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A look through in this article provides a broad perspective to the paper on "Women in Equatorial Guinea". This article has other critiques embedded in there as well - it is quite interesting.

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1. Torry D. Dickinson & Robert K. Schaeffer, Fast Forward: Work, Gender, and Protest in a Changing World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), p. 23.

2. Joanne Cook & Jennifer Roberts, 'Towards a gendered political economy', in: Joanne Cook, Jennifer Roberts & Georgina Waylen (eds), Towards a Gendered Political Economy (Macmillan, 2000), p. 3.

4. Review of Radical Political Economics has had seven such issues; see especially 'Feminist Political Economy', Vol. 33, No. 4 (2001).

5. V. Spike Peterson, 'On the Cut(ting) Edge', in: Frank P. Harvey & Michael Brecher (eds), Critical Perspectives in International Studies: Millennial Reflections on International Studies (University of Michigan Press, 2002), pp. 148-63; Marianne A. Ferber & Julie A. Nelson (eds), Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics (University of Chicago Press, 1993); and, especially, Gabrielle Meagher & Julie A. Nelson, 'Survey Article: Feminism in the Dismal Science', The Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2004), pp. 102-26, and Georgina Waylen, 'You Still Don't Understand: Why Troubled Engagements Continue Between Feminists and (Critical) IPE', Review of International Studies (forthcoming).

6. Feminist interventions raise not only political/public, but personal/private issues that are 'disturbing' (from religious beliefs and sexual relations to who cleans the toilet and how value and power are masculinised). To the considerable extent that the implications are experienced as personally threatening, they generate defensiveness and resistance that shape receptivity to feminist critiques.

7. Important overviews and coverage of early critiques include: Diane Elson (ed.), Male Bias in the Development Process (Manchester University Press, 1991); Antonella Picchio, Social Reproduction (Cambridge University Press, 1992); Michèle A. Pujol, Feminism and Anti-feminism in Early Economic Thought (Edward Elgar, 1992); Ferber & Nelson, Beyond Economic Man; Isabella Bakker (ed.), The Strategic Silence: Gender and Economic Policy (Zed, 1994); Nancy Folbre, Who Pays for the Kids? (Routledge, 1994); Edith Kuiper & Jolande Sap (eds), Out of the Margin: Feminist Perspectives on Economics (Routledge, 1995); Julie A. Nelson, Feminism, Objectivity and Economics (Routledge, 1996); Ellen Mutari, Heather Boushey & William Fraher IV (eds), Gender and Political Economy: Incorporating Diversity into Theory and Policy (M. E. Sharpe, 1997); Jean Gardiner, Gender, Care and Economics (Macmillan, 1997); Cook, Roberts & Waylen, Towards a Gendered Political Economy; and Lourdes Benería, Maria Floro, Caren Grown & Martha MacDonald (eds), special issue on 'Globalization', Feminist Economics, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2000).

9. Esther Boserup, Women's Role in Economic Development (St. Martin's Press, 1970); Nilufer Çağatay, Diane Elson & Caren Grown (eds), special issue on 'Gender, Adjustment and Macroeconomics', World Development, Vol. 23, No. 11 (1995); Kathleen Cloud & Nancy Garrett, 'A Modest Proposal for Inclusion of Women's Household Human Capital Production in Analysis of Structural Transformation', Feminist Economics, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1997), pp. 151-77; Saskia Sassen, Globalization and its Discontents (New Press, 1998) and 'Women's Burden: Counter-geographies of Globalization and the Feminization of Survival', Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 53, No. 2 (2000), pp. 503-24; Elisabeth Prügl, The Global Construction of Gender: Home-Based Work in the Political Economy of the 20th Century (Columbia University Press, 1999); Marilyn Waring, Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth, second edition (University of Toronto Press, 1999); Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration and Domestic Work (Stanford University Press, 2001); Deborah M. Figart, Ellen Mutari & Marilyn Power, Living Wages, Equal Wages: Gender and Labour Market Policies in the United States (Routledge, 2002); Caren Grown, Diane Elson & Nilufer Çağatay (eds), special issue on 'Growth, Trade, Finance, and Gender Inequality', World Development, Vol. 28, No. 7 (2000); Rita Mae Kelly, Jane H. Bayes, Mary E. Hawkesworth & Brigitte Young (eds), Gender, Globalization, & Democratization (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001); Susan Himmelweit, 'Making Visible the Hidden Economy: The Case for Gender-impact Analysis of Economic Policy', Feminist Economics, Vol. 8, No.1 (2002), pp. 49-70; and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (Duke University Press, 2003).

