English Linguistics 1 A.A. 2019 – 2020

Esercitazioni (James)

Gender Equality Discourse

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Contents page

1 Guidelines on essay assessment, writing and style 3 2 Feminism: Overview 8 3 The Struggle for Identity. A Doll’s House: Henrik Ibsen. Woman Work: Maya Angelou 9 4 United Nations Population Fund. Frequently asked questions about gender equality 12 5 Gender Equality is a Myth! Essay by Beyoncé Knowles-Carter 15 6 The Gender Wage Gap: A Civil Rights Issue for Our Time, essay by Maya L. Harris 16 7 Equal Rights for Women, speech by Shirley Chisholm (1969) 19 8 Marriage, Motherhood and Men, essay by Anna O’Leary 21 9 Gender Equality is Your Issue Too, 2014 UN address by Emma Watson 25 10 TED Talk ‘Why we have too few women leaders’, by Sheryl Sandberg 28 11 Ursula Le Guin. Background information and comment on Address 33 12 A Left-Handed Commencement Address. Speech (1983) by Ursula Le Guin 35 13 Gloria Steinem. Women’s Conference article on Gloria Steinem. 37 14 Gloria Steinem’s Commencement Speech to Vassar 38 15 Let Girls Learn. Information booklet 44 16 Let Girls Learn speech by Michelle Obama 49 17 TED Talk ‘For these women, reading is a daring act’, by Laura Boushnak 53 18 Malala Yousafzai, informational articles 55 19 Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Lecture 2014 58 20 Are Women Devalued By Religions, essay by Sister Joan Chittister 63 21 Are Women Devalued By Religions, comment 66 22 Feminism is over, the battle is won. Time to move on. Article by Emily Hill 69

All the copyrighted materials included in this ‘dispensa’ belong to the respective owners and, following fair use guidelines, are hereby used for educational purposes only.

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1 Assessing writing: criteria

Exam: 500-word essay. Time: 90 minutes. Use of an English-English dictionary allowed

1 Appropriacy (9 points)

Has the student focused on the question and respected the length?

 Fully answers the question in depth.  Answers the question in sufficient depth to cover the main points.  There are some unnecessary or irrelevant ideas.  There are too many minor issues or irrelevant ideas dealt with. Shorter than the required length.  Does not answer the question e/o much shorter than the required length.

2 Structure and organization (9 points)

Does the essay have a structure? Is there an introduction and conclusion? Is the body divided into paragraphs which are linked?

 There is a suitable introduction and conclusion. Paragraphs and sentences link up and make the essay easy to read and the text easy to understand. Paragraphs follow a general to specific structure.  There is an introduction and conclusion. Paragraphs and sentences generally link up and make the essay quite easy to read and the text quite easy to understand. Paragraphs generally follow a general to specific structure.  There is an introduction and conclusion although they may be rather brief. The sequence of paragraphs may show some weaknesses. There is sometimes a lack of cohesion. Information structuring may not always be adequate.  There may not be a suitable introduction or conclusion. Sequencing of the paragraphs is insufficient. There is a general lack of structure in paragraphs. Cohesion generally not up to the task. It is difficult for the reader to follow the ideas or understand the text in parts.  The essay is unstructured, or structured in a way that prevents understanding. Very few sentence-linking devices appear, and these are usually used incorrectly.

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3 Language (9 points)

This relates to the use of the functional language and accuracy in grammar.

 Mistakes are not significant. A wide range of functional language is used which is appropriate for the essay question. Vocabulary is appropriate throughout. Appropriate academic style is used.  Occasional mistakes occur, which do not prevent understanding. A good range of functional language is used which is appropriate for the question. Vocabulary is mostly appropriate throughout. Academic style is used for most of the essay.  Repeated mistakes occur which sometimes prevent understanding. Some functional language is used. Vocabulary is not always appropriate, and the style is sometimes not academic.  There are a large number of very serious mistakes. Meaning is often unclear. There is only limited use of functional language. Vocabulary and style are frequently inappropriate.  The student has very little control over grammar and vocabulary, and is unable to make the meaning clear to a reader; or the language is clearly not the student’s own.

4 Presentation (3 points)

This concerns the overall appearance of the essay: layout, spacing, spelling and punctuation.

 The essay is extremely well presented and easy to read with no mistakes in spelling or punctuation.  The essay is well presented and easy to read with only a few mistakes in spelling or punctuation.  This essay is readable, but mistakes in spelling and punctuation interfere with the smooth flow of reading.

Teacher resource – photocopiable (adapted). EAP Essentials © 2008 Garnet Publishing Ltd.

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Writing in an academic style 1 Use formal rather than informal language. i) Avoid contracted forms ii) Avoid colloquial language iii) Avoid punctuation indicating your attitude

2 Be concise and precise i) Try to use one-word verbs instead of phrasal verbs ii) Avoid vague words common in speech iii) Avoid etc., and so on. iv) Use nominal groups to express ideas efficiently

3 Use impersonal language i) Avoid using I to express your opinion ii) Avoid addressing the reader as you

4 Be cautious in what you say i) Avoid generalizations ii) Avoid words that express your emotions rather than evidence iii) Use hedges to qualify your statements

Exercise Below are twelve sentences. Improve them by using an appropriate academic style. Follow the order of criteria on the previous page.

1 Use formal rather than informal language. i) Ursula Le Guin told her audience that women weren’t ‘dumb’. ii) The speech contains loads of examples of sexual discrimination. iii) Her speech is said to have made a MASSIVE impact!!!!!!!

2 Be concise and precise i) She brought up the issue during a debate in the U.S. House of Representatives. ii) Government policy can have a big impact. iii) Mrs. Obama addressed numerous issues, ‘education’, ‘work’ etc. iv) The pay gap is widening and this is causing particular concern among women politicians.

3 Use impersonal language i) I think that this speech will be remembered for many years to come. ii) You can see the results in the workplace.

4 Be cautious in what you say i) No girls have access to education in Nigeria. ii) It is ridiculous to think that such problems can be solved by government intervention. iii) The problem is widespread in the Middle East.

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Writing an Argumentative Essay The three stages of essay writing: 1 Tell the reader what you are going to tell them (introduction: paragraph one) 2 Tell them (body: paragraphs two, three and four) 3 Tell them what you have told them (conclusion: paragraph five)

Introductory paragraph  Introduces the topic.  Provides thesis statement

The first sentence(s) introduce(s) the topic of the essay in an interesting way. The thesis statement is the most important sentence in the entire essay. It presents the essay topic and your position on the topic and indicates the main ideas that will be discussed in the body paragraphs.

Body paragraphs  The body of an essay consists of three paragraphs.  Each body paragraph explains in detail one of the main ideas expressed in the thesis statement.  There are three parts to a body paragraph: 1 a topic sentence 2 supporting sentences 3 a concluding sentence (optional)

The topic sentence  The first sentence – the topic sentence – expresses the topic of the paragraph  It provides a controlling idea about the topic.  All information in the paragraph supports the controlling idea.

Supporting sentences  Supporting sentences explain and develop the topic sentence.  They present logical thoughts, evidence, and explanations in support of the controlling idea.

Concluding sentence  The paragraph may end with a concluding thought on the paragraph topic.  It may also show a transition to the next paragraph.

The concluding paragraph  The conclusion consists of three elements: a restated thesis, a summary of main ideas, (and a final thought).  The thesis is restated in words different from those in the introduction.  The main ideas from each of the body paragraphs are summarized as a reminder to the reader.

NB The introduction and conclusion (together) should account for approximately 20% of the word count (100-110 words).

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FIVE-PARAGRAPH ESSAY STRUCTURE

INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH INTRODUCTION OF GENERAL TOPIC SPECIFIC TOPIC

THESIS STATEMENT

BODY PARAGRAPH ONE

TOPIC SENTENCE

SUPPORTING SENTENCES

(CONCLUDING SENTENCE)

BODY PARAGRAPH TWO

TOPIC SENTENCE

SUPPORTING SENTENCES

(CONCLUDING SENTENCE)

BODY PARAGRAPH THREE TOPIC SENTENCE↓ SUPPORTING SENTENCES (CONCLUDING SENTENCE)

CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH RESTATED THESIS SUMMARY/REITERATION OF MAIN IDEAS

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2 Feminism: overview The feminist movement is often thought to have included three waves:  The first wave in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries  The second wave chiefly in the 1960s-1970s  The third wave from the 1990s to the present day.

First-wave feminism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries included the ideas of the New Woman. This concept was a reaction to the cult of domesticity that characterized the Victorian era. The New Woman was educated, capable of earning her own living and politically aware. She was able to decide for herself who her partner might be and whether to have children. She was often depicted wearing more comfortable clothes and defying social norms to create a better world for women. The women’s suffrage movement focused on gaining votes for women and equal property rights.

Second-wave feminism concentrated on equality and sought the ending of discrimination through a variety of principles.  Bodily integrity and autonomy, including rights to abortion, contraception and parental care, were key to feminists.  Protection from domestic violence, rape and sexual harassment is seen as a basic right for women.  Workplace rights, such as equal pay and maternity leave, were also prized by second-wave feminists.

Third-wave feminism was a reaction against the focus on educated, white middle-class women and led to the desire to find a space for black feminists. Writers such as Alice Walker refer to ‘Womanism’ as a movement which recognizes that black women might be subject to more intense discrimination than educated, middle-class white women.

Post-feminism has sought to see women as not being victims, and embraces a move against preferential treatment for women. This wave also includes ‘difference feminists’, who focus on the differences between the sexes in opposition to those who feel there are no inherent differences but that all disparities are due to social conditioning.

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The Struggle for Identity A Doll’s House: Henrik Ibsen Norwegian poet and dramatist Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) published A Doll’s House in 1879. It is perhaps his most controversial work, springing from his belief that husband and wife should live as equals, and his concern for the rights of women in a male-dominated society. In this society, women only had status as wives and mothers once they eased away from the role of child and left the care of their parents. This extract come almost at the end of the play. Exercise Read the extract and answer the questions that follow.

NORA We have been married now eight years. Does it not occur to you that this is the first time we two, you and I, husband and wife, have had a serious conversation? HELMER What do you mean, serious? NORA In all these eight years – longer than that – from the very beginning of our acquaintance we have never exchanged a word on any serious subject. HELMER Was it likely that I would be continually and forever telling you about worries that you could not help me to bear? NORA I am not speaking about business matters. I say that we have never sat down in earnest together to try and get at the bottom of anything. HELMER But, dearest Nora, would it have been any good to you? NORA That is just it; you have never understood me. I have been greatly wronged, Torvald – first by Papa and then by you. HELMER What! By us two – by us two who have loved you better than anyone else in the world? NORA (shaking her head) You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me. HELMER Nora, what do I hear you saying? NORA It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with Papa he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you – HELMER What sort of expression is that to use about our marriage? NORA (undisturbed) I mean that I was simply transferred from Papa’s hands to yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you – or else I pretended to. I am really not quite sure which – I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it it seems to me as if I have been living here like a poor woman – just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and Papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life. HELMER How unreasonable and how ungrateful you are, Nora! Have you not been happy here? NORA No, I have never been happy. I thought I was, but it has never really been so.

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HELMER Not – not happy! NORA No, only merry. And you have always been so kind to me. But our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll wife, just as at home I was Papa’s doll child; and here the children have been my dolls. I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I played with them. That is what our marriage has been, Torvald. HELMER There is some truth in what you say – exaggerated and strained as your view of it is. But for the future it shall be different. Playtime shall be over and lesson time shall begin. NORA Whose lessons? Mine or the children’s? HELMER Both yours and the children’s, my darling Nora. NORA Alas Torvald, you are not the man to educate me into being a proper wife for you. HELMER And you can say that! I must try and educate myself NORA And I – how am I fitted to bring up the children? HELMER Nora! NORA Didn’t you say so yourself a little while ago – that you dare not trust me to bring them up? HELMER In a moment of anger! Why do you pay any heed to that? NORA Indeed, you were perfectly right. I am not fit for the task. There is another task I must undertake first.– you are not the man to help me in that. I must do that for myself. And that is why I am going to leave you now. HELMER (springing up) What do you say? NORA I must stand quite alone if I am to understand myself and everything about me. It is for that reason that I cannot remain with you any longer. HELMER Nora, Nora! NORA I am going away from here now, at once.

