A women tends to the Victory Garden in San Francisco, from Anne Hamersky's series for Picturing Power & Potential, "Cultivating Change."
Team Congo Races the 20 Kilometers of Paris
Paris is known for its incredible light. When I was training for the 2009 Paris Marathon to race for Girls on the Run International, one of my last training runs found me at Place de la Concorde. Just as my running shoe hit the center, the Eiffel Tower lit up as did all the surrounding street lamps. The natural light here can be just as profound.This past Sunday Alice Phan, pictured here triumphant at the 20K de Paris finish line, took to the city streets along with Run for Congo Women's Team Congo Paris in sunlight that marked beauty to the highest degree. Autumn. 20,000 runners. Unite.
In early September, I met Alice in person as we ran Parc des Buttes Chaumont together in training for the 20K de Paris. At the time, she was running about five miles. Later that month, we chatted excitedly at the start line of La Parisienne, a 6K for women's health, which also marked the ninth anniversary weekend of September 11.
When Alice initially emailed me about joining Team Congo Paris, she shared how she had always wanted to work with Girls on the Run Manhattan while living in New York, but that her work hours had always been an obstacle. Phan, an optometrist, is now living in Paris due to her husband's job transfer, and while acquiring her work visa, she volunteers at a hospital and has also become an invaluable asset to Team Congo Paris. To explain Alice's energy is like harnessing a surge of fresh air, a full deep-belly laugh; she is the kind of person who congratulates herself out loud on a fantastic idea and keeps on in the face of adversity with determination and a smile.
For the first ten minutes of the 20K de Paris race, I ran alongside Alice before I launched onward. On Sunday night post-run, I checked in with her and she shared that the first eight miles she was at a consistent 10 minute mile pace, but then a major cramp kicked in. "I probably could have walked faster than what I was running, because I was pretty much crawling," she told me, "but then when I saw the 19 km sign, I was so excited and was ecstatic to finish!"
She finished in under 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Born to first-generation parents who came to the United States from Vietnam then settled in Southern California, Alice often embraces Run for Congo Women's shared reason for being. She gets it. We are out there running together raising awareness, pushing our own bodies as a metaphor for Congolese women and children whose bodies and beings have been pushed far past any fathomable sense of resiliency. We keep on as a testament to their profound hardship. Around the time I met Alice, I wrote Resiliency, Congo, and Rape As a Weapon of War, which highlighted the July 30 attack of 300 women and children in Eastern Congo, only ten to twenty miles from a UN compound.
According to the Guardian's October 6 article, Militia Commander Mayele Arrested After Mass Rape of Congo Villagers, "Over four days, at least 303 people were raped – 235 women, 52 girls, 13 men and 3 boys – according to a preliminary UN investigation published last month. Many of the victims were raped repeatedly."
In a statement from Congo, Lisa Wallström, the UN's representative for sexual violence in conflict, says the arrest of Mayele is a victory for justice. "The numerous criminal acts committed under 'Lt Col' Mayele's command cannot be undone, but let his apprehension be a signal to all perpetrators of sexual violence that impunity for these types of crimes is not accepted and that justice will prevail," she said.
Although human rights activists have commended the arrest, they have also highlighted that Mayele was not a major player or the only assailant, and this act of small justice is only one step toward a more comprehensive and effective resolution. How that resolution takes shape – or if it will – ultimately depends on a variety of upcoming actions, reports, and initiatives.
In the meantime, Team Congo Paris will continue to race in support of the women and children in Congo. For their deserved safety and well-being, at least.
You can still join Team Congo Paris and race on November 7, 2010 or you can support us via donation.
Pakistan's Humanitarian Crisis at Scale
During July and onward, Pakistan was devastated by a surge of flooding that now encompasses one fifth of the country. That amounts to a mass of water larger than the size of England. In consequence, the response teams initially called in attempted to assess just how extensive the physical damage, which was readily apparent from the broken bridges, destroyed homes, and 20 million displaced people. Yet, as time passes the shift from immediate emergency response to effective, long-term strategies is essential. In a country where gender issues were already highly prevalent pre-flood, now they are even more pressing, if not dire.When the Pakistan floods began, I looked at victim photos in the same way I did when Haiti experienced its massive earthquake almost ten months ago. In both situations where environmental and climate crisis created extensive displacement, there were also unique threats facing women and children.