10. For example, in a comprehensive study, Hewitson persuasively argues that 'neoclassical economics produces femininity as that which must be excluded for it to operate'. Gillian J. Hewitson, Feminist Economics: Interrogating the Masculinity of Rational Economic Man (Edward Elgar, 1999), p. 22.

11. For recent examples, see Cecile Jackson (ed.), Men at Work: Labour, Masculinities, Development (Frank Cass, 2001); Frances Cleaver (ed.), Masculinities Matter! Men, Gender and Development (Zed, 2002); Rai, Gender and the Political Economy of Development; Benería, Gender, Development and Globalization; and Suzanne Bergeron, Fragments of Development: Nation, Gender and the Space of Modernity (University of Michigan Press, 2004).

12. Jacqui M. Alexander & Chandra T. Mohanty (eds), Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures (Routledge, 1997); Uma Narayan & Sandra Harding (eds), Decentering the Center: Philosophy for a Multicultural, Postcolonial, and Feminist World (Indiana University Press, 2000); Rose Brewer, Cecilia Conrad & Mary C. King, 'The Complexities and Potential of Theorizing Gender, Caste, Race, and Class', Feminist Economics, Vol. 8, No. 2 (2002), pp. 3-17; Geeta Chowdhry & Sheila Nair (eds), Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: Reading Race, Gender and Class (Routledge, 2002); and Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders.

13. Çağatay et al., 'Gender, Adjustment and Macroeconomics'; J. K. Gibson-Graham, The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy (Blackwell, 1996); Zillah R. Eisenstein, Global Obscenities: Patriarchy, Capitalism, and the Lure of Cyberfantasy (New York Press, 1998) and Against Empire: Feminisms, Racisms, and the West (Zed, 2004); Grown et al., 'Growth, Trade, Finance, and Gender Inequality'; Marianne H. Marchand & Anne Sisson Runyan (eds), Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances (Routledge, 2000); Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, Nicholas G. Faraclas & Claudia von Werlholf (eds), There is an Alternative: Subsistence and Worldwide Resistance to Corporate Globalization (Zed, 2001); Dickinson & Schaeffer, Fast Forward; Suzanne Bergeron, 'Political Economy Discourses of Globalization and Feminist Politics', Signs, Vol. 26, No. 4 (2001), pp. 983-1006; Kelly et al., Gender, Globalization, & Democratization; Sheila Rowbotham & Stephanie Linkogle (eds), Women Resist Globalization: Mobilizing for Livelihood and Rights (Zed, 2001); Nancy Naples & Manisha Desai (eds), Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics (Routledge, 2002); Martha Gutierrez (ed.), Macro-Economics: Making Gender Matter - Concepts, Policies and Institutional Change in Developing Countries (Zed, 2003); and Valentine M. Moghadam, Globalizing Women: Transnational Feminist Networks (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).

14. Drucilla K. Barker & Edith Kuiper (eds), Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Economics (Routledge, 2003).

15. As it is typically deployed, however, constructivists (on my reading) fail to address adequately the relationship between language, power and knowledge. In particular, they resist poststructuralist claims that the meaning of all words, 'things' and subjectivities is produced through/by discursive practices that are embedded in relations of power; that language produces power by constituting the codes of meaning that govern how we think, communicate and generate knowledge claims - indeed, how we understand 'reality'. Operations of power are not extricable from the power coded into our meaning systems and their social, 'material' effects. Hence, knowledge projects that presume analytical adequacy and political relevance must address the power that inheres in governing codes, which requires, I believe, the adoption of poststructuralist/postmodernist insights. For elaboration, see V. Spike Peterson, 'Transgressing Boundaries: Theories of Knowledge, Gender, and International Relations', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2 (1992), pp. 183-206, and A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy: Integrating Reproductive, Productive, and Virtual Economies (Routledge, 2003); for a succinct defence of poststructuralism against its most frequent criticisms, see Hewitson, Feminist Economics; and for discussion of poststructuralism/postmodernism in economics, see Gibson-Graham, The End of Capitalism; Carole Biewener, 'A Postmodern Encounter', Socialist Review, Vol. 27, Nos. 1 & 2 (1999), pp. 71-96; Stephen Cullenberg, Jack Amariglio & David F. Ruccio (eds), Postmodernism, Economics and Knowledge (Routledge, 2001); Nitasha Kaul, 'The anxious identities we inhabit', in: D. Barker & E. Kuiper (eds), Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Economics (Routledge, 2003), pp. 194-210; and Eiman O. Zein-Elabdin & S. Charusheela (eds), Postcolonialism Meets Economics (Routledge, 2004).

