The following post is by Taylor Ball-Brown* from her blog Bell Tolling. I was happy she picked up the gender and development blogging conversation and wanted to share it here to keep it going.
Today I read a very interesting post by Tom Murphy of A View from the Cave. It was about gender bias in his ABBAs awards and in the development commentary community generally. I highly recommend reviewing it and (if you are a woman) speaking louder from now on.
One snippet from Murphy’s post that I found particularly thought-provoking was a comment by Jennifer Lenter, stating that, “In the U.S., 80-90% of OpEd pages are written by men, 84% of guests on Sunday morning political talk shows are men, and 85% of Hollywood producers and directors are men. In short, despite advances in the women’s movement, public conversations exclude many people.”
After reading this quote, I had to ask myself, “Are these public conversations always excluding women, or are we [women] just not stepping into an open ring?” In other words, is the lack of women in commentary due to external prohibitions, or internal inhibitions? It is surely due to both, but with women now exceeding men in years formal education, it seems intuitive that the balance of academic and political commentary should soon even out. If it doesn’t, we’ll have to ask ourselves why not–honestly.
Now, this is not to diminish the still very present and very active sexism that exists (consciously and subconsciously) in the world today. I know that sexism’s influence is yet felt far, wide and deeply. However, my point is simply to ask if we [as women] are making any excuses to pacify our existence as second class and/or silent bodies in the pews. We shouldn’t be afraid to head to the pulpit and speak loudly–and we definitely shouldn’t be afraid to make a blog comment.
*Taylor Ball-Brown studied evidence-based social intervention at the University of Oxford and recently moved to Washington for work. Academically and professionally I focus on the intersection of human rights and development--particularly in relation to women. I have lived an worked throughout the US and abroad.
Bell Tolling was started a recently as a means to introduce others to social issues in an educated but accessible manner. I strive to consider, and invite others to consider, multiple perspectives before forming opinions.
Today I read a very interesting post by Tom Murphy of A View from the Cave. It was about gender bias in his ABBAs awards and in the development commentary community generally. I highly recommend reviewing it and (if you are a woman) speaking louder from now on.
One snippet from Murphy’s post that I found particularly thought-provoking was a comment by Jennifer Lenter, stating that, “In the U.S., 80-90% of OpEd pages are written by men, 84% of guests on Sunday morning political talk shows are men, and 85% of Hollywood producers and directors are men. In short, despite advances in the women’s movement, public conversations exclude many people.”
After reading this quote, I had to ask myself, “Are these public conversations always excluding women, or are we [women] just not stepping into an open ring?” In other words, is the lack of women in commentary due to external prohibitions, or internal inhibitions? It is surely due to both, but with women now exceeding men in years formal education, it seems intuitive that the balance of academic and political commentary should soon even out. If it doesn’t, we’ll have to ask ourselves why not–honestly.
Now, this is not to diminish the still very present and very active sexism that exists (consciously and subconsciously) in the world today. I know that sexism’s influence is yet felt far, wide and deeply. However, my point is simply to ask if we [as women] are making any excuses to pacify our existence as second class and/or silent bodies in the pews. We shouldn’t be afraid to head to the pulpit and speak loudly–and we definitely shouldn’t be afraid to make a blog comment.
*Taylor Ball-Brown studied evidence-based social intervention at the University of Oxford and recently moved to Washington for work. Academically and professionally I focus on the intersection of human rights and development--particularly in relation to women. I have lived an worked throughout the US and abroad.
Bell Tolling was started a recently as a means to introduce others to social issues in an educated but accessible manner. I strive to consider, and invite others to consider, multiple perspectives before forming opinions.
4 comments:
My issue with this approach is that we are blaming women for not stepping forward, but we fail to question why. Why is it considered the best thing for women to act like men, basically? By saying we have to step up, be more assertive etc we are basically telling women to stop acting like themselves and instead act more like men. I feel we should play a role instead in shaping a world which embraces who you are, and listens to what you have to say, even if you are a woman who doesn't act like a man. We should look at the structures in society that don't acknowledge women's contributions, just because many women may not be as loud as men.
Very insightful comments. I would also add that we should look at the structures that make women feel as if they have no voice or ability to contribute to a given conversation. Personally, I am trying to listen better. As you said, there are plenty contributions being made, but I am not always listening closely enough.
I think Akhila rightly points out that there are external, as well as internal obstacles for women to participate. Whether we are excluded or are simply not including ourselves is of little consequence to me. Many people in the world have trouble claiming our "expertise," let alone claiming our voice, our space, or our rights. That is exactly why I got into development work. The fact that we spend precious little time thinking about, let alone resolving, the issue of who is considered the most important "experts" in our field is of great concern to me. For example, I've been thinking about the upcoming XIX International AIDS Conference coming up in July here in D.C. I wonder of those 20,000+ "experts" gathered, how many have lived, “on-the-ground” expertise? How many participants have cared for their dying
neighbor or counseled a child who has lost a parent? Let me say, not enough. There is a cost to all of us when the best minds and perspectives are continually left out of the dialogues that ultimately influence and affect resource flows. With blogs and social media, this can change. We are expanding the very notion of who is an "expert," albeit slowly. We need credible and articulate and confident women willing to speak up AND credible, articulate, and confident men willing to share the stage. Let's see ABBA's male winners follow Tom's lead, and start to invite in some guest posts. (Shout out to @whydev which is also modeling great collaboration.)
I really appreciate Akhila's comments regarding the need to investigate our own determination of "experts." Just as there are many variables to consider when determining the worth of an intervention (e.g. impact effectiveness, social acceptance, fiscal feasibility, infrastructure, etc.), there are also many perspectives to consider when measuring those variables--and they shouldn't all be Western, male or even in the genres of academia and international development. We need to acclimate our ears (literally and metaphorically) to hearing the accent of, for instance, female Ghanaians as authoritative on female issues in Ghana. I would love to see more development and non-profit videos that are narrated by an accent of Southern decent--or even by subtitles of translation. Again, this doesn't mean mean that the current majority voice (Western male) must be silenced--but rather that it must be corralled and complimented with other, equally authoritative voices. I discussed this topic a bit further in another post (skip to the end): http://tolling.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/kony-2012/.
On a separate note, however, I don't like the suggestion that "whether women are excluded or are simply not including ourselves" is of little significance. What, then, is the point of etiology? It's quite apparent to me that understanding the origin of a problem can be imperative to discovering its solution. And even when it is not imperative for the discovery of a solution, it can still help to identify why that solution works--which can later inform the solution of other problems. Now, surely the question of "why women don't participate in the public forum" has a multiple and multifarious origins that will (and do) create a mess to deal with, but that doesn't negate the utility of analyzing them.
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