Six on History: Women's History is Every Month
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"Whether the tale of this exchange has made it through the decades intact I cannot tell you. What I do know is that more than 30 years later, it is possible to be considered a well-educated, well-adjusted adult male without ever (or while hardly ever) having read a book written by a woman. I learned this at my kitchen table recently, when the man I love turned out to be one such specimen.
Further probing has revealed that the problem – which I believe has its roots in outdated reading lists, in a human tendency to look for ourselves in what we read and in the way women’s literary contributions continue to be marketed and perceived – is not limited to my household. To do a poll of one’s friends and acquaintances is to see that otherwise cultured and even enlightened individuals the world over are walking around in 2021 with a hole in their heads where women’s voices should be.
At a moment in time when the work force participation gains women have made since the 1980s have been lost in a matter of months, it is especially urgent that we make room in our minds for female perspectives.
“That’s impossible,” I said to my husband. “They couldn’t have let you graduate from high school without having read a book by a woman.” But to the best of his recollection, they had. They had let him graduate from an all-boys school with a clocktower, no less, followed by two prestigious universities."
REVIEWING COVID’S IMPACT ON WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE — The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently offered a cautiously optimistic outlook for the economy’s near-term growth but underscored worries about child care and women’s ability to participate in the workforce.
— Approximately 1 million mothers with at least one child age 17 or younger at home left the labor force between fall 2019 and fall 2020, the CBO estimated. By contrast, about a half-million fathers left the labor force over that same time frame.
— Covid-19 had a relatively hard impact on women’s employment for two reasons: Industries and occupations most affected by the pandemic were also those that tend to employ large numbers of women. But CBO’s researchers concluded that “widespread school closures and child care disruptions” probably also caused many women to stop working in order to provide care at home.
— “While fathers of young children have regained most of their labor-force-participation losses, mothers have not, and many remain on the labor market sidelines,” researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis wrote in February. “Child care availability and parental concerns over child care safety and affordability during the pandemic will affect how quickly labor markets and the economy recover.”
— “This is a system that is not working for women,” said Smith, the Minnesota senator.
Brianna Bell is a writer based in Guelph, Ont.
"At the time the Ontario government announced school closings in March, 2020, I was finally pursuing my dream of becoming a writer, after spending nearly a decade at home raising my three kids.
In the early days of the lockdown, my husband and I supported each other as we both worked from home, surrounded by the chaos of sibling squabbles and the blaring TV in the background. But I knew that something had to give. My husband earned twice my part-time freelance income, and it only made sense that I would sacrifice my work for the sake of our family.
A Royal Bank of Canada report revealed that 20,000 Canadian women left the workplace between February and October of last year, a stark contrast to the more than 68,000 men who joined the work force. LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co. highlighted the heightened impact the pandemic has had on mothers, especially mothers of colour. According to their report, 1 in 4 women, and 1 in 3 mothers, are considering reducing their hours or leaving the workplace altogether because of the pandemic.
No doubt, a worldwide pandemic requires personal sacrifice. However, the imbalances found in the workplace and the home have meant that personal sacrifice looks different for men and women, particularly parents. The statistics are rolling in, offering evidence of what we already know: The guilt and burden of even thinking about leaving the workplace often lands on a mother’s shoulders.
By September many families were yearning for a semblance of normalcy. With my oldest two children returning to public school and my youngest enrolled in full-time preschool, I was eager to get back to freelance work; but with media budgets slashed I wasn’t earning nearly enough to justify the stress of freelance life and full-time child care. The second wave had hit and I knew the kids would be home eventually. I wasn’t ready to give up my work for the sake of my family again. Instead, I launched into an intense – and at times seemingly fruitless – effort to find a full-time job.
I was tired of being the flexible parent of the household. I didn’t want to be the “sick day” parent any more, or the parent who made less and had to stay home for six months in times of crisis. The time I had at home with my family deepened my relationship with my three daughters and allowed us to flourish during the hardest months of the pandemic. But it was time to prioritize my career.