17. On sexualities, see M. V. Lee Badgett, 'Gender, Sexuality, and Sexual Orientation: All in the Feminist Family?', Feminist Economics, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1995), pp. 121-40; and Rosemary Hennessey, Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism (Routledge, 2000).

18. Poststructuralism is particularly associated with cultural studies, where cultural and literary phenomena are, appropriately, the central focus. Early poststructuralist theory necessarily highlighted discourse and culture to criticise and counteract orthodox understandings of 'reality' as pre-discursive, or independent of intersubjective meaning systems. But poststructuralism/postmodernism explicitly rejects conventional dichotomies and categorical separations in favour of relational/contextual analysis that exposes how cultural codes produce, and are produced by, material 'reality'. Moreover (see note 15), it affords critiques of how power operates that would advance the project of 'not just understanding the world but changing it.'

19. On Sen and economic rights respectively, see Bina Agarwal, Jane Humphries & Ingrid Robeyns (eds), special issue on 'Amartya Sen's Work and Ideas: A Gender Perspective', Feminist Economics, Vol. 9, No. 2/3 (2003); and Laura Parisi, Gendered Disjunctures: Globalization and Women's Rights, dissertation, University of Arizona, 2004. Microcredit loan programmes get mixed feminist reviews; see, for example, Anne Marie Goetz & Rina Sen Gupta, 'Who Takes the Credit? Gender, Power, and Control over Loan Use in Rural Credit Programs in Bangladesh', World Development, Vol. 24, No. 1 (1996), pp. 45-64; S. Charusheela, 'On History, Love, and Politics', Rethinking Marxism, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2000), pp. 45-61; Winifred Poster & Zakia Salime, 'The limits of microcredit', in: Nancy A. Naples & Manisha Desai (eds), Women's Activism and Globalization (Routledge, 2002), pp. 189-219; and Suzanne Bergeron, 'Challenging the World Bank's narrative of inclusion', in: Amitava Kumar (ed.), World Bank Literature (University of Minnesota Press, 2003), pp. 157-71.

20. For reasons of space, in this section I cite only key references not already identified herein; for elaboration of argumentation and extensive citations, see Peterson, A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy; and 'Getting real: the necessity of critical poststructuralism in Global Political Economy', in: Marieke de Goede (ed.), International Political Economy and Poststructural Politics (Palgrave, forthcoming).

21. Peter Drucker, 'Trading Places', The National Interest (Spring 2005), p. 103.

22. Guy Standing, Global Labour Flexibility: Seeking Distributive Justice (Macmillan, 1999); and Christa Wichterich, The Globalized Woman: Reports from a Future of Inequality (Zed, 2000).

23. Manuel Castells, The Information Age, Volume 1, The Rise of the Network Society, second edition (Blackwell, 2000).

25. See, respectively, S. Charusheela, 'Empowering work? Bargaining models reconsidered', in: Drucilla K. Barker & Edith Kuiper (eds), Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Economics (Routledge, 2003), pp. 287-303; and Naila Kabeer, 'Globalization, Labor Standards, and Women's Rights: Dilemmas of Collective (In)action in an Independent World', Feminist Economics, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2004), pp. 3-36, for problematising 'Western' claims that 'work is empowering' or that enforcing global labour standards serves the interests of export workers in poor countries.

26. Wichterich, The Globalized Woman.

29. The World's Women 2000: Trends and Statistics (United Nations, 2000), pp. 120-7.

30. Jean, Pyle, 'Critical globalization studies and gender', in: Richard P. Appelbaum & William I. Robinson (eds), Critical Globalization Studies (Routledge, 2005), pp. 249-58.

