Gender Across Borders

Recently, Change.org‘s Michael A. Jones covered a “public relations” misstep by the highly-recognized corporation, Target. It was revealed that the chain had donated $150,000 to a known antigay political figure in Minnesota (home to Target HQ). The matter of whether or not Target officials will work on rebuilding the their image is up for debate. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t look like they are conducting a whole lot of self reflection.

Target has had a gay-friendly history, and many have cited egalitarian hiring practices when discussing the recent scandal. It is hard to imagine that such a playful and youthful corporation brand would be aligned with an “aggressively antigay” political figure, as described in a New York Times editorial. The editorial also offered a business-minded opinion on the matter, which noted that,

The Target experience should be a lesson in the value of disclosure. The company, which insisted it supported Mr. Emmer solely for his pro-business views, discovered that it is bad business to back a candidate so out of step with the rest of its values. Presumably, it will be more alert now, knowing that customers are watching.

This is good business advice. But that’s not what is striking about the professional wisdom–instead, it is the last sentence that caught my attention. It seemed so odd that such a public organization would have to remind itself that people are watching.

Target’s image owes much to the Pop Art sensibility–their famous logo even resembles a Jasper Johns (an artist credited with influencing the Pop Art movement) painting, Target, which was created in 1958 (four years prior to the original logo design). Pop artists tended to be playful and cheeky, mixing the suggestive wit of a dirty joke with the language of advertising.  By doing so, the interdependence between consumerism and voyeurism was illustrated. Read the rest of this entry →

This post is cross-posted with Transatlantic Sketches and Redheaded Shenanigans and co-authored by Emily and Kate Wiseman.

What a revolutionary concept. And yet—I bet you would find a lot of people out there, adults and young adults alike, who instinctively disagree with the statement that “shaming teenagers about sex is a bad idea.”

Think about it this way. Teenagers are in between childhood and adulthood, and they are gradually learning to make their own choices and assert themselves as individuals separate from their parents and their peers. There are a number of issues that parents and teachers have to talk to teenagers about openly and honestly, including, for example, health and nutrition, drinking, and drug abuse.

In this critical period for teenagers, when they are vulnerable to so many influences, why would you bring shame into the mix rather than encouraging open and honest dialogue?

Open and honest dialogue doesn’t have to mean condoning teenage sex, if that’s where your morals lead you. My parents and I could have open and honest dialogue about drinking. Their stance while I was in high school was basically this: “If you drink, we will ground you for life and that’s that.” But we could still discuss the issue, and shame was never part of the equation. Read the rest of this entry →

Cross-posted at Equality 101, a blog for teachers and students

As feminists, we know that fighting for the equality for women also means fighting for equality for all. That’s why I want to talk to you about an important racial equity initiative happening in schools around the country.

The America Healing Initiative, [AHI] a program funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. This initiative is a larger part of the Kellogg Foundation’s Commitment to Racial Equity and Healing. The mission of the program is to

to help communities create conditions that propel vulnerable children to success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society.

This five-year, $75 million initiative will help fund programs around the country that focus on helping vulnerable children. Many of its programs are listed here. The programs who received grants from AHI are diverse: 119 organizations have been awarded grants in 29 states including the District of Columbia. Grantees come from various ethnic, culture, and racial backgrounds and focus on different topics, such as food, art, education, health, etc. Read the rest of this entry →

Across the world, girls face the double discrimination of their gender and age, leaving them at the bottom of the social ladder. They are denied access to basic health services, education, and face extremely high levels of violence, abuse, and harassment.

Because I Am A Girl Report, Plan International

Because I Am A Girl is the name of an education program currently touring schools across Western Canada. A joint project between Plan Canada and the 411 Initiative For Change, the program delivers the message that all girls deserve the opportunity to be educated, healthy and successful. Using music, videos and interactive theatre, girls from around the world share their struggles and successes in effecting change in their communities. They discuss issues like gender equity, access to education, self-esteem, early marriage, child labour, and violence against girls.

