New York City was beyond crazy with traffic complications last week, but such is to be expected when the annual meeting of the United Nations coincides with The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) -- former President Clinton's remarkable vision-in-action, which has in five year's time managed to galvanize individuals, corporations, and countries to help cure some of the ills in our world by making commitments valued at more than $57 billion.
The 2010 annual meeting of the CGI was especially notable this year due to the addition of the Empowerment of Women and Girls as one of the four distinct action areas to be discussed.
Though worldwide, women and girls have made some significant gains, serious problems persist. Violence against women and girls, inadequate or more expensive healthcare, forced marriage, declines in maternal health, sex trafficking, and the inability to access funding for economic opportunities and education are just a few. The consequence of not focusing on empowering women and girls -- particularly in developing nations, totalitarian regimes, and war-ravaged regions, is that these nations won't realize the substantial gains and returns they would have, if they had invested in girls and women.
There were numerous substantive network meetings, breakout sessions and keynote lunches that focused on the empowerment of women and girls -- all of them facilitated by noted specialists in their fields -- a mighty brain-trust to be sure, and both exciting and daunting to be moving among them. One of the break-out sessions I attended was, "Addressing Violence Against Girls and Women," facilitated by Geeta Rao Gupta, Senior Fellow, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. After an overview, we took part in discussion groups that focused on Policy, Media and Advocacy, Trafficking, and Engaging Men and Boys. The goal of our break-out session was to generate action items, commitments and collaborations to be worked on during the coming year.
I'm pleased to report that each discussion group came up with several concepts, and I have no doubt that good things will come of them. Everyone in the room had both the desire and the capacity to move these ideas forward.
Before our session ended, one participant made an important point, and it resonated with our entire group. Essentially it is this: "Do not allow the empowerment of women and girls to be 'ghettoized' strictly as a women's issue. Addressing violence against girls and women, closing the gender gap, and empowering women and girls is a human issue. We need men to be our partners.
I look forward to more of this dialog in the future, and to more families, communities, states and countries realizing the benefit to society the occurs when women and girls get the tools, and safe passage they need to be empowered.
Follow Cheryl Saban on Twitter: www.twitter.com/csaban
I also really appreciate the Huffington post's new Empowerment section.
Elena Moreno, Editor Empowerment Weekly
for the sake of civil constraints, it is a different matter. But I must ask, "Hope it is not heard by Al Qaeda, Talibanis or the Islamist bigots"? Just to avoid another blowback!
God bless
Dr. O. P. Sudrania
The whining from entitled males is laughable. Ask yourself this - given a choice, would you choose to be a woman or a man? In this society or any other? And why?
That denies most American citizens an independent view of evidence supporting is getting easier to target women for violence, and encourages retaliation for bearing witness or providing evidence of discrimination, particularly in the US. None of the comments here reflect an educated view of sex discrimination in the United States, which has progressed violently in the last 25 years with the help of women.
Mrs. Clinton is prominently responsible for silence on forms of technology that deny women's rights, something I've written about since before her and Tipper were candidates for first anything. In 1988 I filed a complaint naming names at the United Nations. During my research at the ITU in 1988, individuals who have since worked they way up at the ITU, confirmed extreme forms of behavioural technology were available - satellite based eavesdropping, line switching and isolation tactics. These force women into forms of slavery and prostitution, encouraging domestic violence.
Guys, you're in the wrong fields if you're being discriminated against, there are still places where women are driven out for not sleeping their way around with men. So start job hunting in those
fields!
In fact, many strong advocates for women have been less than stellar in their own personal relationships. Hugh Hefner, JFK, nearly every politician...I could go on and on. The bottom line for me? I don't really care about what these people do in their personal lives. It's not my place to comment and I'm certainly not innocent in that department myself. What it is my place to comment on are the incredibly disgusting policies that are forced on women all over the world.
I mean, women are actually stoned...and not the good kind, either. Stoned? Are you serious? Oh, and what about various methods of "birth control" (I use that term VERY loosely) utilized all over the world? Unfortunately, I could go on and on. Oh, also remember that it's not one religion, culture or race of people who are supporting these monstrosities. This idiocy needs to change yesterday. I, for one, am going to keep running my mouth about it until I like what I see...and we've got a ways to go.
Look at how we socialize boys from the earliest days. We encourage them to be violent and aggressive. Their role models, including (sadly) their father figures, mock intellectual achievement as girly or elitist. We sit them in front of violent and/or time wasting video games that destroy their ability to concentrate.
These kids don't spring up out of the ground. Families - fathers and mothers - are molding these boys into anti social and unproductive human beings. People really need to tend to their own nests and take responsibility for what they've done to their sons.
Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds. A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. You can open all your own jars. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.. Everything on your face stays its original color. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to shave your face and neck.
You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
Regarding your other comments, I had a woman tell me recently that she was an "Anti-feminist, feminist." When I asked what that meant, she told me she was all about women being able to have opportunities, but just didn't feel that she needed (or agreed with the rhetoric of) a group "fighting for her rights" to enable her to accomplish things (as an aside, she was very accomplished). I thought it was an interesting comment on how the movement has morphed.
Yet they are negative toward Christians and even Zionism - and I get that point easily.
Discuss.