31. A variety of sources provide the following estimates (in US dollars, per year) - of 'white collar crime' in the US: $200 billion; of profits from trafficking migrants: $3.5 billion; of money laundering: as much as $2.8 trillion; of tax revenue lost to the US by hiding assets offshore: $70 billion; of tax evasion costs to the US government: $195 billion. See Peterson, A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy, pp. 196, 201.

32. Peter Drucker, 'The Global Economy and the Nation-State', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 5 (1997), p. 162.

34. These claims are variously documented in Nahid Aslanbeigui & Gale Summerfield, 'The Asian Crisis, Gender, and the International Financial Architecture', Feminist Economics, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2000), pp. 81-104; Nahid Aslanbeigui & Gale Summerfield, 'Risk, Gender and the International Financial Architecture', International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Vol. 15, No. 1 (2001), pp. 7-26; Grown et al., 'Growth, Trade, Finance, and Gender Inequality'; Thanh-Dam Truong, 'The Underbelly of the Tiger: Gender and the Demystification of the Asian Miracle', Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1999), pp. 133-65; Robert O'Brien, Anne Marie Goetz, Jan Aart Scholte & Marc Williams, Contesting Global Governance: Multilateral Economic Institutions and Global Social Movements (Cambridge University Press, 2000); Ajit Singh & Ann Zammit, 'International Capital Flows: Identifying the Gender Dimension', World Development, Vol. 28, No. 7 (2000), pp. 1249-68; Mario Floro & Gary Dymski, 'Financial Crisis, Gender, and Power: An Analytical Framework', World Development, Vol. 28, No. 7 (2000), pp. 1269-83; and Irene Van Staveren, 'Global Finance and Gender', in: Jan Aart Scholte & Albrecht Schnabel (eds), Civil Society and Global Finance (Routledge, 2002), pp. 228-46.

35. Women are the primary consumers of goods and services designed to 'improve' individual appearance: from cosmetics, hairstyles and clothes to dieting programmes and surgical procedures. This reflects the tremendous pressure on girls and women to appear aesthetically and sexually attractive as a measure of their social/economic value, and subjects them disproportionately to the disciplining effects of marketisation and resource depletion on 'unnecessary' expenditures.

36. For example, consumerism's commodification of culture has effects worldwide on how people think (due to the global, though always locally-mediated, exposure to advertising and marketing messages), what resources they have (due to naturalising the ideology of elite consumption), and what work they do (due to production processes driven by Northern consumption).

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How (the meaning of) gender matters in political economy

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1. Torry D. Dickinson & Robert K. Schaeffer, Fast Forward: Work, Gender, and Protest in a Changing World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), p. 23. 2. Joanne Cook & Jennifer Roberts, 'Towards a gendered political economy', in: Joanne Cook, Jennifer Roberts & Georgina Waylen (eds), Towards a Gendered Political Economy (Macmillan, 2000), p.

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This video gives us a practical understanding of how gender inequality start in the home and in solving it we need to start in the home.

Irene Okanta

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Gender inequality starts in the home | Matshepo Msibi | TEDxLytteltonWomen

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Trying to visibilize more about women in Africa, this is a very useful tool I found with remarkable women across African history!

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Bibi Titi Mohamed (1926-2000) was one of the leaders of the Tanzanian nationalist movement. Born into a Muslim, merchant family, she entered politics in 1955, becoming the first female member of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), an independent party led by Julius Nyerere.

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THE MAPUTO PROTOCOL: PROTECTING AFRICAN WOMEN’S RIGHTS

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THE MAPUTO PROTOCOL: PROTECTING AFRICAN WOMEN’S RIGHTS

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Hey SEPTies!!! Take a look at the Maputo Protocol! A protocol started at 2003 which advocates for women rights in all Africa!

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The Maputo Protocol: Protecting African Women's Rights

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One of the world's most comprehensive and progressive women's human rights instruments, the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa ('the Maputo Protocol') was adopted by Heads of State and Government in Maputo, Mozambique on 11 July 2003. The Maputo Protocol Advances African Women's Rights The Protocol guarantees extensive rights...

