Gender inequality...would fixing it make it worse?

tallaght01

Gender inequality plays a huge part in the global healthcare burden.

To give a simple example.....

In many developing contries, men hold all the power. It is acceptable for armies to rape women. This spreads disease. It increases pregnancy rates in countries with unsafe labour facilities. It also leads to pregnancy in barely pubescent girls.

IN these countries, it's acceptable for a man to have extra-marital sex, which spreads disease. The woman has no say in what form of protection is used. This leads to the spread of disease.

I could go on.

For a long time, I've had a bee in my bonnet about addressing gender inequality in developing countries, as a means of improving overall health for both sexes.

I put this idea forward in an international health policy tutorial the other day (I'm doing a masters in public health part time).
Then an African girl in the class who is involved with UNAIDS made the point that i her experience, the empowerment of women makes them MORE vulnerable. They are targets for violence. They are raped when they start working, as it's thought this will make them give up work. The other women in their community shun them.

I know there may not be a lot of interest in this kind of thing, but I was wondering of anyone had ever read anything about this from a credible source. or does anyone have any thoughts on the matter.

Just figured I'd put it out there. I'll do a journal search during the week and read up on it, but I thought it was an interesting point.

Macha

I did study feminism as part of post-modernism in uni, tallaght01, but no real qualification to speak of (and didn't really like much of what I heard about feminism in uni!). Anyway, I'd much rather get involved in this thread rather than the mess that is the thread in the Ladies Lounge.

The type of problem that the UNAIDS worker highlighted to you is common in development work that is imposed on a society that is not ready for it. There is some merit in the idea that laws can lead social change but in reality, if the two don't progress together, there will be friction that sometimes expresses itself in violent ways.

Not that this sort of problem is exclusive to developing nations. In Ireland, planning authorities and private developers experience considerable opposition to certain projects, most of which could have very easily have been avoided through consultation with the local community. It takes more time and effort, leaflets have to be printed, meetings have to be held, opposing ideas have to be listened to, doors have to be knocked on but at the end of the day, isn't it better to include people in the decision process and achieve consensus, rather than rush in and create opposition and distrust?

Anyway, it's a different scenario but the concept is the same in developing countries. Many of these ideas of gender equality and monogamy are truly alien to these societies. In almost all cases, it's Western NGOs coming in and dictating to these people what they should think/do/act without doing the ground work or really trying to engage the people on a grass-roots level.

Is the sort of opposition described by the UNAIDS worker really that surprising when viewed in this light?

Unfortunately, I've finished studying and don't have access to any academic journals any more. Anything you post up would be really interesting.

karen3212

tallaght01 wrote: »

Then an African girl in the class who is involved with UNAIDS made the point that i her experience, the empowerment of women makes them MORE vulnerable. They are targets for violence. They are raped when they start working, as it's thought this will make them give up work. The other women in their community shun them.

Wow, have to say I'm surprised that anyone is surprised that the few people at the begining of any equal rights movement are targeted.

How can empowerment make them more vulnerable, since according to your first paragraph, rape and violence towards women seems common anyway. The only added extra seems to be that they are suddenly also shunned by other women, which can feel worse than the other two, I imagine.

I suppose empowering them in groups might be the way to go, since then they'll at least have a few friends to keep them company.

tallaght01

karen3212 wrote: »

Wow, have to say I'm surprised that anyone is surprised that the few people at the begining of any equal rights movement are targeted.

Well, I'm sorry I don't share your insight. But, I'm not exactly advocating a revolution here. We've all been watching Morgan Tsvangari getting the bolix knocked off himself and his party members for years in Zimbabwe. We've all seen what happened to Mandela and his allies in SA. We've seen what happened to the rebels in Dharfur.
But these were all parts of a movement. I've never come across the concept of foreign aid, or intervention from the people's own government making an excluded group more vulnerable.

karen3212 wrote: »

can empowerment make them more vulnerable, since according to your first paragraph, rape and violence towards women seems common anyway. The only added extra seems to be that they are suddenly also shunned by other women, which can feel worse than the other two, I imagine.

I suppose empowering them in groups might be the way to go, since then they'll at least have a few friends to keep them company.

Being "vulnerable" is both a population issue, and a personal issue. By that, I mean you can be a woman in South Africa where, for example, you've more chance of being raped than being able to read. You can be a member of an at-risk population.

It's not a safe position to be in, but it's safer than being an at-risk individual.

It's similar to the way we know kids in poverty are "at-risk" for abuse, but we don't intervene with that population in the same way as we do when we become aware of an individual child who's "at-risk".

Tacconol, I do wonder about imposing changes on a population when they're not ready for it. But the question is what to do?

Do you accept that a population aren't ready for gender equality? Or do you start imposing rules? How do you deal with the fact that the female population sometimes don't think equality is a good idea (I literally spoke to an international health consultant an hour ago about this. He told me about a project e worked on in Fiji where the women refused to engage him. They told him the men will give him all the info he needs about the females' attitudes to health. They wanted to keep the status quo).

I haven't had a chance to do a proper literature search yet, but I'd be interested in seeing how other countries dealt with this issues.

Uganda became the first ever developing country to show a decline in their HIV infection rates a few years ago. From what I can remember about that, gender issues played a big part in that. So, I might start my reading there.