Palais des Nations – the main UN building in Geneva where Syrian peace talks currently are taking place.
The Geneva II conference agreement of today allows women and children of the city Homs to leave immediately to seek safety. I cannot help but wonder why women’s lives are considered to be more valuable than men’s. It’s the same thinking which allowed women and children to leave sinking boats first, and fuels the stereotype that men’s responsibility is to sacrifice themselves and die for the greater good. Why shouldn’t women do the same?
I have just taken my first Arabic class, and to my amusement there is a letter which indicates that a word is feminine (as opposed to masculine!) It’s called ‘taa marbuTa’! (Why didn’t the French think about this???) It even rhymes with ‘ktiir mabsuta’, which means ‘very happy’!
Even if I use money every day, I would never claim to be an economist or have the audacity to write an article about finance. Even if I use a phone every day, I would shut up and listen when technicians explain to my why it’s not working. The same with oxygen… I breath it every day, but wouldn’t claim to understand the chemistry behind it. However, strangely enough, with regards to gender equality, everybody seems to have a strong opinion about it based on their own experiences, and think of themselves as authorities on the subject just because they are a gender, or perhaps because they are vaguely known in a totally different area of expertise. I wonder if people who work with gender equality ever will get any respect for our knowledge, except hear that we are “feminist man-haters”. Sigh.
I was strolling the streets of Beirut this morning when I saw this graffiti on a wall (among several others). Good, important message, still much work to do.
There seems to be no end to people’s imaginations when it comes to playing with toilet signs of different sorts. This one is from Café Mandaloun in Beirut:
The same two figures were attached to the two doors in the floor upstairs.
Congratulations to Alice Munro from Canada for winning this year’s Nobel Prize in literature! She is known for her short stories about women’s and girls’ lives. In the 112 years the prize has been awarded, this is only the 13th time that a woman has become a laureate!
Now let’s see who wins the Nobel Peace Prize! I cheer for Malala Yousafzai!
Guido Barilla, chairman of the Italian pasta brand Barilla, has stated that they will never make an advert with a homosexual family, to conserve the “sacredness of the family”. Gay groups have called for a boycott.
Nooooo! I love that pasta! Why must this Medieval Italian chauvinist be such a… Medieval, Italian chauvinist??? Urgh. This boycott will hurt. That’s for sure. 😦
Let’s talk about child marriages. I was recently disgusted by an article about how an 8 year old girl died on her wedding night as she was raped by her 40 year old “husband” (read “rapist”):
Ok, so the practice of marrying girls to older men is not something new, by no means exclusive to Yemen, and we all know it exists, as this documentary shows:
The reasons for why it happens are claimed to be numerous, but one main reason which is often repeated is the wish to protect girl’s chastity and honour, especially in societies where family honour is considered as more important than respecting individuals’ human rights. It is also considered a good idea to marry girls off before they get too many opinions of their own, become stubborn and “difficult” (read: “independent and form opinions of their own”). And then, in times of poverty and crises, families can be tempted to marry off their daughters because they will get money or other benefits from it.
Child marriages are also wrongly excused with religious and cultural arguments, which are (as often) twisted in ways to serve status quo rather than to disseminate religious imperatives of doing good and respecting others.
But I think it’s about time we start calling child marriages by their real names: 1) Pedophilia and 2) Slavery.
How can any man commit a sexual act with a girl, especially a pre-pubertal girl, without being pedophile? And… are they born with pedophile tendencies, or does the society they grow up in breed and encourage acceptance of pedophilia in a way which instigates pedophile tendencies in men who don’t naturally have those urges? Food for thought.
The second point is that child marriages are glaringly similar to slavery. Child marriages are forced. Children are sold off to someone who owns them, in a way which does not allow them to break the bond if they want to. They have to do labour, and are exploited sexually.
More on this from Anti-Slavery International.
This is not to say that child marriages do not also happen to boys, because they do. But in those cases two children are more often married to each other. And yes, men may also be forced into marriages against their will, which is a violation of their rights as well. But again, more often than not, the men still have the power in the relationship due to gender stereotypes.
How to prevent child marriages? It’s a very complex challenge which needs a multitude of approaches, and it will take decades to eradicate the practice and acceptance for it. But first of all, clear laws must be established to ban it, and the judiciary systems must be functional and willing enough to enforce the law and state examples. The police must uphold the laws and abide by them themselves. Then, there must be a widespread awareness change in society, by pointing out all the negative effects it has on the child, the community and the country, in terms of health, education, and economy. Traditional and religious elders and authorities must be convinced and advocate for the ban. Child marriages is a form for gender based violence, which is linked to how women in so many societies in general are discriminated against and considered to be inferiour. So all these initiatives must go hand in hand with similar messages about women and girls’ rights, and recognition that women should have the same freedoms and possibilities as men.
Right. Perhaps we’ll see the end of child marriages in some generations or so. But that in the meantime, we have to keep fighting it.
Gender Observations 