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What a paper! Reading about the bride-price arrangements, gendered division of labor, ‘accumulation of riches and wives’, trafficking and outright exploitation at times was unsettling. However, the ‘Women and Political Engagement’ section of the paper brought a bit of light. The bottom-up activism and grassroot movements to overcome oppression through the use of music, literature, diaspora activities and many others seemed inspiring. This made me curious to check how the current situation compares to what’s described in the paper. Thus, I came across the ‘Women Power Index’ maintained by an US-based, independent organisation established in 1921 and named ‘Council of Foreign Relations’ (link – there you can also find research and arguments as to why inclusion is beneficial!). I compared Equatorial Guinea to its neighbouring countries and Spain (see snip).

Although Equatorial Guinea appears to be ahead of its neighbouring countries in terms of female representation in political institutions, there is a caveat to that:

1)      Equatorial Guinea is still well behind Spain in all dimensions;

2)      As the paper suggests, at play is the so called ‘feminismo de asiento (“chair feminism”), a term indicating that the role of the women in Parliament or public and political positions is only symbolic: it has been a mechanism to persuade international organizations such as the United Nations that gender policies in Equatorial Guinea show accountability toward the inclusion of women, breaking the gap even in the highest public domains.

My personal take away from this mental exercise is to take such cross-country comparisons with a grain of salt, since if we look just at the surface, we can easily be misled due to practices such as the ‘chair feminism’. This also relates to the discussion about value chain/ system thinking perspective that we had last Monday – what seems like a good solution now, might be less attractive if put into the right perspective and the context understood. Having said that, do you think the UN should also attempt to look at less obvious, but harder to manipulate values, e.g. percentage of women in cultural activities, heads of businesses, etc. as opposed to merely counting bodies in the Parliament? What other potential variables come to mind?

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Harnessing the power of girls to ensure a sound successful future for everyone in Africa: Article written by Scott Edward Agyemang

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This article explicitly explains the vital role of girls/women in nation building. It throws light to how girls in some jurisdictions are able to contribute their quota to nation and national development. It further cites practical examples on how the power as well as the skills/talents of girls can be harnessed fully to put them in vital positions in the society so that the African society will be characterized with women playing integral roles in the development of countries in the African continent.

Article was written by myself (Scott Edward Agyemang) in 2017
and I deem it vital to share it here as it corresponds with the presentation on
6th December, 2021.

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Challenges facing women entrepreneurs in accessing funds in Kumasi, Ghana

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Challenges facing women entrepreneurs in accessing funds in Kumasi, Ghana

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This study was done purposely to ascertain the complications or challenges that women entrepreneurs encounter with respect to accessing funds in Kumasi, Ghana’s second capital. This study employed a quantitative research methodology that sampled 700 women. The study is important as it revealed that women entrepreneurs in their quest to contributing their quota to nation building through their entrepreneurial activities encounter challenges such as lack of properties to access loans, armed robbery activities and as such they resort to borrowing money from friends and relatives to help their businesses.

Submitted by: Scott Edward Agyemang

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Fatima Conde:  A Woman's Life in Guinea. (Subtitles)

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It's shocking to know the story of how the women living in Guinea in today's society!
In this video, a woman told his life from an arranged marriage without her consent and gave birth to 9 girls and two boys in her marriage. She must work during her pregnancy and only got one week rest after give birth. She needs to work for her own farm and also her husband's. But she got no right to decide how to distribute the production, she couldn't keep her production and get enough good to feed her children. Even the husband can take her property from her and to marry another wife. And all I can imagine is another sad woman living in the same situation and the  same story repeat.

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Fatima Conde:  A Woman's Life in Guinea. (Subtitles)

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This is a company based in Nigeria, "pulling" funds to invest in women lead businesses in Nigeria

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Herconomy | Savings. Discounts. Opportunities.

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Home - Herconomy | Savings. Discounts. Opportunities.

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For Women Who Want ToTake Control Of Their Finances We empower women to gain control of their money and secure their financial future through savings. Create An Account Create An Account For Women Who Want To Take Control of Their Finances We empower women to secure their financial future through savings.

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Financial inclusion is one of the important aspects of women empowerent. Mastercard developed the attached graphics to help us see ways governments and institutions can promote it.

