Women and Decision-making
Two months ago, the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women invited me to participate in an online Seminar on “ Women and Decision-making”, a follow-up to the Platform of Action of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in 1995. The global community stressed the importance of women assuming positions of power and influence because despite the widespread movement for democracy, women were largely underrepresented in most governments especially in ministerial and other executive bodies. I learnt from discussions that the situation of women’s participation in decision-making has not changed much. Also from my own observation, today, the majority of women still remain outside most important decision-making arenas that effected their political, economic, and social lives, except in Scandinavian countries. But Dianne Lockwood, a participant of the UN seminar from Australia, surprised me of the progress in her country. In cultivating women leaders, she said that change happens because her government has a genuine commitment to gender equality. She reported that in the last decade, there had been considerable effort by Australia’s Federal Government to increase women’s leadership role. Now women hold one third of all Commonwealth parliamentary positions that give clout where it counts. Australian women hold 12% of all executive managerial positions in the private sectors, 35% of senior executive positions in the Public Service, and have 34.3% of all seats on government-controlled boards and bodies. Last year, the Australian government provides about 180 rural young women with leadership and role model opportunities through mentoring and leadership program pilots. Grants have been given to increase women’s leadership in sports and several key forums and “think thanks” to give women a voice. In addition, women were given a chance to have input into government policy through four National Women’s Secretariats funded by the government. I want to say that the progress in Australia happened because of many years of action taken by the women themselves, combined with efforts by the non-governmental organizations in lobbying their government to achieve the goal of equal participation of women and men in decision-making in the country. For me, women’s equal participation in decision-making is not only a demand for simple justice or democracy but also a necessary condition for women’s interests to be taken into account.
Filed under Gender Issues, United Nations | Comment (0)Understanding Baboon’s Mind
Thanks to biologists such as Dr. Dorothy Cheney and Dr. Robert Seyfarth of the University of Pennsylvania, I have gained a scientifically proved knowledge that animals can exhibit emotions and patterns of cognition once thought of as strictly human. The result of their 14 years of observation and scientific research on the behavior of Moremi baboons in Botswana has shown mehow baboons thinkand how their minds are specialized for social interaction understanding the structure of their society and navigating their way within it with feelings and emotions. The baboon’s mind is proved to be no different from the human mind, a product of evolution, which reminds me of an article I read last year written by Cornelia Dean for the New York Times, Science of the Soul? “I Think, Therefore I Am” Is Losing Force. In her article, she interviewed V.S. Ramachandran, a brain scientist of the University of California who said that there maybe soul in the sense of the universal spirit of the cosmos but the soul as it is usually spoken of an immaterial spirit that occupies individual brain and that only evolved in humans – all that is complete nonsense and that belief in that kind of soul is basically superstition. Other scientists have also asserted that the theory of a soul cannot be proved scientifically. Therefore, I think it is exciting that we live in a time of challenge to religious people who continue to believe in the “Creationist Theory” that “God” gives humans a special place in the creation scheme of things, by equipping them with souls, ignoring the fact that scientists have discovered physical bases for the feelings such as empathy, disgust and joy from which moral sense emerges, not just in people, but in other animals as well.
Filed under Science | Comment (0)Banazir Bhutto, Pakistani Women’s Flawed Icon?
I could not agree more with Emily Wax’s piece in the Washington Post this week, “Pakistani Women’s Flawed Icon”. By the way that the late Prime Minister Banazir Bhutto had conducted her life, it is true that she was a brave woman, and political leader, but she had raised expectation for advancement of women in a Muslim society, and largely failed to fulfill them. Internationally, she was a controversial figure among feminists and democratic social activists. She went to the UN-organized International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, talking about women’s rights and family planning, but she did little, while in power, in following through with action in her country. She became pregnant one after the other while in office, that many people made a joke about her in that PPPP stands for “Pakistan Perpetually Pregnant Prime Minister”, rather than her leadership in the PPPP, a Political Party, the Peoples Party of Pakistan. She had taken many risks of putting her own life on the line when out speaking in the public places under warnings. She did not take these risks for women’s right in Pakistan, or for democracy. In a feudal way, she did it for her own and the Bhutto family’s place in the political history of Pakistan. I am sorry that, in the end, she had to pay with her own life to achieve that ambition.
Filed under Gender Issues, World Affairs | Comment (0)