WUNRN
Pathfinders Of Women’s
Empowerment
By Dr. MASSOUDA JALAL of Jalal Foundation,
April 25, 2014 - 
The
topic of promoting world leadership of women reminds me of the inspiring views
of Wajeha al-Huwaider[2], a courageous women’s rights activist and the Rosa
Parks of feminist activism in
Precisely, this is what world leadership
of women is all about. It is about bringing together the pathfinders of women’s
leadership who have the capability to move the interests of women worldwide.
And these pathfinders are tasked to perform the two vital functions of
reproducing the number of female leaders all over the world and utilizing the
army of women leaders to strategically win the battle for gender equality in
all dimensions of human life.
Women world leaders face innumerable
challenges that stem from patriarchy, including male-oriented institutions and
work culture that undermine feminist visions. They have to confront the
phenomenon of “excessive visibility” which elicits unreasonable expectations
that make leadership onerous for women. For example, they are expected to look strong
yet gorgeous; feisty yet feminine; and brilliant, yet gracious enough to shroud
the weaknesses of many male colleagues. There is a constant expectation for
women leaders to prove that they are better leaders than men; and often, their
private life is used as an extra yardstick to gauge their success as corporate
and institutional leaders.
Unfortunately, to succeed as women
leaders of the world, these are not the only challenges that they need to face.
First, we live in a globalized world of over 7 billion people;
exponentially growing at approximately 1.14% per year or 200,000 people a
day[3]; with more than 50 percent of such people living in less than two and a
half dollars ($2.50) a day[4]. The good news is: we may never run out of human
resources. But the bad news is: the quality of human resources is
fast-deteriorating due to poverty and inability to provide adequate education
for the growing majority. The number of mouths to feed also increases
disproportionately with the capacity of nature and economies to produce food.
The context of world women’s leadership is one that propels humanity into a
brink of disaster.
Second, there is very
little indication that a shared understanding of globalization exists among
world leaders. The dynamic flow of capital from one continent to another and
their impacts on economies; the web of cultural strings that connects,
entangles and divides human assets; the strains of political agenda and
diminishing power of states to regulate and set boundaries to physical and intellectual
adventures of its people; and the ever-advancing state of technology and their
influence on collective choices and the arbitrary exclusion of those who could
not access them are only a few aspects of globalization that women leaders need
to understand and deal with, if they are to have compelling influence in the
global landscape of development.
Third, transformations
created by globalization affect everybody, but the worst effects are
experienced by those who are kept in the margins of its vortex. For example,
more than half of the world’s population does not have control over global
forces that reinforce their poverty; and those who have no access to
information media are excluded from a new cultural order that emerges across
borders. This is relevant to women leaders because majority of the people who
are marginalized by globalization are females, and the damaging consequences of
social exclusion lies squarely in their shoulders.
Women world leaders could benefit from
the experiences and wisdom of women who lived before them. The wisdom of
Eleanor Roosevelt, under whose intellectual and charismatic leadership the UN
Declaration of Human Rights was developed and adopted; the indomitable feminine
mettle of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma/Myanmar and Corazon Aquino of the
Philippines who stood up against despotism without resorting to violence; the
audacity of Billie Jean King who fought and defeated the King of Tennis in a
spectacular high profile match to prove to the world that a female tennis player’s
capacity is not only equal, but could even be superior to that of a man; and
many, many more.
Their leadership left behind strategies
that are peaceful, inclusive and life-changing. But the present challenges
demand that we learn also from contemporary experiences and unconventional
perspectives. As producers of knowledge on women’s leadership, we should
chronicle, process, and use women leaders’ experiences and perspectives as
tools in working with fellow leaders of the world.
An important point that confronts women
world leaders is how to define the changes that women want to make – in the
corporate world, within state and academic institutions, in the development
arena, in communities and at home. World leadership requires connecting formal
macro interventions with micro interventions at home. Leadership of women
should begin at home – by training girls to claim and practice the right to
decision making and by raising boys who respect and believe in the female’s
power to lead and effect positive change. More importantly, it should begin in
the highest levels of policy and decision making which are still largely
dominated by men. World leadership is about empowerment, and male world leaders
should be empowering enough to create spaces that allow women’s leadership to
flourish.
The power to change the world is in our
hands. But we need to be strategic, especially in the choice of frontiers in
which to wage our collective influence. It has been 19 years since the Fourth
World Conference on Women was held in
Instead of holding a Fifth World
Conference on Women next year, the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)
will carry out a review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing
Platform for Action globally. Because of this, UN Member States are now
supposed to be undertaking a country-level review to produce a country report
that will input into the UN CSW review of 2015. It is not a substitute to the
holding of the Fifth World Conference on Women but we could use the country
level assessment processes to push our advocacy for the holding of the Fifth
World Conference on Women. First, the UN CSW issued guidelines
containing the required format and content of the country report of Member
States. Section 4 of this format asks Member States to identify “the
priorities and recommendations for strengthening gender equality and the
empowerment of women through the future Sustainable Development Goals and the
post-2015 development agenda”. As women leaders, we need to
intervene in the country-level assessments and insert a recommendation for the
holding of the Fifth World Conference on Women in 2015.
Second, we could lobby,
individually and collectively, with female heads of State or with Presidents of
countries like Canada, Denmark, Norway and some Nordic countries to push this
agenda of holding a Fifth World Conference on Women in 2015, both at the UN CSW
and in the General Assembly. They can send letters or deliver statements to the
UN CSW or direct their respective UN Missions to do the same. These are only a
few of the strategic actions that we can do. The post-2015 development agenda
is already being framed and we cannot afford to miss this process. We need to define
a high level, shared priority that should be included in this future long-term
development agenda of the world which will replace the Millennium Development
Goals.
It takes remarkable commitment,
sacrifices, wisdom and hard work to be a woman world leader. But the world
abounds in women who have these qualities, and more. Wherever you are, whatever
you do, take courage to support them and let them know that they have an
extremely huge, committed army of supporters globally.