any revolutionary changes in real women’s lives. Where there have been advances, they have perhaps been more due to the power of the information revolution than to genuine commitment to change from governments.
Advancing the progress of women will require that the critical issues be forced on to regional, national and global agendas. Whatever remedial steps are agreed on will require commitment from all sectors of society, from religious leaders to federal governments. This might bridge the gap between creating legislation and transforming societal attitudes.
What’s more, development strategies should be applied uniformly, rather than confined to certain groups. If they aren’t, it will provide a loophole for governments that justify discrimination against women on the basis of cultural relativity.
Women, who now constitute more than half of the world’s population, will need far greater commitment and action if true women’s liberation is to be achieved.
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