₦airaland Forum

Michelle bravely went right on to say what many women have been waiting to hear in this presidential campaign: “He believes that women are more than capable of making our own choices about our bodies and healthcare… that’s what my husband stands for.”

And what a relief after Republican Congressman Todd Akin‘s comments on “legitimate” r.ape and Vice-Presidential nominee Paul Ryan‘s view that abortion should be illegal, even in cases of ra.pe or inc.est.

@bolded. and we wonder why feminism exists. feminism is here to stay for a long time!! if mindsets like above don't change

First Lady Michelle Obama urged both female and male South African youth to advance women’s rights and to stand up against violence against women. Mrs. Obama’s official trip to Africa has focused on addressing health, wellness and women’s rights.

“You can be the generation that stands up and says that violence against women in any form, in any place, including the home – especially the home – that isn’t just a women’s rights violation. It’s a human rights violation,” Mrs. Obama said passionately.

She also encouraged the youth to be the generation that ends HIV/AIDS, which she stressed is “fully preventable and treatable.” Gender-based violence (GBV) is a noted cause of HIV/AIDS infections in women in sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, a key component of the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA) focused on the elimination of violence against women and girls as key in containing the epidemic.

According to UNAIDS, women and girls who have experienced violence are up to three times more likely to be infected with HIV than those who have not. Increasingly, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has included GBV programming to address this tragic correlation.

As Mrs. Obama’s trip has highlighted thus far, including youth in the movement to end violence against women and girls is imperative to saving not only their generation but also future generations. Violence, like HIV/AIDS, is treatable, but more importantly, it is preventable!

Send your thanks to the First Lady today and ask the Administration to support funding for international programs to end violence against women and girls.

AjanleKoko: Feminists are unnecessarily abrasive and argumentative. Kind of like Africanists. Some of their arguments border on the unreasonable.

and anti-feminist arguments are reasonable?
why not compare feminism to gay rights? that's a better comparison.


as far as I know, an africanist is a person who specializes in african studies. I don't see any opposition to africanist as there is to feminists and gay rights activist. people feel threatened by feminism and gay rights.

how many people do you know who oppose africanists? or marginalize africanists?
silly comparison if I may say.

biolabee: i really wish they could tell me wat they need stood for,,,,

clearly you know what feminists stand for because otherwise, u won't spend so many hours on here arguing against feminism. you clearly feel very threatened by it and what it stands for ie. empowering girls and women.

Iceland just banned strip clubs and por.nography that is degrading to women. many misogynist will be angry about that.
now tell me you don't know what feminism stands for? so why are you on this thread opposing it if you feel that it is "hot air"?

commencement speech @ Kalamazoo college

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsJoPEo142Q

Funmi Iyanda interviews Chimamanda. awesomeness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou9lVWNwaQk

“African Women Financing the Future”

Speech by
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, CFR
Coordinating Minister for the Economy & Honourable Minister of Finance
Federal Republic of Nigeria
Keynote Address at the Second African Women’s Economic Summit
Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Date: July 13, 2012.
Protocols

Introductory Remarks

• It is my singular honour to be able to address this august gathering of key players in national, regional and global finance. I wish to thank the organizers of this second edition of the African Women’s Economic Summit (AWES) for providing us with this unique platform to shed more light on a very important topic. Some might argue that there have been enough discussions and platitudes about the topic, or that I myself, have already made several comments on it; but I would argue to the contrary that we have yet to scratch the surface of the topic of women’s empowerment, which for me remains a lifelong commitment.

• I wish to particularly thank and congratulate my older sister, Graça Machel for an outstanding job on the New Faces, New Voices initiative, and for chairing the organization of this successful Summit. Her passion for improving the lot of African women is without parallel. I wish to also thank the African Development Bank and its President, Donald Kaberuka for sponsoring this Summit; the Bank of Industry and its Chief Executive Officer, Evelyn Oputu for their support for the event. We miss Graça Machel but I thank Dr. Nkosana Moyo for ably standing in for her.

• Ladies and Gentlemen, we are on the cusp of a very exciting phase in the life of African women. They are the new face of an Africa on an upward trajectory of growth and development. World Bank/IMF projections show that Africa’s GDP rose by 4.9 percent a year from 2000 to 2008, more than twice its pace in the 1980s and 90s. Africa ranks among the fastest growing economic regions in the world. It is home to domestic companies with revenue of at least $3 billion each and 52 cities with over one million people.

• Investing in women can unleash so much more productive potential in African economies and contribute to the upward growth trajectory. If women are the third largest emerging market after China and India according to the World Development Report 2012, imagine what will happen to Africa’s growth if we invest in girls and women. Investing in women is smart economics; investing in girls is even smarter economics. As Nelson Mandela once put it, “it is important that government structures understand that true freedom and prosperity cannot be achieved unless …we see in visible and practical terms that the condition of women in our country has radically changed for the better, and that they have been empowered in all spheres of life as equal.” But what are the Barriers to Investment and Empowerment?

• It is important to put the fact of gender inequality in context, to better highlight the need for stronger economic empowerment. We know that many African women face social inequalities and the lack of opportunities purely because of their sex. One major barrier is poor access to basic health care. This is a serious issue as it exacerbates an already bad situation. Maternal mortality rates continue to be extremely high with 47 percent of global maternal mortality occurring in Africa. Although progress has been made in Nigeria we continue to have one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world.

• Currently, maternal mortality in our country is estimated to be around 545 per 100,000 (compared to 340 in South Africa and 480 in Botswana). This figure is still nearly double the current global average of 290 per 100,000 live births. This means that in Nigeria 144 women die each day, and one woman every 10 minutes from conditions associated with childbirth. You cannot invest in empowering girls and women when they continue to die during childbirth.

• Poor or lack of access to quality education is another impediment to women and girls empowerment. The correlation between the education of girls and women and such indices as better early childhood and nutritional outcomes, more efficient labour markets and higher economic growth rates has long been established. Indeed, Madiba Mandela also called education “the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Yet, in many African countries the gender gap in educational attainment at all levels remains very high. Primary education of females is at 67 percent. Among females above the age of 15, only 51 percent are able to read and write compared to 67.1 percent of men (OECD, 2007).

• Women’s access to land and credit facilities also tends to be limited when compared to that of men. In the agricultural sector, where women account for 60 - 80 percent of the agricultural labour force and are responsible for 70 - 80 percent of food production land ownership has historically been directed to the male head of the household, to the detriment of the women. In Nigeria 54 million of the 80.2 million women live and work in rural areas where they provide 60 - 79 percent of the rural labour force. But they in most cases, operate smaller plots of land and farm less income yielding crops.

• They are often denied credit to expand their farm holdings or made to seek approval of a husband or a male relation before such credit is granted. Outside the farms the fastest growing source of employment for women in Africa is in the informal sector where women engage in a wide range of activities, particularly trading. Informality and lack of a regulatory framework means that access to credit to expand or grow their businesses remains a challenge. Many resort to traditional forms of savings – pooling their resources to form a savings collective or ‘susu’, where funds are available to members on a rotational basis. But such funds are often inadequate to move their businesses to appreciable levels, aside being subject to the whims and caprices of members of the collective.