Questions 1 What decision has Nora made? 2 Is it a brave decision? Why/why not? 3 What does the form of the extract tell us about the balance of power in Nora and Helmer’s relationship?

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Woman Work is one of the poems in Maya Angelou’s collection And Still I Rise that celebrates the spirit of women and their ability to overcome the mere drudgery of life. Read the poem and answer the questions that follow. Woman Work Maya Angelou

I've got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry The baby to dry I got company to feed The garden to weed I've got shirts to press The tots to dress The cane to be cut I gotta clean up this hut Then see about the sick And the cotton to pick.

Shine on me, sunshine Rain on me, rain Fall softly, dewdrops And cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from here With your fiercest wind Let me float across the sky 'Till I can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakes Cover me with white Cold icy kisses Let me rest tonight.

Sun, rain, curving sky Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone Star shine, moon glow You're all that I can call my own.

Questions 1) What is the subject matter of the long first stanza? 2) Why do you think the last four stanzas differ in form and subject matter from the first stanza? 3) What view of women is represented here? Compare and contrast the ideas presented here with A Doll’s House.

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EXERCISE In the answers to each FAQ, nominal and adjectival groups have been removed, put them back in the most appropriate gaps

Frequently asked questions about gender equality Author: UNFPA

1 What is meant by gender? expectations being a man or a woman equitable men and women roles relations gender attributes sex gender

The term gender refers to the economic, social and cultural attributes and opportunities associated with being male or female. In most societies, 1______is not simply a matter of different biological and physical characteristics. 2______face different expectations about how they should dress, behave or work. 3______between men and women, whether in the family, the workplace or the public sphere, also reflect understandings of the talents, characteristics and behaviour appropriate to women and to men. 4______thus differs from 5______in that it is social and cultural in nature rather than biological. Gender attributes and characteristics encompassing, inter alia, the 6______that men and women play and the 7______placed upon them, vary widely among societies and change over time. But the fact that 8______are socially constructed means that they are also amenable to change in ways that can make a society more just and 9 ______.

2 What is the difference between gender equity, gender equality and women’s empowerment? equity socially-valued fairness equal partners disadvantages gender equality women’s empowerment gender inequality opportunities and life changes promoting gender equality

Gender equity is the process of being fair to women and men. To ensure 1______, strategies and measures must often be available to compensate for women’s historical and social 2______that prevent women and men from otherwise operating on a level playing field. 3______leads to equality. Gender equality requires equal enjoyment by women and men of 4______goods, opportunities, resources and rewards. Where 5______exists, it is generally women who are excluded or disadvantaged in relation to decision-making and access to economic and social resources. Therefore, a critical aspect of 6______is the empowerment of women, with a focus on identifying and redressing power imbalances and giving women more autonomy to manage their own lives. 7______does not mean that men and women become the same; only that access to 8______is neither dependent on, nor constrained by, their sex. Achieving gender equality requires 9______to ensure that decision-making at private and public levels, and access to resources are no longer weighted in men’s favour, so that both women and men can fully participate as 10______in productive and reproductive life. […]

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5 Why is gender equality important? responsibility opportunity equally gender-based violence equal access opportunities objective equality

Gender equality is intrinsically linked to sustainable development and is vital to the realization of human rights for all. The overall 1 ______of gender equality is a society in which women and men enjoy the same opportunities, rights and obligations in all spheres of life. 2______between men and women exists when both sexes are able to share 3______in the distribution of power and influence; have 4______for financial independence through work or through setting up businesses; enjoy 5______to education and the 6______to develop personal ambitions, interests and talents; share 7______for the home and children and are completely free from coercion, intimidation and 8______both at work and at home. decisions achievement gender equality decision-making

Within the context of population and development programmes, 1______is critical because it will enable women and men to make 2______that impact more positively on their own sexual and reproductive health as well as that of their spouses and families. 3______with regard to such issues as age at marriage, timing of births, use of contraception and recourse to harmful practices (such as female genital cutting) stands to be improved with the 4______of gender equality. this sex gender inequality women actions men empowerment of women

However, it is important to acknowledge that where 1______exists, it is generally women who are excluded or disadvantaged in relation to decision-making and access to economic and social resources. Therefore, a critical aspect of promoting gender equality is the 2______, with a focus on identifying and redressing power imbalances and giving women more autonomy to manage their own lives. 3______would enable them to make decisions and take 4______to achieve and maintain their own reproductive and sexual health. Gender equality and women’s empowerment do not mean that 5______and 6______become the same; only that access to opportunities and life changes is neither dependent on, nor constrained by, their 7______.

6 Is gender equality a concern for men? variation fact men’s social identity equitable relationships The achievement of gender equality implies changes for both men and women. More 1______will need to be based on a redefinition of the rights and responsibilities of women and men in all spheres of life, including the family, the workplace and the society at large. It is therefore crucial not to overlook gender as an aspect of 2______. This 3______is, indeed, often overlooked, because the tendency is to consider male characteristics and attributes as the norm, and those of women as a 4______of the norm.

13 men men’s roles societal norms risks young men women media stereotypes

But the lives of men are just as strongly influenced by gender as those of women. 1______and conceptions of masculinity and expectations of men as leaders, husbands or sons create demands on men and shape their behaviour. 2______are too often expected to concentrate on the material needs of their families, rather than on the nurturing and caring roles assigned to 3______. Socialization in the family and later in schools promotes risk- taking behaviour among 4______, and this is often reinforced through peer pressure and 5______. So the lifestyles that 6______demand often result in their being more exposed to greater risks of morbidity and mortality than women. These 7______include ones relating to accidents, violence and alcohol consumption. gender perspective addressing interrelationships responsibilities gender difference needs conditions right

Men also have the 1______to assume a more nurturing role, and opportunities for them to do so should be promoted. Equally, however, men have 2______in regard to child health and to their own and their partners’ sexual and reproductive health. 3______these rights and responsibilities entails recognizing men’s specific health problems, as well as their 4______and the 5______that shape them. The adoption of a 6______is an important first step; it reveals that there are disadvantages and costs to men accruing from patterns of 7______. It also underscores that gender equality is concerned not only with the roles, responsibilities and needs of women and men, but also with the 8______between them. http://www.unfpa.org/resources/frequently-asked-questions-about-gender-equality

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Assignment: Argument essay

Read the articles on pages 15 – 25 and write a 500-word essay with the title:

Despite certain progress since the late 1960s, gender equality in the USA is still a myth. Discuss.

*********

Outcome: paragraph organization. Exercise: In the following essay the sentences in the three paragraphs, (with the exception of the topic sentences) have been jumbled up. Put the sentences (A, B, …) in the three paragraphs in the most appropriate order.

Gender Equality Is a Myth!

By BEYONCÉ KNOWLES-CARTER, multiple GRAMMY Award-winning singer, songwriter, and actress

1 We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. A But unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change. B Men have to demand that their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters earn more — commensurate with their qualifications and not their gender. C It isn’t a reality yet. D Today, women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes. E Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect.

2 Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally important and need one another. A We have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life. B And we have to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible. C So why are we viewed as less than equal? D These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning.

3 We have a lot of work to do, but we can get there if we work together. A We must demand that we all receive 100 percent of the opportunities. B Women are more than 50 percent of the population and more than 50 percent of voters.

Exercise: Rewrite the essay using an academic style. http://shriverreport.org/gender-equality-is-a-myth-beyonce/

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Outcome: comparing and contrasting

The Gender Wage Gap: A Civil Rights Issue for Our Time 05.17.2014

By MAYA L. HARRIS, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School, and a leading voice in civil rights law. She previously served as Vice President of the Ford Foundation’s global Democracy, Rights and Justice program, and was executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, the largest ACLU affiliate in the United States.

It has been more than 20 years since I arrived at the Stanford Law School campus, a first-year student with dreams of becoming a civil rights lawyer. Like many people of color coming of age in the 1980s, I considered myself a child of the civil rights movement. My mother, a Berkeley activist in the 1960s, raised my sister and me on stories about Medgar, Malcolm, Martin, and Marshall. I was a direct beneficiary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision and busing, of voting rights and affirmative action, so I wanted to use the new body of civil rights law to make secure the change the movement had forged—change that I, having grown up black and South Asian, viewed primarily through the lens of race.

Exercise Complete the gaps with a suitable word

So I’m not sure I would have viewed as a civil rights issue the fact that, in all likelihood, the women in my graduating class and I would wind up earning 1 ______than our male counterparts for performing 2 ______same legal work—even though many of us would graduate at the top of our class, and all of us, male and female, would earn the 3 ______prestigious Stanford Law degree.

But years of working as a civil rights lawyer and advocate have reinforced for me this basic fact: Gender pay inequity is undeniably a pressing civil rights issue for our time.

And the reason this is true emanates from our deepest notions of fairness and equality. When we think about the persistent gender pay gap, it raises in us a discomfort and unease 4______to the feeling we get when confronting racial injustice today, all these decades after the civil rights movement. We get that unsettling feeling that, as they say, “for all our hopes and all our boasts,” we still view and value women as “less than.”

Indeed, the core concept of fairness that underlies the pay-inequity discussion animates every equality movement. It is about more than having a comparable paycheck for 5______work, just like the civil rights movement was about more than having racial-equality laws on the books. At its core, pay equity—and the broader idea of women as full participants in the economic

16 life of our country—is about concepts as 6______as the republic itself. It is about recognizing that we all deserve basic dignity, respect, equal opportunity, and access to economic security.

To be sure, gender equity in general is more of a reality today 7______ever before. Women attend college at higher rates than men, earn 8______grades, and graduate in greater numbers. We now make up almost 9______of the U.S. workforce and are one-third of the nation’s doctors and lawyers—more than triple the number a generation ago. And more than a quarter of wives 10______their spouses today.

But this progress masks deeper wrinkles of inequity. 11______of the progress women have made getting up the pay-equity ladder has come for women in the top 20 percent of earners. And studies have shown the wage gap remains true even when we control for factors 12______as education level, profession, or position, and it cannot be fully explained by personal choices.

Take, for example, doctors in the 13______specialty performing similar work. According to a study published in 2012 by the Journal of the American Medical Association, “Gender 14______in salary exist in this select, homogenous cohort of mid-career academic physicians, even after adjustment for differences in specialty, institutional characteristics, academic productivity, academic rank, work hours, and other factors.”1 In other words, male doctors earn more than 15______doctors for the same work.

Pay inequity is particularly salient for women of color, for whom the wage gap is more 16______a wage gulf, and progress toward closing it remains elusive. The expectation that the wage gap could narrow further in the future—with women now earning the majority of advanced degrees and education beginning to 17______gender as a determinant of wages—is not a panacea for women of color. They continue to face significant barriers to accessing higher education and, in any event, are more 18______to work in minimum- and low-wage jobs.

In the 50 years since the passage of the first Equal Pay Act, the gender wage gap has narrowed 19______only 18 cents—and more than a quarter of this “progress” is due to losses in men’s wages as 20______to gains in women’s wages. In fact, the reality is that over the past 10 years, the United States has closed its wage gap barely, if 21______all—by less than one penny—earning the dubious distinction of having one of the largest gender wage 22______among developed nations.

This pay 23______between the sexes carries powerful implications for the health of our economy and the character of our society. It’s no mistake that those who gathered on the National Mall 50 years ago regarded their March on Washington as a march for jobs as

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24______as anything else. The architects of the civil rights movement understood that prohibiting access to economic independence through pay inequity, employment discrimination, and job segregation in low-paying, low-skill occupations was an effective way to keep a segment of the population in a perpetually subservient crouch—just 25______effective a way as denying them their political rights.

I hear echoes of these 26______patterns of economic disenfranchisement in the experiences of many women today, and pay inequity is the measurable manifestation of that reality.

It’s time for action—time to bring 27______to working women.

There have been 28______prescriptions offered to address wage inequality between the sexes:

 The Paycheck Fairness Act, languishing in Congress for 29______a decade, would update our laws for the 21st century and help eliminate discriminatory pay.

 Raising the minimum wage would help 30______the gap, given that nearly two-thirds of all workers making the minimum wage are women.

 Adopting policies that 31______access to quality, affordable child care, paid sick days, and family leave would help reduce wage differences in a workforce where women are the sole or primary source of income for 40 percent 32______households with children under the age of 18.

