Macho Stereotype Behavior
The return to power of Silvio Berlusconi as head of the Italian Government is not the occasion for women to celebrate. For many years, I have been following his macho behavior, his stereotype remarks on women, and his jokes on female prostitutes as a part of my “men study”, the other side of the coin of the “women study”. Berlusconi has failed miserably, both as owner of media establishment and as a government leader, in the promotion of a balanced and non-stereotype portrayal of women in the media and society as a follow-up action to the Beijing Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women, which his country, Italy, had voted for in 1995. His appointment of four women into the cabinet is fine but he based his selection of them on their good looks. He recently criticized the Spanish government as “being too pink” because Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has appointed more women than men in the Spanish cabinet, and has actively promoted a policy of gender equality. Berlusconi’s sexist comment upset both women and men, not only in Spain, but also in many countries, who are trying to make some changes towards gender equality. Italian women should confront him on this kind of unacceptable macho behavior since it was them that elected this kind of a man to lead the country.
Filed under Gender Issues, World Affairs | Comment (0)Art, Climate Change, and Human Security
An Art exhibition, under this theme, which takes place this week in the South Gallery of the Visitors’ Lobby at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, is a great boost for people to change intolerance attitudes towards caring for the environment and human security. Seven contemporary artists, representing Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and North America and Western Asia, contribute their art works for public display. Mia Hanak, Executive Director of the Natural World Museum, said that the exhibition seeks to use the universal language of art as a catalyst for action and social change. She hopes that art will trigger an emotional response on environmental issues and climate change, usually are presented in a dry scientific ways. Catherine Chalmers’ and Cecilia Paredes’ arts explore the links between human and animal world, while the other artist, Subhankar Banerjee, prefers to show his artistic photographs depicting the Arctic and the life of indigenous peoples of the North. These artists, environmental activists and scientists are attending a seminar and panel discussions to find creative approaches in dealing with climate change and human security in a holistic way. Together they have an opportunity to share strategies relating to ways in which communities and government around the World can use art to promote changes in their own cultures and the different ways of life. The Outreach Division of the United Nations Department of Information and the United Nations Environment Programme, who organized this event, are doing an excellent job. The exhibition is open to the public until the end of May.
Filed under Art, United Nations | Comment (0)A Recipe For Romance
Singapore is the only country in the World that I know of that has a government policy to promote romance in a big way. Commercial airline joins in the action by advertising “Singapore girls “ as sexy and alluring, the best way to fly”. “Not enough romance” is identified as the country’s problem – causing the falling down of the country’s birth rate, which already is, the lowest in the World. For more than two decades, the Government has made efforts to achieve its’ plan for population growth. When I was working with the United Nations Population Fund, a Singaporean friend said, “Don’t come to Singapore if you are for birth control, for you will not be welcome there”. I was surprised, then, that there could be a government program to promote romance. But she explained to me that her government, worried about decline in birth rate, has a pro-natalist national policy – to find ways to get educated young girls to produce more children. For years, the government have been making a lot of efforts backed up by budgetary resources to organize campaign to encourage marriage. Incentives are given to couples that have more than two children. Places have been set-up where young girls and boys can meet and mingle, and also has organized social occasion such as tea – dances or parties for them. Seth Mydans, journalist of the International Herald Tribune, recently wrote that Singapore government appears to succeed at managing everything - except dating. After all the years of trying, Singapore girls continue to be “too” career-minded, wanting to stay single. They would rather have achievements in work and job than a successful family life. Achievement-oriented girls do not want to be burdened by having a double-workload, especially when most Asian men do not pitch-in to do domestic work and child- rearing. Now polytechnic and higher education institutes have joined in to help the government by setting up training courses to teach young boys and girls on the subjects of romance, love and sex – the modern mating ritual - to be fruitful and multiply. This kind of intervention by government in affairs of the hearts and in the citizen’s sex-life is interesting! Rather funny, when one comes to think of it. I can’t help but wonder, who would be considered “qualify” to teach such a course on love and romance? The old fashion Confucian, autocratic male bureaucrats, or their counter-part, single career-minded women, who themselves do not know how to fall in love, marry or have children? I wish the students good luck in this endeavor, performing their citizen’s duty of making babies for the future of the country.