• Another barrier is the low level of women’s participation in governance. Women’s participation in politics is of strategic importance, not only for women’s empowerment but because it has broader benefits and impacts. The evidence suggests that budgetary allocation is more effective and efficient, and ultimately produces superior human development outcomes, in countries where women are more broadly represented. A few countries have achieved some important firsts in women’s political advancement, for example, Rwanda, South Africa. We can also point to and rejoice at the ascendancy of the continent’s first women Presidents, Liberia’s Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Malawi’s Mrs. Joyce Banda.

• In Nigeria, we have also made some progress in women’s representation. We ratified the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on 13 June 1985 and adopted other well-known international treaties and conventions on human rights including 1995 Beijing Platform of Action, and the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Maputo Protocol). The essence of these important global and regional declarations was captured in the National Gender Plan (NGP), launched in 2007, which set a target of 35 percent as a benchmark towards gender parity in Nigeria. The issue is how well are we doing in implementing these plans?

• A fifth barrier to women’s and girls’ empowerment is less well-known, one which my esteemed colleague, Nkosana Moyo had alluded to in his opening remarks. This barrier refers to the attitudes we bring to raising our children based on pre-conceived notions of differentiation in the roles of boys and girls. We do not allow our sons into our kitchens - it is “unmanly” - while we unconsciously nudge our daughters into making career choices in the women-dominated fields of teaching, nursing, etc. It has been argued that the way we women raise our sons and daughters affects their sense of self-perception and empowerment later on in life. I’d also like to argue that it is not only mothers who are responsible for entrenching gender stereotypes but fathers too. The extent to which a girl feels empowered also depends on the way her father related to her growing up. Empowering Women is Smart Economics

• Economic empowerment of women is crucial not only to the achievement of gender equality but also for achieving pro-poor economic growth. As Kofi Annan puts it, “When women thrive, all of society benefits, and succeeding generations are given a better start in life.” Looking at development through a gender lens is an essential step in identifying how policy can be shaped in a way that is explicitly gender sensitive, inclusive and beneficial to economic growth.

• I have already referred to the World Bank’s World Development Report which also argues that gender equality can enhance economic efficiency and improve other development outcomes in three ways: first, by removing barriers that prevent women from having the same access as men to education, economic opportunities, and productive inputs can generate broad productivity gains—gains all the more important in a more competitive and globalized world. Second, by improving women’s absolute and relative status feeds many other development outcomes, including those for their children. Third, by leveling the playing field—where women and men have equal chances to become socially and politically active, make decisions, and shape policies. (World Bank, WDR, 2012)

• African women have always been in the forefront of empowering themselves, in their efforts to improve their family welfare and participate in economic activity. As noted earlier, entrepreneurial women are already making a strong contribution to GDP growth throughout the continent. In Uganda 48 percent of all small and medium-sized enterprises are owned by women. In Kenya, the corresponding figure is 49 percent. A recent study by Finmark Trust shows that women account for 58 percent of all business owners in South Africa. Although many of these business owners are small and operate mainly in the informal sector, and can be characterized as “necessity” vs. “opportunity” entrepreneurs, more and more growth-oriented businesses led by women are emerging.

• Second, firms—big and small—have begun to articulate a business case for gender equality. The vagaries of a fast-changing global economy means that the demand for skills has increased, forcing firms to expand their talent pool. Businesses have sought not only to attract and recruit female talent but also to retain it through measures to facilitate work life balance. Firms know that a diversity of opinions can enrich decision making and stimulate ingenuity. And gender equality per se has grown to be a desirable trait that customers and investors look for.

• These and several other case studies are commendable efforts towards greater women’s empowerment but again let me stress that I would like us to use the opportunity of this gathering of well known players in national, regional and global finance to really deliberate and come up with specific action plans to enhance financial empowerment for women. What have we been doing for Women’s Empowerment in Nigeria? We have made some significant strides.

• In the area of women’s health: Although maternal and infant mortality continues to be a major challenge, with maternal mortality ratio of about 545 deaths per 100,000 live births we have taken significant action to stem the unacceptably high levels. The current administration of President Goodluck Jonathan is fully committed to increasing budgetary allocation to the health sector at the federal, states and local government levels. The government has additionally, instituted a robust policy framework through funds accruing from the partial removal of fuel subsidy, known as the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) for Maternal and Child Health. • The SURE-P Maternal and Child Health Programme is designed to strengthen the health system and reduce maternal and neonatal mortality by 45 percent and 20 percent respectively by 2015 in targeted facilities. It also has an in-built “Conditional Cash-Transfer Concept” that will benefit up to about 3 million women. The programme will create demand for health services through the offer of cash incentives for pregnant women, who will be paid up to N5,000 in installments when they register for antenatal care; visit health facilities at least up to four times for antenatal services; deliver their babies in health facilities; or use skilled birth attendants.

• The Ministry of Health has also embarked on a major campaign to save a million lives through the deployment of cost effective interventions that would impact women’s health. These include midwifery and community health worker deployment; scaling up of routine immunization and the introduction of new vaccines; efforts to improve bosom feeding and reduce childhood malnutrition as well as scaling up antibiotics for pneumonia. According to Dr. Muhammad Pate, Minister of State for Health, “enhancing child health and survival would boost the quality of the human resources that the country would need for its economic development in the 21st century.”

• We are also working to make gender an issue central to the budgeting process. I am leading an innovative initiative to mainstream gender into our 2013 budget. We are engaging with some key sector ministries to motivate them into developing and integrating gender sensitive programs into their capital budgets, with an eye on increased job creation and higher incomes for women. We sign Memoranda of Understanding with these Ministries to formalize these gender responsive programs and provide budgetary incentives to enable implementation of these women’s programmes. • To address the issues of access to land, assets or finance and the wage gaps between women and men we have launched a Youth competition for 1000 women entrepreneurs under the Youth Enterprise With Innovation in Nigeria (YouWin) project. This programme, a collaboration between the Ministry of Finance, the ICT Ministry and the Ministry of Youth Development aims to encourage aspiring entrepreneurs to develop and execute business ideas that will lead to job creation. It does this through a business plan competition across the six geo-political zones with cash awards to help young people with starting their businesses. • The first phase of this program was recently concluded where 1,200 winners were drawn. However, since only 17 percent of the 1200 awardees in this first phase were female youth, the government has decided to focus phase two of the programme solely on women entrepreneurs as a means of encouraging more of them to come forward.

• The Central Bank of Nigeria under Governor Lamido Sanusi has also rolled out a three-year programme to empower women bankers in the nation’s financial system. The apex Bank’s Bankers Committee for example, has set a time frame of between 2012 and 2014 to ensure that 40 per cent of top management positions in banks are held by women. During the same period, 30 per cent of board positions in banks will also be reserved for women. • In the area of women’s representation in government: the current administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has put women at the heart of its policies and has recorded some significant firsts, the most recent being the recent confirmation of Justice Aloma Mariam Mukthar as Chief Justice of the Federation. The fact that the third arm of government, the judiciary is now being led by a woman is a huge deal for the country. We have also seen clear gains in the area of women’s political voice. While there is still a long way to go to reach the 35 percent benchmark set by the National Gender Policy in the legislature, there are increasing numbers of women in key positions in government and the public service positions.