Just 33______the concepts of equality, fairness, and access to economic security amplified the moral force of the civil rights movement, so too should these same ideas spur us to address the pay-equity issue with renewed urgency. We cannot wait 34______50 years.

Endnotes

1 Reshma Jagsi and others, “Gender Differences in the Salaries of Physician Researchers,” Journal of the American Medical Association307 (22) (2012): 2410–2417, available here.

http://shriverreport.org/the-gender-wage-gap-a-civil-rights-issue-for-our-time/

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LEARNING OUTCOMES Analyzing paragraph structure (including the role of particular sentences in developing and refining a key concept). Identifying argument and specific claims in a text. Analyzing the development of a central idea. Do this by looking at what sentences ‘do’. What is their job? How do supporting sentences relate to topic sentences? Equal Rights for Women HON. SHIRLEY CHISHOLM of New York In the House of Representatives, May 21, 1969 Mr. Speaker, when a young woman graduates from college and starts looking for a job, she is likely to have a frustrating and even demeaning experience ahead of her. If she walks into an office for an interview, the first question she will be asked is, "Do you type?'' There is a calculated system of prejudice that lies unspoken behind that question. Why is it acceptable for women to be secretaries, librarians, and teachers, but totally unacceptable for them to be managers, administrators, doctors, lawyers, and Members of Congress. The unspoken assumption is that women are different. They do not have executive ability, orderly minds, stability, leadership skills, and they are too emotional. It has been observed before that society, for a long time, discriminated against another minority, the blacks, on the same basis - that they were different and inferior. The happy little homemaker and the contented "old darkey" on the plantation were both produced by prejudice. As a black person, I am no stranger to race prejudice. But the truth is that in the political world I have been far oftener discriminated against because I am a woman than because I am black. Prejudice against blacks is becoming unacceptable although it will take years to eliminate it. But it is doomed because, slowly, white America is beginning to admit that it exists. Prejudice against women is still acceptable. There is very little understanding yet of the immorality involved in double pay scales and the classification of most of the better jobs as "for men only." More than half of the population of the United States is female. But women occupy only 2 percent of the managerial positions. They have not even reached the level of tokenism yet No women sit on the AFL-CIO council or Supreme Court. There have been only two women who have held Cabinet rank, and at present there are none. Only two women now hold ambassadorial rank in the diplomatic corps. In Congress, we are down to one Senator and 10 Representatives. Considering that there are about 3 1/2 million more women in the United States than men, this situation is outrageous. It is true that part of the problem has been that women have not been aggressive in demanding their rights. This was also true of the black population for many years. They submitted to oppression and even cooperated with it. Women have done the same thing. But now there is an awareness of this situation particularly among the younger segment of the population. As in the field of equal rights for blacks, Spanish-Americans, the Indians, and other groups, laws will not change such deep-seated problems overnight But they can be used to provide protection for those who are most abused, and to begin the process of evolutionary change by compelling the insensitive majority to reexamine its unconscious attitudes.

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It is for this reason that I wish to introduce today a proposal that has been before every Congress for the last 40 years and that sooner or later must become part of the basic law of the land -- the equal rights amendment. Let me note and try to refute two of the commonest arguments that are offered against this amendment. One is that women are already protected under the law and do not need legislation. Existing laws are not adequate to secure equal rights for women. Sufficient proof of this is the concentration of women in lower paying, menial, unrewarding jobs and their incredible scarcity in the upper level jobs. If women are already equal, why is it such an event whenever one happens to be elected to Congress? It is obvious that discrimination exists. Women do not have the opportunities that men do. And women that do not conform to the system, who try to break with the accepted patterns, are stigmatized as ''odd'' and "unfeminine." The fact is that a woman who aspires to be chairman of the board, or a Member of the House, does so for exactly the same reasons as any man. Basically, these are that she thinks she can do the job and she wants to try. A second argument often heard against the equal rights amendment is that it would eliminate legislation that many States and the Federal Government have enacted giving special protection to women and that it would throw the marriage and divorce laws into chaos. As for the marriage laws, they are due for a sweeping reform, and an excellent beginning would be to wipe the existing ones off the books. Regarding special protection for working women, I cannot understand why it should be needed. Women need no protection that men do not need. What we need are laws to protect working people, to guarantee them fair pay, safe working conditions, protection against sickness and layoffs, and provision for dignified, comfortable retirement. Men and women need these things equally. That one sex needs protection more than the other is a male supremacist myth as ridiculous and unworthy of respect as the white supremacist myths that society is trying to cure itself of at this time. http://archive.adl.org/education/chisholm_speech_womans_rights.pdf

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005) was an American politician, educator, and author. In 1968, she became the first African American woman elected to the United States Congress and she represented New York’s 12th Congressional District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1972, she became the first black candidate for a major party's nomination for President of the United States, and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. In 2015, Chisholm was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Chisholm

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Exercise: read the article below and fill in the gaps with a suitable word.

Marriage, Motherhood and Men Ann O’Leary, 01.12.2014 Fifty years ago, the pioneers of the War on Poverty saw no need to call for a strengthening of the American family as a critical component to combating poverty. At the time, ______, centered around motherhood and the man of the family, was still the prevailing norm for raising children and staving off poverty. The goal of the War on Poverty was to assist families in poverty with greater access to basic food, education, housing, and job training to increase their economic prospects, and to enable nuclear families to thrive. ______were the first line of defense against poverty. But one year after President Lyndon B. Johnson officially launched the War on Poverty, a young government official at the U.S. Department of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, began to look at trends in the African American community. He worried that the rise in the number of children ______to unmarried mothers and the increasing number of households ______by single mothers would lead to persistent, generational poverty. The report was rightly met with severe criticism for the tone and the blame it placed on the African American ______. Yet 50 years later, we must confront the reality that the trend that Moynihan first noticed in the African American community—the decline in the proportion of ______families—has since extended across all racial and ethnic groups. Of course, there have been many positive trends in the past 50 years that have allowed our society to move beyond the constraints of the so-called traditional ______, and for families to diversify, flourish, and form in ways that strengthen the fabric of America. No-fault ______has allowed women to exit abusive and unhealthy marriages. The opening of the labor market, the evolving economy, and the civil rights movement made marriage more ______, with men and women more likely to share fluid roles as both breadwinners and caregivers. Marriage is now open to same-sex ______in a growing number of states. Single ______are no longer shunned by society. And women are no longer pressed into marriage by necessity, or to gain ______to economic resources and benefits. But in spite of these positive shifts, the trend Moynihan identified has only gotten worse— unplanned ______to unmarried mothers who are living in poverty or on the brink continue to rise. And while not accepted as a national crisis then, it should be today. In too many cases, parents who had not intended to get ______are unprepared for the responsibilities associated with ______a child alone, and society thus far has been unwilling or unable either to curb the rise in unplanned pregnancies or to accommodate fully this change in family makeup. What has happened? Why have so many women begun the journey of ______without marriage? And where are the ______in this equation? The fact is that many women are not “deciding” to have babies ______marriage—in fact, women living on the brink of poverty are the most likely to have babies as a result of unplanned and unintended pregnancies. And when they do so ______of marriage, they discover the support they need is missing: Men are largely ______from providing economic support to raise the child, and society offers little ______to help these women gain the education they need or to help them balance their work with their family obligations. 21

Rather than indulging in the moral handwringing and judgment that often accompany investigations into changes in the marriage rate, this chapter argues that our country will be better served by doing the following: • Concretely tackling the rise in unplanned pregnancies to unmarried mothers. We can do so by encouraging women to ______their pregnancies through the responsible use of more fail-safe contraceptive methods, and to choose to ______at the time that is the most stable and sensible for them. The public, philanthropic, and nonprofit sectors can play a critical role in increasing the ______about and access to the most effective contraceptive methods, including long-acting reversible contraception, or LARC. • Rather than promoting marriage as a silver bullet for women’s economic troubles, the government should instead promote policies that allow women to complete their ______, to find stable and well-paying ______, and to have the work supports necessary to meet their family ______, including child care and family- friendly workplace policies. If we do not take these steps, the United States will soon have a generation of ______who were raised without the full support of our society, and who are not fully prepared to have jobs that will allow them to ______in the 21st-century global economy. * * * THE REALITY OF MARRIAGE, MOTHERHOOD, AND MEN IN AMERICA The roles of marriage, motherhood, and men in America have ______dramatically in the past several decades. The short narrative is that a rising number of women (and men) are increasingly ______children before they get married. Everyone—across race, education, and class—is marrying ______than they did 50 years ago. Women are more ______to be working in the paid labor force while caring for their children, often juggling both on their own without the support of a husband or a stable ______. And more men are living ______from their children than ever before. At the same time, those ______who are living with their children are more active and involved in their children’s lives than ever before. However, there are serious class divisions in family structures, with women in poverty or on the brink of it much more likely to ______birth before they marry and to be raising children outside of marriage. THE ‘WHY’ AND ‘SO WHAT’ OF TRENDS IN MARRIAGE, MOTHERHOOD, AND MEN There is widespread agreement that some combination of shifts in culture have led to the surge of women having babies outside of marriage and raising children on their own. These societal changes include an evolution in ______(regarding sex outside of marriage); advances in ______(the birth control pill contributing further to the acceptance of sex outside of marriage); and the transformation of the ______(with a decrease in the ability of men to be the sole breadwinner in a family and an increase of women in the workforce). The overwhelming evidence regarding women having children outside of marriage, however, points us back to two trends. First, these ______are overwhelmingly the result of unplanned and unintended pregnancies. And second, the United States stands out distinctly in its failure to provide information about and access to failsafe ______that can stop unintended pregnancies. Women in the United States have much ______rates of contraceptive use in their teens and 20s and are half as likely ______their European counterparts to use more effective contraceptive methods, such as IUDs.

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In addition to the failure of our society to address unplanned and unintended pregnancies through ______access to contraception, there remains widespread disagreement over the extent to which cultural shifts impact our society. Can or should the ______intervene to try to reverse this trend? And, if so, at what axis point could the government most impact this problem either to reverse the ______or ameliorate its effects? Indeed, in the polling conducted for The Shriver Report, a solid majority—64 percent—of the public believes that the government should set a goal of helping society adapt to the reality of ______-parent families and use its resources to help children and ______succeed regardless of their family status. Also, a majority—51 percent—believe that the government should set a ______of reducing the number of children born to single parents and use its resources to encourage marriage and ______-parent families. * * * WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? We must confront the fact that our public policies to curb unintended and unplanned pregnancies and ______aimed at ameliorating the economic precariousness of single-parent households have largely ______to affect demographic trends in the timing of marriage and motherhood. While access to and use of contraception have increased, use and access for young American women are still much ______than in other developed nations. Welfare reform has not alleviated the burdens on low-income women and children, and the Healthy Marriage Initiative did nothing to ______the trend. We must also re-enter the ______debate with a shared understanding that legally recognized relationships are granted social and economic benefits that tend to make them, as a whole, more ______and financially secure. This stability and financial security, which is often correlated with marriage, can have a deep impact on parents’ ability to ______healthy children with bright futures, as well as promoting women’s economic ______and prosperity. In addition to economic incentives to promote marriage among low-income communities, the government should focus its efforts on ______unplanned births to unmarried women and increasing the educational and economic ______of single moms. Specifically: • Stable relationships matter. Those on the left and right should acknowledge their shared agreement that a stable ______is the preferable family form for raising children, and that married relationships tend to be more stable than other relationships as a whole. Our public policies should encourage marriage or stable ______relationships. • Curbing unintended and unplanned pregnancies must be a public priority. In addition to economic incentives to increase marriage ______, the government should ______the problem at its root by aiming to reduce unintended and unplanned pregnancies ______unmarried mothers in the same way that Congress and the nonprofit sector have tried to tackle teen pregnancy through increased public education and awareness and better ______about and access to contraception. The teen ______rate has been reduced by 42 percent since the 1990s, and the National Campaign to Reduce Teen Pregnancy has recently turned its efforts to ______unplanned pregnancy among unmarried young adults. This effort should be supported and expanded. • Increasing access to highly effective contraception is critical to the effort to curb unintended pregnancies. Efforts to reduce unintended and unplanned pregnancies should be tied to

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______awareness about and access to new technologies for long-acting reversible contraception, or LARC, which have much ______rates of effectiveness (99 percent) than other methods. Through the expansion of access to health care offered by the Affordable Care Act, many women will have ______access to contraception. This ______, however, will need to be tied to increased education and awareness about the effectiveness of LARC, particularly for young women most at risk of unintended pregnancies. • Single parents need education and good jobs to help their children thrive. Both sides should acknowledge that marriage, as an ______for raising children, is not always possible. Accepting that even a reversal in the trend of unmarried births will not end the need to support single-parent ______, the government should provide greater educational opportunities and work supports to help single parents gain access to better ______with more stable incomes and ______such as child care, paid family leave, and equal pay, as outlined in great detail in the Public Solutions chapter. Single mothers in our survey were more likely to regret leaving school (70 percent) than ______the timing or number of their children (47 percent). By working to reduce the ______of unplanned pregnancies to unmarried parents, policymakers must also acknowledge the lack of economic and educational ______afforded to low-income young adults. While we should encourage young women to get an ______before having a baby and encourage both parents to be ______secure before entering into parenthood, this suggestion must come with real policies to support these efforts, as outlined in the Education chapter. This is an excerpt from The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink, in partnership with the Center for American Progress. Ann O’Leary directs the Children and Families Program at Next Generation, which includes spearheading "Too Small to Fail”—Next Generation's joint initiative with the Clinton Foundation to help parents and businesses take meaningful actions to improve the health and well-being of children ages zero to five — developing a national research portfolio, and leading policy activities in California. Ann also serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress where she writes about work-family policies.

http://shriverreport.org/marriage-motherhood-and-men/

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Emma Watson: Gender equality is your issue too

Date: 20 September 2014 Speech by UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson at a special event for the HeForShe campaign, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 20 September 2014

Your Excellencies. UN Secretary General. President of the General Assembly. Executive Director of UN Women. And distinguished guests.