In August, Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) released a statement on the post-flood humanitaran crisis that clarified some of the harsher realities for Pakistani women. "Many of the flood-affected areas of Pakistan have spent years in conflict marked by rising religious fundamentalisms. Reports from the ground indicate that fundamentalist groups are mobilizing aid and providing relief services in areas unreachable by the government with potentially dangerous implications for women’s rights."
The acquisition of women's rights in daily life are a struggle for most Pakistani women, but how extreme must these challenges become when faced with urgent disaster? Pakistani women already experience myriad religious and social inequities. As such, AWID's statement acknowledges that even while government outreach is not enough for a disaster of this proportion, that the rise of organizations functioning within the country in the relief effort that have incentives which are not human rights-based, much less in any way working toward positive outcomes for women and children, need to be halted.
Along with reports of missing women and children as well as women having significant issues accessing relief support and health care, AWID makes a call to action by inciting, "the government of Pakistan and the international community to take immediate action to ensure that the very much-needed aid is committed and actually delivered in a timely and effective fashion. Also, the well-being of women and girls has to be ensured through the provision of both emergency relief and significant longer-term support for reconstruction and development that responds to the gender-specific needs and circumstances of Pakistani women and girls. In particular, we [AWID] call for the full participation of women at all levels of reconstruction and for sustained efforts to be centered on the long-term development needs of women and girls and the promotion and protection of their human rights."
Any effectual response to Pakistan post-flood must encompass the strategic knowledge that human rights and women's rights are even more essential during times of disaster, because they were already extremely vulnerable pre-crisis.
Photo credit: Guardian
Read Kate Stence's article Haiti Post-Quake: The Past Ten Months and Counting about Haiti's struggles with displacement and the challenges to support women and children in long-term strategies of relief.
1000 WORDS: Salt of the Earth
Female salt miners in India take a break from the day's grueling work. From Selvaprakash Lakshmanan's submission to Picturing Power & Potential, "Working for Just Salt."
Running for Congolese Women to End Violence
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| Chris Jackson is running 12 marathons this year for Run for Congo Women to raise awareness about violence against women and children in the Congo. Here he is running the Congo marathon with Congolese children beside him. |
Last Sunday morning, Team Congo Paris raced from Paris to Versailles for Run for Congo Women. It was a 15K journey heavy with French history, because King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were brought from Palace Versailles to Palace Tuileres at the start of the French Revolution. Around two miles into the race, came Île des Cygnes along river Seine housing a small version of the Statue of Liberty erected by Americans living here in France. It is a replica of the original standing in New York Harbor given by the French to America as a sign of international friendship in 1886.
The race had authentic historical depth to say the least. Yet, I spent it thinking how all last week while reporting on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), I noted that media did not acknowledge that violence against women and girl’s (VAW/G) is not one of the eight goals specified by the MDGs. In the World's Women at the Center of Achieving the MDGs conference during the UN Summit, one of the first points addressed was that very issue.
In August, Post-AIDS 2010 Conference Her Blueprint highlighted how tied the issue of violence against women and girls to the violation of a plethora of human rights in Health Versus Harm: Zero Tolerance on Violence Against Women and Girls. Yesterday, the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA) was up for a critical vote in the United States Senate but was postponed until November. However, Ritu Sharma, co-Founder and President of Women Thrive World Wide published her thoughts about her own grandmother's death in East India in hopes of sharing why the bill should pass when voted on.
“I never met my grandmother. She was burned alive with kerosene doused on her sari and lit on fire. Some think it was suicide, some think it was a dowry murder since her mother-in-law was not pleased with what my grandmother brought into her new husband’s family. She had four children; one of them my mother, the other my uncle, who was just a few months old when she was killed. I cannot imagine her shock, grief and pain in the moments before she died…Regrettably, her story is not uncommon.”