In December, I finally found a job at a fast-growing company that was a perfect fit for me. I’d work from home (for now), use my skills as a communicator and earn enough to justify the extra hours I’d be working. Shortly after signing my contract, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that students would have an extended winter break. I panicked, knowing that I’d start full-time work with three kids home.
My first few weeks on the job were nothing like I planned. My kids peeked over my shoulder while I introduced myself to my new co-workers on Zoom calls. I was constantly interrupted for snacks or help with homework, always thankful for an extremely flexible and understanding workplace that accommodated the challenges of working from home with kids. My husband stepped up his game and supported us through those difficult weeks, setting up school calls while he precariously balanced his own full-time job. We briefly talked about him taking a leave of absence – we never once considered sacrificing my job.
I was privileged to be able to make the choice to return to full-time work. There are many Canadians who have lost their livelihoods, who have had to step back to become caregivers or who are simply unable to make a free choice whether to work or not. I don’t take the opportunity I’ve been given lightly – I hold the freedom of doing paid labour that I enjoy with a special kind of gratitude I hope I never lose sight of.
Around the world, working women set aside a day for themselves. In 1911, women workers in United States, Switzerland, Denmark, and Austria chose March 8 as Women’s Day. Counterparts in France, Holland, Sweden, Bohemia, and (crucially) Russia soon added themselves to the list of celebrants.
Celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8 took hold as a worldwide practice in 1914. A famous sign emblazoned with the words “Women’s Day / March 8, 1914 – Forward with Female Suffrage,” in which a woman dressed in black waves the red flag, marked the occasion. In Germany — overcome with hysteria in the lead-up to World War I — police prohibited the poster from being hung or distributed publicly. The fourth International Women’s Day turned into a mass action against the imperialist war that would erupt three months later. ..."
"The Bolivian mayor thought she was going to die. It was November 6, 2019, and the municipal building was on fire, set ablaze after a disputed October presidential election and protests that ousted socialist president Evo Morales. Mayor María Patricia Arce Guzmán, 48, a member of Morales’s party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), escaped the smoke and tried to dodge the hostile crowd outside.
Hobbled by a bad knee, she ran through the streets of Vinto, a town in the central Bolivian department of Cochabamba where she’d been mayor since June 2015. She lost her shoes but didn’t stop. “Then they grabbed me and started shouting that I was a murderer,” Arce later told me. And her hours-long ordeal began.
Videos circulated on social media of a distressed but defiant Arce surrounded by masked protesters. “I’m not going to shut up!” she said in one snippet. “And if they want to kill me, let them kill me!” Finally, people she didn’t know spirited her away on a motorbike and handed her to the police for protection.
The assault on Arce reflected the depth of bitter divisions in Bolivian politics. But it also shed light on a contradiction: Bolivia is known for promoting representation by women in its national and local governments—and it’s one of the most dangerous places in South America to be a woman. The country has the highest rate of femicide, women killed because of their gender, on the continent—2.3 murders for every 100,000 women in 2018. In 2019, 117 women were killed. It’s estimated that 70 percent of Bolivian women have been sexually or physically abused.
Arce’s detractors accuse her of improperly using public resources to incite violence, which she denies. “There is a lot of machismo here,” Arce says. “I think they wanted to teach me a lesson and make me an example to others.”
Arce returned to her office in Cochabamba weeks after she was attacked to finish a term that would end on May 30, 2020. On a warm December morning she sat at her desk, her natural dark brown hair growing back, slightly longer than a buzz cut. “The fear is always there,” she told me. “I don’t feel protected here.”
The glassless windows in her office, smashed in the riot, were still covered in plastic sheets that billowed gently. Images of Morales adorned the walls. There were no photos of Morales’s more conservative successor, Jeanine Áñez Chávez—a woman—whom Arce does not support. “We women have struggled to have a [political] space and we can’t give it up,” Arce said through tears, referring to her mayoral post. “If I quit and let them win, what message does that send to the people, to the women I tell to keep going?”
