Girls and Women Change our World: What about the men?

Series introduction

One of the biggest disservices that we can do to IWD and women’s rights in general is to think – and perpetuate the idea – that IWD and women’s rights are only about women.

Women’s rights are not solely the concern of women, just as other issues are not solely the concern of those affected. Human beings take action when they feel it is required. We can call for action to prevent the spread of infectious diseases without having AIDS or malaria. We can participate in a fun run fundraiser for cancer research without having cancer. We can call for marriage equality without being gay – we can be straight but not narrow. We can Stand Up against poverty, even though we aren’t malnourished children facing death from preventable illness before our fifth birthdays. Heck, we can even buy fundraising chocolate bars from the local footy club without playing junior footy. One does not need to be directly involved in a problem to see that it is unjust and to cry for change, healing and hope.

It is not just possible for men to care about women’s rights, but essential. Men need to be strong role models to other men and boys about how to act. Men need to teach their sons and nephews and students and mates and brothers and fathers and neighbours what is acceptable. ‘Locker room banter’ is disrespectful to men, as well as to women. How will a young man ever learn to treat his girlfriend with respect, if he has never seen that modelled?

As asked my husband if he had changed his thinking about women’s issues now that he is a father of a daughter; and his answer was yes. He said that he is more conscious of thinking about women’s safety and equality, and also the messages that the media sends. He is concerned about the ‘deification of people like Paris Hilton’ and how that will impact on our precious daughter.

I am also reminded of when I completed a teaching practicum when I was at university. It was in my final year, and I had a ten week prac in a co-educational school. During those ten weeks I was astounded at the ways that boys and girls interacted. One of the boys once dropped a pencil from his desk, so he said to the female student next to him ‘pick it up girl’ and she did. It wasn’t playful banter, but an order, and she obeyed. The sexist jokes and gutter humour abounded – in the playground and the staffroom. One student was subjected to disciplinary action due to his comments to me of an inappropriate nature. Another student, who was going to drop the subject I was teaching before I arrived, suddenly decided that he wanted to attend extra lunchtime tutorials now that I was running them, and my supervising teacher encouraged me to do this as it got kids interested and engaged. (She did go on to tell me that I couldn’t rely on my looks as one day they would fade and I would need other methods to teach, but it bothered me that my appearance was considered part of my teaching repertoire when teaching teenaged boys. She was an excellent supervising teacher in many other ways and I feel privileged to have learned from her, but this one piece of ‘advice’ has left a bitter taste in my mouth.)   

Until this point in time, most of my work with teenagers had been in all-girl environments. I had worked in two all-girls boarding schools, and had been a Girl Guide leader for years. I myself had attended an all-girls high school. I thought that this was normal behaviour – for boys to look down on girls, and for girls to accept it.

For my final ten week prac, I was placed in a different, but still co-ed, school. I could not believe the difference in the atmosphere at this second school. Male and female students were polite to each other, and engaged as equals. Not only were sexist jokes absent from the playground and staffroom, but the students were vocal in their disapproval of sexist, racist and homophobic ‘jokes’. Indeed, the student body was concerned about some aspects of these creeping in, and they organised a formal response and statement of disapproval which was read on Assembly and published in the school newsletter. I felt comfortable walking around campus – something which I hadn’t been able to do at the previous school. It worried me that I thought that feeling uncomfortable was a normal way to feel around male students.

Strong, kind, respectful, generous, fun, caring, fierce and compassionate male role models are needed to teach boys how to behave, how to treat each other and how to treat girls. These men are also needed to teach their daughters and sisters and nieces and neighbours and friends - and student teachers - that feeling uncomfortable because of one’s gender should not be normal. These girls need to see that men are kind and caring and respectful, not to be feared or dismissed. This is why International Women’s Day is important for everyone, not just the girls.

Part 2: The girl child
Part 4: You don't exactly look like a feminist...

Girls and Women Change our World: The girl child

Series introduction

I previously spoke of when I travelled to India with Girl Guides. The reason for this was to attend a conference on children's rights advocacy. One issue which we kept returning too was the fact that whatever the issue was, it was generally worse for girls. Girls have less education, poorer health and are more likely to be in situations where they are unable to help themselves.

Educational disadvantages
- Approximately one-quarter of girls in developing countries are not in school. (Cynthia B. Lloyd, ed., Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in Developing
Countries [Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2005].)
- Out of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth, 70 percent are girls. (Human Rights Watch, “Promises Broken: An Assessment of Children’s Rights on the 10th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/promises/education.html [December 1999].)


Child marriage issues
- One girl in seven in developing countries marries before age 15, and 38% marry before 18. (Population Council, “Transitions to Adulthood: Child Marriage/Married Adolescents,”  www.popcouncil.org/ta/mar.html [updated May 13, 2008] and Cynthia B. Lloyd, ed., Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries [Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2005].)
- Girls who have not been to school are far more likely to be married as a child than those girls who have gone to school. (International Center for Research on Women, Too Young to Wed: Education & Action Toward Ending Child Marriage, www.icrw.org/docs/2006_cmtoolkit/cm_all.pdf [2007].)
- A survey in India found that girls who married before age 18 were twice as likely to report being beaten, slapped, or threatened by their husbands as were girls who married later. (International Center for Research on Women, Development Initiative on Supporting Healthy Adolescents [2005], analysis of quantitative baseline survey data collected in select sites in the states of Bihar and Jharkhand, India [survey conducted in 2004].)

Girls are uniquely positioned to have a positive effect on our world.

For more information head over to The Girl Effect.



Part 1: What are the issues?
Part 3: What about the men?

Hallows, swastikas and hope

The picture about was taken by a Guiding friend of mine who has a passion for collecting books where ever she goes. This is a 1923 book, and she showed me the photo as we were both interested in the right handed swastika, especially its use by the Guiding and Scouting movements.

