The United States (U.S.) has come a long ways in the rights of women and as you will read in the following paragraphs; but,  there are countries still out there that refuse and who do not want to give women their rights.  This is where the women in the U.S. need to step in and help instead of continuing to complain about rights in the U.S.

A major global women’s rights treaty was ratified by the majority of the world’s nations a few decades ago.

Yet, despite many successes in empowering women, numerous issues still exist in all areas of life, ranging from the cultural, political to the economic. For example, women often work more than men, yet are paid less; gender discrimination affects girls and women throughout their lifetime; and women and girls are often are the ones that suffer the most poverty.

Reading this report about the United Nation’s Women’s Treaty and how a variety of countries have lodged reservations to various parts of it shows we still have a long way to go to achieve universal gender equality.

Gender equality furthers the cause of child survival and development for all of society, so the importance of women’s rights and gender equality should not be underestimated.

Despite the almost universal ratification of the Convention (second only to the Convention on the Rights of the Child), a number of countries have still not signed or ratified it. The handful of remaining countries are: USA (signed, but not ratified), Iran, Qatar, Cook Islands (a Non-member state of the United Nations), Nauru, Palau, Tonga, Somalia, and Sudan.

To see the US on this list may seem surprising to most, and Human Rights Watch is critical of the delay in getting a ratification, noting that this treaty has been in limbo in the U.S. Senate for decades. It was sent it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a vote in 1980. The first hearing on it was 10 years later. After a vote mostly in favor for it by the Foreign Relations Committee in 1994, some conservative senators blocked a US Senate vote on it. In 2002 the Foreign Relations Committee again voted that the treaty should be ratified, but the 107th Congress ended, so it requires a vote again in favor of sending the treaty to the full Senate for ratification!

Some opponents of the treaty have raised fears that it would undermine US law, but Amnesty International USA shows that such fears of the treaty are based on myths.

The US of course has a decent record when it comes to women’s rights, so this may not seem a concern immediately. However, as Amnesty International USA further argues not only would ratification for the US be straight forward (for US laws in this area are already consistent with the CEDAW treaty), but it would also help to increase their credibility when raising these issues worldwide.  (Just be sure before it is ratified that US law has first preference in any dispute!)

(There are different types of problems all over the world that women face, from the wealthiest countries to the poorest, and it isn’t the scope or ability of this site to be able to document them all here, but just provide some examples.)

Women Work More Than Men But Are Paid Less

The informal slogan of the Decade of Women became “Women do two-thirds of the world’s work, receive 10 percent of the world’s income and own 1 percent of the means of production.”

Women cultivate, plough, harvest more than half of all the food in the world.

According to Inter Press Service, “On a global scale, women cultivate more than half of all the food that is grown. In sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, they produce up to 80 percent of basic foodstuffs. In Asia, they account for around 50 percent of food production. In Latin America, they are mainly engaged in subsistence farming, horticulture, poultry and raising small livestock.”

Yet women often get little recognition for that. In fact, many go unpaid. It is very difficult for these women to get the financial resources required to buy equipment etc, as many societies still do not accept, or realize, that there is a change in the “traditional” roles.

UNICEF’s 2007 report on state of the world’s children focused on the discrimination and disempowerment women face throughout their lives and how that impacts children’s lives. In regards to work and pay, they noted the following:

Estimated earnings for women are substantially lower than for men

Estimated earnings per year (in 1000s of US dollars at 2003 prices)

Percentage of men’s earnings

Estimated earnings are defined as gross domestic product per capita (measured in US dollars at 2003 prices adjusted for purchasing power parity) adjusted for wage disparities between men and women. Some numbers rounded for display purposes.

Source: UNICEF, State of the World’s Children, 2007, p. 41, Figure 3.3

Industrialized nations Women 21
Men 37 57%
CEE/CIS Women 4.6
Men 8 59%
Latin American and
Carribean Women 4
Men 10 40%
East Asia and Pacific Women 4
Men 6.5 62%
Middle East and North
Africa Women 2
Men 7 28%
South Asia Women 1
Men 2.5 39%
Sub-Saharan Africa Women 1
Men 2 51%

Reasons for such disparity include the fact that women are generally underpaid and because they often perform low-status jobs, compared to men. UNICEF notes that the data isn’t always perfect, and that generalizations such as the above can hide wider fluctuations. “In Brazil, for example, women under the age of 25 earn a higher average hourly wage than their male counterparts.” (p.39)

UNICEF’s main summary of equality in employment (chapter 3) included the following points:

For many women, unpaid work in and for the household takes up the majority of their working hours, with much less time spent in remunerative employment. Even when they participate in the labour market for paid employment, women still undertake the majority of the housework.

When women work outside the household, they earn, on average, far less than men. They are also more likely to work in more precarious forms of employment with low earnings, little financial security and few or no social benefits.