The program hopes to inspire students to become leaders in their communities, and to help improve the lives of girls around the world. It also introduces students to successful and empowered role models, including a live performance by Masia One, a female rapper from Vancouver. Read the rest of this entry →

This post is part of a series leading up to the Women Deliver conference (www.womendeliver.org), a global meeting on maternal and reproductive health and the advancement of women and girls.

In advance of the Women Deliver conference (which kicks off tomorrow in Washington, D.C., and GAB will be covering it!) one of the topics most on my mind has been girls’ access to education, largely because of last month’s spate of attacks on girls’ schools in Afghanistan. Now, more stories about these attacks and about the current state of Afghan politics reveal the complex factors that prevent many girls in the country from receiving an education.

After the recent poison gas attacks on girls’ schools that sent dozens of students and teachers to the hospital, discussion has centered on Taliban members or sympathizers as suspects. The Taliban famously banned education for girls while they ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001. They aren’t the only ones in Afghanistan who would like to keep girls out of school—many members of the staunchly traditional Pashtun ethnic group see no need for girls’ education, reports Afghan women’s rights organization Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. However, conservative views about gender roles aren’t only thing keeping Afghan girls out of the classroom. Read the rest of this entry →

“We often discuss patriarchy and its many faces; we often talk about men beating their wives, men raping women during war, men dominating politics, economics, culture and religion… what if our own liberation actually starts with seeing men not only as perpetrators and obstacles, but also as victims of their own gender construct?”

In recognition of the 2010 International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament (May 24) the Women Peacemakers Program published a manual entitled “Together for Transformation – Men, Masculinities and Peacebuilding.” The main gist of this assortment of articles is that we live in cultures that chronically dehumanize men as well as women. War, in particular, narrows men’s gender identity to one that is rooted in extreme violence (and this impacts men whether they are in a country like the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the United States).

Different than most of the material I’ve seen on “engaging men”—which focus on fostering men as allies in the women’s movement by emphasizing the rights of women—the articles and case studies in this manual build off of a principle that Dr. Martin Luther King is famous for espousing. That is, that perpetrators are also victims; that those who oppress others also oppress themselves. Read the rest of this entry →

This post is part of a series leading up to the Women Deliver conference (www.womendeliver.org), a global meeting on maternal and reproductive health and the advancement of women and girls.

Over the past two months, over 100 Afghan girls have fallen ill after suspected gas attacks in at least five girls’ schools. The victims suffered headaches, vomiting, and fainting, but luckily all recovered. These attacks are sadly not new or surprising—100 girls were hospitalized after an incident in one school last year. I was quite taken aback though by this April 25 report from the Associated Press:

Dozens of Afghan schoolgirls have fallen ill in recent days after reporting a strange odor in their classrooms in northern Afghanistan, prompting an investigation into whether they were targeted by militants who oppose education for girls or victims of mass hysteria.

“Mass hysteria” set off my ‘sexist BS’ alarm. REALLY? I thought. Didn’t the notion of female hysteria go out of fashion with Freud? Are people really trying to explain away these incidents as a purely psychological phenomenon?

Once my brain recovered from its initial shock, I knew I needed to investigate whether there is any scientific validity to the idea of mass hysteria—and I discovered that there is. However, despite the apparent lack of physical evidence tying a perpetrator to these incidents, there are a lot of reasons to believe the activists and officials who are saying the incidents are gas poisonings carried out by the Taliban or other extremists. Read the rest of this entry →

While flipping through the June issue of Glamour, I came across something I’d love to spend my hard-earned money on. No, it’s not a new fashion trend or beauty product. It’s a new United Nations program designed to encourage American girls to invest in the lives of girls in developing countries.

The article “Your $5 Can Save a Girl’s Life” describes UN Executive Director of Global Partnerships Elizabeth Gore’s inspiration for the program, called Girl Up.