There also are historical structural inequalities embedded in gender-neutral, merit-based political systems. These nonquota systems, such as in the United States, can favor the dominant groups in society, including men, white people, and those with significant financial resources. Overcoming barriers to political entry is one challenge. What women can—and can’t—do once in power is another. The inclusion of women in a party or parliament may tick the box for gender equality, but it also can be tokenism if female politicians are seen but less often heard. And then there are questions of which women gain access to the halls of power and how representative they are of others—questions that several countries, such as New Zealand and Afghanistan, are grappling with. Despite intimidation, violence, and other barriers, women around the world are holding their ground in an effort to seize and strengthen their political power. (See how women are taking charge of their future around the world.)
Violence against women in politics is so pervasive in Bolivia that a law was passed in 2012 specifically to combat it.
Some governments have made significant advances in female participation in politics without mandating quotas.
New Zealand, the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote, in 1893, ranks 20th in the world when it comes to women’s inclusion in parliament. The United States, by comparison, sits at number 81, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a Swiss-based global organization of parliaments. But getting in is only part of the challenge. In some countries, the presence of women in decision-making roles doesn’t necessarily translate into greater equality for that country’s women. For some women, such as Iraqi parliamentarians, being in power doesn’t always mean having power. (These are the best and worst countries to be a woman.)
The post-2003 Iraqi Constitution decrees that a quarter of the nation’s parliamentary seats are reserved for women, but as women everywhere know, being in the room doesn’t necessarily mean being heard. Noora al-Bajjari, a female parliamentarian from Mosul first elected in 2010, says that the religious parties and blocs that dominate parliament “consider women are simply there to make up the numbers and not to have an actual role in major decision-making.”
If Iraq’s 84 female lawmakers banded together, they’d form a significant bloc in the 329-seat parliament, Edwar says. Until 2018, attempts to form a female caucus in the house had failed. Edwar is co-founder of several groups, including Al-Amal Association and the Iraqi Women’s Network, an umbrella group encompassing more than 90 women’s organizations. Edwar is trying to change attitudes in parliament through workshops for male and female lawmakers focused on political empowerment and women’s issues.
“We are not making confrontations; we try to make a channel of cooperation, even with the ones who are against the points we raise,” she says.
And she is seeing results: “Some of them were religious people—they changed their ideas,” she adds. “But the problem isn’t just creating change, it’s the high voices of those opposed to change. They are a very small group, but they are very aggressive and … they try to drown the voices of others.”
Afghanistan’s women face a new challenge. They fear losing rights they secured after the hard-line Taliban government’s fall in 2001.
“We raised public opinion against it,” Edwar says. “I was so, so happy to see that not only our voices but … the voices of public opinion in Iraq were raised very strongly against this. That was the happiest moment.” (Read how women are stepping up to remake Rwanda.)
A global picture of current female representation in government shows that the strongest democracies
have the highest average percentage of women in their parliaments.
The state of democracy in each country is classified by the Democracy Index, based on performance in the
following categories: electoral process and pluralism, governance, political participation, political culture,
and civil liberties. Below, four groups of countries are ordered from most democratic to least democratic.
WOMEN IN NATIONAL LEGISLATURES
Social and economic barriers persist, but the
Inter-Parliamentary Union reports that women
held 24.9 percent of global parliamentary seats
in 2020, up from 11.3 percent in 1995.
GENDER QUOTAS
Some quota laws specify that a
certain percentage of candidates
must be women; others reserve a
number of elected seats.
WOMEN IN MINISTERIAL POSITIONS
Women fill only 22 percent of the highest
decision-making positions in the executive
branch, which leads key policy areas of
Shinkai Karokhail was first elected to parliament in 2005 to represent the capital, Kabul. She was instrumental in assembling the female caucus, spurred by a draft bill known as the Shiite Personal Status Law. It was similar in content to Iraq’s Jaafari bill, and both bills were based on the same religious jurisprudence. “It was terrible stuff,” Karokhail says of the bill’s articles.
