International Women's Day

[Laurel Kamada]

Dear Lia,
Your letter was extremely well appreciated.  You don't need apologies for it 
being too long as it touched on the very issue that has been of concern to 
me for a long time now.  I thought that this "gender equality achieved" 
discourse coming from students was only here in Japan where I teach.  You 
offer some good points that I will introduce into my classes to try to 
stimulate students to see a larger picture.  Perhaps we need some newer 
terminology (as you suggest with "patriarchy") that young students can 
relate to, to replace such terms as "feminism" which has a lot of history 
attached to it that they didn't live through and help create as we did.

Laurel Kamada
Aomori, Japan


>From: "Litosseliti, Evangelia" <L.Litosseliti at CITY.AC.UK>
>Reply-To: List for the International Gender and Language Association        
>       <GALA-L at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>To: GALA-L at listserv.linguistlist.org
>Subject: International Women's Day
>Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 11:04:00 -0000
>
>
>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an issue', feminism as an utterly outdated concept, gender equality as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
>
>