Saving the World's Women

New York Times does not usually disappoint me. But this article is just ridiculous in how it spoke about empowering women in such a condescending, disjointed, unsupported way. Why is the series titled "Saving the World's Women" when you propose to say in women lie the solution to saving the world? And what are you trying to advocate Kristof? Microfinance, iodine, Heifer International? A magazine article is where you pick one theme and elaborate on it. Instead, you just put a bunch of news articles together. Lastly, where is your support for how these programs help women, data that is in addition to the emotional appeal of the 2 anecdotes?

These are the worst.

But it’s sometimes said in poor countries that the only thing worse than being exploited in a sweatshop is not being exploited in a sweatshop... Strange as it may seem, sweatshops in Asia had the effect of empowering women. One hundred years ago, many women in China were still having their feet bound. Today, while discrimination and inequality and harassment persist, the culture has been transformed. In the major cities, we’ve found that Chinese men often do more domestic chores than American men typically do. And urban parents are often not only happy with an only daughter; they may even prefer one, under the belief that daughters are better than sons at looking after aging parents.

WTF?! No, being exploited in a sweatshop where many women are sexually harrassed, unpaid, put in unliveable living conditions, etc. is like being exploited at home, in the sex or drug industry. It's EXPLOITATION!

Yes, a lot of things have changed in the last 100 years in China, and you hold sweatshop exploitation as the source of women's empowerment?!

The major city husbands and urban parents are not the ones with daughters in sweatshops.

How did you think it was a good idea to put 5 separate ideas into one paragraph?

Likewise, there’s growing evidence that a cheap way to help keep high-school girls in school is to help them manage menstruation. For fear of embarrassing leaks and stains, girls sometimes stay home during their periods, and the absenteeism puts them behind and eventually leads them to drop out. Aid workers are experimenting with giving African teenage girls sanitary pads, along with access to a toilet where they can change them.

No, the most recent research, including those my PhD friend is currently studying show no correlation between giving girls sanitary pads and increased attendance in Kenya or Nepal. The campaigns are more about Tampax and other companies expanding their businesses through getting into these deals.

For all the legitimate concerns about how well humanitarian aid is spent, investments in education, iodizing salt and maternal health all have a proven record of success.

What do you mean by "a proven record of success"? What are the strings attached to this aid? How are their negative impacts: strings attached (no large donor ever just want to "help people"), US corporations expanding their markets at the expense of distorting and eliminating local ones, 'proven record of' paternalistic / condescending / self-interest driven foreign policy effective?

Yes, women need to be empowered and talked about. But when you take an issue rampant with power imbalance, economic distortions, conflicting interests, geographical and historical legacies, etc. and address only the superficial issues, you are misleading readers Kristof. You make them think it is a naive, simple problem. If they are persuaded (I don't see how any thinking person would be), they may undertake actions that not only do not help, but exacerbate the problem. The end result is likely a worsened problem, and those who could have been reformers turned disilusioned and ineffective.

I suggest you rewrite this 8 page article focusing on one silver-bullet Kristof. Take your pick on how to realistically realize iodinized salt, obstetric fistula. Microfinance, sanitary pads, sweatshops, Heifer are out. What do you want us to get out of it? If you want us to write our congresspeople or pick up the Do-It-Yourself Foreign Aid kit that you advocate, say so. If you just want us to know about the issue, say that and don't present it in this naive, misleading way.

Special Issue - Saving the World's Women: The Women's Crusade

Descriptive vs Prescriptive Life

I read an article by a teacher explaining the lack of support and subsequent burnout that led her to quit her job in an inner-city school after 4 years.

I wanted to give her a hug. Yes, our education system is very broken, making victims rather than reformers of individuals.

She reminds me so much of me and my high-achieving friends who abandon the stress of the achievement-driven life for the guilt of the moral-driven life. The former is: "I want to be a lawyer, doctor, banker because that is what smart people do. It brings stability and prestige." But as we grow in our awareness of worldly inequalities, we are subsumed by guilt of our privilege and disdain in joining the system. So now we think: "I want to be a teacher, social worker, nurse: the positions that are so important and undervalued in society because I want to be the source of real, on-the-ground change. I give up myself to serve. I'm a martyr." These expectations coupled with a broken system, I can't see another result but burnout.

I wonder if there are classes on self-awareness. High-achievers are so into classes. If we were to be more descriptive rather than prescriptive of our desires and lives (hedonism still disallowed), we would be better suited to find and do the things we enjoy doing; whether our work brings contribution and recognition would not be THE factor that make or break us.

That acknowledgment of desires without immediately passing judgment will lead to more sustainable moral actions that are in accord with who we are. Inequality in education is America's greatest civil rights issue does not mean talented people have to work in education if they do not enjoy it. Factory farming is cruelty against sentient beings on levels never before seen, but people do not have to only buy free-range. There are countless ways to be moral. Choose the way that is aligned with one's character.