Women not only earn less than men but also tend to own fewer assets. Smaller salaries and less control over household income constrain their ability to accumulate capital. Gender biases in property and inheritance laws and in other channels of acquiring assets also leave women and children at greater risk of poverty.

Paid employment for women does not automatically lead to better outcomes for children. Factors such as the amount of time women spend working outside the household, the conditions under which they are employed and who controls the income they generate determine how the work undertaken by women in the labour market affects their own well-being and that of children.

— UNICEF, State of the World’s Children, 2007, p.36

Gender discrimination throughout a lifetime

The above-mentioned 2007 report on state of the world’s had an informative section (see pages 4–5) on how women are discriminated against at various stages through life, summarized here:
Foeticide and infanticideUNICEF notes that “Where there is a clear economic or cultural preference for sons, the misuse of [pregnancy diagnostic tools] can facilitate female foeticide.”The middle years“A principal focus of the middle years of childhood and adolescence is ensuring access to, and completion of, quality primary and secondary education.

With a few exceptions, it is mostly girls who suffer from educational disadvantage.”Adolescence“Among the greatest threats to adolescent development are abuse, exploitation and violence, and the lack of vital knowledge about sexual and reproductive health, including HIV/AIDS.”

Specific areas that UNICEF highlighted were female genital mutilation/cutting; child marriage and premature parenthood; sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking; sexual and reproductive health; and HIV/AIDS.Motherhood and old age.  These are “two key periods in many women’s lives when the pernicious effects of both poverty and inequality can combine.” Shockingly, “It is estimated that each year more than half a million women—roughly one woman every minute—die as a result of pregnancy complications and childbirth,” 99% of which occur in developing countries.

Yet “many of these women’s lives could be saved if they had access to basic health care services.” In addition, elderly women may face double discrimination on the basis of both gender and age. Many older women are plunged into poverty at a time of life when they are very vulnerable. However, “children’s rights are advanced when programmes that seek to benefit children and families also include elderly women.”

Feminization of Poverty

The “feminization of poverty” is a phenomenon that is unfortunately on the increase. Basically, women are increasingly the ones who suffer the most poverty.

Professor of anthropology, Richard Robbins also notes that

At the same time that women produce 75 to 90 percent of food crops in the world, they are responsible for the running of households. According to the United Nations, in no country in the world do men come anywhere close to women in the amount of time spent in housework. Furthermore, despite the efforts of feminist movements, women in the core [wealthiest, Western countries] still suffer disproportionately, leading to what sociologist refer to as the “feminization of poverty,” where two out of every three poor adults are women. The informal slogan of the Decade of Women became “Women do two-thirds of the world’s work, receive 10 percent of the world’s income and own 1 percent of the means of production.”

— Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999), p. 354

This then also affects children, which makes the dire situation even worse. For example, even in the richest country in the world, the USA, the poorest are women caring for children.

The lending strategies to developing countries by institutions such as the IMF and World Bank have affected many women in those countries.

Poverty, trade and economic issues are very much related to women’s rights issues due to the impacts they can have. Tackling these issues as well also helps to tackle women’s rights issues. And, tackling gender issues helps tackle poverty-related issues. See also the Asia Pacific online network of women web site for more about issues relating to globalization and its impacts on women.

For more about these aspects, refer to this site’s section on trade and poverty related issues.

Women, Reproductive Rights and Population Issues

As seen in the population section of this website, tackling many population related causes involves tackling many women’s issues such as increased knowledge and access to better health care, family planning and education for women. The beneficial results of these get passed along to the children and eventually the society. In fact, as PANOS shows in a report, providing women reproductive rights is part of their human rights.

And as Amnesty International shows, when basic health care infrastructure is lacking, the poorest suffer the most. For example, in the case of pregnant women giving birth comes with the real risk of death, which affects the rest of the family and community too:
No Woman Should Die Giving Birth: Maternal Mortality in Sierra Leone, Amnesty International, via CultureUnplugged.com

Women and children: the double dividend of gender equality

The above title comes from UNICEF’s 2007 report on state of the world’s children where they focus on the discrimination and disempowerment women face throughout their lives and how that impacts children’s lives.

The key messages that came out from the report were as follows:

Gender equality and the well-being of children go hand in hand.  Gender equality furthers the cause of child survival and development.Gender equality produces a double dividend: It benefits both women and children.  Healthy, educated and empowered women have healthy, educated and confident daughters and sons. Gender equality will not only empower women to overcome poverty and live full and productive lives, but will better the lives of children, families and countries as well.

Women’s equal rights and influence in the key decisions that shape their lives and those of children must be enhanced in three distinct arenas: the household, the workplace and the political sphereA change for the better in any one of these realms influences women’s equality in the others, and has a profound and positive impact on child’s well-being and development.Gender equality is not only morally right, it is pivotal to human progress and sustainable development.

