Do women stereotypes have a good impact on Women Empowerment?

Blablalel

There is no coincidence if the recent bestseller pointing the worldwide yet hardly visible issue of women around the world, borrows the Chinese express that women hold up half the sky. In such a context where the global position of women makes them 21st-century slaves, the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, contributes in emphasizing that the freedom and independence of the world’ s women is the contemporary most crucial moral challenge. It is true that women around the world tend to hold positions of lower status and authority and are less likely to be employed in the paid work force (Eagly, 735). Women have historically been constrained by deep-rooted stereotypes that fuel a traditional perception of their place in society. Indeed, gender expectations regarding women’s roles participate in maintaining a majority of them in a subordinate position within the society and within the family - as housekeepers. Generally characterized as intellectually, but more particularly physically weaker than men, women’s agency is diminished by gender prejudices and women have to continuously, and in a larger extent than for their male counterparts, impose themselves to belong to society as full citizens. However, all these conventional images on women’s status are not vain and shore up women’s willpower to fight and be part of politics, culture and history as equal to men.
Ironically thus, women stereotypes do have a good impact on women empowerment. Indeed, stereotypes reinforce women’s will to destroy biased ideas sustained by men. Therefore, this paper will first outline an extreme form of gender discrimination with the example of Saudi Arabia where patriarchal gender expectations ultimately infringe on women’s public and privates lives as well as on women’s rights. However, in order to point out women’s response, the second part will shed the light on women’s rights movement that spread in Europe throughout the Enlightenment in order to show how women get involve in society throughout history. The essay will finally show how the impact of women’s fight for equality, turns to women’s accreditation.

Women stereotypes flow from politics to laws. All around the world, countries do not entirely engage with gender equality and often, if acknowledged, women’s concerns are perceived as secondary political matters. The example of Saudi Arabia is a relevant case to illustrate how traditional ideas of women’s role ensue from political authority. According to Human Rights Watch report (2008) women in the Kingdom are systematically treated as perpetual minors through a system instituted by the state that infringes on their basic human rights. Actually, each woman needs an authorization from her legal guardian to study, work, travel, access to medical treatment or marry. In others words, women’s freedom and autonomy are non-existent. Saudi Arabian politics which has sustained obsolete ideas of women from forty years back in history needs to reform its guardianship system and entitle women full citizenship status. However, this phenomenon is unlikely to be challenged overnight; especially as gender biased visions of women also need to be first challenged in other domains such as culture and religion.

Deeply attached to traditions and religion, some countries such as Kenya, deny all the women’s rights because of cultural values. According to Susan Okin, “Cultural practices” are claimed when issues of power, marriage, reproduction, sexuality, inheritance and issues over children are concerned (Okin, 38) – that is to say a major part of women’s life. For instance, in many Arab states, citizenship rights derive from religious principles which participate in reinforcing patriarchal political culture. As recently posted by BBC news, Kenya parliamentary had enforced polygamy marriages into laws which resulted in global chocked reactions especially from Western culture. Otherwise, it is important to observe the vision of Western society by Muslim society, because Muslim culture sees Western human rights as alien (Mayer, 1). For example, the Parliamentary majority leader, Aden Duale, a Muslim MP said “I want my Christian brothers to read the Old Testament, King David and King Solomon never consulted anybody to marry a second wife”. The MP’s reaction illustrates how one’s specific belonging to a certain culture plays a determinant impact on his/her vision of universal principles such as equality and non-discrimination. In such a context, it is worth remembering that religion in itself is not the source of women’s rights scorning, but rather the patriarchal interpretation on the sacred texts.

During the eighteenth century, women empowerment got stronger, following the reformist principles of the Enlightenment period. It was an intellectual and cultural movement which aimed to reform social inequalities and gender issues through knowledge and education. According to Saylor Foundation, 400 years ago, two main stereotypes characterized women: on the one hand, the overly sexualized woman, free from conventions but also from virtue, and, on the other hand the chaste, virtuous mother, daughter or wife (Saylor, 4). As women were completely constrained into the domestic sphere, when the Enlightenment movement exploded in Europe, it had much effect on their lives. Over this period, women from middle and upper class were offering an education by philosophers who worried about society development by getting involved into society. Women become members of what is called in French “salon”, a place where elite philosophers came to discuss about the latest trends and intellectual issues such as literature, politics, art and philosophy. These intellectual meetings usually took place into private houses which gave women the opportunity to be heard or at least, be part of a brainy circle. Thus, these few women were the voices used to refute anchored stereotypes considering women either as passive and docile creatures, or as impure and lacking honor and thus sexually subordinated. Helped by writers and intellectuals, women slowly but progressively improve their rights. In others words, women went from surviving to empowering.