In the United Nation's special meeting World's Women at the Center of Achieving the MDGs, Denmark's Minister of Health noted that women of the Democratic Republic of Congo have to ask their husbands before they can sign a contract or start a business. After citing this statistic, he asked, "Can you imagine?"
To be honest, I cannot imagine any of the previous scenarios. Yet, I know they are happening daily and consistently and have been for a very long time. On Sunday while racing Paris to Versailles, I began reciting statistics in my head about Congolese Women that I know by heart because right now they are who I run for.
“Congo presents one of the world's deadliest emergencies to date. More than 5.4 million people have died since 1998. Gang rape and brutal torture are a daily reality for the women and children of Congo. Women as old as 80 and as young as five have been victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence. 38,000 continue to die every month, 1200 a day. Half of these deaths are children under the age of 5 years.”At moments I was not sure what to do with all the emotion.
One Man’s Admirable Effort of Support
Chris Jackson, a London lobbyist pictured here running the August 18th marathon in Congo for Run for Congo Women and Women for Women International, is well acquainted with the intensity of emotion and action Congo can provoke because he has devoted himself, utterly, to raising awareness about violence against Congolese women and children as part of his year-long endeavor to run 12 marathons for Run for Congo Women. Already successfully completing nine marathons, including an Ironman as well as an Olympic Triathlon along with a smattering of 10Ks, Chris is someone who is exceptional and sincere in his endeavor -- so much so he will actually be running 13 marathons just to make sure he completes one every month in 2010.
Chris can also voice what most of us can only imagine because he has run Congo. He went. He ran. He returned. And, now he shares why the Congo race was the hardest one so far for him.
BOOKS: Do It Anyway
What about "Activist"?
It's a loaded title, right? An identity that certainly comes with a lot of baggage. I can think of several angsty questions that run through my mind that make me hesitant to call myself an activist. "Am I really doing enough? Is what I'm doing important? What if I mess up? Or worse, what if all the work I do results in nothing?"
In Courtney Martin's new book, Do It Anyway, Martin (who, full disclosure, helped with the launch of Her Blueprint and is a friend of IMOW) profiles eight young people in the U.S. who she describes as "breathtakingly ordinary" and who are, despite setbacks, criticism, struggles, doing what they believe in to make a change in the world. She features everyone from Raul Diaz, a case manager who helps formerly imprisoned gang members in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles re-enter society, to the actress Rosario Dawson, who uses her celebrity status to call attention to movements such as Voto Latino, which encourages the Latino American population to get to the polls.
Martin acknowledges that, in the wake of the gamechanging activists of the 60s and 70s, this generation's activism can seem less passionate, less hands-on, perhaps less effective. But she says that's a misconception. Instead, this generation's activism "exists in defining moments--usually far from the glare of the television camera's eye or the flashing red light of the journalist's voice recorder." And indeed, the eight portraits in this book exhibit that the current activists are no less dedicated, no less passionate, and no less willing to sacrifice.
I see Do It Anyway as a call to arms for a new generation of activists, of people who want to make a difference in the world despite knowing how hard it can be, how maddeningly impossible it is to Completely Change Everything. And my favorite lesson in Do It Anyway is what's called "Good Failure." Martin says that after talking to the many young activists profiled in the book, she learned "that failure is, indeed, usually inevitable." Instead, she encourages the embracing of good failures:
"Good failures are what you achieve when you aim to transform an entire broken system and end up healing one broken soul. They are the small victories ... It's not that we shouldn't aim to transform the prison industrial complex, reduce wealth disparity in this country, cure HIV and AIDS, fix public education. It's that we must hold these large-scale revolutions in our hearts while tackling small, radical acts every day with our hands. We must wake up wondering how we might fail at changing absolutely everything in such a way that we manage to change a little something."It's an inspiring message, a reminder to give yourself permission to put your all into it, perhaps fail, wake up again despite a record of setbacks and failures, put on the cloak of Activist, and do it anyway.
THEATER: Swimming Upstream
SWIMMING UPSTREAM from V-Day Until the Violence Stops on Vimeo.
