International Women's Day

Fri Mar 17 11:04:00 UTC 2006

Dear colleagues,

How many times have we heard our students describe gender as 'not really
an issue', feminism as an utterly outdated concept, gender equality as
something now achieved?

How many times have we seen gender being the focus in the media for one
day (Women's Day), only to become something that is relevant to women
(hence the Women's page) thereafter? 

Let me take the opportunity of International Women's Day celebrations
last week, to say this: while there is nothing wrong with having a day
to reflect on what's happening to women around the world, and while
there has been undeniable progress in many areas that affect women's
lives, patriarchy (and feel free to replace this word with another, if
you see it as too strong or old-fashioned) is alive and well. This will
be obvious for many of us in this forum, but we often struggle to make
the case to those outside (and often within) academia that there are far
too many horrifying inequalities out there; inequalities that a Women's
Day cannot begin to address. And further, even hard-won rights for women
are now being reversed in some cases (as seen, for example, in the
abortion-banning bill last week in South Dakota; in attempts to reimpose
the veil on women in Iraq and elsewhere; and in the freezing of all US
aid to fund sexual and reproductive health programmes in the developing
world, where women and children are now dying needlessly as a direct
result).

I say this because I repeatedly come across a pervasive 'post-feminist'
discourse, that tells us about gender equality as something that has
been achieved, about women as independent and free to pursue their goals
(which seem to include the 'right' to various kinds of 'sexual
freedom'), and about feminism as old-fashioned, ridiculous, and
redundant. 
So, I try to encourage this kind of discussion with my students, by
asking them  to simply consider the following:

~ 70% of people living in poverty are women and children 
~ 67% of all illiterate adults are women 
~ 85 million girls worldwide are unable to attend school (compared with
45m boys) 
~ 700.000.000 women are without adequate food, water, sanitation, health
care or education (compared with 4000.000.000 men)  
~ 1.440 women die each day during childbirth (a rate of one death every
minute) 
~ 12 world leaders are women (out of 191 members of the UN) 

and...

~ 1% of the titled land in the world is owned by women 

[You will perhaps agree that I do not need to mention, in addition, the
shocking statistics about women who become victims of rape and domestic
violence around the world]

But what of those of us who live much more privileged lives, compared to
the women described above? In the UK:

~ The pay gap between men and women in similar full-time jobs is 17%.  
~ In part-time jobs,  the gap is 42% .  
~ Women earn 38% less than men without qualifications. 
~ 10% of company directors are women , 20% of MPs, and 16% of local
authority council leaders. 
~ Each year 30.000 women lose their jobs for being pregnant. 
~ Violence against women (when reported) accounts for 16% of all violent
crime, and is on the increase.

And there is more.
[You will easily find more in newspapers and the Internet, especially on
Women's Day!]

I tell students this: Next time someone tells you that gender equality
is complete or unnecessary or the product of political correctness gone
mad, please take a minute to ask them to look at the whole picture. And
also: Let us become active in any way we can, and more critical in the
ways we talk about gender, rather than pay lip service to progress for women once a year. 

I know that our focus in this list is on gender and language in
particular, and apologies if this message is a bit long, but I hope
you'll agree that we must not be complacent about any of these issues.

With best wishes,

Lia Litosseliti

Dr Lia Litosseliti 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
Lecturer in Linguistics 
Department of Language and Communication Science 
City University 
Northampton Square 
London EC1V 0HB
UK

l.litosseliti at city.ac.uk

http://www.city.ac.uk/lcs/biographys/llitosseliti.html

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