Today we are launching a campaign called “HeForShe.”

I am reaching out to you because I need your help. We want to end gender inequality—and to do that we need everyone to be involved.

This is the first campaign of its kind at the UN: we want to try and galvanize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for gender equality. And we don’t just want to talk about it, but make sure it is tangible.

I was appointed six months ago and the more I have spoken about feminism the more I have realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.

For the record, feminism by definition is: “The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.”

I started questioning gender-based assumptions when at eight I was confused at being called “bossy,” because I wanted to direct the plays we would put on for our parents—but the boys were not.

When at 14 I started being sexualized by certain elements of the press.

When at 15 my girlfriends started dropping out of their sports teams because they didn’t want to appear “muscly.”

When at 18 my male friends were unable to express their feelings.

I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word.

Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive.

Why is the word such an uncomfortable one?

I am from Britain and think it is right that as a woman I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decision-making of my country. 25

I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights.

No country in the world can yet say they have achieved gender equality.

These rights I consider to be human rights but I am one of the lucky ones. My life is a sheer privilege because my parents didn’t love me less because I was born a daughter. My school did not limit me because I was a girl. My mentors didn’t assume I would go less far because I might give birth to a child one day. These influencers were the gender equality ambassadors that made me who I am today. They may not know it, but they are the inadvertent feminists who are changing the world today. And we need more of those.

And if you still hate the word—it is not the word that is important but the idea and the ambition behind it. Because not all women have been afforded the same rights that I have. In fact, statistically, very few have been.

In 1995, Hilary Clinton made a famous speech in Beijing about women’s rights. Sadly many of the things she wanted to change are still a reality today.

But what stood out for me the most was that only 30 per cent of her audience were male. How can we affect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?

Men—I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too.

Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society despite my needing his presence as a child as much as my mother’s.

I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness unable to ask for help for fear it would make them look less “macho”—in fact in the UK suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20-49 years of age; eclipsing road accidents, cancer and coronary heart disease. I’ve seen men made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of equality either.

We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence.

If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted, women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled.

Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong… It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals.

If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are— we can all be freer and this is what HeForShe is about. It’s about freedom.

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I want men to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too—reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so be a more true and complete version of themselves.

You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl? And what is she doing up on stage at the UN. It’s a good question and trust me, I have been asking myself the same thing. I don’t know if I am qualified to be here. All I know is that I care about this problem. And I want to make it better.

And having seen what I’ve seen—and given the chance—I feel it is my duty to say something. English Statesman Edmund Burke said: “All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men and women to do nothing.”

In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt I’ve told myself firmly—if not me, who, if not now, when. If you have similar doubts when opportunities are presented to you I hope those words might be helpful.

Because the reality is that if we do nothing it will take 75 years, or for me to be nearly a hundred before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work. 15.5 million girls will be married in the next 16 years as children. And at current rates it won’t be until 2086 before all rural African girls will be able to receive a secondary education.

If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists I spoke of earlier.

And for this I applaud you.

We are struggling for a uniting word but the good news is we have a uniting movement. It is called HeForShe. I am inviting you to step forward, to be seen to speak up, to be the "he" for "she". And to ask yourself if not me, who? If not now, when?

Thank you. http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2014/9/emma-watson-gender-equality-is-your-issue-too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkjW9PZBRfk

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TED

Sheryl Sandberg Why we have too few women leaders

Posted Dec 2010 Rated Inspiring, Persuasive

00:12 So for any of us in this room today, let's start out by admitting we're lucky. We don't live in the world our mothers lived in, our grandmothers lived in, where career choices for women were so limited. And if you're in this room today, most of us grew up in a world where we have basic civil rights, and amazingly, we still live in a world where some women don't have them. But all that aside, we still have a problem, and it's a real problem. And the problem is this: Women are not making it to the top of any profession anywhere in the world. The numbers tell the story quite clearly. 190 heads of state -- nine are women. Of all the people in parliament in the world, 13 percent are women. In the corporate sector, women at the top, C-level jobs, board seats -- tops out at 15, 16 percent. The numbers have not moved since 2002 and are going in the wrong direction. And even in the non-profit world, a world we sometimes think of as being led by more women, women at the top: 20 percent.

01:19 We also have another problem, which is that women face harder choices between professional success and personal fulfillment. A recent study in the U.S. showed that, of married senior managers, two-thirds of the married men had children and only one-third of the married women had children. A couple of years ago, I was in New York, and I was pitching a deal, and I was in one of those fancy New York private equity offices you can picture. And I'm in the meeting -- it's about a three-hour meeting -- and two hours in, there needs to be that bio break, and everyone stands up, and the partner running the meeting starts looking really embarrassed. And I realized he doesn't know where the women's room is in his office. So I start looking around for moving boxes, figuring they just moved in, but I don't see any. And so I said, "Did you just move into this office?" And he said, "No, we've been here about a year." And I said, "Are you telling me that I am the only woman to have pitched a deal in this office in a year?" And he looked at me, and he said, "Yeah. Or maybe you're the only one who had to go to the bathroom."

02:25 (Laughter)

02:27 So the question is, how are we going to fix this? How do we change these numbers at the top? How do we make this different? I want to start out by saying, I talk about this -- about keeping women in the workforce -- because I really think that's the answer. In the high-income part of our workforce, in the people who end up at the top -- Fortune 500 CEO jobs, or the equivalent in other industries -- the problem, I am convinced, is that women are dropping out. Now people talk about this a lot, and they talk about things like flexitime and

28 mentoring and programs companies should have to train women. I want to talk about none of that today, even though that's all really important. Today I want to focus on what we can do as individuals. What are the messages we need to tell ourselves? What are the messages we tell the women that work with and for us? What are the messages we tell our daughters?

03:22 Now, at the outset, I want to be very clear that this speech comes with no judgments. I don't have the right answer. I don't even have it for myself. I left San Francisco, where I live, on Monday, and I was getting on the plane for this conference. And my daughter, who's three, when I dropped her off at preschool, did that whole hugging-the-leg, crying, "Mommy, don't get on the plane" thing. This is hard. I feel guilty sometimes. I know no women, whether they're at home or whether they're in the workforce, who don't feel that sometimes. So I'm not saying that staying in the workforce is the right thing for everyone.

03:57 My talk today is about what the messages are if you do want to stay in the workforce, and I think there are three. One, sit at the table. Two, make your partner a real partner. And three, don't leave before you leave. Number one: sit at the table. Just a couple weeks ago at Facebook, we hosted a very senior government official, and he came in to meet with senior execs from around Silicon Valley. And everyone kind of sat at the table. He had these two women who were traveling with him pretty senior in his department, and I kind of said to them, "Sit at the table. Come on, sit at the table," and they sat on the side of the room. When I was in college, my senior year, I took a course called European Intellectual History. Don't you love that kind of thing from college? I wish I could do that now. And I took it with my roommate, Carrie, who was then a brilliant literary student -- and went on to be a brilliant literary scholar -- and my brother -- smart guy, but a water-polo-playing pre- med, who was a sophomore.

05:00 The three of us take this class together. And then Carrie reads all the books in the original Greek and Latin, goes to all the lectures. I read all the books in English and go to most of the lectures. My brother is kind of busy. He reads one book of 12 and goes to a couple of lectures, marches himself up to our room a couple days before the exam to get himself tutored. The three of us go to the exam together, and we sit down. And we sit there for three hours -- and our little blue notebooks -- yes, I'm that old. We walk out, we look at each other, and we say, "How did you do?" And Carrie says, "Boy, I feel like I didn't really draw out the main point on the Hegelian dialectic." And I say, "God, I really wish I had really connected John Locke's theory of property with the philosophers that follow." And my brother says, "I got the top grade in the class."

05:49 (Laughter)

05:51 "You got the top grade in the class? You don't know anything."

05:54 (Laughter)

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05:56 The problem with these stories is that they show what the data shows: women systematically underestimate their own abilities. If you test men and women, and you ask them questions on totally objective criteria like GPAs, men get it wrong slightly high, and women get it wrong slightly low. Women do not negotiate for themselves in the workforce. A study in the last two years of people entering the workforce out of college showed that 57 percent of boys entering, or men, I guess, are negotiating their first salary, and only seven percent of women. And most importantly, men attribute their success to themselves, and women attribute it to other external factors. If you ask men why they did a good job, they'll say, "I'm awesome. Obviously. Why are you even asking?" If you ask women why they did a good job, what they'll say is someone helped them, they got lucky, they worked really hard. Why does this matter? Boy, it matters a lot. Because no one gets to the corner office by sitting on the side, not at the table, and no one gets the promotion if they don't think they deserve their success, or they don't even understand their own success.

07:10 I wish the answer were easy. I wish I could go tell all the young women I work for, these fabulous women, "Believe in yourself and negotiate for yourself. Own your own success." I wish I could tell that to my daughter. But it's not that simple. Because what the data shows, above all else, is one thing, which is that success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women. And everyone's nodding, because we all know this to be true.

07:39 There's a really good study that shows this really well. There's a famous Harvard Business School study on a woman named Heidi Roizen. And she's an operator in a company in Silicon Valley, and she uses her contacts to become a very successful venture capitalist. In 2002 -- not so long ago -- a professor who was then at Columbia University took that case and made it [Howard] Roizen. And he gave the case out, both of them, to two groups of students. He changed exactly one word: "Heidi" to "Howard." But that one word made a really big difference. He then surveyed the students, and the good news was the students, both men and women, thought Heidi and Howard were equally competent, and that's good. The bad news was that everyone liked Howard. He's a great guy. You want to work for him. You want to spend the day fishing with him. But Heidi? Not so sure. She's a little out for herself. She's a little political. You're not sure you'd want to work for her. This is the complication. We have to tell our daughters and our colleagues, we have to tell ourselves to believe we got the A, to reach for the promotion, to sit at the table, and we have to do it in a world where, for them, there are sacrifices they will make for that, even though for their brothers, there are not.

08:54 The saddest thing about all of this is that it's really hard to remember this. And I'm about to tell a story which is truly embarrassing for me, but I think important. I gave this talk at Facebook not so long ago to about 100 employees, and a couple hours later, there was a young woman who works there sitting outside my little desk, and she wanted to talk to me. I said, okay, and she sat down, and we talked. And she said, "I learned something today. I learned that I need to keep my hand up." "What do you mean? "She said, "You're giving this talk, and you said you would take two more questions. I had my hand up with many other people, and you took two more questions. I put my hand down, and I noticed all the women

30 did the same, and then you took more questions, only from the men." And I thought to myself, "Wow, if it's me -- who cares about this, obviously -- giving this talk -- and during this talk, I can't even notice that the men's hands are still raised, and the women's hands are still raised, how good are we as managers of our companies and our organizations at seeing that the men are reaching for opportunities more than women?" We've got to get women to sit at the table.