In New York earlier this month, I had the opportunity to see Swimming Upstream, a vivid and moving play about women’s experiences post Katrina, written by sixteen New Orleans women. My experience at the theater that night was a powerful reminder of how the arts can touch us and bring experiences, ideas and emotions to life. Through the words and songs of the women of New Orleans I was able to begin to grasp the pain, frustration and sheer rage – and finally the optimism – of living through Katrina and the enormous impact on the women there, who truly knit the local community together.Swimming Upstream was presented by V-Day, Ashé Cultural Arts Center and The Women Donors Network and directed by IMOW Global Council member Eve Ensler. The play is a testament to Eve’s passion for telling the story of Katrina through women’s eyes. The play not only provoked me to learn more about supporting women’s role in recovery post Katrina, but reminded me that unlocking an audience’s empathy and imagination is imperative in building not only awareness but whole social movements.
Learn more or buy tickets to Swimming Upstream [V-Day]
UN Women and MDGs: Moving Forward with Acknowledgment
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| Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the French Republic and the future president of the G20 and the G8 Summits, spoke at the UN Summit about focusing on Africa. |
Part 3
MDGs Politically Revitalized By UN Summit?
Read Part 1 and Part 2 of UN Women and MDGs.
On Wednesday the high-level plenary session in Manhattan to assess the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ended with elites heading back home to their respective countries having firmer knowledge of budgetary and country-specific concerns. Overall, the take away was acknowledgment: the MDGs are not tracking to success.
As reported earlier this week in UN Women and MDGs: UN Summit Assesses Progress, MDG No. 5 to reduce maternal deaths by 2015 is still seen as the most lagging, and UN leaders such as Secretary General Ban Ki-moon were openly acknowledging it as the most hindered goal of the eight proposed MDGs.
On September 22, BBC's UN Launches $40bn Woman and Child Health Plan reported that Ki-moon said, "Progress on women and children's healthcare has been slower than on some of the other goals discussed at the three-day summit," but Mr. Ban said the coming century "must be and will be different for every woman and every child."
"We know what works to save women's and children's lives, and we know that women and children are critical to all of the Millennium Development Goals," he said in a statement.
Yet Women's eNews Bachelet's U.N. Debut Brightens MDG Summit reports that budgets are still incredibly lacking for MDG No. 5, around $120 billion or so, in that "donors' answer to the United Nations' request for a $169 billion women and children's health plan fell predictably short at $40 billion, with about half of that committed at previous events."
Those events were the G8 Summit as well as private aid. One of the greatest hopes, according to
Women's eNews, however, is that "U.N. Women might be able to make up some of the shortfall in money to improve girls' education and women's health through an integrated approach. Supporters think this approach will work better than one that separates "women's" targets into the specialized areas of health and education."
Sarah Brown, Britain's First Lady, wrote in her Huffington Post article Sign Up to Play Your Part for Girls and Women about how in "the New York Times best seller Half the Sky, we learned that....Healthy, educated girls break the cycle of poverty. Healthy women work more productively and earn more for their families. Children whose mothers have been educated for at least five years are 40% more likely to live beyond the age of five."
Yet even with such solid statistics, even those who are experts in the landscape of female health and advocacy already voice how much work lies ahead. As Women's eNews reported, Under-Secretary General Bachelet shared her thoughts about upcoming actions in a press conference.
"I'm a very realistic person and I am completely aware of the challenges for UN Women," Bachelet told a Sept. 22 press briefing, speaking for the first time in her new role. "But on the other hand, UN Women was supported by an enormous number of member states and I will be calling on those political commitments to become a reality."
The hope is that all world leaders will rise to her call.
Photo credit: Christian Science Monitor
Can Sharia Law Benefit Women in the West?
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| Photo courtesy of Shirin Neshat |
A recent article by Indiana attorney Rafia Zakaria in Guernica magazine begs the question of whether or not Islamic feminism is possible.
Zakaria takes us from her personal account of a childhood spent in Pakistan, to her experiences as a social worker helping battered women in Indianapolis, where the complexities faced by married women in the Muslim world seem without boundaries. Ironically, it was in Indianapolis that the author realized that an Islamic version of a prenuptial agreement could grant women more rights than one filed in America.
