There could be no stronger testament to the healing power of storytelling than the tremendous outpouring of personal narratives that accompanied the 10th anniversary of 9/11: from National Public Radio's wonderful StoryCorps tales, representing every victim with at least one illuminating story, to the moving and supremely dignified testimonies of children and husbands and mothers and others, delivered at the new Ground Zero memorial on the fateful anniversary itself. There, audience members and television viewers around the world were moved profoundly as these eulogies sang the praises of late loved ones, or introduced victims to their own offspring, mostly new or newly mature children or grandchildren, of whom, as so many family members attested, the honored dead would be so proud.
These stories keep the loved ones alive in memory and in the hearts of those too young for memory. They quiet the mourners, who feel they've not totally lost touch if they are still able to recount to their beloveds funny or silly or sad stories about those they have lost. Through this simple act of storytelling, the nearly 3,000 who died on 9/11 are remembered, honored and deeply missed.
Sadly, another kind of crisis is robbing countless living world citizens of their stories, day after day, hour after hour: poverty. This, after all, is a story-destroying calamity -- slower burning, to be sure, but equally ravaging to those with important tales that need to be told and heard. Gender discrimination compounds the muting: where poor people go nearly unheard, poor women and girls have little chance of sharing their stories, or simply of being acknowledged. While this is true of many victims of terrorism, conflict and inequality, it is punishingly true for women and girls. We find examples in every one of the "Millennium Cities," 11 severely under-resourced cities across sub-Saharan Africa working earnestly, against tough odds, to attain the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Girls in Blantyre and Mekelle and Louga, three of these cities, spend so much of their days fetching water and performing other chores for their families that there is literally not time for school. No one has asked for these girls' stories. A child in Bamako, or Kisumu, or (to go far beyond the Millennium Cities) in Mumbai or Rio or Port au Prince or Chicago, lost a parent to HIV/AIDS, cares for her younger siblings and sells her small body to do so. She is ashamed to tell her story, and frankly, nobody wants to hear it. Another girl, in Kumasi, says out loud that she wants to be a nuclear scientist or the next UN Secretary-General. But people laugh at her dreams.
It's time to change this. It has been demonstrated over and over again that women's wisdom feeds families and communities and environments, making them healthier, stronger, more resilient and less tendentious. Educated women live longer, earn more and have healthier, better educated children. It seems a no-brainer: investing in women and women-to-be is one of the most efficient expenditures possible. Why is this not our top-priority investment, as a nation, and in today's world? What could be more efficient, delivering more bang for the buck, in the areas of child, maternal and family health, nutrition, safe water, environment and places of work, education, world peace? And what better way to start than by enabling girls worldwide, and their mothers, the opportunity to speak, and for us to hear their voices?
This September 22, the International Day of the Girl, is a chance to start turning the tide. Join the "Stand Up For Girls Rally" this coming Thursday. Here's how:
For more information about how to participate in Stand Up for Girls Rally, Thursday, September 22, check the MCI or LitWorld websites.
The feminist propaganda machine needs to stop. Advocating for humans is sufficient and the divisive single gender approach needs to stop. It's a back lash waiting to happen because eventually the imbalance in the approach must be corrected.
The men born to a post feminist world won't stand for men constantly being blamed for all the world ills nor having their issues ignored. These men have no guilt nor do the know the traditional world older women use to justify their continued activism in despite the absence of significant discrimination in developed nations.
Boys are falling behind girls in school and average income. At some point in time real women will start to worry about their sons as much as they do their daughters.
What you call the feminist propaganda machine I call the movement to empower girls. What you call "advocating for humans" I call missing the point entirely.
You don't have to ignore either gender. How about we just focus on children? I guess that doesn't make feminist feel good because they had their heart set on ignoring boys.
So what is good for the select benefits everyone? Therefore you advocate trickle down economics as well. And who gets to be included in your arsenal-wielding "we"?
What men are you speaking about? I know a great many men younger than you and this idea that they feel ignored or blamed for all the world's ills is foreign to them. They realize, as do most parents, that the reasons boys are failing are simple - electronic distractions like video games & porn, and a lack of rigor in the education process. People let boys slide - a/k/a "boys will be boys". Good parents don't think this way and their boys don't turn out to be slackers.