Filed under Funny, Gender Issues | Comment (0)Polygamy’s Children
I feel sorry for the 436 Texan children who were separated from their polygamist parents earlier this month, for they are the real victims in this raiding of the polygamists compound. Their mothers themselves are victims, as young brides given by their religious leader in a polygamist marriage to much older men. The women are brainwashed to believe in the superiority of the men as preached by the leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both mothers and children need a re-education program on human rights, citizen’s rights and self-reliance to get out of their blind religious faith which they follow the preaching of an American man, Joseph Smith Jr. from his sudden divine revelations in 1830 when he wanted to take young girls as his new wives. The West Texas incidence reminds me of what Christopher Hitchen said in his book “God is not Great” that religion poisons everything. He has a chapter on “Is Religion Child Abuse?”. To which my answer is yes, as in the recent case, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints has abused the 436 children and their mothers. They are just a small example of millions of children around the world who are psychologically maimed by various religious teachings. Hitchen is right in calling this kind religious practice upon the unformed and undefended minds of the young as a moral terrorism.
Women Outnumber Men in Spanish Government
I want to congratulate the Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for making the world record by the appointment in his government of more women than men (9 women-8 men). By this last week action, he has broken the world and also his country’s record in the appointment of Carme Chacon, a 37 year-old woman to head the Ministry of Defense. The Prime Minister has also announced, when re-elected for the second term, that the “equality between men and women” is one of the chief goals of his government. Prime Minister Zapatero can also be proud that Ines Alberdi, a respected Spanish sociologist, has just been appointed last week at the United Nations as the new Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). The combined work of his action and Ms. Alberdi’s new work with other men and women in leadership role in the Spanish Government will tremendously help us around the world to accelerate the achievement of the goal of gender equality. Spain has given a very good example to all governments on how to lead in taking a common action on the UN Millennium Development Goal of gender equality, beginning with having “gender parity” in appointments to the highest level of the government.
Filed under Gender Issues | Comment (0)Agreement on Work Program for Climate Change
I am glad that negotiators from 163 countries have agreed at the end of the UN-sponsored meeting in Bangkok, which runs from March 31 to April 4, on the work program for the Bali Action Plan for Climate Change. People are hopeful that industrialized developed countries and developing countries can come up with solutions that both sides “can live with”, based on a common interest to deal urgently with the problems and the pressing issues of global warming, while the Antarctica Ice Shelf is cracking and disintegrating at this moment. Action requires the industrialized countries to stop the increase in global emissions within the next 10 to 15 years. and to dramatically cut back emission by 2050, said the UN environmental scientists. They warn us that failure to do so will see average world temperature increase over 2 degrees, leading to adverse effects such as food and water shortages, rising seas level and increase in extreme weather events. Further discussions will continue for a year and a half, to be concluded in 2009, at a major summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. Key areas that the government representatives will focus their discussion on are: human intervention to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emission; helping developing countries to adapt to the ravages of global warming; cleaner technologies for economic growth; and a financial package to help developing countries to find appropriate responses to climate change. A successor agreement must be ready for ratification three years before the Kyoto Protocol, which will expire in 2012, to allow countries to make its law in time. Climate change is a threat to us all. It is a matter of “life or death” for island developing countries. So we must pressure our own government to speed up negotiations to prevent future disaster.
Filed under Environment | Comment (0)Half Of Humankind
I hate to go on and on repeating the old saying that women are not a “special interest group” but are half of humankind. The results of the UN-organized four World Conferences on Women, Equality, Development and Peace, from 1976-1995 had confirmed this is the approach we should take. I am disappointed that in recent discussions with delegates and non-governmental organization representatives who attended this year’s Commission on the Status of Women on the subject of new proposal for strengthening gender equality architecture. They see gender equality and advancement of women as “specific group” issue. As part of UN reform, delegates proposed a set-up of a “special entity” in the UN Secretariat for promotion of action on gender equality and advancement of women. For me, this kind of proposal is the equivalent to creating of a larger “ghetto” to deal with crossed-cutting issue which should be “mainstreamed and integrated” with other political, economic and social development activities. Taking this “Special Group” approach is against the Beijing Platform for Action that was approved by the General Assembly in 1995. Just to get more funds to support gender-specific bureaucratic entity is short- sighted and waste of limited financial resource in the long run. Recent UN evaluation study of “national machinery” for women’s advancement found that “special unit” set up for women’s advancement in government bureaucratic structure is not an effective way to achieve the goal of gender equality. The UN should take lessons from these past mistakes and decentralize the gender equality issues instead of centralized them. Coordination of varies gender structures in the UN system can be done at an already-existed Executive Board for Coordination and its High-level Committee on Programme and Management. A lot of work also need to be done through Human Resource Action Plan of the UN Secretariat to increase the number of women through recruitment and promotion of women at senior political and administrative level to achieve the 50/50 target, set up over a decade ago. For years now, there has been no achievement beyond 36/37 per cent for
women in the Professional and higher categories of staff in the UN. Secretariat. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at this year March 8 Commemoration of International Women’s Day that he was convinced that in women, the world has at its disposal the most significant, and yet largely untapped potential for development and peace. With the help of Deputy-Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro, he could provide leadership to take immediate action, speed up the drive for “gender parity” in the UN, and for “mainstreaming gender equality” in activities of organs and bodies of the United Nations System.