Representing a Jordanian woman whose husband divorced her by forging her signature then abandoning her in a motel room, Zakaria worked tirelessly to help the woman gain more rights than American law had allowed. In a harrowing tale fraught with many obstacles, Zakaria eventually managed to grant the woman a fair chance at financial stability in her chosen home country--by convincing the court to honor her Islamic pre-nup.
Zakaria's piece couldn't be more timely, as a handful of state legislatures are contemplating passing policies that would ban Sharia law from being practiced in the U.S. Whether or not Sharia law is in all actuality a threat to state and federal constitutions is also under debate. So far the squeakiest wheel in the "Sharia v U.S. law" debate has been Newt Gingrich, who received a standing ovation at a Values Voter Summit recently by demanding a national call to action regarding the issue.
The author's conclusion from her client's ordeal is that sometimes even traditional, faith-based laws can strengthen the U.S.'s more modern court systems. But is a breach in the separation of church and state even tenable to westerners, even if it does lift the oppression of women?
Zakaria writes, "...if things are to change, the recipe lies not in eliminating faith from the legal sphere but rather redefining it in a way that empowers women using the very tools that were used to enslave them."
I want to agree with this assessment, but is it really possible to take minute aspects of Sharia law and integrate them into the U.S. justice system in a way that is progressive and beneficial to all?
UN Women and MDGs: UN Summit Assesses Progress
Read Part 1, UN Women: A New Entity Paves a New Path.Part 2
MDG No. 5: Where Change is Most Needed
Last week brought the news that Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet would head UN Women with an unprecedented annual budget of 500 million dollars. Today marked the opening of the UN Summit of world leaders to assess the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Thus, politicians, ambassadors, and Ministers of Health converged on Manhattan's East Side to take on the issues that as of ten years ago were named of utmost importance to humanity's well-being.
On the eve of the summit and with five years left to meet the 2015 goals, yesterday the The New York Times published MDGs for Beginners...and Finishers from U2's known humanitarian Bono to perhaps infuse the notion that everyone would be watching from rock star to NGO. For review, the MDGs are the following:
1. End Poverty and Hunger
2. Universal Education
3. Gender Equality
4. Child Health
5. Maternal Health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS
7. Environmental Sustainability
8. Global Partnership
When the meetings opened this morning, I listened in from Paris via the UN's Live Webcast while at the same time in Times Square, Amnesty International's death clock began to count off the passing of a woman's life lost during childbirth, thereby marking that every 1.5 minutes a woman dies while giving birth.
According to Women's eNew's U.N. to Ask $169 Billion Maternal Health Question the biggest hurdle still exists for mothers. "Millennium Development Goal No. 5 -- to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by two-thirds in 2015 from 1990 global-average levels of 400 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births -- is lagging the most out of eight major initiatives on poverty, health and equality adopted by the UN."
Yet as country representatives delivered opening speeches their messages moved between realistic and uplifting to outright robust, but what continuously overrode was how profound each country's desire to meet the MDGs. Bolivia shared that sport is a guide to keeping children on the right path. Kenya pushed for sustainable business while Guatemala cited that it still remains the top four country in the world most affected by climate change. Jordan's representative shared that development depends on peace, partnership, and global opportunity while Spain spoke of solidarity.
In Huffington Post's Revitalizing the Political Will to Achieve the Millennium Goals, Former UN Secretary General from 1997 to 2006 Kofi Annan shared his thoughts on what could be the best outcomes for the meetings. "Revitalizing the political will to achieve the MDGs and scaling up proven interventions is the linchpin to success. As instigator and guardian of the MDGs, the UN has an important role to play in this process and the High Level Advocacy Group created by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is a welcome step in the right direction. The primary responsibility, however, rests with national leaders. Their challenge is to re-articulate a compelling case for global solidarity and equitable growth -- one that embraces but goes beyond aid. One that addresses the growing inequalities between male and female, rural and urban, rich and poor. One that does not measure development and progress purely in terms of GDP but also of the quality and sustainability of growth. The message must be that MDG achievement is not optional, but an essential investment in a fairer, safer and more prosperous world."
