My previous posts have mostly been about the feminist movement in the western world. Now, firstly, tackling the obstacles to equality in the UK and doing so for women in the middle east, Africa and other areas are clearly very different, although we do see some similarities in the oppression and the treatment women face. Yet I don't believe that this matters when the simple fact is that the Feminist movement as well as all feminists are campaigning equality for women. Even though issues in the uk and a developing country may need to be tackled in a different way, this is not to say that these issues should not be tackled together and as part of the a global movement.
Where do you start in tackling the problem of gender inequality in the developing world? As I notice with the whole topic, it seems very overwhelming, and disheartening in some cases. Will changes to legislation be enough? How can we hope for sudden change when the basic idea that a women is a human being entitled to basic human rights is not understood?! The fact that this even has to be an issue is very sad.
It is in an recent Guardian article ' The UN Commission on the Status of Women unmarks equality's enemies' by Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) that I realised how severe the problems are across the world. As part of the UN commission it started that all countries should implement that "religion, custom or tradition are not excuses for governments to skirt their obligations to protect all their citizens". Yet it is the Vatican, Russia and Iran that they want to remove this term. Which as Jill Filipovic stated, is surely creating an even more negative association of religion with the rights of women. I really recommend the article as it definitely opened my eyes to the fact that even at the the level of the UN, there are still attempts to restrict the rights of women. Surely we should be beyond that and attempting to tackling individual people's attitudes not the governments stance on the treatment of women!
Although there are so many issues that could be looked out I wanted to highlight a place that was once the center of media attention. It is in Iraqi Kurdistan where women are suffering. Many, I am sure, are not too knowledgable on post-war Iraq. I wouldn't say that I have looked at it much myself, but something I want to look at in more detail. But it was in this article http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/17/broken-dream-iraqi-kurdistan as part of the "Iraq War - 10 years on" series that highlights the suffering of women. It has made it apparent that even after the Saddam's Ba'athist regime that things have not changed. Not only do these women suffer from general inequalities they also face the difficulties that come with their identity as a nation.
There is no real conclusion to this blog post, I hope to write a future post with more detail on international situation concerning women, but these are just my recent thoughts. If you do have comments or extra information I would love to hear them. Thanks
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