• Remarkably, women currently form 32 percent of the Cabinet. This is an increase of 8 percent from 1999 and 16 percent from 2004, and compares favourably with a global average of 17 percent. This shift in the number of women in the Federal Cabinet is based on the political will of President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan.

• The government has also set up the Women’s Trust Fund (Women’s Fund), an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to increase the representation of women in Nigerian governance at all levels. The office of the Special Adviser to the President on Millennium Development Goals recently provided a start-up grant for the Nigerian Women’s Trust Fund of N100 million, as a first of its kind strategy aimed at increasing the number of women in politics. Over 140 women meeting the eligibility criteria have accessed the Fund to support their political campaigns. • In closing, I want to end by bringing us all back to concrete steps we need to take to really achieve and sustain the $20 billion economy. Are we doing enough? Doing enough, and more than enough, means going beyond current levels of government or private sector efforts.

• My dream is to see the creation of a specialized Women’s Bank, or a women’s equity fund targeting in particular those mid-level women entrepreneurs in search of funds in the range of $50,000 to $1 million, to grow their enterprises and of course, their employment generation levels. Most interventions in the area of women’s access to finance has been at the microfinance level but the time has come for us to move beyond this to enabling women’s access to much bigger finances at concessional rates.

• I myself had taken steps towards its actualization with the creation of a $50 million equity fund known as Makeda Fund in 2006. The objective of the Fund is to support the development of women-owned and women-managed small and medium scale enterprises in Africa. We believe that supporting such businesses is important: not only because they are currently an underserved segment of the market, but also because they offer promising opportunities for value creation for both investors and women entrepreneurs.

• Finally – we should always remember that any talk of women’s empowerment must necessarily include girls’ empowerment. As we all know, inequalities tend to reproduce across generations. We need to do everything we can to break this cycle of inequality. We need mentors and role models. We need to ensure that young women have the opportunity to shape their own future, and to aspire to be the best they can in any field they choose. • I wish you all fruitful deliberations. Thank You!

The Legacy of Wangari Maathai: Women as Green Agents of Change

By Wanjira Mathai and Jamie Bechtel

The world unites to honor the European Union 2012 as the Nobel Peace Prize is bestowed upon the governing body for its hard work, over the past six decades, in maintaining stability in Europe. This prize has been won by presidents and peace activists alike, all of whom have dedicated their lives to peace, conflict resolution, and international stability. Eight years ago, Dr. Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the prize for her work demonstrating the intricate links between the environment, democracy and peace through Kenya's Green Belt Movement. As the world honors the new recipient of the Peace Prize, we would like to pause and reflect on the many brave women of Africa, and around the world, who work every day to preserve and foster peace. They do this in a way that does not, at first blush, seem to have anything to do with peace because they are the stewards of our world's natural resources.

For so many of us, environmental stewardship is a luxury. But for millions of people around the world, the environment provides the basics of survival including food, water, energy and medicine. When natural resources are lost through climate change and poor resource use, war and conflict increase dramatically. The Nobel Prize committee understood this, and bestowed one of the world's most prestigious prizes on Wangari Maathai for planting seeds of peace. Those seeds led to environment, economic and political stability, which translates directly into conflict mitigation because when people have food, water, and a safe, warm home - they don't have to fight to survive. In short, Dr. Maathai was able to show that environmental protection is a two way street: the loss of natural resource drives war and conflict, but the restoration of natural resources drives peace and security.

When Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, her goal was simple: help improve the lives of rural women (and men) by improving the environment on which they depend for water, food, fuel, and medicine by planting trees. The unexpected impact of her work was to show that the solutions to our many societal and planetary ills often rests with those who bear the greatest burden. Her legacy has empowered a whole new generation of women to take actions that benefit their communities and the planet. Maathai's lessons have never been timelier.

Today, we are happy to announce that the legacy of Wangari Maathai's work will continue bolder and stronger than ever. The Green Belt Movement, in partnership with New Course, has been awarded another important award, the MacArthur Foundation partnership grant. This grant will provide training to rural women and community-based organizations that will build the skills that improve women's participation and influence of environmental governance, develop climate resilience, improve natural resource management and help establish cultures of peace.

This grant is extremely important because across Africa women are on the frontlines of conservation challenges and they experience environmental impacts in very real and serious ways. In 2011, a deadly drought-induced food crisis across East Africa claimed tens of thousands of lives and left millions destitute and hungry. The deadly impacts of climate change and the results of poor land use are being felt now in East Africa, as they are in many regions around the world. Global warming will continue to increase the volatility and unpredictability of weather patterns, further threatening the food and water security of the rural poor.
2012-10-11-lynnjohnson.jpg
Dr. Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work leading women in planting trees. The Green Belt Movement has helped women in Kenya plant over 40 million trees. This has brought increased economic, democratic, and environmental stability to Kenya. Image courtesy of Lynn Johnson/Ripple Effect Images


Wangari Maathai knew that the role of women in environmental stewardship is powerful -- it is time the rest of us understand this. There are still major gains to be made in combating climate change, improving livelihoods, reducing natural resource conflict and advancing community health because half of the people with solutions have been largely excluded from the process. Unlocking women's potential as "green agents of change" is necessary to realize the full potential of investments in conservation in the region, and around the world and to ensure the long-term sustainability of our world's natural capital. Action by governments, corporations, civil society, philanthropists and communities must be taken now and that action must include women. This is not only the economical thing to do; it is the morally responsible thing to do.

The Green Belt Movement is a grassroots non-governmental organization that marries environmental conservation and community empowerment in Kenya. Founded in 1977 by Prof. Wangari Maathai, the Green Belt Movement promotes sound natural resource management and livelihood improvement through tree planting, women's rights, civic empowerment and good governance training throughout Africa. Her legacy has empowered a whole new generation of women to take actions that benefit their families and the planet.

New Course is a non-profit organization based in Seattle. It works with partners worldwide to ensure that women are systematically engaged in environmental efforts.

davidylan: Quite silly really. So because our corrupt politicians were raised in two parent households we should now ban two-parent households?

don't selectively quote me. if you do not agree with anything I have to say then press the ignore button. I will waste no time responding to inflammatory, sexist, misogynistic and senseless trite henceforth.

this topic is not for anti-feminist. read topic title before clicking and making a post.

Wangari Maathai, 71, Nobelist and advocate for Kenyan women, environment, dies.
By Emily Langer,September 26, 2011

Oprah Winfrey, left, and actor Tom Cruise congratulate Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai during the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo.

Oprah Winfrey, left, and actor Tom Cruise congratulate Nobel Peace Prize… (YVES HERMAN/REUTERS )

Wangari Maathai, 71, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who sparked an international movement for women’s rights and environmental preservation by teaching poor Kenyan women to plant trees, died Sept. 25 in a Nairobi hospital.

She had cancer, the Associated Press reported.

Dr. Maathai became the first African woman to receive the award when the Nobel committee honored her in 2004 “for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”

In 1977, she founded the Green Belt Movement, a nongovernmental organization that married the two causes at the center of her work: women’s equality and stewardship of the land in her native Kenya.

By training rural women to plant trees, she hoped to give them greater control over their lives. Among other uses, the wood would serve as fuel for cooking fires. For each tree that survived outside the nursery, planters earned a few cents and a measure of economic independence.