In a recent interview, women's rights advocate and AIDS-Free World Co-Director Paula Donovan shared her own thoughts on the MDG Goals, "The Millennium Development Goals are useful, in the way that any goals can be useful, but they are no more than a set of time-bound measurements that act as incentives, and keep us focused on humankind’s shared aspirations of a world free of poverty, hardship, structural inequality, ignorance, environmental degradation and preventable diseases, including HIV."
With two more days left of the summit to evaluate where the MDGs stand and how best to meet them, it seems understood so far that political will and shared unification are two elements that will prove essential.
Photo credit: Amnesty International
Read Part 3 of Kate Stence's UN Women and MDGs posts about the UN Summit.
CLIO TALKS BACK: Taking risks with Veuve Clicquot
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Google images; Wikipedia; reproduction of a painting published in 1863 Madame Cliquot and her great-granddaughter Anne de Mortemart-Rochechouart, future Duchesse d'Uzes, painted by Leon Coignet |
The Napoleonic wars were not kind to businesses of any kind (except armaments) and least of all the wine business, which was, then as now, a luxury product. As Napoleon’s defeat loomed, followed by his abdication, Veuve Cliquot began to plot ways of sending a huge shipment of her prize 1811 vintage champagne to Russia by sea. She knew there would be a huge market for it there. Running the naval blockade without proper papers or any kind of official permission was a huge gamble, but she wanted to be first to arrive with the coveted French bubbly and to sell it for extravagant prices (which her agents succeeded in doing) in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) and then in St. Petersburg. Wealthy clients fell all over themselves to acquire this effervescent, strong, sweet wine. First she shipped and sold 10,500 bottles, then 12,780. None of her well-packed bottles broke on these extraordinary voyages, which required land as well as sea transport, nor did the champagne spoil enroute, despite the weather. “These two daring shipments,” records Mazzeo, “were to make her one of the most famous women in Europe and her wine one of the most highly prozed commodities of the nineteenth century.” (pp. 117-118). They also made her one of the richest women in Europe.
Other champagne producers also introduced brands labeled “Widow,” but as historian Kolleen Guy remarks, these were “fantasy widows” and not the real thing. Still, there was Veuve Laurent-Perrier and Veuve Pommery to contend with. Not to mention the other champagne producing firms: Moet, Chanton, Mumm, Roederer, and Heidsieck.
The enforcement of separate-spheres ideology in the post-revolutionary period made it more difficult for women to become entrepreneurs, but did not shut them down completely. Widows, who were no longer subject to male control in marriage, had a way of sneaking through.
The Veuve Clicquot had a great-granddaughter, Anne, to whom she wrote: “I am going to tell you a secret. . . . You more than anyone resemble me, you who have such audacity. It is a precious quality that has been very useful to me in the course of my long life . . . to dare things before others. . . . I am called today the Grand Lady of Champagne! Look around you, this chateau, these unfaltering hills, I can be bolder than you realize. The world is in perpetual motion and we must invent the things of tomorrow. One must go before others, be determined and exacting, and let your intelligence direct your life. Act with audacity. Perhaps you too will be famous. . . !!”
This great-granddaughter, heir to the immense fortune assembled by Veuve Clicquot, married a peer of France, and became the Duchesse d’Uzes. In 1888-89, a widow like her great-grandmother, she bankrolled the campaign (which was ultimately unsuccessful) to restore the Orleans monarchy, and then in the 1890s became an important supporter of the French feminist campaign to restore the property rights of wives.
Suggested further reading:
Kolleen M. Guy, “Drowning Her Sorrows: Widowhood and Entrepreneurship in the Champagne Industry,” Business and Economic History, 26:2 (Winter 1997), 505-514.
Kolleen M. Guy, When Champagne Became French: Wine and the Making of National Identity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003).
Tilar J. Mazzeo, The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It (New York: Harper Collins, 2008). The translation of Veuve Clicquot’s letter to her great-granddaughter is by Mazzeo, p. 181.
1000 WORDS: Mosuo Woman
From Lili Almog's series in Economica, "The Other Half of the Sky," which features working women in rural China. View the whole series >>
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