“The problem was that the main decision-makers in this society are men, not women; even if we become politicians, the first and last word is said by a man,” says Karokhail, who received death threats for arguing against the bill. “I was under a lot of pressure. I limited my movements and had guards look after me. It was a terrible time.”
Female parliamentarians make up only two dozen of the 150 or so members of the women’s parliamentary caucus, which includes women from civil society, the judiciary, and the media. “The most important thing was that we stuck together and said, What’s our priority?” Karokhail says. “If you are in the parliament and you came via a reserved seat, the quota system, that comes with obligations and we have to fulfill them. We have to work for the women of Afghanistan.”
“We don’t know yet really what the Taliban wants us to lose and to sacrifice,” Karokhail says, noting that Afghan women weren’t involved in the U.S.-Taliban peace talks. “Women were always the losers of the war, and we don’t want to be the losers in the peace agreement. That’s our concern. We are not against peace, we are not against bringing the Taliban back to [politics in] Afghanistan to at last end this long war.” But the “women of today are not the women of yesterday.” Women, she says, deserved seats at the negotiating table.
Jamila Afghani, a prominent women’s rights activist and Islamic scholar, was one of the few women granted an audience with the Taliban. She was among the delegation of women to meet with Taliban officials involved in the peace talks last summer in the Qatari capital, Doha. The 11 women were part of a larger group of Afghan civil activists.
“Unfortunately, during the formal meetings there was no opportunity to talk” about women’s rights, but “we raised this question during the tea breaks, lunch breaks, with them,” she says.
But Karokhail says that Afghani and her ideas don’t represent her. Afghani has “a different mentality” than most Afghan women, Karokhail says, adding that while it was important to have women at peace talks with the Taliban, “which women are you talking about? ... You can’t have a few political elite ... and say, there—women are represented.”
It’s a question that even peaceful, historically progressive Western democracies such as New Zealand’s have grappled with: Which women are being heard, from what communities, and for whom are they speaking? New Zealand’s current leader, 39-year-old Jacinda Ardern, is the country’s third female prime minister, after Jennifer Shipley blazed a path in 1997, followed by Helen Clark two years later. New Zealand has never elected a prime minister, male or female, from its indigenous Maori population, which makes up about 16.5 percent of New Zealand’s nearly five million people. There have been Maori members of parliament since 1868, after the Maori Representation Act of 1867 designated four elected Maori seats in the 120-member House of Representatives, which includes 71 elected seats and 49 appointed by parties. Now, more than 150 years later, there are seven elected Maori seats and 29 Maori in the house overall, 11 of whom are women.
New Zealand’s Maori secured their rights by fighting the British colonizers to an agreement, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document of the state. There are hundreds of outstanding claims by Maori for breaches of the deal. The treaty was declared null in 1877 by Sir James Prendergast, New Zealand’s chief justice. He said it had been signed “between a civilised nation and a group of savages” who were not capable of signing a treaty. It wasn’t legally recognized again until the 1970s.
Before colonization, Maori women “shared an equal but complementary power with men,” says Margaret Mutu, professor of Maori studies at the University of Auckland, the chair of her indigenous Iwi parliament, and a tribal leader of her Ngati Kahu people. Women, she says, were responsible for the spiritual well-being of their people while men dealt with the physical world.
In many ways Maori culture has been mainstreamed, although assimilation can also be a form of colonialism. Maori greetings such as kia ora are widely used by non-Maori, and schoolboys are taught how to perform the haka war dance. Despite the semblance of integration, communal relations between some Maori and non-Maori are fraught, with pending land-rights disputes and allegations that the state has been biased against Maori women.
Kiritapu Allan, 36, was appointed by her Labour Party and is one of the 29 Maori in the 120-seat house. She remembers hitchhiking through Wellington at age 17 on the way to catch a ferry to the cherry-picking fields. Allan recalls looking at the parliament building known as the Beehive and wondering about the disconnect “from those halls or chambers of power,” she says. “How do these people here represent me, and do they understand people like us?”
