The Fight Continues for International Gender Equality with Dr. Shirley Graham, Director of George Washington University's Gender Equality Initiative
“How a country treats its women is an indicator of that country's stability, security and prosperity,” Today’s woman dreamer, Shirley Graham is the Director of George Washington University's Gender Equality Initiative for International Affairs. After several corporate roles and opportunities around the world, it was a trip to Nepal that changed everything, where a close friend encouraged Shirley to pursue her true passion for women’s rights. A true trailblazer fighting for women’s rights around the world, enjoy her powerful and informative story!
It was a beautifully sunny day in Nepal, the lake sparkled with light, and the blue sky stretched overhead like a canvas beckoning me to paint the next chapter of my life. I was sitting in a small wooden rowing boat, with my friend Jess, in the middle of lake Phewa encircled by the majesty of the Annapurna mountain range in the foothills of the Himalayas. I had come to Nepal ostensibly to teach English in a primary school for under-privileged children, but privately it was an opportunity to review my life and figure out what I would do next. In the previous years, my long-term relationship had ended, I had worked through a series of promotions in my corporate job, been head-hunted by a tech start-up, travelled to exciting cities, taken on more and more professional challenges, and now I was burnt out and confused about my next steps.
Jess looked me in the eye and said ‘Shirley, go back to school. Study what you are passionate about, women’s rights and international affairs. That’s all you ever talk about, so you might as well work at what you love’. I was astonished. ‘Is my interest in the rights of women and girls so unusual?’ I asked. ‘Yes’, she said, ‘now go do it!’ This was the beginning of my journey into women’s rights advocacy, research, writing and teaching. Previously, it had never occurred to me that I might follow such a path, but now when I look back and piece together the jigsaw puzzle of my life, it doesn’t seem surprising at all.
I had grown up in 1970s-80s Ireland, a place where girls were told to keep away from boys, don’t have sex, and if you do have sex, don’t get pregnant. Conservative and religious values restricted many aspects of a young woman’s life. It wasn’t until 1985 that contraception was made legally available in Ireland. The Magdalene laundries, a church run institution operated until 1996. The laundries, led by nuns, took in women who were pregnant and unmarried or women who had been raped or were victims of incest, or were too flirtatious or otherwise considered problematic. The women worked for free, laundering, until their babies were born or such time as their families deemed they were ready to leave. Some women never left.
While on the one-hand the Catholic Church and Irish culture stigmatized women who were pregnant and unmarried, on the other hand, married women were under pressure to be continuously pregnant. Motherhood was considered a woman’s duty for her family and for her country. Both of my grandmothers at different times tried to resist this pressure. One did so by begging her parish priest to intervene and tell her husband that enough children had already been born, the priest refused, and she went on to have nine children. The other attempted to induce an abortion by throwing herself out of her bedroom window, it didn’t work, and she went on to have eight children. Neither received the support they deserved from the church or the state. It wasn’t until 2018 that Irish women won the right to access safe, legal abortions.
In Kathmandu, the school I was teaching in was in a poor district and the children were either orphans or had only one parent. The school was under-resourced and often children were left to their own devices without a teacher. As I walked by groups of younger children on my way to a class they would call out ‘teacher, teacher’ waving their arms and urging me to join them, so eager were they for learning. It broke my heart that they had to beg to be given this time and attention. The children I got to know as my students were some of the brightest, funniest, cleverest children I had ever met. But, I was struck by how different the girls and boys behavior was in the classroom. The boys were typically talkative, noisy, playful, and having a lot of fun. The girls were quiet, silent, serious and anxious to please. I felt sad for the girls. So many hours of their day were spent at school, so many hours of self-regulation and self-control. It was this stark contrast between the girls and boys behavior that got me thinking more deeply about the gender harms that are done to girls as a result of strict gender roles and norms in society.
If we look at social relations through a gender lens we can see where women, and sexual and gender minorities, are more vulnerable to discrimination and violence in different cultures. For example, it is estimated that 120 million women are missing worldwide due to sex selective abortions, with a majority of these abortions taking place in India and China. One in three women globally will be a victim of sexual or physical violence by her intimate partner. Only 25% of parliamentarians are women and 82% of them report experiencing harassment and threats of violence. In 72 countries same sex relationships are criminalized and in eight of those the punishment can be the death penalty. Two hundred million girls have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) and three million are at risk each year. At least 60 percent of countries still discriminate against a daughters’ right to inherit land in law or practice.
No country in the world has full equality between women and men. Only six countries have equality under the law, France, Belgium, Latvia, Luxembourg, Sweden and Denmark. For many of us, we can look back at our mothers and grandmothers generation and see how they lived under stricter social controls then we do as women today. However, this is not true for all women. Populist right wing governments are on the rise across the world and one of the first actions they take when they come into power is to erode women’s rights. On the day that I am writing this blog, 28 October 2020, a law has come into force in Poland making abortions illegal, with the exception of a few circumstances. On President Trump’s first day in office he signed the ‘Global Gag Rule’ which stop funding via USAID to any clinic or NGO in beneficiary countries that offered women information about, or access to abortions. This has been followed by the erasure of the word gender from many US policy documents, and the ongoing threat to over-turn the 1973 judgment that legalized abortion, Roe V. Wade. Consider further, Hungary’s 2018 ban on the teaching of gender in universities. Romania has a similar ban pending with the case currently under deliberation in their constitutional court. Russia continues to have no legal definition for domestic violence. Attacks on the rights of LGBTQI people continue in Turkey and the numbers of femicides (the killing of women by men, because of their gender) are rapidly increasing in Mexico during the Covid-19 pandemic. I could go on and on, for the list is long.
Fast forward, from that day in Nepal to today. I am now the director of a global gender policy program at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs in D.C. where we have hundreds of students taking courses on gender in international affairs each year. My students are passionate, articulate, driven young adults determined to create a more just, equal and safe world. They are powerful advocates for the rights of women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities. They understand that trans-national feminist movements are key to bringing about women’s rights, by advocating on behalf of women who cannot, by sharing best practices, and by lobbying governments and multi-lateral institutions. They know that how a country treats its women is an indicator of that country's stability, security and prosperity, as gender equality leads to better outcomes for everyone. And yes, I am happy to report that they are some of the brightest, funniest, and cleverest students I have ever had the pleasure to teach. When I think back to that day on the lake and how my friend Jess encouraged me to pursue my passions, it reminds me of how important it is for women to support each other to believe in ourselves and to dream big!
And Shirley’s next big dream, My next Big Dream is to work with an amazing team of artists, writers and actors to collaborate on the production of a series of stories about women's lives that are previously untold, elevating women's power, wisdom, creativity and humour.
Thank you Shirley for sharing your thought-provoking insights. We are honored to have you in our empowered women’s network!
all views expressed are those of the contributor, Women Who Win bears no responsibility.