In her autobiography, Window on my Heart, Lady Baden- Powell talks of being given a thanks badge by B-P when they met in 1912 on the SS Arcadian cruise ship.

He gave me a Scout 'Thanks Badge' in the form of a swastika with the Scout fleur-de-lys superimposed. The right- handed broken cross or swastika (so called from the Sanskrit word for 'well-being') was an ancient sign of good fortune that had appeared in many civilisiations as far back as the Bronze Age. Later, when the Nazis adopted the left-handed broken cross as their symbol and it became synonymous with evil and opression, the Scout Movement abandonded the use of the swastika as a Thanks Badge, but in 1912 it was still a symbol of good.'

I also saw many swastikas when I was travelling in India (with Girl Guides) in 2005. The right facing one which isn't rotated was often used in art, as Lady B-P described, as a Sanskrit symbol for wellness. Obviously Kipling's extensive links with India are very well know too - more so than his links to Scouting.

The parallel between the swastika and its use by the Nazis and JK Rowling's use of the Deathly Hallows symbol is obvious. Indeed, the links between the Potterverse and Nazis are many. I have recently finished reading and studying The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and it has affected me in a way which no other book ever has, and in the few months since I have read it it has never been far from my thoughts.

I have thought that the swastika and the Hallows both show us that there are good things which can be manipulated and twisted and associated with the worst, horrorific things. I am even struggling to communicate what I am trying to say here. The unthinkable awfulness of it all - to have been created out of something so happy and innocent - is just that, unthinkable.

However, the good still remains. The terrible acts do not erase the good which happened before. They change it forever, yes, but they can't erase the goodness completely. The swastika for many people now is a symbol of evil and everything which is wrong in the world, and as said above, the way it is used has been changed forever (both in general and by the Scouting Movement and Kipling). However, the good still remains, if only a speck. If only in Lady B-P's girlish memory of being courted, in a 1923 edition of a stories for children, or in a necklace worn by Xeno Lovegood to the wedding of his friends - a speck of goodness remains.

When there is darkness and sadness, look for the speck of good. Even the most horrible and evil happenings have a speck somewhere. It doesn't mean that it's not evil and horrible, but I need to know that a speck of hope and goodness can be found. I need to know that. Everything I am tells me that that tiny speck is there, and I hold on to that though with all my might.

Happy Thinking Day

Happy Thinking Day to all my Guiding sisters all over the world! If you are not one of the ten million members of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, then I would like to invite you to share in Thinking Day activities.

Thinking Day is the 22nd of February and is so named as it is when we think of our Guiding sisters across the world. Typically it involves activities to explore and discover what it is like for those in other countries. As well as awareness, there is a call to action. This year's theme is MDG7: Environmental Sustainability. There's a whole host of activities to do with reducing the use of fossil fuels, saving resources, sustainable energy sources and advocating for change. Click that link to download the activities in English, French or Spanish.

There is also a fundraising component where Guides all over the world donate to the Thinking Day Fund to help support the growth and development of girls and young women worldwide. When Lady Baden-Powell was asked how much girls should give, she said as much as they would have spent on an ice cream, so the WTD fund is also known affectionately as The Ice Cream Fund.

Empowering girls and young women to be agents of change works for me. I've also linked this to Jo's Waste-not Wednesday, too. As a Girl Guide leader, a teacher, a citizen and a mother, I view my responsibility to make the world a better place seriously. I don't want to waste my opportunities to help reach the MDGs. 2015 is fast approaching, and we can't waste any more time.

Baden- Powell would be proud of me...

As a true blue Girl Guide, I'm a big fan of Being Prepared. I'm the one who packs the spare sunscreen, the snow shoes and the parachute just in case. I've said before that I'm a big planner, and there's a few reasons.

Firstly, being prepared allows us to be spontaneous. If we go to someone's house for lunch, we have a great time and then they invite us to stay for dinner, then we can say yes. I've got a spare blanket and more nappies in the car, so we don't have to rush home.

Secondly, it means that we don't inconvenience others as much. Travelling with people with a baby who have to stop at a shop to buy some more wipes, or who need to visit three chemists to find the one which stocks the right sized nappies affects everyone in the group, and I don't want that person to be me.

Thirdly, it's generally cheaper to take what you need than to buy a top up at a corner store. Also, sometimes what you need just isn't available. I'm used to travelling in remote areas and you take what you need, and then spares, becuase you can't be sure that someone else will have it for you.

Fourthly, it's also about being self reliant. Not having to sponge off others all the time, or expect others to do for you what you can easily do for yourself, is a good thing.

However, it's also important that you strike a balance. There's no point carting around a huge bag of stuff you are unlikely to need, especially if space is an issue.

For Chubs we have a spare bag in the car, some things in the stroller, her normal nappy bag and her daycare bag.

Nappy bag
Change mat, three disposable nappies, two cloth nappies, half a pack of wipes, small bottle of powder, onesie, long sleeved romper, jumper, sun hat, spit bib, wet bag, plastic bags. If we're out at a meal time, then food, spoon and food bib as well.

Car bag
(This bag isn't often used, just as a spare)
Three disposable nappies, half a pack of wipes, onesie, singlet, long sleeved romper, soces, bunny rug, warm blanket.

Stroller
(Another spare in case the nappy bag all gets used up/ forgotten/ abducted by aliens)
Change mat, two nappies, mini wipes pack, spare $20, pegs for attaching the bunny rug to the stroller, pen
In stroller basket - bunny rug, assorted toys and books, my sun hat, rain cover.

ETA: this is what we do for Chubs' daycare bag
Are you a super prepared person, or a fly- by- the- seat- of- your- pants person?

Being organised and prepared works for me!