By Sarah Fine -- Why I Left Teaching Behind - washingtonpost.com

The Nowhere (wo)man

Before Jane points out (rightly so) the bad attitude of the last post and how feeling at home is a choice rather than a pie that drops from the sky, I'm going to re-adjust that attitude myself after having vented.

I had a chance to catch up with my development/activist friends who have returned from similar year-stays/soul-searchings in Latin America, Asia, Africa. The consensus is that it'd take them a lifetime to assimilate into another culture: precondition for enacting change, and there is so much to done in the States. Hence they are going back to their most familiar, childhood communities to make change there. I agree. But I have no such moral sphere of influence. My childhood was spent in a half dozen communities: communist in Beijing, capitalist in Hong Kong, Muslim in Singapore, intellectual in Pennsylvania, WASP in Ohio... I felt no more tied to one than I did another. I have to now seek/make my own community not because that is the most effective way towards change, but because I now want to.

Pico Iyer described himself as "The Nowhere Man": an Indian who lived in America and attended boarding school in England. He savors being an Indian in Cuba, an American in Thailand, an Englishman in New York. I too feel a stronger bond to humanity than I do my countrymen, ethnic group, class because those distinctions aren't so clear for me. I am as pained by Cambodia's suffering as I am by those of middle America.

This may sound like the answer to world peace. But being in the minority, it too makes us disconnected from most of humanity. We become "Seasoned experts at dispassion, we are less good at involvement. We are masters of the aerial perspective, but touching down becomes more difficult. Unable to get stirred by the raising of a flag, we are sometimes unable to see how anyone could be stirred... Being part of no society means one is accountable to no one. If single nation people can be fanatical as terrorists, we can end up ineffectual as peace keepers."
(http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=4639)

That was the Pico in 1997. I heard recently he has found a home in Kyoto. This from a man who 12 years ago considered English to be his only home. (http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/the-joy-of-less/?scp=2&sq=pico%20iyer&st=cse)

The me from one year ago is also different. I too want a physical community now, but it'll be a more difficult, limitless, stressful, and exciting search than most.

Not at Home

Grove City, Ohio: the town I spent the most continuous amount of time. I disdain it.

I went to 5 elementary schools in 3 countries and 3 languages, 4 middle schools in 2 states, 1 high school in Ohio, 1 university that was much more an intellectual than a physical home. Then there was the year in Latin America, New York, Asia...

The one Christian, suburbia HS may have been the most jarring experience.

In daily Bible classes where we categorized entire books and learned how to save people from damnation, students ask:

"Mrs. Jones, Bill asked me how I know God exists. It's not like we can see God."

"Good question Sam. Pay attention class. This is a question that nonbelievers will ask you.

(How is it that we are just now talking about this Q in 9th grade?!)
You ask Bill whether he can see the wind. No, but he feels its power. It's the same as God. You feel His effects."

(Why didn't we think of this before! Let's put up a God mill so we can measure His effects!)

"Today we are going to learn how to explain that the Father, Son, Holy Spirit are One. It's best to use examples when trying to explain complicated concepts (Ok, with you so far Mrs. J). You can compare it to an egg; the shell, white, yolk are separate entities, but together they make One egg. The Trinity exists as One. "

(Hmmm...What about egg white omelets?)

"We have to spend millions to build a bigger church with an McPlace playground, food court, salon, bookstore, latest surround sound system because we are attracting people to Jesus. For people to give Christianity a chance, they need to know Christians have fun!"

(Yeah, I say fuck the Poor too.)

I went through HS thinking I was the one who was crazy. Partly because I couldn't voice these thoughts as my family had to sign a contract that we would not interfere with the school's religious teachings. But I did learn a lot of religious things, such as the difference between Christians and Catholics. My Catholic MS and Christian HS education taught me that Catholic kids compete on how anti-establishment they are:
How many girls did you lay?
How much did you sniff?
Very Mean Girls style: How manipulative can you be to the new kid?

And Christian kids compete on how pro-establishment they are:
"I went to a church event everyday this week. Did you?"
"My parents and I have been at church everyday for the past month rehearsing for the Easter play."
"I'm a pastor's kid. We live at the church!"
"Charlene, did you make it to church last week?"
4 years at a Christian school and I never once went to a service. Being judged Monday through Friday, I needed a break on Sundays.

I support Christianity now actually. It means well: to prevent conflict. But it's as Gandhi said: "I might have become a Christian if it were not for the Christians."

Back in suburbia (where they sent their kids to war and elected Bush two terms), I realized I promised myself all those years ago that this will never be my home regardless (or because of) how well I know it. I will fly transatlantic, learn a new language, adopt a new culture before I settle on the familiar in Grove City, Ohio.