Intervention in the Streets

A group of Blank Noise activists take over a bus in 2003. Image: flickr

In America, when a man directs unwanted attention towards a woman or initiates sexual advances, it's called sexual harassment. But in Northern India, the term is "eve teasing," and it's getting a strong backlash thanks to a coalition of female artists called Blank Noise. Last month, several women from various cities joined forces to share their experiences and walk the streets together. Calling themselves "Action Heroes," the women became both activists and performance artists.

Blank Noise began in Bangalore, as a student art project, in 2003. Mimicking the "Take Back The Night" movements in the United States, the group unites large groups of women and encourages them to walk the streets at night as a collective, making a statement to the men who could otherwise harass them individually. Participants "Reclaim the Streets" in other ways as well: from spray painting the testimonies of sexual harassment victims in public places, to wearing clothing bearing anti-harassment messages.

Public Health Goals: Gender at Play in World Cup 2010

Read Part 1, Public Health Goals: What Has the World Cup Cost South African Women?

PART 2

Originally from Kenya but now residing in Cape Town, single mother and avid runner 45-year-old Ruth Kamau manages Ikhaya Lodge, the bed and breakfast where I’m staying during my monthlong visit to the Rainbow Nation to run the 85th Comrades Marathon and see the World Cup. Ruth’s daughter Jessica is six years old. Ruth shared with me one evening that Jessica had been watching her twelve-year-old brother play Sims and the video game began simulating sex between two characters—obviously inappropriate for a child her age. She particularly stressed how harming it is when girls are exposed to sexualized content at such an early age. Instead, she leads Jessica toward games like Scrabble and she also shares that, “Jessica accompanied my son and me to Tae Kwondo classes and it is already clear she will enjoy some form of martial arts. A runner, I am not sure, but she loves dance. We attempt to do Yoga together and she enjoys going for walks with me.”

United Nations Creates a New Women's Rights Coalition

A group of Pokot women in Chemeril Dam, Kenya.

After four tense years of negotiations between global advocates and UN Member states, the United Nations has established UN Women, an organization combining four previous UN women’s rights groups, to fight for gender equality and the empowerment of women.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, “UN Women will significantly boost UN efforts to promote gender equality, expand opportunity, and tackle discrimination around the globe.”

Over the United Nations’s 65-year history, its primary objectives have centered on “gender mainstreaming,” or the promotion of gender equality through legislative initiatives and special programs. The UN’s focus on women began with the establishment of the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) in 1946.

While there has been a steady increase of government commitment to women's rights in the developing world, critics argue that many of the UN’s initiatives have been signed into legislation without further monitoring or even implementation. And while women comprise the majority of the population—as well as the world’s most impoverished—they are direly lacking in representation on an international scale.

According to UNIFEM, women provide 70 percent of agricultural labor and produce more than 90 percent of the food in some regions of the globe. Yet women earn 10 percent of the world’s income and own one percent of the world’s property.

With so much on the line for women struggling under global financial collapse, will the new coalition go beyond the UN’s initial aims of “gender mainstreaming” in order to create real change?

While the organization will not get to work until January 2011, Secretary-General Ban is currently inviting suggestions as to who should be appointed Under-Secretary-General to head UN Women. Member states and civil society partners are more likely to choose a leader from the non-Western, developing world, where international legislation is sorely needed. According to Amnesty International, maternal deaths in the US rose from 6.6 per 100,000 pregnancies and births in 1987 to 13.3 percent in 2006. While in South Asia, some 300 to 400 maternal deaths have been reported for every 100,000 pregnancies and births.

Former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet rumored to be a top choice for Under-Secretary-General.