You really need to stop speaking for all men. It's clear that you are a very unusual person, and not at all representative of men. Try speaking for yourself from now on. Speak about your experience. Instead of using the word "we" to discuss things like relationships and childrearing - which you know nothing about - maybe it would be more helpful if you just discussed your own personal experiences. At least that could be relevant to the topic at hand.
When we felt girls were at a disadvantage we bent over backwards to make corrections, and it's time we do the same for boys. In the mean time men and boys have every reason to believe we live in a climate where the welfare of females is the focus and males are routinely ignored.
"Honoring" one of my children over the other usually results in obnoxious behavior from both.
In YOUR honor, Susan, I am going to reach out to both girls AND boys equally. I will tell them, and show them I love and respect them equally in every way.
Because THAT's the real goal, isn't it? Equality for now, or airing past grievances?
I COULD tell my daughter a hundred years ago women weren't allowed to vote because of bad, bad men, but then I'd have to tell my son fifty years ago men were hung from trees without due process rights because a woman said so - untruthfully sometimes.
I'm going with equality and leave apologizing for past grievances to Bill Clinton.
I think I'll pass on "honoring" my daughter as well as my son in the ways you have suggested, and instead point out how important family bonds are, how much Daddy and I I love them, and they BOTH mean more to me than life itself - the same way every parent feels about their children.
It should ALWAYS be about love - not grudges - when it comes to teaching children, don't you think?
After all, we're in this life together, and we are all we have.
No, of course there isn't. Because we've all convinced ourselves that girls have and continue to be "shortchanged". Who speaks for boys, except insofar as women believe they need to be re-educated to be more like girls? And really, boys don't need advocacy, because they just grow into men, after all. And we all know about men, don't we.
+ Boys are less likely than girls to be enrolled in advanced math and science, graduate high school, go to college, or graduate from college
+ Boys are more likely to drop out of school
+ Boys are three to ten times more likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder
+ Boys are six times more likely to commit suicide
+ Boys are typically 1.5 years behind girls in writing and reading by high school
+ Boys score higher than girls in standardized testing like the SAT yet consistently get poorer grades in school.
+ There is a White House Council on Women and Girls; the American Association of University Women, the Ms. Foundation, and others have been advocating for girls for years. There is no such advocacy for boys.
Real stats, folks. Time to get out of the echo chamber.
Fun debate from the other day, that highlights some of these issues: http://intelligencesquaredus.org/index.php/past-debates/men-are-finished/
Women's voices are powerful, especially when it comes to addressing problems in the K-12 educational system. Men are still largely indifferent, which is more a testament to the evolutionary propensity to "suck it up" than the non-existence of a real problem. Women's groups are, by-and-large (and I regret to say this) "blinkered" on this issue.
There is no qualifying reminder in the above article that indicates the sad state of women relative to men is far more an issue in other societies. American women read it, and apply the sentiment to their own culture.
Incidentally, I lived in a developing country for 20 years, and I was never shy to promote gender equality in the course of conversation. But I also learned that women in those countries have their own ideas about male-female roles that often fly in the face of what our own female-empowerment advocacy groups say.
"I guess you didn't read..."
"claiming that every women's advocate group..."
You can write better than that, Maggie K.
MK, we're beating the horse now. Time to pick up a book with an alternative viewpoint. I've already made a few recommendations. Nothing wrong with stepping outside the bubble. I myself read feminist blogs all the time as I do my research. And we keep running out of 'Reply' space, so let's save it for another thread before this one becomes hopelessly muddled. :o)
+ The WEEA (Women's Educational Equity Act) still receives federal funding even though girls have been ahead of boys in most measures of success at school for about 20 years now. No similar act exists for boys.
+ The persistence of special scholarships for college women, while no special scholarships for men, and all other scholarships open to competition from both men and women. Meanwhile, more women attend and graduate from college.
+ Many colleges are having to implement affirmative action programs to recruit more men.
It just so happens that instead of posting snotty replies to people who work on behalf of causes that aren't my own passion, I embraced and am actually doing something to make things better for a certain group of people--girls.