At the same time, the women would help halt the deforestation and resulting erosion that was stripping bare entire swaths of Africa. More trees would lead to better soil, which in turn would allow greater crop cultivation and better nutrition.

Few people took her and her collaborators seriously.

“Well, that is typical,” Dr. Maathai told the Los Angeles Times in 1989. “First of all, we are women.”

To date, 40 million trees — figs, cedars, acacias, baobabs and more — have been planted across Africa, according to the Green Belt Movement Web site. Dr. Maathai’s work inspired the United Nations Billion Tree Campaign, which has planted more than 11 billion trees since 2006.

“The work of the Green Belt Movement stands as a testament to the power of grassroots organizing, proof that one person’s simple idea — that a community should come together to plant trees — can make a difference, first in one village, then in one nation, and now across Africa,” President Obama said Monday in a statement.

Known as “Kenya’s green militant,” Dr. Maathai pursued peace in a roundabout way.

“When our resources become scarce, we fight over them,” she told a Norwegian television station near the time of her award. “In managing our resources and in sustainable development, we plant the seeds of peace.”

She was jailed and severely beaten numerous times for her outspoken defense of her causes. Former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi called her a “mad woman” and “a threat to the order and security of the country.” She challenged him, and won, in a high-profile battle over a proposed skyscraper and statue of the autocratic leader in a Nairobi park.

After Moi stepped down, Dr. Maathai served for several years in the Kenyan parliament, including as deputy minister for the environment, before losing her seat.

She survived over the years, she once told The Washington Post, by having “the thick skin of an elephant.”

Wangari Muta Maathai was born in Nyeri, a village in the highlands of Kenya, on April 1, 1940. She often spoke about the brook where she drew water as a girl. Over the years, that stream dried up, forcing women to walk long distances for water.

“Throughout Africa,” Dr. Maathai said in her Nobel lecture, “women are the primary caretakers, holding significant responsibility for tilling the land and feeding their families. As a result, they are often the first to become aware of environmental damage as resources become scarce and incapable of sustaining their families.”

In all her work, Dr. Maathai fought the notion that underprivileged people must rely on outsiders for help. In her 2006 memoir “Unbowed,” she recalled repairing the walls of her mother’s hut with dung.

“It was important to share that experience,” she told National Public Radio, “because it’s very easy for people now to see the Nobel Peace Prize and to see the PhD and to see all the good things that are now with me and forget where I came from.”

When she won the Nobel, Dr. Maathai was reported to be the first woman in east and central Africa to earn a doctorate. She owed her education in part to her brother, who one day asked their parents why she didn’t go to class with the boys. Her parents then enrolled her in school.

She later studied in the United States through a leadership program for young Africans, earning two degrees in biology — a bachelor’s in 1964 from the school now known as Benedictine College, in Atchison, Kan., and a master’s from the University of Pittsburgh in 1965.

Her doctorate, in anatomy, came from the University of Nairobi, where she later chaired the department of veterinary anatomy.

Her marriage to Mwangi Maathai ended in divorce.

“I think my activism may have contributed to my being perceived as a woman who is not too conventional,” she said in a 2004 interview with The Post. “And that puts pressure on the man you live with, because he is then perceived as if he is not controlling you properly.”

Survivors include three children and a granddaughter, according to the Green Belt Movement Web site.

As a student in the United States, Dr. Maathai experienced such wonders as the Mississippi River, the winds that she said blew through Kansas “like violins” and an American autumn.

“Trees losing their leaves!” she told The Post. “They were of course very beautiful and different colors, and this doesn’t happen in Kenya. . . . And then they all fell, every one of them. And the tree literally went to sleep.”

Malawi's and Liberia's leaders champion reproductive health in a way that most U.S. leaders do not.

Malawian President Joyce Banda (AFP/AFP); Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Stan Honda/AFP)

(The Root) -- The woman in the bright-pink traditional African dress spoke firmly: "It is unacceptable that a mother should die while giving birth because the nearest health center is far away." President Joyce Banda of Malawi was speaking at the 67th Session of the United Nations General Assembly last month, before the same audience that listened to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President Michel Joseph Martelly of Haiti and President Barack Obama.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia, also talked about women's issues in her speech to the group of 193 heads of state: "We have made strong strides in gender equality, but much more must be done for girls' education and women's empowerment."

Both Banda and Sirleaf escaped violent marriages and struggled through single motherhood to overcome poverty and eventually make history as the only two female leaders in the modern history of Africa. And both women have placed the issues of reproductive health and family planning at the center of their national agendas.

As a clear indication of where her interests lie, Banda, soon after taking office, sold the presidential jet and the fleet of Mercedes limousines and launched the Presidential Initiative for Maternal Health and Safe Motherhood. In Liberia, where nearly 1 in 1,000 women dies in childbirth (in the United States, it is 1 in 2,400), Sirleaf established the Reach Every Pregnant Woman program to ensure that all pregnant women get the medical attention they need. Both leaders are fighting entrenched cultural and religious ideas about family planning.

In so doing, they have brought these issues into the center of the global development discussion. (Meanwhile, in the U.S., the terms "reproductive rights" and "family planning" are often co-opted and shrunken in scope to mean "the abortion debate."

Much of this shift rests in the international focus on the Millennium Development Goals, eight goals that were officially established at the U.N. in 2000 to concentrate the global community on achieving "significant, measurable improvements in people's lives." The mission of the fifth MDG is to improve maternal health, reducing the world maternal-mortality rate by three quarters between 1990 and 2015, and to achieve universal access to reproductive health, including family planning.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan co-chairs the U.N. Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children, dedicated to increasing access to medicine, medical devices and other supplies to women and children. Like Sirleaf and Banda, Jonathan has affirmed his country's commitment to the issue of reproductive health, even tweeting during the General Assembly gathering in September: "Government has adopted measures to reverse maternal death."

These African leaders see clearly the wide umbrella that is reproductive health, an umbrella that not only covers abortion, contraception and the tragedies of child marriage and maternal and infant mortality but also reaches beyond. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in 2010 at an international population conference, "Reproductive health care is critical to the health of women, and ... women's health is essential to the prosperity and opportunity of all, to the stability of families and communities and [to] the sustainability and development of nations."

In Somalia, for example, which has one of the world's highest fertility rates, the connection between family planning and food security is clear: Somali women -- who, on average, have seven children each -- must travel great distances to find food and water. At some point in the terrible trek, they are often forced to choose which child to abandon for the sake of the others.

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of course these leaders can only do so much. the mentality and attitude of the people need to change to secure a more permanent and lasting rights for women and children.