Buying and Selling Sex in 2008
The Governor Spitzer of NY recent resignation from office because of “getting caught in buying sex from a prostitute” has brought the issue of “buying and selling sex” to a global discussion again. This time, there is a bit of a difference, though. Discussions in Internet and other media are more balanced — from the buyer and seller’s perspectives. Stephen Dubner, author of the best selling book “Freakonomics” gave us a call girl’s view of the Spittzer Affair. He, himself, is interested in the economics of prostitution. I recommend that he should also make a study on the economics of “traditional” marriages, which I consider to be another form of “prostitution” (bride price, groom price, dowry system, marriage go-between price etc). If there is an exchange of money, land, cattle, or any other material goods for sex, I call it “prostitution”. I agree with George Carlin’s comment that sex is the only thing that is legal to give but illegal to sell and we should go to the root of the problem instead of swimming on the surface. If we legalize “marriage”, we should also legalize “prostitution” because both are dealing with the buying and selling of sex. And also why should “virtue” be given to what we buy or sell? Sweden and New Zealand are two countries that are ahead in reforming laws to decriminalize prostitution. The law should also protect the rights of sex-workers and wives in traditional marriage, provide health care for prevention and cure of sexually transmitted diseases, make it a legal offense for pimps that profit from sex-industries, and punish parents that sell children to the “traditional” marriage markets. Criminalization of prostitution has not proved successful in stopping prostitution. The focus should be on prohibition of exploiting girl and boy children in sex-trade industry, prostitution or “traditional” marriage arrangement.
Filed under Gender Issues | Comment (0)Sufficient Financing For Gender Equality
The importance of sufficient financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment cannot be overstated. During the last ten years, 50 countries have launched the gender-responsive budgeting. But changes in budget policies and allocation are slow, with very little measurable impact. This week, representatives of member governments of the United Nations come together in New York to participate in the 52nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women. The discussions focus on
financing for gender equality and empowerment of women. They identified that a big obstacle to achieving gender-targeted financing is the lack of a political will by political leaders, the majority of which are men. “Men just turn off when they hear the term gender equality believing it meant women fighting only for their representation not equally representation of both men and women” says one delegate. Most politicians are not gender-sensitive; they sometimes claimed that they could not include gender in their projects because women and men must be treated equally and that gender inequality is not an obstacle to development. The false assumption that men and women act the same way as economic agent and benefit equally from the provision of public goods has produced the “neutral” character of Government budget. This false belief is another obstacle to gender-sensitive budgeting. Without being able to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, and without access to adequate sexual and reproductive health services, women stand little chance of having the same opportunities as the men. Investment in reproductive health is key to a sustainable social and economic development, and to the protection and promotion of human rights. What gender-sensitive financing really aimed at are the reform of a country’s public sector finance and the fairer distribution of wealth. It is important, therefore, for governments to examine all policies from tax laws to general budgets through a “gender –lens” in order to ensure that the gender perspective is mainstreamed across budget procedure, law drafting and other major project from the very beginning. This will require the Ministry of Finance of each country to develop a national system of “gender-budgeting” in order to establish coherence between economic and social policies to achieve a long-term objective of gender equality, democracy, and sustainable development.
Virgin Birth
It has been known before that bony fish, bees and ants can reproduce without having sexual contact with the males. Now scientists also confirm that female sharks and lizards can also do the same. Richard Gibson, Curator at the Zoological Society of London said that Parthenogenesis has been described before in about 70 species of vertebrates, but it has always been regarded to be very unusual or abnormal phenomenon. The Greek calls this type of reproduction “Parthenogenesis”, a pregnancy that occurs when an egg cell is triggered to develop as an embryo without the addition of any genetic material from a male sperm cell. Scientist at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Nebraska had produced evidence from studying a captive shark delivery a pub in 2001 despite having had no contact with a male. And in 2006, the Chester Zoo and the London Zoo in the United Kingdom also reported that two female Komodor dragons having produced offspring without any male contact. The genetic make-up of the offspring of this kind of virgin birth only comes from the mother. Now that we know that virgin birth is much more widespread and common phenomenon of life on earth than we previously thought. We should then go back and look again at the bible story about the virgin birth. Maybe it is not as unusual at all that “asexual reproduction” can happen to human female as well.
Filed under Science | Comment (0)