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How Social Norms Relate to Gender Inequality in Ethiopia 

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How Social Norms Relate to Gender Inequality in Ethiopia 

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The "Women in Equatorial Guinea" paper extensively discusses the role social, cultural, and traditional norms play in shaping the dynamics of gender equality in the country. I tried to look for something similar in my country. The attached article briefly mentions the effects of biased language, gendered expectations, and gender-based violence on the endeavors of equality.

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On March 8, 2018, the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences (EAS), in partnership with Population Reference Bureau, celebrated International Women's Day in Addis Ababa with a roundtable discussion on social norms and gender inequality in Ethiopia. As Ethiopia enters a demographic transition and its age structure matures, we must prioritize gender inequality and its implications for achieving the dividend. The demographic dividend is the accelerated economic growth that can occur as a population age structure (the proportionate numbers of persons in successive age categories in a population) matures, given strategic investments in health, education, economic policy, and governance. The roundtable was moderated by Zenebework Tadesse, EAS principal vice president. Speakers Sehin Teferra, cofounder and managing partner of the Setaweet movement; Blen Sahilu, lawyer and women's rights activist; and Ewenat Gebrehana, reproductive health expert, discussed the different ways that social norms relate to gender inequality in Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian Academy of Sciences and Population Reference Bureau hosted, from left to right, speaker Ewenat Gebrehanna, moderator Zenebework Tadesse, and speakers Blen Sahilu and Sehin Teferra in a discussion of social norms and gender inequality in Ethiopia.

Biased Language Plays a Role in Gender Inequality

Sehin Teferra discussed the need to investigate the role of language in gender, explaining that language shapes and reflects peoples' outlooks and actions. Biased language is embedded in casual communication across major Ethiopian languages, including feminized insults and idiomatic expressions that compare women with animals. Such language reinforces negative stereotypes and portrays gender-based violence (GBV) as acceptable and sometimes necessary.

Despite improved policy frameworks in some areas, biased language conveys damaging attitudes toward women that places many on lower social, economic, and professional footing than their male counterparts. Meaningful progress toward gender equality in Ethiopia requires us to question and deconstruct elements of Ethiopian languages that reinforce harmful attitudes toward women.

Gendered Expectations Can Have Negative Impacts on Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health

Ewenat Gebrehana considered how gendered expectations impact women's sexual and reproductive health. The criminalization of child marriage and passage of a relatively lenient abortion law illustrate the progress made in designing legislative frameworks to improve women's health. Yet many Ethiopians continue to practice early marriage, indicating that we need to make more progress. The Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) 2016 shows that women's median age at first marriage is 17.1 years (15.7 years among women in the Amhara region), while it is 23.7 for men.

Expectations about how a "good girl" should behave, sociocultural perceptions about women not having children, and double standards associated with sexually transmitted infections often discourage women from seeking sexual and reproductive health services. Additionally, health care service providers are not always free of biased gendered expectations, and many girls and women keep unwanted pregnancies or secretly undergo unsafe abortion for fear of judgment and the consequences of deviating from the norm.

Collective Responses to Gender-Based Violence Suggest How Most Ethiopian Societies View Women

Blen Sahilu noted that we can glimpse how most Ethiopian societies view women through collective responses to GBV-it usually takes extreme incidents of violence for people to discuss and condemn GBV. Even in cases like the gang rape and death of Hana Lalango, the collective condemnation was riddled with rhetorical questions (How could this happen? Who would do such a thing?). These reactions relieve society of accountability by distancing the perpetrators and viewing the violence as isolated. But violence against women is not a rare occurrence. EDHS 2016 shows that 23 percent of Ethiopian women ages 15 to 49 have experienced physical violence, while 10 percent have experienced sexual violence.

GBV, regardless of its form, does not happen in a vacuum. Internalized norms about masculinity and femininity delivered by the family, media, and other sources enable GBV. By acknowledging this link, we can encourage reflection on our role, as individuals and society, in creating a safe environment for girls and women.

Roundtable participants listened to the discussion and contributed suggestions on ways to act to strengthen gender equality in Ethiopia.

How Do We Achieve Meaningful Progress on Gender Equality in Ethiopia?

The roundtable speakers and participants highlighted the need to act in several ways to achieve meaningful progress toward gender equality in Ethiopia:

Generate and synthesize more evidence that speaks to the economic cost that Ethiopia incurs because of gender inequality.

