The U.S. Within the Global Women’s Movement
I travelled to Liberia in February to work with women who are thinking about running for elected office in their country later this year. In one of my first conversations, a Liberian woman said to me, “What are we going to do now that we lost the election?” I was so struck by this comment — first, because the loss of a female candidate for president in the U.S. was so personal to a woman from Liberia, and second, because that country has elected and re-elected a woman president.
That woman felt a connection to our struggle in the United States to increase women’s political representation. Yet, I am struck by our collective lack of connection to struggles for women’s rights globally. Despite some differences, there are many similarities in our lives, and there is much we could learn from each other. So today, on International Women’s Day, I am concerned that there seems to be little desire to connect our rekindled activism in our country with the ongoing, global struggle.
To start, we must recognize that women in the United States share much with women across the globe. In the U.S., women hold 104 out of 535 (or 19.4 percent) of the elected seats in Congress. That puts the U.S. at 104th in the world in that category, behind Rwanda (1st), Cuba (3rd) and Mexico (8th). (IPU) With regard to corporate boards, in the United States, women hold 19.2 percent of board seats on companies in the S&P 500 index. (Catalyst) Violence against women or gender-based violence is sadly a fact in every country in the world. Global estimates indicate that about 1 in 3 (35 percent) women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime. (WHO)
When I talk to women in countries I visit, the parallels of our personal lives are striking. While I and many of them work outside the home, we are still also responsible for the majority of the duties that need to get done at home, including child care, cooking and household chores. And while we may be meeting to discuss development issues, politics or financing, during the coffee breaks, the question I am inevitably asked is “How do you do it?” meaning how do I balance my work and domestic responsibilities.
As we organize for change here in the U.S., there are lessons we can learn from movements in other countries. To start, passing a law is an important first step, but not enough. The law alone does not protect us from gender-based violence, ensure us access to government services such as reproductive health care or allow equal opportunity in the private sector. The U.S. Violence Against Women Act was passed over 25 years ago and yet we still see approximately 1 in 5 college women experience completed or attempted rape. Similarly, in countries where honor killings, acid attacks and female genital mutilation have been outlawed, the practices persist. Policies passed to increase women’s participation in the formal economic sector, including land ownership, access to formal banking and job training have had uneven results. For example, a woman is still 21 percent less likely to own a mobile phone than a man. (GSMA)
Second, we can learn from our global sisters when it comes to acknowledging our differences, and the different realities of women within a movement. The intersectionality of race, class, religion, age, education-level, and ability within the women’s movement is difficult in most cultures. As we make our way forward not only for women’s rights, but across genders and sexual orientations, for immigrants, refugees, and workers, we can look for successful examples from other countries. In Egypt after the so-called Arab spring, young on-line organizers and older, more traditional activists came together to learn from each other. Women in Somalia have talked to me about how they formed a “women’s clan” outside of the traditional structure to work for greater representation. And certainly we’ve seen examples here in the U.S., where women officials have worked across political parties to pass the budget or keep the federal government open. And we must all work together to forward the idea that gender equality is not just good for women and girls but for men, communities and countries.
Women (especially younger and white ones) in the U.S. tend to think of themselves as better off than their peers in other countries. I think our relative freedom of movement and access to media give that impression. But that isn’t the whole story. We need to make sure that laws are passed and implemented, and that we are educating our leaders about why the lives and contributions of women and girls matter. We can learn a lot from organizations overseas and how they work to hold their governments accountable for promises made during elections. We can learn from them about how they have changed social norms around women and STEM careers, or the need for family leave policies.
One of the strengths of the “women’s rights are human rights” proclamation in Beijing in 1995 was that it established a global norm and linked the struggles of women around the world with each other. As illustrated by the marches around the world in January, where women and men, boys and girls took to the streets to show their support for the Women’s March in Washington and those across the country, activists in other countries have taken note. Now is the time for us to look to them as partners who can teach us and support us as we move forward.
