Some nations have the dubious distinction of maintaining large disparities between males and females with respect to their access to education. One would imagine that opening more educational institutions geared towards educating the girl-child would be a positive solution to this problem, especially in poverty-stricken communities where children are often withdrawn from school to engage in child labor. Arguably, pulling an 8 year old girl out of a factory where she is forced to operate a weaving loom for 12 hours a day, and giving her an education, food, and a roof over her head, would give her access to economic opportunities that she wouldn’t otherwise have dreamed of. That is indeed true. It has every indication of being a success story. However, the very same girl’s twin brother continues to work in yet another factory as a child laborer, unable to go to school because the regular ones are too expensive, and unable to get a subsidized education in the charity school because, being a boy-child, he is imagined to be an advantaged member of society. In the mad rush to focus primarily on the problems of poor women and girls, we have managed to forget that they share their daily lives with men and boys who are also subject to brutal, dehumanizing poverty. Something is wrong with this picture.
Let us look at another example, this time related to land tenure and ownership in an unspecified nation. Before the colonial era, the various ethnic communities in this nation had evolved complex land tenure and ownership systems, uniquely adapted to their lifestyles and to their family structures. In many cases, land ownership was communal rather than individual, and both male and female adult members of the communities were granted portions of land to cultivate or to leave fallow, accordingly. Along came the colonizers and they imposed their own land ownership and taxation systems on these communities and created a cash crop economy. Communities were dispossessed of large tracts of land, men were named official heads of family, with each one possessing a tiny plot that his wife (or wives) and children were supposed to make do with, and a hut tax assessed on each household. With those very precise and deliberate maneuvers, women were disenfranchised, and rendered non-entities in the new economy. Men fared a little better. Several of them were recognized as owners of newly-divided small pieces of land. Never mind that these pieces of land would eventually be recognized as too barren or too small to be of much economic significance. Little has changed in the post-colonial economy. In most cases, land passes from male family-head to son(s). With each successive generation, the land is divided further and apportioned to the various sons. Soon there is not much left to inherit. Some sons are forced to go without inheritance while the lucky one (usually the first born) inherits his father’s land. What about the daughters? What happens to them in this context? They simply don’t inherit. Would enforcing equal inheritance rights for both males and females solve their problem? From the women’s perspective, it would do so only to a very limited, fractional degree. From the men’s perspective, it would increase competition for already limited resources. So ultimately, it doesn’t matter how the inheritance is figured. Either way, several offspring will by necessity be disinherited.
My intention is not to belittle those who fight for the empowerment of women and girls in patriarchal societies or to say that these efforts are in vain. There is a definite economic and cultural bias against women and girls in several cultures worldwide, and this bias must be addressed. However, addressing this bias demands that we also pay attention to the context in which it develops. We could start by noting that biases and exclusions of this nature take root and become rigid in societies that feel threatened by traumatic events such as wars, colonization, natural disasters, and economic recessions. Fear and impoverishment never fail to follow in the wake of these events. It is in response to this fear and impoverishment that restrictive roles are given to men and to women, and some are denied resources, while the same resources are given to others. By the time we come along, these inequalities have been in existence for generations. Hence, very few of us think of these factors when prescribing solutions to the communities’ problems.
It seems to me that speaking to men and women alike about their human rights when there is no food on their plates is a project unlikely to succeed. For many men and women, the vast majority of human rights are abstract ideas that they do not dream of aspiring to because they don’t have the economic means to do so. Those of us who are interested in advocating for social change should learn to recognize this basic fact. To be more effective in our efforts, not only should we advocate for increased educational and economic opportunities for women and girls, but we should in the same breath fight for the same opportunities for everybody. Any efforts made to better the lives of women in a community must recognize that men are also stakeholders in that community, and are probably trying hard to cope with severe economic and cultural restrictions. Progressive changes are more likely to last when all members of the community have food in their stomachs and are pulling in the same direction.
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