Understand the heterogeneity of women's experiences across socioeconomic and geographical settings for more comprehensive policy solutions.

Support women's participation in leadership spheres by fostering work environments that accommodate mothers, who often disproportionately bear domestic responsibilities.

Encourage and educate more men to assume a larger role in advocating for gender equality.

Incorporate gender equality into school curriculums to instill positive norms within children at early ages.

Examine emerging issues, such as the role of social media in creating or reinforcing norms relating to gender.

The roundtable convened members of academia, students, governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders, and interested individuals for a lively and nuanced discussion on gender equality. As the demographic dividend garners more attention in Ethiopia, such discussions broaden people's understanding and advance the dialogue by serving as platforms for sharing, contextualizing, and building on research findings.

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How Social Norms Relate to Gender Inequality in Ethiopia

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On March 8, 2018, the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences (EAS), in partnership with Population Reference Bureau, celebrated International Women's Day in Addis Ababa with a roundtable discussion on social norms and gender inequality in Ethiopia. As Ethiopia enters a demographic transition and its age structure matures, we must prioritize gender inequality and its implications for achieving the dividend.

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Determinants influencing female entrepreneurship in Czech Republic: the role of caring responsibilities.

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"A man must earn his place in society. A woman is granted her place by merit of existing. For as long as this truism is, equality is a lie"

While the above quotation seem misogynous, the current trend of feminism equally appears misandrous, without any clear justification of the latter. Contemporary societal structures, arrangements, views and legislations bear credence to this observation. Classically, the approach occurs similarly as "impoverish rich to enrich the poor", whereas the poverty of the latter may not necessarily have been occasioned by the wealth of the former.
Does this trend seem sustainable?

Disclaimer:
The issues of gender equity could sometimes be very sensitive to some people. This contribution only serves as an antithetic discussion to the other article. While soliciting views on this issue, the perception of misogyny never represents the contributors opinion
Thank you

Anthony

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"Egg insurance to the tune of $20,000 to delay pregnancy (that's the amount up to which Facebook and Apple say they will cover) not only telegraphs that employees should work more, but it also carries a kind of innovation caché. As Silicon Valley companies are said to trade top talent like baseball cards, this benefit could give Apple and Facebook a leg up in the recruitment process. But freezing eggs isn't a sure solution to creating a family on a woman's own watch. If it is sold to women as one by the place that signs her paychecks, they should approach with caution."

The woman can't freely be a woman if she wants to enjoy her paycheck. Genuinely, this blog represent some of the fundamental human rights infringement to working class women.

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Gender inequality remains a widespread problem in labor markets. In this video, Marcela Ibáñez-Díaz, University of Göttingen, asks whether affirmative action is an effective policy for reducing disparities between men and women in terms of pay and access to employment. The research team set up an experiment which revealed gender disparities in application rates for a job, based on the foregrounding of affirmative action.

Ibáñez-Díaz concludes not only that affirmative action helps to improve women’s position in the labor market but also that it achieves this without efficiency cost. Providing clear recommendations for policymakers, Ibáñez-Díaz calls for further work that will test the applicability of the study’s findings in different research contexts.

Ibáñez-Díaz is an Associate Professor Development Economics, University of Göttingen. Leader group behavioral development economics. Center for the Study of Poverty, Equity and Growth.

Dean-Stanly C. BRICE

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Gender parity also improves economic performance

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Gender parity also improves economic performance

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Mckinsey published a really interesting report detailing how economic parity in Africa can bring not only better social conditions for women, but boost economic development overall. The following infographic contains some compelling numbers:

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SDGs indicator dashboard for Goal 5. Gender Equality

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SDGs indicator dashboard for Goal 5. Gender Equality

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SDG Indicator Dashboard | UN Women Data Hub

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The Women Count Data Hub is made possible by the partners of the Women Count programme, which include the Governments of Australia, Ireland, Mexico, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Alibaba Foundation and Elizabeth Arden.

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Gender Equality Index | 2021 | European Institute for Gender Equality

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The Gender Equality Index is a composite indicator that measures the complex concept of gender equality and assists in monitoring progress of gender equality across the EU over time.