A Tale of Two Pictures

Nigerian Super Falcons herded in lorry like animals
https://api.ning.com/files/GhXEz99uPHyiMIDkowgAie6kQafg3HKxYIEusi5LBkTFucThnY7HtAiDmajFD7kC/SuperFalconsbackinNigeria11.jpg?width=737&height=493

Nigerian Eagles given a much better reception despite the women's superior achievements over the years.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/557871_559291807423942_1584756046_n.jpg

Oildichotomy^:
^^^^^ Their definition of marriage is been so blinded with the servitude understanding that one begin to wonder whether educating the female folks is one of the greatest mistake of the modern post-60's world.--------Yea I said it
And when did domestic responsibilities assume this annoying dimension of being discriminatory.
Traditional African Values still hold it for me anyday--- the more we imbibe these western orientation wholely and refuse to fuse, sieve and reject the ones that contradict our core values --- Africa will be a continent that ONCE EXISTED with no sense of HERITAGE

why are you typing in English if you esteem "traditional african values" so much?
why do you wear western clothes?
why are you even on a computer? was it invented by an African?
Why aren't you turning back to traditional african occupation of farming and lifestock? why do you prefer a western office job?
NO but in your misogynistic mind, women should be living like in the 1800s. while you are ok with keeping up to date on our personal life with western civilization and technology.
pick and choose whatever benefits you as a man right?

traditional african culture. my azz.
any "traditional african culture" that demeans women is shameful and needs to CHANGE.
there is such thing as CHANGE. culture is always changing.
you, as a nigerian man, aren't arguing against por.nography. I am yet to see one who does that!
hahah what hypocrites!!

[size=14pt]
“African Women Financing the Future”

Speech by
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,[/size] CFR
Coordinating Minister for the Economy & Honourable Minister of Finance
Federal Republic of Nigeria
Keynote Address at the Second African Women’s Economic Summit
Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Date: July 13, 2012.
Protocols

Introductory Remarks

• It is my singular honour to be able to address this august gathering of key players in national, regional and global finance. I wish to thank the organizers of this second edition of the African Women’s Economic Summit (AWES) for providing us with this unique platform to shed more light on a very important topic. Some might argue that there have been enough discussions and platitudes about the topic, or that I myself, have already made several comments on it; but I would argue to the contrary that we have yet to scratch the surface of the topic of women’s empowerment, which for me remains a lifelong commitment.

• I wish to particularly thank and congratulate my older sister, Graça Machel for an outstanding job on the New Faces, New Voices initiative, and for chairing the organization of this successful Summit. Her passion for improving the lot of African women is without parallel. I wish to also thank the African Development Bank and its President, Donald Kaberuka for sponsoring this Summit; the Bank of Industry and its Chief Executive Officer, Evelyn Oputu for their support for the event. We miss Graça Machel but I thank Dr. Nkosana Moyo for ably standing in for her.

• Ladies and Gentlemen, we are on the cusp of a very exciting phase in the life of African women. They are the new face of an Africa on an upward trajectory of growth and development. World Bank/IMF projections show that Africa’s GDP rose by 4.9 percent a year from 2000 to 2008, more than twice its pace in the 1980s and 90s. Africa ranks among the fastest growing economic regions in the world. It is home to domestic companies with revenue of at least $3 billion each and 52 cities with over one million people.

• Investing in women can unleash so much more productive potential in African economies and contribute to the upward growth trajectory. If women are the third largest emerging market after China and India according to the World Development Report 2012, imagine what will happen to Africa’s growth if we invest in girls and women. Investing in women is smart economics; investing in girls is even smarter economics. As Nelson Mandela once put it, “it is important that government structures understand that true freedom and prosperity cannot be achieved unless …we see in visible and practical terms that the condition of women in our country has radically changed for the better, and that they have been empowered in all spheres of life as equal.” But what are the Barriers to Investment and Empowerment?

• It is important to put the fact of gender inequality in context, to better highlight the need for stronger economic empowerment. We know that many African women face social inequalities and the lack of opportunities purely because of their sex. One major barrier is poor access to basic health care. This is a serious issue as it exacerbates an already bad situation. Maternal mortality rates continue to be extremely high with 47 percent of global maternal mortality occurring in Africa. Although progress has been made in Nigeria we continue to have one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world.

• Currently, maternal mortality in our country is estimated to be around 545 per 100,000 (compared to 340 in South Africa and 480 in Botswana). This figure is still nearly double the current global average of 290 per 100,000 live births. This means that in Nigeria 144 women die each day, and one woman every 10 minutes from conditions associated with childbirth. You cannot invest in empowering girls and women when they continue to die during childbirth.

• Poor or lack of access to quality education is another impediment to women and girls empowerment. The correlation between the education of girls and women and such indices as better early childhood and nutritional outcomes, more efficient labour markets and higher economic growth rates has long been established. Indeed, Madiba Mandela also called education “the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Yet, in many African countries the gender gap in educational attainment at all levels remains very high. Primary education of females is at 67 percent. Among females above the age of 15, only 51 percent are able to read and write compared to 67.1 percent of men (OECD, 2007).

• Women’s access to land and credit facilities also tends to be limited when compared to that of men. In the agricultural sector, where women account for 60 - 80 percent of the agricultural labour force and are responsible for 70 - 80 percent of food production land ownership has historically been directed to the male head of the household, to the detriment of the women. In Nigeria 54 million of the 80.2 million women live and work in rural areas where they provide 60 - 79 percent of the rural labour force. But they in most cases, operate smaller plots of land and farm less income yielding crops.

• They are often denied credit to expand their farm holdings or made to seek approval of a husband or a male relation before such credit is granted. Outside the farms the fastest growing source of employment for women in Africa is in the informal sector where women engage in a wide range of activities, particularly trading. Informality and lack of a regulatory framework means that access to credit to expand or grow their businesses remains a challenge. Many resort to traditional forms of savings – pooling their resources to form a savings collective or ‘susu’, where funds are available to members on a rotational basis. But such funds are often inadequate to move their businesses to appreciable levels, aside being subject to the whims and caprices of members of the collective.

• Another barrier is the low level of women’s participation in governance. Women’s participation in politics is of strategic importance, not only for women’s empowerment but because it has broader benefits and impacts. The evidence suggests that budgetary allocation is more effective and efficient, and ultimately produces superior human development outcomes, in countries where women are more broadly represented. A few countries have achieved some important firsts in women’s political advancement, for example, Rwanda, South Africa. We can also point to and rejoice at the ascendancy of the continent’s first women Presidents, Liberia’s Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Malawi’s Mrs. Joyce Banda.

• In Nigeria, we have also made some progress in women’s representation. We ratified the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on 13 June 1985 and adopted other well-known international treaties and conventions on human rights including 1995 Beijing Platform of Action, and the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Maputo Protocol). The essence of these important global and regional declarations was captured in the National Gender Plan (NGP), launched in 2007, which set a target of 35 percent as a benchmark towards gender parity in Nigeria. The issue is how well are we doing in implementing these plans?

• A fifth barrier to women’s and girls’ empowerment is less well-known, one which my esteemed colleague, Nkosana Moyo had alluded to in his opening remarks. This barrier refers to the attitudes we bring to raising our children based on pre-conceived notions of differentiation in the roles of boys and girls. We do not allow our sons into our kitchens - it is “unmanly” - while we unconsciously nudge our daughters into making career choices in the women-dominated fields of teaching, nursing, etc. It has been argued that the way we women raise our sons and daughters affects their sense of self-perception and empowerment later on in life. I’d also like to argue that it is not only mothers who are responsible for entrenching gender stereotypes but fathers too. The extent to which a girl feels empowered also depends on the way her father related to her growing up. Empowering Women is Smart Economics

• Economic empowerment of women is crucial not only to the achievement of gender equality but also for achieving pro-poor economic growth. As Kofi Annan puts it, “When women thrive, all of society benefits, and succeeding generations are given a better start in life.” Looking at development through a gender lens is an essential step in identifying how policy can be shaped in a way that is explicitly gender sensitive, inclusive and beneficial to economic growth.