10:02 (Cheers)

10:03 (Applause)

10:06 Message number two: Make your partner a real partner. I've become convinced that we've made more progress in the workforce than we have in the home. The data shows this very clearly. If a woman and a man work full-time and have a child, the woman does twice the amount of housework the man does, and the woman does three times the amount of childcare the man does. So she's got three jobs or two jobs, and he's got one. Who do you think drops out when someone needs to be home more? The causes of this are really complicated, and I don't have time to go into them. And I don't think Sunday football-watching and general laziness is the cause.

10:45 I think the cause is more complicated. I think, as a society, we put more pressure on our boys to succeed than we do on our girls. I know men that stay home and work in the home to support wives with careers, and it's hard. When I go to the Mommy-and-Me stuff and I see the father there, I notice that the other mommies don't play with him. And that's a problem, because we have to make it as important a job, because it's the hardest job in the world to work inside the home, for people of both genders, if we're going to even things out and let women stay in the workforce.

11:20 (Applause)

11:22 Studies show that households with equal earning and equal responsibility also have half the divorce rate. And if that wasn't good enough motivation for everyone out there, they also have more -- how shall I say this on this stage? They know each other more in the biblical sense as well.

11:38 (Cheers)

11:40 Message number three: Don't leave before you leave. I think there's a really deep irony to the fact that actions women are taking -- and I see this all the time -- with the objective of staying in the workforce actually lead to their eventually leaving. Here's what happens: We're all busy. Everyone's busy. A woman's busy. And she starts thinking about having a child, and from the moment she starts thinking about having a child, she starts thinking about making room for that child. "How am I going to fit this into everything else I'm

31 doing?" And literally from that moment, she doesn't raise her hand anymore, she doesn't look for a promotion, she doesn't take on the new project, she doesn't say, "Me. I want to do that." She starts leaning back. The problem is that -- let's say she got pregnant that day, that day -- nine months of pregnancy, three months of maternity leave, six months to catch your breath -- Fast-forward two years, more often -- and as I've seen it -- women start thinking about this way earlier -- when they get engaged, or married, when they start thinking about having a child, which can take a long time. One woman came to see me about this. She looked a little young. And I said, "So are you and your husband thinking about having a baby?" And she said, "Oh no, I'm not married." She didn't even have a boyfriend.

12:55 (Laughter)

12:56 I said, "You're thinking about this just way too early."

13:00 But the point is that what happens once you start kind of quietly leaning back? Everyone who's been through this -- and I'm here to tell you, once you have a child at home, your job better be really good to go back, because it's hard to leave that kid at home. Your job needs to be challenging. It needs to be rewarding. You need to feel like you're making a difference. And if two years ago you didn't take a promotion and some guy next to you did, if three years ago you stopped looking for new opportunities, you're going to be bored because you should have kept your foot on the gas pedal. Don't leave before you leave. Stay in. Keep your foot on the gas pedal, until the very day you need to leave to take a break for a child -- and then make your decisions. Don't make decisions too far in advance, particularly ones you're not even conscious you're making.

13:55 My generation really, sadly, is not going to change the numbers at the top. They're just not moving. We are not going to get to where 50 percent of the population -- in my generation, there will not be 50 percent of [women] at the top of any industry. But I'm hopeful that future generations can. I think a world where half of our countries and our companies were run by women, would be a better world. It's not just because people would know where the women's bathrooms are, even though that would be very helpful. I think it would be a better world. I have two children. I have a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter. I want my son to have a choice to contribute fully in the workforce or at home, and I want my daughter to have the choice to not just succeed, but to be liked for her accomplishments.

14:45 Thank you.

14:46 (Applause) https://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders/transcript

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Ursula K. Le Guin An American author of novels, children's books, and short stories, mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. She has also written poetry and essays. First published in the 1960s, her work has often depicted futuristic or imaginary alternative worlds in politics, the natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality and ethnography. She influenced such Booker Prize winners and other writers as Salman Rushdie Mitchell – and notable science fiction and fantasy writers including Neil Gaiman and Iain Banks. She has won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, each more than once. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Le Guin has resided in Portland, Oregon since 1959. A Left-Handed Commencement Address Introduction "A Left-Handed Commencement Address" is the text of a commencement address delivered at Mills College in Oakland, California, in 1983 by Ursula K. Le Guin. Mills College was founded in 1852 as a women's college and is still women-only at the undergraduate level. Le Guin's speech encapsulates the branch of feminism that emphasizes the essential peacefulness of women as compared to men. This school of thought stresses that men have historically tended to fight wars and think in terms of opposites—true/false, strong/weak, win/lose, succeed/fail—while women have, as Le Guin puts it, "lived, and have been despised for living, the whole side of life that includes and takes responsibility for all that is obscure, passive, uncontrolled, animal, unclean—the valley of the shadow, the deep, the depths of life." Since our culture has been dominated by men for thousands of years, it has become, in this view, a "man's world of institutionalized competition, aggression, violence, authority, and power," a "psychopathic social system." Le Guin urges the women and men in her audience to reject the competitive, either/or world of "Machoman" and choose to live "without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated." "Left-handed" is a reference to Le Guin's 1969 science fiction novel The Left Hand of Darkness, which won the Nebula Award in 1969 and Hugo Award in 1970. The Left Hand of Darkness is one of the earliest explicitly feminist works of science fiction, and it helped establish Le Guin's reputation as a feminist thinker. … Exercise: analyse Le Guin’s argumentation, its logical development.

Commencement speech From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A commencement speech or commencement address is a speech given to graduating students, generally at a university, generally in the United States, although the term is also used for secondary education institutions. The "commencement" is a ceremony in which degrees or diplomas are conferred upon graduating students. A commencement speech is typically given by a notable figure in the community, during

33 the commencement exercise. The person giving such a speech is known as a commencement speaker. Very commonly, colleges or universities will invite politicians, important citizens, or other noted speakers to come and address the graduating class. A commencement speech is less bound by the structure found in other forms of public address, like eulogies or wedding speeches. The speaker accordingly enjoys a unique freedom to express him or herself. Executive speechwriter Anthony Trendl writes: “A commencement speech, simply, is an opportunity to share your experience, values and advice. The precise form is up to you. This affords the speaker a platform to say amazing, unlimited things.”

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A Left-Handed Commencement Address

(Mills College, 1983)

Ursula Le Guin

I want to thank the Mills College Class of '83 for offering me a rare chance: to speak aloud in public in the language of women. I know there are men graduating, and I don't mean to exclude them, far from it. There is a Greek tragedy where the Greek says to the foreigner, “If you don't understand Greek, please signify by nodding.” Anyhow, commencements are usually operated under the unspoken agreement that everybody graduating is either male or ought to be. That’s why we are all wearing these twelfth-century dresses that look so great on men and make women look either like a mushroom or a pregnant stork. Intellectual tradition is male. Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men's language. Of course women learn it. We're not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man’s world, so it talks a man’s language. The words are all words of power. You’ve come a long way, baby, but no way is long enough. You can’t even get there by selling yourself out: because there is theirs, not yours. Maybe we’ve had enough words of power and talk about the battle of life. Maybe we need some words of weakness. Instead of saying now that I hope you will all go forth from this ivory tower of college into the Real World and forge a triumphant career or at least help your husband to and keep our country strong and be a success in everything - instead of talking about power, what if I talked like a woman right here in public? It won’t sound right. It’s going to sound terrible. What if I said what I hope for you is first, if — only if — you want kids, I hope you have them. Not hordes of them. A couple, enough. I hope they’re beautiful. I hope you and they have enough to eat, and a place to be warm and clean in, and friends, and work you like doing. Well, is that what you went to college for? Is that all? What about success? Success is somebody else’s failure. Success is the American Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty. No, I do not wish you success. I don’t even want to talk about it. I want to talk about failure. Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure. You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss. You will find you’re weak where you thought yourself strong. You’ll work for possessions and then find they possess you. You will find yourself — as I know you already have — in dark places, alone, and afraid. What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place. To live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign. Well, we’re already foreigners. Women as women are largely excluded from, alien to, the self-declared male norms of this society, where human beings are called Man, the only respectable god is male, the only direction is up. So that’s their country; let’s

35 explore our own. I’m not talking about sex; that’s a whole other universe, where every man and woman is on their own. I’m talking about society, the so-called man’s world of institutionalized competition, aggression, violence, authority, and power. If we want to live as women, some separatism is forced upon us: Mills College is a wise embodiment of that separatism. The war-games world wasn’t made by us or for us; we can’t even breathe the air there without masks. And if you put the mask on you’ll have a hard time getting it off. So how about going on doing things our own way, as to some extent you did here at Mills? Not for men and the male power hierarchy — that’s their game. Not against men, either — that’s still playing by their rules. But with any men who are with us: that’s our game. Why should a free woman with a college education either fight Machoman or serve him? Why should she live her life on his terms? Machoman is afraid of our terms, which are not all rational, positive, competitive, etc. And so he has taught us to despise and deny them. In our society, women have lived, and have been despised for living, the whole side of life that includes and takes responsibility for helplessness, weakness, and illness, for the irrational and the irreparable, for all that is obscure, passive, uncontrolled, animal, unclean — the valley of the shadow, the deep, the depths of life. All that the Warrior denies and refuses is left to us and the men who share it with us and therefore, like us, can’t play doctor, only nurse, can’t be warriors, only civilians, can’t be chiefs, only indians. Well so that is our country. The night side of our country. If there is a day side to it, high sierras, prairies of bright grass, we only know pioneers’ tales about it, we haven’t got there yet. We’re never going to get there by imitating Machoman. We are only going to get there by going our own way, by living there, by living through the night in our own country. So what I hope for you is that you live there not as prisoners, ashamed of being women, consenting captives of a psychopathic social system, but as natives. That you will be at home there, keep house there, be your own mistress, with a room of your own. That you will do your work there, whatever you’re good at, art or science or tech or running a company or sweeping under the beds, and when they tell you that it’s second- class work because a woman is doing it, I hope you tell them to go to hell and while they’re going to give you equal pay for equal time. I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated. I hope you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people. And when you fail, and are defeated, and in pain, and in the dark, then I hope you will remember that darkness is your country, where you live, where no wars are fought and no wars are won, but where the future is. Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing — instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls. — UKL http://www.ursulakleguin.com/LeftHandMillsCollege.html

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The Women’s Conference

Gloria Steinem: Why WE Honor Her Gloria Steinem has been a voice for the rights of women when women had no voice. She has courageously battled fear and stereotype to help women everywhere become the vibrant, powerful force that women are in the 21st Century. Gloria Steinem became known in the 70s as a journalist who came to national attention for her political writing. She came to be identified as a feminist activist after covering a speak-out for abortion rights for her column in New York Magazine. She founded Ms. magazine soon after and has since helped found several organizations that work for women's equality. She is a warrior for women's rights and for equality for all. Influenced by the activism of Mohandas Gandhi during a two-year fellowship in India after college, Steinem has used her influence to empower women and criticize policies and politicians that refuse to acknowledge or embrace equality between the sexes. It was during her years in India that she first became aware of gender and racial caste systems. In 1972, the year Steinem launched the groundbreaking Ms. magazine, 10 percent of doctors and 4 percent of lawyers were women. Today, women account for 30 percent in each profession. Steinem was the founding president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, which supports grassroots projects to empower women and girls. Steinem and the foundation also created Take Our Daughters to Work Day, the first national day devoted to girls that has now become an institution around the world. She also helped to found the Women's Action Alliance, National Women's Political Caucus, Voters for Choice, and Choice USA. She has also served on the board of trustees of Smith College and on many boards of other nonprofit organizations. She helped found New York Magazine and has been published in Esquire and The New York Times Magazine among others. She has produced a documentary on child abuse for HBO, a feature film and been the subject of profiles on Lifetime and Showtime. The author of numerous articles and commentaries, Steinem has written several best-selling books including: Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Moving Beyond Words and Marilyn: Norma Jean, an examination of the life of Marilyn Monroe.

