On Monday last, even as many celebrated Valentine’s Day with token expressions of love, One Billion Rising, an initiative aimed at ending violence against all women — cisgender, transgender, gender nonconforming — girls, and the planet, observed its ninth anniversary with the launching of a new campaign to transform “women from being victims to being active agents in protection of their rights”. One Billion Rising is an offshoot of V-Day, which was founded by author, playwright and activist Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) on February 14, 1998.
It is sad, unfortunate and beyond ridiculous that in 2022, 41 years after the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women was entered into force by the United Nations General Assembly, such a campaign is still necessary. This is especially the case given that since 1981, there have been the Cairo Agreement in 1994 and the Beijing Declaration in 1995, both of which were aimed at eradicating all forms of discrimination against women and girl children and removing all obstacles to gender equality. After all this time, the simple truths that women’s rights are human rights; that women’s bodies should not be criminalised; and that women are not property are still not universal. Quite the opposite, in fact.
In 2016, during the presidential debate, the then campaigning Donald Trump had said quite openly that he was “pro-life” and if elected president, he would want to see Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision giving all women in America the right to terminate pregnancies, overturned. It did not happen overnight, but over the last five years, several states, including North Dakota, Kentucky, Ohio, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas, passed draconian abortion laws. As promised, during his tenure as president, Mr Trump was able to nominate three conservative judges to the Supreme Court and at present Roe v Wade hangs in the balance.
If this blatant erosion of women’s rights could take place in America, which holds itself up as a bastion of democracy, then the horrors that continue elsewhere, though heartrending, should not be too shocking. One example is the so-called ‘honour-killings’ that are believed to have been around since ancient Roman times. This premeditated slaughter of women perceived as having brought ‘disgrace’ on their families by refusing to be forced into marriage, being raped, getting divorced, or having sexual relationships before being married is deemed as somehow restoring their families’ dignity and honour. Or we could just call it what it is: a twisted way of men holding ultimate control over women and girls.
Though this particular crime is today steeped in Asian, Middle Eastern and some African cultures, it occurs wherever people who cling to those traditions reside. It is estimated that there are at least ten honour killings in the United States every year and some 12 in Canada. The figure for the United Kingdom is between 12 and 15. The numbers are slightly lower in the rest of Europe and much, much higher in Asia and the Middle East. Worldwide, some 5,000 women and girls are murdered each year as a result of this phenomenon, the majority of these femicides occurring in Pakistan, India, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and Jordan among other places in the named regions. Sadly, in many instances, the perpetrator manages to escape justice completely. Sometimes, what is offered as justice sullies the word and the entire profession surrounding it.
Meanwhile, all over the world, there is the patriarchal belief that women are less than men and deserve less rights, representation and resources. After all this time too many men are still hardwired to believe that the women they marry, are engaged to, have children with, or are involved in relationships with are their chattel property. This manifests in the overwhelming compulsion to control their every activity. The spinoff is domestic violence and other forms of abuse. Too many times, the long-term result is the maiming or murdering of the women.
Grim as it is, it is not all bad news. Some women have successfully navigated away from victimhood, are able to protect their rights and are using their voices, pens and platforms to secure the same for others. However, none are truly free unless all are free.
Until governments, which are heavily male-dominated, stop paying lip service to women’s representation and gender equity, change will continue to be minimal. Laws have to change and new ones must be enacted that uphold the agreements and conventions about women’s rights that governments have signed on to. It is time to say to men that the ‘old boys club’ era is passé and that their actions must match their words. Women are already holding up half the world, they have a right to live freely in it.