• I have already referred to the World Bank’s World Development Report which also argues that gender equality can enhance economic efficiency and improve other development outcomes in three ways: first, by removing barriers that prevent women from having the same access as men to education, economic opportunities, and productive inputs can generate broad productivity gains—gains all the more important in a more competitive and globalized world. Second, by improving women’s absolute and relative status feeds many other development outcomes, including those for their children. Third, by leveling the playing field—where women and men have equal chances to become socially and politically active, make decisions, and shape policies. (World Bank, WDR, 2012)

• African women have always been in the forefront of empowering themselves, in their efforts to improve their family welfare and participate in economic activity. As noted earlier, entrepreneurial women are already making a strong contribution to GDP growth throughout the continent. In Uganda 48 percent of all small and medium-sized enterprises are owned by women. In Kenya, the corresponding figure is 49 percent. A recent study by Finmark Trust shows that women account for 58 percent of all business owners in South Africa. Although many of these business owners are small and operate mainly in the informal sector, and can be characterized as “necessity” vs. “opportunity” entrepreneurs, more and more growth-oriented businesses led by women are emerging.

• Second, firms—big and small—have begun to articulate a business case for gender equality. The vagaries of a fast-changing global economy means that the demand for skills has increased, forcing firms to expand their talent pool. Businesses have sought not only to attract and recruit female talent but also to retain it through measures to facilitate work life balance. Firms know that a diversity of opinions can enrich decision making and stimulate ingenuity. And gender equality per se has grown to be a desirable trait that customers and investors look for.

• These and several other case studies are commendable efforts towards greater women’s empowerment but again let me stress that I would like us to use the opportunity of this gathering of well known players in national, regional and global finance to really deliberate and come up with specific action plans to enhance financial empowerment for women. What have we been doing for Women’s Empowerment in Nigeria? We have made some significant strides.

• In the area of women’s health: Although maternal and infant mortality continues to be a major challenge, with maternal mortality ratio of about 545 deaths per 100,000 live births we have taken significant action to stem the unacceptably high levels. The current administration of President Goodluck Jonathan is fully committed to increasing budgetary allocation to the health sector at the federal, states and local government levels. The government has additionally, instituted a robust policy framework through funds accruing from the partial removal of fuel subsidy, known as the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) for Maternal and Child Health. • The SURE-P Maternal and Child Health Programme is designed to strengthen the health system and reduce maternal and neonatal mortality by 45 percent and 20 percent respectively by 2015 in targeted facilities. It also has an in-built “Conditional Cash-Transfer Concept” that will benefit up to about 3 million women. The programme will create demand for health services through the offer of cash incentives for pregnant women, who will be paid up to N5,000 in installments when they register for antenatal care; visit health facilities at least up to four times for antenatal services; deliver their babies in health facilities; or use skilled birth attendants.

• The Ministry of Health has also embarked on a major campaign to save a million lives through the deployment of cost effective interventions that would impact women’s health. These include midwifery and community health worker deployment; scaling up of routine immunization and the introduction of new vaccines; efforts to improve breast feeding and reduce childhood malnutrition as well as scaling up antibiotics for pneumonia. According to Dr. Muhammad Pate, Minister of State for Health, “enhancing child health and survival would boost the quality of the human resources that the country would need for its economic development in the 21st century.”

• We are also working to make gender an issue central to the budgeting process. I am leading an innovative initiative to mainstream gender into our 2013 budget. We are engaging with some key sector ministries to motivate them into developing and integrating gender sensitive programs into their capital budgets, with an eye on increased job creation and higher incomes for women. We sign Memoranda of Understanding with these Ministries to formalize these gender responsive programs and provide budgetary incentives to enable implementation of these women’s programmes. • To address the issues of access to land, assets or finance and the wage gaps between women and men we have launched a Youth competition for 1000 women entrepreneurs under the Youth Enterprise With Innovation in Nigeria (YouWin) project. This programme, a collaboration between the Ministry of Finance, the ICT Ministry and the Ministry of Youth Development aims to encourage aspiring entrepreneurs to develop and execute business ideas that will lead to job creation. It does this through a business plan competition across the six geo-political zones with cash awards to help young people with starting their businesses. • The first phase of this program was recently concluded where 1,200 winners were drawn. However, since only 17 percent of the 1200 awardees in this first phase were female youth, the government has decided to focus phase two of the programme solely on women entrepreneurs as a means of encouraging more of them to come forward.

• The Central Bank of Nigeria under Governor Lamido Sanusi has also rolled out a three-year programme to empower women bankers in the nation’s financial system. The apex Bank’s Bankers Committee for example, has set a time frame of between 2012 and 2014 to ensure that 40 per cent of top management positions in banks are held by women. During the same period, 30 per cent of board positions in banks will also be reserved for women. • In the area of women’s representation in government: the current administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has put women at the heart of its policies and has recorded some significant firsts, the most recent being the recent confirmation of Justice Aloma Mariam Mukthar as Chief Justice of the Federation. The fact that the third arm of government, the judiciary is now being led by a woman is a huge deal for the country. We have also seen clear gains in the area of women’s political voice. While there is still a long way to go to reach the 35 percent benchmark set by the National Gender Policy in the legislature, there are increasing numbers of women in key positions in government and the public service positions.

• Remarkably, women currently form 32 percent of the Cabinet. This is an increase of 8 percent from 1999 and 16 percent from 2004, and compares favourably with a global average of 17 percent. This shift in the number of women in the Federal Cabinet is based on the political will of President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan.

• The government has also set up the Women’s Trust Fund (Women’s Fund), an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to increase the representation of women in Nigerian governance at all levels. The office of the Special Adviser to the President on Millennium Development Goals recently provided a start-up grant for the Nigerian Women’s Trust Fund of N100 million, as a first of its kind strategy aimed at increasing the number of women in politics. Over 140 women meeting the eligibility criteria have accessed the Fund to support their political campaigns. • In closing, I want to end by bringing us all back to concrete steps we need to take to really achieve and sustain the $20 billion economy. Are we doing enough? Doing enough, and more than enough, means going beyond current levels of government or private sector efforts.

• My dream is to see the creation of a specialized Women’s Bank, or a women’s equity fund targeting in particular those mid-level women entrepreneurs in search of funds in the range of $50,000 to $1 million, to grow their enterprises and of course, their employment generation levels. Most interventions in the area of women’s access to finance has been at the microfinance level but the time has come for us to move beyond this to enabling women’s access to much bigger finances at concessional rates.

• I myself had taken steps towards its actualization with the creation of a $50 million equity fund known as Makeda Fund in 2006. The objective of the Fund is to support the development of women-owned and women-managed small and medium scale enterprises in Africa. We believe that supporting such businesses is important: not only because they are currently an underserved segment of the market, but also because they offer promising opportunities for value creation for both investors and women entrepreneurs.