Steinem has not slowed down but rather has adhered to her own observation that "women get more radical with age." She recently co-founded the Women's Media Center, which works to ensure women have equal opportunities in the media as sources, subjects and professionals. She lectures frequently on college campuses across the nation and continues to inspire. She is currently at work on Road to the Heart: America As if Everyone Mattered, a book about her more than 30 years on the road as a feminist organizer. Her most recent work and interests have been focused on sex trafficking and indigenous rights. Steinem has won countless awards for her writing and activism, such as Penney-Missouri Journalism Award, the Front Page and Clarion awards, National Magazine awards, the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Gay Rights Advocates Award, the Liberty Award of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Ceres Medal from the United Nations, and a number of honorary degrees. She has also been the subject of a biography by Carolyn Heilbrun. In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.

Courage, wisdom and strength are the hallmarks of Minerva. She is a warrior and a force to be reckoned with. Gloria Steinem embodies all of those qualities and more. Her efforts have been the cornerstone of the womenís movement. She has battled for the rights of women all over the world. Women everywhere owe a debt of gratitude to her for leading the way and most importantly, never giving up the fight. http://www.womensconference.org/gloria-steinem-2/

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GLORIA STEINEM, “LIVING THE REVOLUTION” (31 MAY 1970)

Gloria Steinem’s commencement speech to Vassar

[1] President Simpson, members of the faculty, families and friends, first brave and courageous male graduates of Vassar- and Sisters.

[2] You may be surprised that I am a commencement speaker. You can possibly be as surprised as I am. In my experience, commencement speakers are gray-haired, respected creatures, heavy with the experience of power in the world and with Establishment honors. Which means, of course, that they are almost always men.

[3] But this is the year of Women’s Liberation. Or at least, it the year the press has discovered a movement that has been strong for several years now, and reported it as a small, privileged, rather lunatic event instead of the major revolution in consciousness–in everyone’s consciousness–male or female that I believe it truly is.

[4] It may have been part of that revolution that caused the senior class to invite me here–and I am grateful. It is certainly a part of that revolution that I, a devout non-speaker, am managing to stand before you at all: I don’t know whether you will be grateful or not. The important thing is that we are spending this time together, considering the larger implications of a movement that some call “feminist” but should more accurately be called humanist; a movement that is an integral part of rescuing this country from its old, expensive patterns of elitism, racism, and violence.

[5] The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to un-learn. We are filled with the Popular Wisdom of several centuries just past, and we are terrified to give it up. Patriotism means obedience, age means wisdom, woman means submission, black means inferior–these are preconceptions imbedded so deeply in our thinking that we honestly may not know that they are there.

[6] Unfortunately, authorities who write textbooks are sometimes subject to the same Popular Wisdom as the rest of us. They gather their proof around it, and end by becoming the theoreticians of the status quo. Using the most respectable of scholarly methods, for instance, English scientists proved definitively that the English were descended from the angels, while the Irish were descended from the apes. It was beautifully done, complete with comparative skull-measurements, and it was a rationale for the English domination of the Irish for more than 100 years. I try to remember that when I’m reading Arthur Jensen’s current and very impressive work on the limitations of black intelligence. Or when I’m reading Lionel Tiger on the inability of women to act in groups.

[7] The apes-and-angels example is an extreme one, but so may some of our recent assumptions be. There are a few psychologists who believe that anti-Communism may eventually be looked upon as a mental disease.

[8] It wasn’t easy for the English to give up their mythic superiority. Indeed, there are quite a few Irish who doubt that they have done it yet. Clearing our minds and government policies of outdated myths is proving to be at least difficult. But it is also inevitable. Whether it’s woman’s secondary role in society or the paternalistic role of the United States in the world, the old assumptions just don’t work anymore.

[9] Rollo May has a theory that I find comforting. There are three periods in history, he says: one in which myths are built up, one in which they obtain, and one in which they are torn down. Clearly, we are living in a time of myths being torn down. We look at the more stable period just past, and we think that such basic and terrifying change has never happened before. But, relatively, it has. Clinging to the comfortable beliefs of the past serves no purpose, and only slows down the growth of new forms to suit a new reality.

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[10] Part of living this revolution is having the scales fall from our eyes. Everyday we see small obvious truths that we had missed before. Our histories, for instance, have generally been written for and about white men. Inhabited countries were “discovered” when the first white male set foot there, and most of us learned more about any one European country than we did about Africa and Asia combined.

[11] I confess that, before some consciousness-changing of my own, I would have thought the Women History courses springing up around the country belonged in the same cultural ghetto as home economics. The truth is that we need Women’s Studies almost as much as we need Black Studies, and for exactly the same reason: too many of us have been allowed from a “good” education believing that everything from political power to scientific discovery was the province of white males. I don’t know about Vassar, but at Smith we learned almost nothing about women.

[12] We believed, for instance, that the vote had been “given” to women in some whimsical, benevolent fashion. We never learned about the long desperation of women’s struggle, or about the strength and wisdom of the women who led it. We heard about the men who risked their lives in the Abolitionist Movement, but seldom about the women; even though women, as in many movements of social reform, had played the major role. We knew a great deal more about the outdated, male-supremacist theories of Sigmund Freud than we did about societies in which women had equal responsibility, or even ruled.

[13] “Anonymous,” Virginia Woolf once said sadly, “was a woman.”

[14] I don’t mean to equate our problems of identity with those that flowed from slavery. But, as Gunnar Myrdal pointed out in his classic study, An American Dilemma, “In drawing a parallel between the position of, and the feeling toward, women and Negroes, we are uncovering a fundamental basis of our culture.” Blacks and women suffer from the same myths of childlike natures; smaller brains; inability to govern themselves, much less white men; limited job skills; identity as sex objects–and so on. Ever since slaves arrived on these shores and were given the legal status of wives–that is, chattel–our legal reforms have followed on each other’s heels. (With women, I might add, still lagging considerably behind. Nixon’s Commission on Women concluded that the Supreme Court was sanctioning discrimination against women– discrimination that it had long ago ruled unconstitutional in the case of blacks–but the Commission report remains mysteriously unreleased by the White House. An Equal Rights Amendment, now up again before the Senate, has been delayed by a male-chauvinist Congress for 47 years.) Neither blacks nor women have role-models in history: models of individuals who have been honored in authority outside the home.

[15] I remember when I was interviewing Mrs. Nixon just before the 1968 election, I asked her what woman in history she most admired and would want to be like. She said, “Mrs. Eisenhower.” When I asked her why, she thought for a moment, and said, “Because she meant so much to young people.”

[16] It was the last and most quizzical straw in a long, difficult interview, so I ventured a reply. I was in college during the Eisenhower years, I told her, and I didn’t notice any special influence that Mrs. Eisenhower had on youth. Mrs. Nixon just looked at me warily, and said, “You didn’t?” But afterwards, I decided I had been unfair. After all, neither one of us had that many people to choose from. As Margaret Mead has noted, the only women allowed to be dominant and respectable at the same time are widows. You have to do what society wants you to do, have a husband who dies, and then have power thrust upon you through no fault of your own. The whole thing seems very hard on the men.

[17] Before we go on to other reasons why Women’s Liberation is Man’s Liberation, too–and why this incarnation of the women’s movement is inseparable from the larger revolution– perhaps we should clear the air of a few more myths.

[18] The myth that women are biologically inferior, for instance. In fact, an equally good case could be made for the reverse. Women live longer than men. That’s always being cited as 39 proof that we work them to death, but the truth is: women live longer than men even when groups being studied are monks and nuns. We survived Nazi concentration camps better, are protected against heart attacks by our female hormones, are less subject to many diseases, withstand surgery better, and are so much more durable at every stage of life that nature conceives 20 to 50 percent more males just to keep the balance going. The Auto Safety Committee of the American Medical Association has come to the conclusion that women are better drivers because they are less emotional than men. I never thought I would hear myself quoting the AMA, but that one was too good to resist.

[19] Men’s hunting activities are forever being pointed to as proof of Tribal Superiority. But while they were out hunting, women built houses, tilled the fields, developed animal husbandry, and perfected language. Men, isolated from each other out there in the bush, often developed into creatures that were fleet of foot, but not very bright.

[20] I don’t want to prove the superiority of one sex to another. That would only be repeating a male mistake. The truth is that we’re just not sure how many of our differences are biological, and how many are societal. In spite of all the books written on the subject, there is almost no such thing as a culture-free test. What we do know is that the differences between the two sexes, like the differences between races, are much less great than the differences to be found within each group. Therefore, requirements of a job can only be sensibly suited to the job itself. It deprives the country of talent to bundle any group of workers together by condition of birth.

[21] A second myth is that women are already being treated equally in this society. We ourselves have been guilty of perpetuating this myth, especially at upper economic levels where women have grown fond of being lavishly maintained as ornaments and children. The chains may be made of mink and wall-to-wall carpeting, but they are still chains.

[22] The truth is that a woman with a college degree working full-time makes less than a black man with a high school degree working full-time. And black women make least of all. In many parts of the country New York City, for instance, woman has no legally-guaranteed right to rent an apartment, buy a house, get accommodations in a hotel, or be served in a public restaurant. She can be refused simply because of her sex. In some states, women cannot own property, and get longer jail sentences for the same crime. Women on welfare must routinely answer humiliating personal questions; male welfare recipients do not. A woman is the last to be hired, the first to be fired. Equal pay for equal work is the exception. Equal chance for advancement, especially at upper levels or at any level with authority over men, is rare enough to be displayed in a museum.

[23] As for our much-touted economic power, we make up only 5 percent of all the people in the country receiving $10,000 a year or more. And that includes all the famous rich widows. We are 51 percent of all stockholders, a dubious honor these days, but we hold only 18 percent of the stock–and that is generally controlled by men. The power women have as consumers is comparable to that power all of us currently have as voters: we can choose among items presented to us, but we have little chance to influence the presentation. Women’s greatest power to date is her nuisance value. The civil rights, peace, and consumer movements are impressive examples of that.

[24] In fact, the myth of economic matriarchy in this country is less testimony to our power than to the resentment of the little power we do have.

[25] You may wonder why we have submitted to such humiliations all these years; why, indeed, women will sometimes deny that they are second class citizens at all.

[26] The answer lies in the psychology of second classness. Like all such groups, we come to accept what society says about us. And that is the most terrible punishment of all. We believe that we can only make it in the world by “uncle Tom-ing,” by a real or pretended subservience to white males.

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[27] Even when we come to understand that we, as individuals, are not second class, we still accept society’s assessment of our group–a phenomenon psychologists refer to as Internalized Aggression. From this stems the desire to be the only woman in an office, an academic department, or any other part of the man’s world. From this also stems women who put down their sisters–and my own profession of journalism has some of them. By writing or speaking of their non-conformist sisters in a disapproving, conformist way, they are essentially saying, “See what a real woman I am,” and expecting to be rewarded by ruling-class approval and favors. That is only beginning to change.

[28] It shouldn’t be surprising that women behave this way, too. After all, Internalized Aggression has for years been evident in black people who criticized each other (“See what a good Nigger I am”), or in Jews who ridiculed Jewishness (“See how I am different from other Jews”). It has been responsible for the phenomenon of wanting to be the only black family in the block, or the only Jew in the club.

[29] With women, the whole system reinforces this feeling of being a mere appendage. It’s hard for a man to realize just how full of self-doubt we become as a result. Locked into suburban homes with the intellectual companionship of three-year-olds; locked into bad jobs, watching less-qualified men get promoted above us; trapped into poverty by a system that supposes our only identity is motherhood–no wonder we become pathetically grateful for small favors.

[30] I don’t want to give the impression, though, that we want to join society exactly as it is. I don’t think most women want to pick up slimline briefcases and march off to meaningless, de- personalized jobs. Nor do we want to be drafted–and women certainly should be drafted: even the readers of Seventeen Magazine were recently polled as being overwhelmingly in favor of women in National Service–to serve in an unconstitutional, racist, body-count war like the one in Indochina.

[31] We want to liberate men from those inhuman roles as well. We want to share the work and responsibility, and to have men share equal responsibility for the children.

[32] Probably the ultimate myth is that children must have fulltime mothers, and that liberated women make bad ones. The truth is that most American children seem to be suffering from too much mother and too little father. Women now spend more time with their homes and families than in any past or present society we know about. To get back to the sanity of the agrarian or joint-family system, we need free universal daycare. With that aid, as in Scandinavian countries, and with laws that permit women equal work and equal pay, men will be relieved of their role as sole breadwinner and stranger to his own children.