Elizabeth Gore can’t forget the girl she met in Ethiopia last year. The 12-year-old had fled her family to avoid becoming a child bride, and was now working 18-hour days as a maid. Her only respite: a few hours each day learning to read and write.

“I can’t stop thinking about her,” says Gore, 33, director of global partnerships for the United Nations Foundation. “After that trip, I thought, Wouldn’t it be amazing to give girls in the United States the chance to invest in girls like her?”

The program will ask American girls to help improve the quality of life for girls in developing countries by raising funds to support initiatives in five key areas: education, health services, safety, leadership, and data collection. Donations of even just $5, called a High Five (how cute is that?) will buy school supplies for a girl. Read the rest of this entry →

You may have seen the new PSA the Candie’s Foundation put out a few weeks ago, which features a glammed up Bristol Palin bouncing baby Tripp on her hip, saying that if she didn’t come from such a famous family, with lots of privileges, raising a baby as a single teen parent would be a drastically different experience.  True dat.  (watch for yourself, below)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpHlztPeHf8]

I kind of like the ad because it drew attention to the anomaly that Brisol Palin (and Jamie Lynn Spears) is as a teen mom – whenever we see her she’s perfectly coiffed, calm, baby is calm, fed, dressed, she looks together.  She’s on air, or on camera, or headed somewhere expensive.  This is night and day compared to what the vast majority of teen moms in the US – and worldwide – have to deal with.

I thought it was actually edgy and nuanced of the Candies Foundation to push this message.  So often the “role models” that teen moms have in the media are ones that are mostly wealthy, have lots of support, and we’re only seeing the happy side of teen motherhood.  So I was annoyed (though not surprised) when the ad was immediately harshed on by the femi-blogosphere. Take this post, for instance, on Feministing.  It sums up the ad as suggesting, “don’t get pregnant unless you’re privileged.”  It calls the Candie’s Foundation “abstinence pushing” and suggests that Bristol is telling girls that if they’re poor they shouldn’t get pregnant…almost suggesting some kind of terrible class-driven population control.

Other blogs like Bitch followed suit, criticizing Bristol’s “anti-poor” attitude, and calling her a hypocrite.  This post on Feminist Looking Glass was more judicious, but still criticized the Candie’s Foundation for its abstinence-only messaging.  Overall, coverage from the feminist blogosphere was a bit harsh, a bit alarmist, a bit misinformed overall, if I may say so myself. Read the rest of this entry →

This article is cross-posted at Equality 101.

In 2002, a charismatic Nicaraguan friend and I co-founded a Free High School for Adults in her town, San Juan del Sur. We believe in education for all. We give a first-rate education to all those whom the daily high schools exclude: pregnant girls, mothers (but not fathers), people who work all week, anyone over eighteen. (Going to the FHS has rescued at least one woman from violence, by giving her the power to confront her abuser.) We have conferred 300 diplomas, opening doors economically and raising self-esteem. These people have talents that are golden for Nicaragua.

At the beginning of the school year, when I was in San Juan, my colleagues and I were shocked at a new system promulgated by the Ministry of Education. Symbolically, they changed the very names of the schools, like ours, that give the same diploma as the other daily high schools but that meet only on Saturdays. The daily schools are called regular. We now struggle under the abject label, “irregular.” I reject the name. For me, we are super-regular.

Photo by Margaret Morganroth Gullette

(Any 568 students who can learn in 48 Saturdays a year what other students take 200 days to learn have to be pretty super. A majority of our students are girls and women. A majority are rural. All super.)

The name change downgrades every institution that serves the rural poor. They earn their elementary-school diplomas in “multi-grades” (one teacher for all six years). The government has suddenly decided that the multi-grades are also “irregular”–so inferior that their graduates are prohibited from attending “regular high schools.” Not only does the Ministry not provide an acceptable education to rural children, it punishes them in adolescence for their supposed deficiencies. Read the rest of this entry →