• Finally – we should always remember that any talk of women’s empowerment must necessarily include girls’ empowerment. As we all know, inequalities tend to reproduce across generations. We need to do everything we can to break this cycle of inequality. We need mentors and role models. We need to ensure that young women have the opportunity to shape their own future, and to aspire to be the best they can in any field they choose. • I wish you all fruitful deliberations. Thank You!

All our corrupt politicians, rap.ists, armed robbers criminals, gang members were raised in TWO PARENT households in NIGERIA.
Men need to start being actively and emotionally involved in their childrens lives. whether they are married to their mother or not.

great post by a nairaland member:


"What is ironic is that a lot of married women are even living like single mothers when we have so many irresponsible men who would rather be in a beer palour with prostitutes than at home raising their kids, some would even rather spend money on their mistress than pay their children's school fees. How many Nigerian men actually play an active role in raising their children? So in actually fact most children are raised mainly by their mothers even if they are married. Also for those talking about the kids not growing up well it is a lie, majority of Nigerians were raised by 2 parents yet just take a look at society and you can see how parents failed. Most of the corrupt politicians, thieves, rapists and what not were raised by 2 parents. It is even better for a woman to remove her children from an abusive home rather than stay and let her sons turn into abusers and the girls will end up also marrying abusers since that was what they saw growing up.
The important thing is for a single parent to surround him/ herself with good friends and family who can offer support as well as good role models of both sex."

[size=14pt]Nigerian feminists fight 'indecent dress' bill[/size]

by Jess McCabe // 19 February 2008, 14:32

A Nigerian senator has proposed a bill which could see women and men jailed for six months if found guilty of "indecent dressing", reports AllAfrica.com.

I can't actually find anything online which sets out what would count as "indecent dressing", although one Nobel laureate quoted by the Nigerian Tribune suggests that the law could target Indian women wearing saris.

Feminist and women's organisations in the country are understandably up in arms. The Women Unity Forum and Civil Liberties Organisation put out a joint statement, arguing that the bill "will become a ‘legal’ license and a bulwark for wanton abuses, particularly of women". They explain:

We recall that in the very recent past, some state governments, including Lagos and some sharia states in the North commenced a campaign of clampdown on women going about their business on allegations that they were indecently dressed. This misguided undertaking led to a harvest of unlawful arrest and detention, and sexual molestation of many women by officials of the Nigerian police and other law enforcement agencies. It took vigorous campaigns and outrage by women and other human rights groups before this madness abated.

Not only this, but the senator who put this forward is chairperson of the committee on women and youth. The NGOs suggest that she should really have some other priorities in mind:

We have the CEDAW Bill, the Bill on Violence against Women, and the Bill on Freedom of Information etc. These bills, if supported with the same zeal and vigour that Senator Ekaette has promised to pursue the frivolous indecent dressing bill, have the potential of addressing not just indecent dressing, but will also give teeth to the anti corruption efforts of the federal government and provide greater guarantees for the respect of women’s human rights, roll back poverty and unemployment and discourage desperation by the youth.

There are some things to take issue with in this joint statement (which throws around terms like "moral decadence" rather freely), but the basic argument is clear.

Another set of local NGOs and the Nigerian Feminist Forum, put out a similar statement:

The Nigerian Feminists Forum is of the view that a Bill on indecent dressing with an attendant jail term of six months for a female offender (bearing in mind that there is a high violence record against female prisoners in our current prisons) is a gross violation on the fundamental human rights of citizens and is not the most effective way to curb moral decadence in the society. This is not the most urgent and critical social problem that confront women and young persons in Nigeria today. It is a 'non-issue' taking cognisance of the fact that women and young persons are worst affected by poverty and lack of sustainable development: a major threat to the right to life and a sustainable livelihood.

Image shared by Yodod, under a Creative Commons license

Permalin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc

Iceland 'best country for gender equality'

Iceland remains the country that has the greatest equality between men and women, according to an annual report by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

It is the second year in succession that Iceland has topped the foundation's Global Gender Gap Report.

Nordic nations dominate the top of the list of 134 countries, with Norway in second place and Finland third.

The report measures equity in the areas of politics, education, employment and health.

Sweden is in fourth place, with New Zealand fifth.

"Nordic countries continue to lead the way in eliminating gender inequality," said Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.

"Low gender gaps are directly correlated with high economic competitiveness. Women and girls must be treated equally if a country is to grow and prosper."

Creating gender equity: Lessons from Iceland

-Iceland ranked first place in the 2012 Global Gender Gap report, moving up from number 4 in 2008. Based on factors like economic participation and opportunity (so, looking at things like wage equality and the number of women in the labour force and in positions of power), educational attainment (based on factors such as female literacy and the number of women enrolled in higher education), health and survival (which looks at life expectancy and mortality rates), and political empowerment (which takes into account the number of women holding political office as well as the number of female heads of state); this report ranks countries throughout the world.
The US, on the other hand, ranked 22nd, having moved down a few notches from 17th place in 2011.

- Iceland developed a legislation that ensured companies' boards were composed of 40 percent women and incorporated what they called "feminine values" into the "mainly male spheres of private equity, wealth management and corporate advice".

- Having nearly reached gender parity in government, women hold 41 percent of seats in government, in comparison with the 17 percent of women in parliament in the US. The country offers generous maternity and paternity leave as well as and childcare provision from the state.

-The sexually liberal country not only criminalised the purchase of sex in 2009, but, the following year, Iceland banned strip clubs - a move mocked and deemed impossibly idealistic by many North Americans. When this legislation came into place, many Americans worried it constituted an attempt to restrict women's "choice" to objectify themselves (a rather ridiculously post-feminist notion).
Others fell back on the oft-repeated concern that strip clubs would be forced to go "underground" where they would continue to thrive illegally. The same concern is being repeated now, as the country considers a ban on hardcore Indecency online, though there is no evidence to justify these fears.

- When I talked to author and feminist activist, Professor Gail Dines, about this proposal, she emphasised that this was not about restricting intimate content, Unclothedness, or loveware. Iceland's Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson, who is currently drafting the legislation, is looking specifically at restricting Indecency that is hardcore, violent and cruel.
Dines, who has been advising Jonasson on this proposal as it develops, says this means looking at the acts that are being done to the women - things like "choking women with a joystick, which is standard throughout hardcore Indecency… Very, very rough, pounding BehindBased, oral and womanly sex, where there's often three men and one woman; where they're spitting on her and calling her 'Well', 'LovePeddler', 'cum dumpster', 'Naughty Lady' - all those kinds of images".
Dines says you don't need a "complicated, scholarly, academic definition. Just look at the stuff and say: 'These acts constitute violence against women'".

Creating gender equity: Lessons from Iceland

-Iceland ranked first place in the 2012 Global Gender Gap report, moving up from number 4 in 2008. Based on factors like economic participation and opportunity (so, looking at things like wage equality and the number of women in the labour force and in positions of power), educational attainment (based on factors such as female literacy and the number of women enrolled in higher education), health and survival (which looks at life expectancy and mortality rates), and political empowerment (which takes into account the number of women holding political office as well as the number of female heads of state); this report ranks countries throughout the world.
The US, on the other hand, ranked 22nd, having moved down a few notches from 17th place in 2011.

- Iceland developed a legislation that ensured companies' boards were composed of 40 percent women and incorporated what they called "feminine values" into the "mainly male spheres of private equity, wealth management and corporate advice".