[33] No more alimony. Fewer boring wives, fewer child-like wives. No more so-called “Jewish mothers,” who are simply normal ambitious human beings with all their ambitions confined to the house. No more wives who fall apart with the first wrinkle, because they’ve been taught their total identity depends on their outsides. No more responsibility for another adult human being who has never been told she is responsible for her own life, and who sooner or later comes up with some version of, “If I hadn’t married you, I could have been a star.” And let’s say it one more time because it such a great organizing tool, no more alimony. Women Liberation really is Men’s Liberation, too.

[34] The family system that will emerge is a great subject of anxiety. Probably there will be a variety of choice. Colleague marriages, such as young people have now, with both partners going to law school or the Peace Corps together: that’s one alternative. At least they share more than the kitchen and the bedroom. Communes, marriages that are valid for the child- rearing years only . . . there are many possibilities, but they can’t be predicted. The growth of new forms must be organic.

[35] The point is that Women’s Liberation is not destroying the American family; it is trying to build a human, compassionate alternative out of its ruins. Engels said that the paternalistic, 19th Century family system was the prototype of capitalism–with man, the capitalist; woman, 41 the means of production; children the labor–and that the family would only change as the economic system did. Well, capitalism and the mythical American family seem to be in about the same shape.

[36] Of course, there are factors other than economic ones. As Margaret Mead says: No wonder marriage worked so well in the 19th century; people only lived to be fifty years old. And there are factors other than social reform that will influence women’s work success. “No wonder women do less well in business,” says a woman-executive. ”They don’t have wives.” But the family is the first political unit, and to change it is the most radical act of all.

[37] Women have a special opportunity to live the revolution. By refusing to play their traditional role, they upset and displace the social structure around them. We may be subject to ridicule and suppression, just as men were when they refused to play their traditional role by going to war. But those refusals together are a hope for peace. Anthropologist Geofrey Corer discovered that the few peaceful human tribes had a common characteristic: sex roles were not polarized, boys weren’t taught that manhood depended on aggression (or short hair or military skills), and girls weren’t taught that womanhood depended on submission (or working at home instead of the fields).

[38] For those who still fear that Women Liberation involves some loss of manhood, let me quote from the Black Panther code. Certainly, if the fear with which they are being met is any standard, the Panthers are currently the most potent male symbol of all. In Seize The Time, Bobby Seals writes, “Where there’s a Panther house, we try to live socialism. When there’s cooking to be done, both brothers and sisters cook. Both wash the dishes. The sisters don’t just serve and wait on the brothers. A lot of black nationalist organizations have the idea of regulating women to the role of serving their men, and they relate this to black manhood. But a real manhood is based on humanism, and it not based on any form of oppression.”

[39] One final myth: that women are more moral than men. We are not more moral, we are only uncorrupted by power. But until the leaders of our country put into action the philosophy that Bobby Seals has set down until the old generation of male chauvinists is out of office– women in positions of power can increase our chances of peace a great deal. I personally would rather have had Margaret Mead as president during the past six years of Vietnam than either Johnson or Nixon. At least, she wouldn’t have had her masculinity to prove.

[40] Much of the trouble this country is in has to do with the Masculine Mystique: the idea that manhood somehow depends on the subjugation of other people. It’s a bipartisan problem.

[41] The challenge to all of us, and to you men and women who are graduating today, is to live a revolution, not to die for one. There has been too much killing, and the weapons are now far too terrible. This revolution has to change consciousness, to upset the injustice of our current hierarchy by refusing to honor it, and to live a life that enforces a new social justice.

[42] Because the truth is none of us can be liberated if other groups are not. Women’s Liberation is a bridge between black and white women, but also between the construction workers and the suburbanites, between Nixon’s Silent Majority and the young people they hate and fear. Indeed, there’s much more injustice and rage among working-class women than among the much-publicized white radicals.

[43] Women are sisters, they have many of the same problems, and they can communicate with each other. “You only get radicalized, as black activists always told us, on your own thing.” Then we make the connection to other injustices in society. The Women’s Movement is an important revolutionary bridge. And we are building it.

[44] I know it’s traditional on such an occasion to talk about “entering the world.” But this is an untraditional generation: you have made the campus part of the world. I thank you for it.

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[45] I don’t need to tell you what awaits you in this country. You know that much better than I. I will only say that my heart goes with you, and that I hope we will be working together. Divisions of age, race, class, and sex are old-fashioned and destructive.

[46] One more thing, especially to the sisters, because I wish someone had said it to me; it would have saved me so much time.

[47] You don’t have to play one role in this revolutionary age above all others. If you’re willing to pay the price for it, you can do anything you want to do. And the price is worth it.

http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/steinem-living-the-revolution-speech-text/

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Around the world 62 million girls are not in school. Millions more are fighting to stay there. Girls often have to face harassment, discrimination, threats, and even violence just to get an education. Then, even if they can reach a school, they may not have the trained teachers, adequate materials, or support they need to learn to read, write, and do basic math. Recent events in Nigeria focused the world’s concern on their plight. It’s time to Let Girls Learn. Let Girls Learn is an effort by the United States Government to provide the public with meaningful ways to help all girls to get a quality education. It is led by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the lead U.S. Government Agency working to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies. In support of the effort, USAID also announced $231.6 million for new programs to support primary and secondary education and safe learning in Nigeria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Jordan, as well as support for Guatemala's ongoing, successful efforts to improve quality of education for under-served populations.

NEW EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Nigeria In Nigeria, we are launching a program to increase enrollment and improve early- grade reading for at least 500,000 children, including 250,000 girls in Northern Nigeria. Afghanistan In Afghanistan, we will help provide primary education for 174,000 girls, establishing 5,000 Community-Based Education classes and adding 1,300 female teachers in under-served areas of the country.

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A second program will award university scholarships to Afghan women, selected for their academic merit, financial need, and leadership potential. Eighty percent of these scholarships are reserved for Afghan universities—helping to encourage Afghanistan’s most talented women stay in the country and serve their communities. South Sudan In six states of South Sudan, USAID and UNICEF will provide emergency education to 150,000 children, including 60,000 girls, forced from their homes by violence. Jordan We are responding to the challenges of the Syrian humanitarian crisis by partnering with UNICEF to support the No Lost Generation Initiative, a program that will work with over 180,000 school-aged and preschool child refugees, including over 90,000 girls in need of resuming their education. Guatemala In Guatemala, we will continue to improve reading and access to schooling for indigenous children in more than 900 rural schools, and will provide 2,000 out-of- school youth with access to alternative education and vocational opportunities.

WHY LET GIRLS LEARN?

When girls are educated, their families are healthier and they have more opportunities to generate income in adulthood. An educated girl has a ripple effect:

On Her Family:

● One more year of education increases a woman’s income by up to 25 percent. ● A girl who has a basic education is three times less likely to contract HIV. ● Children born to educated mothers are twice as likely to survive past the age of 5. On Society:

● If all women in sub-Saharan Africa had a secondary education, 1.8 million lives would be saved each year. ● Simulations using data from women farmers in Kenya suggest that crop yields could increase by 25 percent if all that country’s girls attended primary school. ● After looking at 100 countries, the World Bank found that increasing the share of women with a secondary education by 1 percent boosts annual per capita income growth by 0.3 percentage points. ● Countries where women hold more than 30 percent of seats in political bodies are more inclusive, egalitarian and democratic.

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HOW DOES THE UNITED STATES SUPPORT GIRLS EDUCATION WORLDWIDE?

The U.S. Government is committed to improving opportunities for children in low- income countries to receive a quality education and obtain the skills they need to live healthy and productive lives. This includes an average annual investment of $1 billion by USAID in international education efforts to ensure equitable treatment of boys and girls, provide the basic skills that will allow them to succeed and stay in school, create safe school environments, and engage communities in support for girls’ education. The U.S. Department of State and U.S. Peace Corps lead global programs to empower girls and increase their chances for academic success. The United States Government also engages in several multilateral, global policy and advocacy initiatives that promote girls’ education and gender equality in education. The United States’ combined efforts extend well beyond traditional classroom activities because there are numerous obstacles to girls education. These efforts include programs to prevent early and forced marriage, initiatives that educate girls about healthy behavior and reproductive health, and unprecedented efforts to prevent and mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS. Focus areas include:

Ensuring girls have equal access to education:

● · In Liberia, where more than three quarters of the country’s poorest girls aged 7-16 have never been to school, USAID’s Girls Opportunity to Access Learning (GOAL) project grants scholarships to girls and school-improvement grants to communities in order to create safer school environments for girls and boys. GOAL also supports girls' clubs and mentoring programs as well as community awareness campaign. ● USAID sits on the Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education - a global partnership between developing countries, donor governments and public, private, and civil society organizations - to galvanize and coordinate an international effort to deliver a quality education to all girls and boys, prioritizing the poorest and most vulnerable. ● The U.S. Peace Corps trains all of its 7,200 Volunteers serving in 65 countries around the world in gender-analysis skills. Volunteers work at the community level and develop and integrate gender-sensitive community development activities into their two years of service. About one third of these Volunteers work in schools, directly supporting teachers, students and school administrators to find culturally appropriate ways to address gender-based violence. ● In 2014, the United States became one of 14 champion countries for the U.N. Global Education First Initiative, which seeks to raise education to the top of the public and policy agenda by putting every child in school; improving the quality of learning; and fostering global citizenship. USAID is part of the U.N. Girls Education Initiative Technical Advisory Committee, which measures and monitors gender equality in education. The Initiative seeks to assist national governments ensure gender equality and the right to education for all children.

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Helping girls stay healthy and in school:  In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 4.4 million children, nearly half of the school- age population, are out of school, and 60 percent of these children are girls. USAID’s Empowering Adolescent Girls through Leadership and Education, with support from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), is working to ensure girls make a successful transition from primary to secondary school as well as gain leadership skills and avoid early pregnancy. The program also engages communities in combatting gender- based violence in schools and making schools safer for all learners. ● In Mozambique, with PEPFAR support, USAID is empowering young girls at risk of sexual exploitation by providing block grants and scholarships that enable them to stay in school. While in Cote d’Ivoire, a large PEPFAR and USAID-supported project increases access to education as well as HIV and health services for 20,000 girls age 10-17. Another project increases access to secondary and higher education for vulnerable girls in Tanzania, in order to reduce risk of HIV infection as well as other health risks, such as early childbearing. Ensuring girls access to learning in conflict and crisis ● In South Sudan, we are working to increase access to education for girls and boys in remote, conflict-affected regions by promoting safe learning environments, delivering more relevant formal education, and strengthening the education system’s ability to support learners experiencing psychosocial difficulties due to conflict and crisis. ● In Afghanistan today, 3 million girls are enrolled in school. A decade ago, there were none. USAID has supported these gains by building more than 560 schools and several provincial teacher-training centers throughout the country, producing and distributing textbooks to schools nationwide, and developing a university teaching degree program. ● Many of Syria’s children have been out of school for over three years. Some have witnessed unspeakable abuse. In Jordan, where children make up approximately 54 percent of Syrian refugees, U.S. Government support is strengthening Jordanian schools – which have enrolled more than 100,000 Syrian refugee children – and is helping to develop safe spaces for girls and boys in school. Supporting girls’ leadership ● The U.S. State Department supports extensive exchange programs focused on empowering girls and expanding their opportunities. TechGirls offers teenage girls from the Middle East and North Africa the opportunity to participate in an intensive, three-week exchange program in the United States that equips them with skills and resources to pursue higher education and careers in technology. ● The U.S. State Department’s Empowering Women and Girls through Sports Initiative works to inspire more women and girls to become involved in sports and experience the benefits of participation, such as improved health, increased self- esteem, and greater academic and professional success.

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● The U.S. State Department’s English Access Microscholarship Program provides English-language training to talented, economically disadvantaged 13-20 year olds – more than half of them girls – in their home countries. Access participants gain English skills valuable to their future education and careers. ● The Peace Corps organizes and leads GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Camps around the world to promote gender equality and empower young women. GLOW camps, which range from day-long sessions to week-long overnight programs, create a safe and supportive environment for learning, cultural exchange, individuality, creativity, leadership development, and fun. In 2013, Peace Corps Volunteers in 60 countries ran educational camps serving a total of 30,000 young people.