New Zealand has voluntary party quotas. In 2013, the Labour Party became the first to introduce a gender quota system to ensure that half of its parliament would be women. In 2015, the Green Party announced that half of its cabinet ministers would be women.
Prime Minister Ardern made headlines for being an unmarried pregnant woman leading a country. When Allan brought her four-month-old baby into parliament, she says, it invoked “a lot of vitriolic opposition. How dare a mother be in the parliament, parenting a child,” she recalls. “If we want to encourage more and more women into not just the workforce but positions of power and leadership, well, women need to take leadership on what that looks like.”
In her moving maiden speech to the house in 2017, draped in her family’s heirloom Korowai cloak of kiwi feathers, Allan recounted how her grandmother and namesake was punished at school for speaking her native language, and how her name was changed from Kiritapu to Kitty.
“My nana’s cultural identity was whipped out of her at that school, and so too, some might say, was her voice. So Nana, I stand here in this House to honour your name, to give voice to the voiceless, who, for whatever their circumstances, cannot speak for themselves,” Allan said in her speech. It is a powerful legacy that Allan considers a key part of her mission.
Still, there is only so much the law can do. There are limits to legislating reform, especially if societal attitudes don’t change, or the implementation of existing laws is lax. On paper, Bolivia’s 2009 constitution guarantees equal rights for women. Legislation such as 2013’s Law 348 criminalizes violence against women and imposes a penalty for femicide of 30 years in prison without parole. But conviction rates are dismal. Less than 4 percent of femicide cases result in a sentencing.
In April 2019, Shirley Franco Rodríguez, a 32-year-old parliamentarian touted as a vice presidential candidate and a senior member of the Democratic Unity party, called for a panel to investigate judicial delays in femicide and rape cases. “The main problem is that there are laws, there are rights, there are sanctions, but no mechanisms exist to enforce compliance, so everything is rhetoric; it’s not real,” she says.
Violence against women in politics is so pervasive that in 2012 Bolivia pioneered a law to try to combat it. Law 243 criminalizes acts including spreading false information about female politicians to discredit them or, as in the case of Mayor Arce, pressuring a woman to resign from an elected position and physically attacking her. The mayor has filed a formal complaint, but she doesn’t know if she’ll get justice.
In 2019 the Bolivian Association of Councilwomen, an NGO that brings together councillors and mayors to defend the political rights of women, received 127 complaints of various forms of harassment and intimidation. In 2018 there were 117 complaints and the year before that, 64.
Bernarda Sarué Pereira, executive director of the organization, suspects the real numbers are much higher but that fear keeps women from reporting abuse. “When someone makes a formal complaint, their persecution doubles, their harassment doubles, they are bothered more and stigmatized,” she says.
Some mayors, such as Bertha Eliana Quispe Tito, have been prevented from entering their workplaces, been physically attacked, and had their families threatened. Quispe was 27 in 2015 when she became the first female mayor of Collana, a small rural town of some 5,000 people of her Aymara indigenous group. A MAS party member, she says her problems started when she moved to regulate the local limestone mining industry. She was beaten by masked men one night in September 2016 after she left the office. It wasn’t a random attack or a robbery.
“They warned me that if I didn’t resign, my sisters were going to pay all the consequences, my family,” Quispe says. “They said various things: If I didn’t quit, they’d burn my father’s house, take the cattle.” Four of her colleagues in the council were kidnapped to pressure Quispe to withdraw her complaint about the attack. She did, and the four were released, but no one was prosecuted for the kidnappings. The doors of the municipal building where she worked were welded shut and walled up with bricks, forcing her to relocate to another town for her own safety. She is not certain that she’ll run for reelection.
The Aymara mayor of El Alto, Soledad Chapetón Tancara, 39, is from the other side of the political spectrum. A member of the National Unity Front, she unseated a male incumbent from the rival MAS party and made tackling entrenched corruption in her city of nearly a million people, the second largest in Bolivia, the cornerstone of her work.
Chapetón has no plans to do so. “At no time did I have a moment of doubt,” she says. “I knew that I was doing things well.”
