“Girls are beautiful and boys are smart.” This is my four-year-old daughter’s latest pronouncement. She also currently believes that doctors are boys and nurses are girls. But then she also thinks there is a tooth fairy, that flowers can talk and that I really will cook spider soup for her dinner if she’s naughty. Even so, none of this changes the fact that despite being brought up in a family where she is given every opportunity, and sees choices and opportunities given to both genders, she has been infected with the stubborn social idea that girls are about looks and nurturing, and boys are about skills and making things happen.
Thank goodness then that the theme for tomorrow’s International Women’s Day is “make it happen”.
Tradition and authority can make it feel impossible for women to change the status quo, especially when our assumptions of what is suitable behaviour for men and women run so deep. If our daughters are told the options open to them, and their education, choices and life decisions are shaped accordingly, then no matter how much we talk about change it will never come.
Women continue to suffer poor opportunities – and therefore life outcomes. They are twice as likely to be illiterate as men. Globally, nearly 500 million adult women are illiterate compared to just over 250 million men. Maternal mortality, physical and sexual violence against women, economic poverty, greater share of housework, denial of autonomy … the list of discriminatory and negative events facing women is vast.
We need to stand firm against such discrimination. Women must be at the forefront of that change. All women must take a critical look at their own attitudes and actions to see how, both in our deepest hearts as well as our most obvious actions, we may be entrenching negative attitudes towards women. As mothers-in-law, perhaps we expect our daughters-in-law to act as maids to our sons, while our sons abuse them. We may be discouraging our daughters from careers that are said to be “unsuitable for women” even though they show huge aptitude. We may sing the praises of a young girl who is “fair” and talk disparagingly of a darker-skinned child. We may dismiss the efforts of women in the public sphere as unbecoming, manlike or brazen. We may condone child marriage. We may sneer at women who leave abusive marriages. I’ve seen such attitudes in all cultures, all classes and in developing and developed nations alike.
All too often, women police the status quo, even though the victims are women too. Sometimes, this is understandable. Women who have suffered at the hands of other women, may believe that those they make suffer should suck it up. But they also believe that they can do nothing to change the situation. But women must believe to their very core that things can be different and a more equitable future is possible.
Men are partners in creating this change. But as women living the experience, we must be the front line for change against socially entrenched ideas.
Action comes from the intractable belief that women deserve better. We deserve better. We must make it happen.
Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of Love in a Headscarf and blogs at www. spirit21.co.uk