Two European women, Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft, were the main voices of women empowerment during the eighteenth century. As seen on previous paragraph, Enlightenments were the beginning of an intellectual atmosphere favorable for development patterns in European societies. Indeed, The Declaration of the Rights of Men and of the Citizen (1789) - which aimed to enforce equals rights between men and women – had excluded women from many rights. The interpretation of the world “men” is advanced whereas women’s one isn’t mentioned. In such a context, Olympe de Gouges, a French feminist writer, politician and activist attempted to challenge this discrimination and claimed for women’s rights in The Declaration of the Rights of Women and Female Citizen (1791) whose first article states that a “Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions can be based only on the common utility.” According to Jane Abray, De Gouges asked for equality of opportunity in public employment and the end to male tyranny as a whole (Abray, 240). The following year, Mary Wollstonecraft, an English writer and philosopher, published A Vindication of the Rights of Women and wrote “ Would men but generously snap our chains […] instead of slavish obedience, they would find us more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers – in a word, better citizens.” Wollstonecraft just started one of the history’s biggest feminist movements, using usual women stereotypes into assets.

International treaties and conventions are of paramount importance for any activist groups fighting for their rights. Indeed, they establish a legal framework composed of globally accepted norms whose universality cannot be questioned anymore. Both the implementation of the Convention to Eliminate all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as a binding treaty in 1981, and the 1993 world conference participated in a worldwide democratization effort of defining women’s human rights as human rights. This international legal framework is a major tool to discredit the cultural relativism argument that countries should be granted a form of “legitimate cultural deviance”. In addition, as Jutting and Morrisson remind us, all 191 member states of the UN unanimously had adopted the principles of gender equality and empowerment of women when ratifying the UN Development Declaration. Affirming women’s human rights as universal and inalienable appears to be an efficient instrument to fight discriminatory practices protected by discriminatory customary laws by creating a global discourse on women’s dignity.
Throughout the centuries, women’s concerns have progressively become visible thanks to the progress of media and technology. In its articles 29 and 32, the SADC Protocol adopted in 2008 by Namibia engaged in improving gender awareness in domains such as information, communication and media policies, as well as in challenging gender stereotypes in the media (UNESCO). This media’s implementation aims in favor of women’s empowerment by reducing discriminatory gender differentiation. On the other hand, media is double-edged and also work against women by fuelling extreme form of gender expectations, especially concerning body appearance. Indeed, media usually “focus on body instead of brain”; this quote comes from Miss Representation, a recent documentary which denounces the over sexualized and trivialized position of American women as delivered by media. Thus this documentary points out that dictate on woman’s image is unlikely to be reversed as long as media company are not willing to reform their communication strategies (Jenifer Siebel Newson, “Miss Representation”).

Gender stereotypes are still a major worldwide issue and a heavy burden on the enforcement of women’s rights, as illustrated by the Saudi case. However, women have historically shown that they are more than passive recipient of patriarchal culture. The Enlightenments period has been the stage for the birth of feminist movement that rose from a general discontentment with gender injustice through the leadership of awaken women like De Gouges and Wollstonecraft. Every day since, feminist concerns have progressively gained impetus. Thus, although gender stereotypes entail a strong disabling factor for women, it is important to also consider the positive impact that they have on them by gathering them in their path to finally hold up half the sky.

Works cited: * Abray, Jane. "Feminist in the French Revolution." Rev. of The American Historical Review. Feb. 1975: 240-41. JSTOR. Oxford University Press. Web. 31 Mar. 2014

* "Female Kenyan MPs Blast Polygamy Law." BBC News. BBC News, 21 Mar. 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2014.

* Eagly, Alice H.; Steffen, Valerie J.” Gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46.4 (Apr 1984): 735-754. Print

* Grant, Kate. "Women Hold Up Half The Sky." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 14 Feb. 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2014.

* . Human Rights Watch. Perpetual Minors, Human rights abuses stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation In Saudi Arabia. N.p.: Human Right Watch, n.d. Google Books. 2008. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.

* Human Rights Watch. "World Report 2013.": Saudi Arabia. N.p., 2013. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.

* Manea, Elham. Women in Saudi Arabia, caught in a system gender apartheid. "Qantara.de - Dialog Mit Der Islamischen Welt." . Quantara.de, 24 Dec. 2013. Web. 31 Mar. 2014

* Mayer, Ann Elizabeth. 1994. Universal versus Islamic human rights: A clash of cultures or a clash with a construct? Michigan Journal of International Law 15(2): 307–404.

* Moller Okin, Susan. « Feminism, Women’s Human Rights and Cultural Differences. » Journal of feminist philosophy.13.2 (May 1998): 32-52. Print.

* Shaheed, Farida. "Controlled or Autonomous: Identity and the Experience of the Network, Women Living under Muslim Laws." Journal of Women in Culture and Society 19.4 (1994): 1004. Print.

* Miss Representation. Dir. Jenifer Siebel Newson. 2011. Film

* Unesco Report “Research into Community Media Centres and Community Radio in Namibia.” October to December 2009, 10.

* "Women from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment." Saylor Academy. Saylor Academy, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.

* Wollstonecraft, Mary, and Janet M. Todd. “A Vindication of the Rights of Men “; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.