- Having nearly reached gender parity in government, women hold 41 percent of seats in government, in comparison with the 17 percent of women in parliament in the US. The country offers generous maternity and paternity leave as well as and childcare provision from the state.

-The sexually liberal country not only criminalised the purchase of sex in 2009, but, the following year, Iceland banned strip clubs - a move mocked and deemed impossibly idealistic by many North Americans. When this legislation came into place, many Americans worried it constituted an attempt to restrict women's "choice" to objectify themselves (a rather ridiculously post-feminist notion).
Others fell back on the oft-repeated concern that strip clubs would be forced to go "underground" where they would continue to thrive illegally. The same concern is being repeated now, as the country considers a ban on hardcore pornography online, though there is no evidence to justify these fears.

- When I talked to author and feminist activist, Professor Gail Dines, about this proposal, she emphasised that this was not about restricting sexual content, nudity, or erotica. Iceland's Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson, who is currently drafting the legislation, is looking specifically at restricting pornography that is hardcore, violent and cruel.
Dines, who has been advising Jonasson on this proposal as it develops, says this means looking at the acts that are being done to the women - things like "choking women with a penis, which is standard throughout hardcore pornography… Very, very rough, pounding anal, oral and vaginal sex, where there's often three men and one woman; where they're spitting on her and calling her 'cunt', 'LovePeddler', 'cum dumpster', 'bitch' - all those kinds of images".
Dines says you don't need a "complicated, scholarly, academic definition. Just look at the stuff and say: 'These acts constitute violence against women'".

Stanton addressed various issues pertaining to women beyond voting rights. Her concerns included women's parental and custody rights, property rights, employment and income rights, divorce, the economic health of the family, and birth control.[2] She was also an outspoken supporter of the 19th-century temperance movement.

--
this lady fought to ban men from drinking alcohol because caused them to be abusive toward their wives and chidren!
imagine. if this isn't radical. i'm not sure what is.
i'm feminist and don't agree that men should be banned from drinking alcohol.
that's the joy of feminism. it is an idelogy and many beliefs and opinions can be found within it!
it is the ultimate goal that is key to the definition of feminism: empowerment and protection of rights of women

Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.

wollstonecraft is known as a preeminent feminist philosopher. does philosophy seem to you to be a well-defined field? NO.

Woolf's best-known nonfiction works, A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), examine the difficulties that female writers and intellectuals face because men hold disproportionate legal and economic power and the future of women in education and society. In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir counts, of all women who ever lived, only three female writers—Emily Brontë, Woolf and "sometimes" Katherine Mansfield—have explored "the given".[34]

I.Joan:
You keep giving me labels because I don't see things your way!
There is a huge difference because your fight is undefined... theirs was well-defined!

it was clearly not. read their profiles that I have just posted for you to see!!
(for those who don't read) of course we remember them only for the laws that they got to pass which is why it seems like they had "defined" goals. but when you READ their books which state their ideas, you will see that feminism is an ideology and belief system.not just a single rights issue.
you already said you don't read so why argue with you.

virginia wolf for example believe that all women should have financial means and a room to be able to think and write. this is a personal belief of hers and it pertained to her experience of seeing the shortage of women in the intellectual world. not very much different from todays feminists calling attention to the shortage of women in stem fields.

another feminist of old:

Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President.[1] She also co-founded the women's rights journal, The Revolution. She traveled the United States and Europe, and averaged 75 to 100 speeches per year.[2] She was one of the important advocates in leading the way for women's rights to be acknowledged and instituted in the American government.[3] Her birthday on February 15, is commemorated as Susan B. Anthony Day in the U.S. states of Florida and Wisconsin.

Though she never married, Susan B Anthony published her views about marriage, holding that a woman should be allowed to refuse sex with her husband; the American woman had no legal recourse at that time against rape by her husband.

In 1860, New York passed a revised Married Women's Property Act which gave women shared ownership of their children, allowing them to have a say in their children's wills, wages, and granting them the right to inherit property.[10] Further advances and setbacks were experienced in New York and other states, but with each new win the feminists were able to use it as an example to apply more leverage on unyielding legislative bodies. The end of the first wave is often linked with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1920), granting women the right to vote. This was the major victory of the movement, which also included reforms in higher education, in the workplace and professions, and in health care.

Women's rights activists advocated a range of issues, including equality in marriage, such as women's property rights and rights to their earnings. At that time it was very difficult to obtain divorce, and fathers were always granted custody of children. Stanton sought to make divorce easier to obtain and to safeguard women's access to and control of their children. Though some early feminists disagreed, and viewed Stanton's proposal as scandalous, Mott stated "her great faith in Elizabeth Stanton's quick instinct & clear insight in all appertaining to women's rights."[10]

imagine these are the same issues "feminists of old" fought for. feminists of old? hahah
ignorance is bliss. you cannot separate feminism because it is a SINGLE ideology. focus might be different but it's all the same and about empowering women!

just like me making a distinction between christians of old vs christians of today. you are a modern christian aren't you joan? are you any less christian than a christain from 100 yrs ago?

I.Joan:
Goodnight!

bye!!

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early women's rights movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the first women's rights convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, is often credited with initiating the first organized women's rights and women's suffrage movements in the United States.[1]

Before Stanton narrowed her political focus almost exclusively to women's rights, she was an active abolitionist together with her husband, Henry Brewster Stanton and cousin, Gerrit Smith. Unlike many of those involved in the women's rights movement, Stanton addressed various issues pertaining to women beyond voting rights. Her concerns included women's parental and custody rights, property rights, employment and income rights, divorce, the economic health of the family, and birth control.[2] She was also an outspoken supporter of the 19th-century temperance movement.

After the American Civil War, Stanton's commitment to female suffrage caused a schism in the women's rights movement when she, together with Susan B. Anthony, declined to support passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. She opposed giving added legal protection and voting rights to African American men while women, black and white, were denied those same rights. Her position on this issue, together with her thoughts on organized Christianity and women's issues beyond voting rights, led to the formation of two separate women's rights organizations that were finally rejoined, with Stanton as president of the joint organization, approximately twenty years after her break from the original women's suffrage movement. Stanton died in 1902 having authored both The Woman's Bible and her autobiography, along with many articles and pamphlets concerning female suffrage and women's rights.

Women's rights activists advocated a range of issues, including equality in marriage, such as women's property rights and rights to their earnings. At that time it was very difficult to obtain divorce, and fathers were always granted custody of children. Stanton sought to make divorce easier to obtain and to safeguard women's access to and control of their children. Though some early feminists disagreed, and viewed Stanton's proposal as scandalous, Mott stated "her great faith in Elizabeth Stanton's quick instinct & clear insight in all appertaining to women's rights."[10]

do you still support "feminists of old"
I will post more about them so you can see!! trust me,they are no different from today. afterall, todays feminists gained their inspiration from them.

your own brand is anti-feminist. and it comes from misogynists. there is a difference

I.Joan:
I do not support abortion except if it is to save the woman's life!
There are morning-after pills for Christ's sake!!!

females just won the right to gain free access to morning after pill this past month!!
they had to fight for it.

people like you are what cause this hatred against women to go on.
women are still fighting to gain rights to abortion even when if it is to save their lives!!