Image: Sujatha Balakrishnan outside the historic Apollo Theatre in New York
Last week, we shared a blog from UN Rep Angelina Akhvlediani
about attending the Beijing+20 launch event in New York. Also attending the event on 26 June was Sujatha Balakrishnan, Immediate-Past-President of SI Bangalore (India), who was on a visit to New York. In today’s SoroptiVoice blog, she reflects on the event.
We have heard of a manufacturing and expiry
date for a product. Even the life that we live has an entry
(manufacturing) and departure (expiry) date. But when the UN Under Secretary General, Dr.Phumzile Mlambo
Ngcuka announced 2030 as the expiry date
for the end of gender equality, I was pleasantly jolted. I realised that we as
a community need to wake up and start working towards the Bejing 20 campaign which is a collective movement
of 189 governments that unanimously adopted a commitment – The Bejing Declaration and Platform for Action – in
the year 1995. It is a blueprint for
gender equality and the empowerment of women globally. The event was held at
the historic Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York, which rose to fame in the
1920s and 30s for providing a platform for African American artistic
expression, something that was much needed during those racially charged years
in U.S history.
The Beijing 20 Campaign event, which was
tackling an inequality of another kind – gender inequality – had an amazing array
of speakers who had gathered to share and discuss the ways in which the
commitment to gender equality could be realized. No country has fulfilled this
vision and we are close to the 20th year review which will take
place in the UN in 2015.
Two of the gender equality issues which are
very close to my heart were addressed at the event: i) Education, one of the
3Es on which all our projects are based, ii) the freedom women have in making
life decisions without being influenced by societal norms.
Diana, aged sixteen and one of the youngest
leaders of the New York Leadership Council, spoke with confidence and courage .
She said that education of girls should not be a privilege, but a right. I
would extend Diana’s views by saying that not only should girls receive equal access
to educational opportunities, but we should also ensure that gender norms are
not reproduced in schools and even at home. For instance, when children cry,
they are sometimes reprimanded with the seemingly innocuous remark “don’t whine
like a girl,” implying both that men should not demonstrate their emotions (if
they do, they are emasculated) and that women are naturally prone to “whining.”
Small everyday practices like these add
up to reinforce gender stereotypes on appropriate behaviour for men and women.
Joya Dass, TV anchor at NY1, producer and
documentary filmmaker shared with us the challenges she faced in entering a
non-mainstream profession such as the media and her perseverance in following
her passion despite societal pressures to do otherwise. Equally inspiring was
the message ((displayed on the screen) from Sanja Juričić-Franić,who overcame all odds to become one of the most successful enologists
(winemaking expert) in Herzegovina.
Her words should be a clarion call for all women who
are faced with restricted life choices: “As a
woman, gender equality means having the freedom to make my own choices when it
comes to life decisions, without being affected by social prejudices.”
In the words of the UN Under Secretary
General, the clock is ticking and we have a lot to achieve by 2030. As
Soroptimists, we have our work cut out for us for the next sixteen years and I
am sure we’ll do our bit in making our world a more gender fair one.
Angelina’s blog from the New York event
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