Achieving Millennium Development Goal Number 3—promoting gender equality and empowering women—will also contribute to achieving all the other goals, from reducing poverty and hunger to saving children’s lives, improving maternal health, ensuring universal education, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and ensuring environmental sustainability.

Women and Climate Change

Many of the above factors also combine to make women more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) explains:

Women—particularly those in poor countries—will be affected differently than men. They are among the most vulnerable to climate change, partly because in many countries they make up the larger share of the agricultural work force and partly because they tend to have access to fewer income-earning opportunities.

Women manage households and care for family members, which often limits their mobility and increases their vulnerability to sudden weather-related natural disasters. Drought and erratic rainfall force women to work harder to secure food, water and energy for their homes. Girls drop out of school to help their mothers with these tasks. This cycle of deprivation, poverty and inequality undermines the social capital needed to deal effectively with climate change.

Women and the Media

Even media attention on women who help and fight for certain causes is distorted. For example, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) analyzed U.S. media reporting during the British Princess Diana’s funeral, and noted that the U.S. media typically concentrate only on a few people like the late Diana and Mother Teresa who had some sort of celebrity type status, and rarely reported on the thousands of others doing similar work.

In other cases, the roles of women presented in the media, from talk shows, to entertainment shows as well as news reporting can often end up reinforcing the status quo and the cultural stereotypes, which influence other women to follow suit. This happens in all nations, from the wealthiest to the poorest (and happens with men as well as children). It can have positive aspects, such as providing guidance and sharing issues etc. but it can also have a negative effect of continuing inherent prejudices etc.

Beijing +5 Special Session

From June 5 to June 9 2000, there was a conference at the United Nations, New York, continuing on 5 years from a similar conference in Beijing, 1995. (The formal name of the conference was “Women: 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-First Century.”)

In 1985 there was a conference in Nairobi, Kenya, to formulate strategies for advancing women’s rights. This was followed by a “plan of action” defined in 1995, in Beijing.

It has been recognized and agreed for a while that successful development also involves gender equality. The goals of this conference then was to reflect on the promised provisions of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere.

Leading up to, and during the conference, many organizations had numerous issues to bring to the fore, including:

•Women’s reproductive rights
•Abduction of girls
•Child soldiers and armed conflict
•Poverty and Economy
•Education and Training
•Health
•Violence
•Decision Making
•Institutional Mechanisms
•Human Rights
•Media
•Environment
•The Girl-child

According to a UN report, the international community had fallen far short of its commitments to empower women and achieve gender equality and that only eight out of 188 member states had certain global agreements for this.

It was also pointed out at this UN session that Women continued to be deprived of basic and fundamental rights because of measures imposed in certain countries.

In fact, some were even opposed to moving forward on such important issues, such as Holy See (the Vatican), Nicaragua, Sudan and Libya and sometimes Iraq and various other nations on particular issues such as reproductive rights, even freedom of expression (Libya and the Vatican opposed this). The Vatican, Iran and some other delegations even wanted to delete references to sexual and reproductive rights and health in the Current Challenges section of the review document.

Regarding the Vatican (the Holy See), there was growing concern at their role as permanent observer, where they are considered to be more than a non-governmental organization (NGO), but less than a nation. They therefore have some influence and have been criticized at the way they have affected some UN decisions regarding gender-related issues to be more effectively pushed forward. As part of some of the criticisms, there is the suggestion to challenge the Holy See’s power by demanding that the Vatican should be classified as an NGO instead.

Some NGOs and organizations from the third world trying to fight for women’s rights also felt they were left out of the conference.

Beijing +15 Special Session

15 years on from the 1995 Beijing conference, and a decade after the conference described above, there was a 2-week meeting on women’s rights progress once again. Technically, this was the 54th session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to report on global efforts toward democracy and human development through the empowerment of women.

Inter Press Service (IPS) reported on the conference suggesting mixed feelings on the outcome; while there was improved understanding on some issues, there were still a number of political uncertainties on questions such as whether or not there would be any

•Commitments to protect the universality of women’s rights, including sexual and reproductive rights;
•Significant progress on the proposal to set up a separate U.N. agency — officially called a gender entity — for women;
•Increased funding for gender-related issues, including resources to battle sexual violence.

So, in the end, women or women and men or men and no matter what you do the sexes will survive but world-wide changes must be made for women.  If women are supposed to be responsible for the home and children’s care,  a stipend must be made available throughout the world for these services.  In addition, training on how to maintain a home and raising children should be provided.  Also, every country should provide decent homes for the people to be able to afford.   This alone would bring women out of poverty and improve the cultures.

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