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1869/USAID_LetGirlsLearn_FactSheet.pdf

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First Lady at Let Girls Learn Event in United Kingdom

16 June 2015 THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the First Lady London, United Kingdom June 16, 2015 REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY AT LET GIRLS LEARN EVENT Mulberry School for Girls London, United Kingdom 11:40 A.M. GMT

MRS. OBAMA: Thank you so much. (Applause.) Oh, warm welcome indeed. Well, hello, everyone. I want to thank Dr. Ogden for that wonderful introduction and for her outstanding leadership at this school.

I also want to thank all of the teachers, the staff who create such an amazing environment for these young women. This is truly a model, and it’s been a privilege to spend time here.

I also want to thank Secretary Greening for her poignant remarks. And I also want to recognize your Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan, who participated in the roundtable with me earlier today, as well as -- to our American Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Matthew Barzun, who is here. Thank you so much, Matt, for all you do.

It’s such a pleasure to arrive here in the United Kingdom as the world celebrated the 800th Magna Carta anniversary, and the impact that document has made on not just your country, but on my country and all across the globe.

But before I begin, I want to say a special hello to everyone who I know is watching this event online and on TV all around the world. I want to thank everybody out there for joining us and for paying careful attention to this important issue.

And finally, most importantly, I want to thank all of the students here -– the smart, powerful, creative, accomplished young women of Mulberry School for Girls. You all are beautiful. And your welcome was touching. (Applause.) And I’m not just talking about the girls here in the room. I also know -- I’m sending my love out to all of the girls watching from the Sports Hall -- hey. (Laughter.) We love you.

Now, I imagine that some of you might be wondering, well, why would the First Lady of the United States come here to Tower Hamlets? Why would she choose this community and this school when she could be anywhere in this city or in this entire country? And the answer is simple: I’m here because of you. I’m here because girls like you inspire me and impress me every single day. I am so proud of your passion, your diligence; as Dr. Ogden said, your grit, your determination. And I am beyond thrilled that you are working so hard to complete your education. It is so important.

And I’m here because when I look out at all of these young women, I see myself. I may come from a country that’s an ocean away, but -- I’m a bit older than you all. (Laughter.) Yes, I am. I know I don’t look it. (Laughter.) But I’m just a little older. But in so many ways, your story is my story.

For those of you who may not know much about my background, I grew up in a working-class neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago -- a neighborhood a lot like this one, where people work hard to make ends meet, but where families are tight-knit with strong values. My dad worked as a pump operator at the city water plant, and my mom stayed home to take care of me and my big brother Craig.

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We lived in a really small apartment. And my brother and I shared a bedroom that was divided in half by a wooden partition, giving us each our own little, tiny rooms that fit just a twin bed and a small desk. So we didn’t have much space, but we had a whole lot of love.

And, perhaps like a lot of you, we grew up surrounded by our extended family. I had grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins living just blocks away from my family’s apartment, and my great aunt and uncle actually lived one floor below in the same apartment house. So our home was often busy with family coming and going. And because our apartment was so small, there wasn’t much privacy. I can remember how hard it was to concentrate on my homework because someone was always talking or watching TV right next to you.

I often woke up at 4:00 in the morning when the house was finally quiet just so that I could concentrate on and finish my schoolwork. I remember just dreaming of having a space of my own, away from all the family obligations that were always popping up.

As my great aunt and uncle grew older, my parents took charge of caring for them. My dad would help my uncle shave and get dressed each morning, and my mom would dash downstairs in the middle of the night to make sure that my aunt was okay. So we constantly felt the struggle to balance our family responsibilities and the schoolwork, the activities, and the goals that we had for ourselves.

And through it all, my parents fully expected us to do both -- to achieve our dreams, and be there for our family. And they also knew that a good education was the ultimate key to our success. My parents told me every day I could do anything -- I could grow up to be a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, whatever -- but only if I worked as hard as I could to succeed in school.

I imagine that many of you have parents who give you the exact same advice. And like you, I didn’t want to let my parents down. So I worked hard in school. I read everything I could get my hands on. I did my absolute very best on every single assignment. I did everything in my power to be a good student. I dreamed of one day going to one of the best universities in America.

But despite my efforts, there were still people in my life who told me that I was setting my sights too high; that a girl like me couldn’t get into an elite university. It was like these folks were trying to put me in a little box –- a box that fit their constrained expectations of me. And after a while, I started to wonder, well, maybe I was dreaming too big. What if these folks were right?

See, back then, I didn’t know what my future held. I didn’t know that I’d be accepted to a top university. I didn’t know that I’d go on to get a law degree and become an NGO director, and a hospital executive, and, eventually, First Lady of the United States. Those kinds of achievements seemed totally out of reach when I was your age. I was just a working-class kid from a good community with limited resources.

Neither of my parents and hardly anyone in my neighborhood went to university. And I wasn’t even sure if my family could afford the tuition. I didn’t have anyone to help me study for entrance exams. And the fact that I was a girl and that I was black -- well, that certainly didn’t help things, either. When I was growing up, there were very few black women at high levels in business, or politics, or science, on TV, so I didn’t have many professional role models to look up to.

And I have a feeling that my experience might feel similar or familiar to some of you. Maybe you look at the leaders in your businesses and laboratories and government and wonder whether there’s a place for someone like you. Maybe you’ve heard about the kinds of tutors and prep courses and other advantages that wealthier students can afford, and you wonder how you ever will compete. Maybe you feel like no one’s paying attention to you, like you’re lost in the shuffle at home or in this huge city, and you wonder whether it’s worth it to even aspire to be something great. And maybe you read the news and hear what folks are saying about your religion, and you wonder if people will ever see beyond your headscarf to who you really are -– instead of being blinded by the fears and misperceptions in their own minds.

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And I know how painful and how frustrating all of that can be. I know how angry and exhausted it can make you feel. But here’s the thing -- with an education from this amazing school, you all have everything -- everything -- you need to rise above all of the noise and fulfill every last one of your dreams.

And it is so important that you do that, not just for yourselves, but for all of us. Because you all have a unique perspective. You have a unique voice to add to the conversation. You know what it’s like when a family struggles to make ends meet. You know what it’s like to be overlooked and underestimated because of who you are or what you believe in or where you come from.

And the world needs more girls like you growing up to lead our parliaments and our board rooms and our courtrooms and our universities. We need you. We need people like you tackling the pressing problems we face -– climate change and poverty, violent extremism, disease.

And while all of that might sound a little daunting, I just want you to remember that you don’t have to do this alone. There are millions of people like me and my husband, Dr. Ogden, and so many leaders here in the United Kingdom and all around the world who are standing with you. We are doing everything we can to break down the barriers that stand in your way. We want to make sure that every door is open to girls like you, and not just here in England, not just in America, but in every corner of the globe. And that starts with making sure that every girl on this planet has the kinds of opportunities you all have to get the education and to succeed.

As you’ve heard, right now there are more than 62 million girls around the world who are not in school -- girls whose families don’t think they’re worthy of an education, or they can’t afford it. Girls who live too far away from the nearest school and have no transportation. Girls like Malala Yousafzai who are assaulted, kidnapped, or killed just for trying to learn.

And this isn’t just a devastating loss for these girls, it’s a devastating loss for all of us who are missing out on their promise. One of these girls could have the potential to cure cancer, or start a business that transforms an industry, or become the next president or prime minister who inspires her country. But if she never sets foot in a classroom, chances are she will never discover or fulfill that potential.

And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve traveled here to the UK –- because for so long, this country has been doing such wonderful work to support adolescent girls’ education around the world. We’ve been working hard in the United States as well, and earlier this year, the United States increased our own efforts in this area by launching, as you heard, our new initiative called Let Girls Learn to help girls in developing countries go to school, and, more importantly, stay in school.

And I am so thrilled that today, our two countries are announcing a series of new partnerships that total nearly $200 million to help girls like you all of you get the education they deserve. We’re going to be working together to support young people –- particularly adolescent girls -– in areas affected by conflict and crisis, like the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Our universities and development agencies are going to team up to research ways to improve education for girls. And American Peace Corps volunteers and the UK's Campaign for Female Education are going to work together with local communities in developing countries to lift up adolescent girls’ education as well.

So I am very proud of the work that we’re doing together. And I’m especially proud to be announcing these new commitments here in London, because this city was the first stop on my very first international trip as First Lady. And during my time here, I visited with the girls from Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School -– a school a lot like this one –- and I know that there are some of the students here today -- yes, there you go. (Laughter.)

And as I stood before that roomful of girls six years ago, all I could think about was how much promise they each had inside of them, how much passion and hope and intelligence each of them could bring to our world. And in many ways, those girls were the inspiration for so much of my work as First Lady -– 51 work to give girls like them, and like you, and like those 62 million girls around the world the opportunities you deserve.

And now, today, being back here in London, looking out at all of your faces, I’m once again filled with the same feeling I had six years ago. I see a roomful of business leaders and surgeons and barristers. I see women who are going to win elections, and science competitions, and arts awards. I see leaders who will inspire folks not just here in Tower Hamlets, but all across the country and all around the world.

That’s what I see. Because I know what’s inside of girls like you and like me. I know how hard we’ll fight for our families, how deeply we care about our communities, how much of a difference we can make for those around us. And I have seen it again and again and again that what our parents told us really is true –- that if we get our education, we can do anything. We can lift up ourselves to heights we could never imagine. We can pay forward all of the love and support that our families have poured into us. And we can truly be, as Dr. Ogden says, “builders of a new day.” That is your work. That’s my hope for you.

So I want to thank you all for hosting me and making me feel so loved. I’m so proud of you. So now, we’re going to talk, okay? (Laughter.) You guys ready for some conversation?

STUDENTS: Yes.

MRS. OBAMA: Yes? Are you going to -- you’re not going to be shy?

STUDENTS: No.

MRS. OBAMA: All right. (Laughter.) So I’m going to invite Dr. Ogden to join me back on stage. And I also want to introduce someone to you who has been a leader for adolescent girls all around the globe, and that’s Ms. Julia Gillard.

Julia is the former Prime Minister of Australia. And today she serves as the Board Chair for the Global Partnership for Education, which means she’s working with all sorts of countries and organizations on strategies and solutions to help girls like you get the education you deserve. She is really the expert on this issue. And since we’re just getting started with Let Girls Learn, my team, we want to learn as much from folks like her as we can so that we can make the biggest impact possible.

So it’s a thrill to have her here with us today. And with that, I’m going to take my seat and we’re going to start answering your questions. How about that?

I love you all. Thank you. (Applause.)

END 11:57 A.M. GMT http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2015/06/20150616316291.html video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0sao_1gILs

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Outcome: identifying paragraph structure. Exercise: in some parts of the following speech, the order of sentences has been mixed up. Put them in the most appropriate order.

TED

Laura Boushnak

For these women, reading is a daring act

Posted Feb 2015 Rated Inspiring, Informative

00:11 As an Arab female photographer, I have always found ample inspiration for my projects in personal experiences. The passion I developed for knowledge, which allowed me to break barriers towards a better life was the motivation for my project I Read I Write.

00:28 Pushed by my own experience, as I was not allowed initially to pursue my higher education, I decided to explore and document stories of other women who changed their lives through education, while exposing and questioning the barriers they face. I covered a range of topics that concern women's education, keeping in mind the differences among Arab countries due to economic and social factors. These issues include female illiteracy, which is quite high in the region; educational reforms; programs for dropout students; and political activism among university students. As I started this work, it was not always easy to convince the women to participate. Only after explaining to them how their stories might influence other women's lives, how they would become role models for their own community, did some agree. Seeking a collaborative and reflexive approach, I asked them to write their own words and ideas on prints of their own images. Those images were then shared in some of the classrooms, and worked to inspire and motivate other women going through similar educations and situations. Aisha, a teacher from Yemen, wrote, "I sought education in order to be independent and to not count on men with everything."

01:50 One of my first subjects was Umm El-Saad from Egypt.

1 Of course, that's not why Umm El-Saad joined the program.

2 She was attending a nine-month literacy program run by a local NGO in the Cairo suburbs.

3 Months later, she was joking that her husband had threatened to pull her out of the classes, as he found out that his now literate wife was going through his phone text messages. (Laughter) Naughty Umm El-Saad.

4 When we first met, she was barely able to write her name.

5 Despite her poverty and her community's mindset, which belittles women's education, Umm El-Saad, along with her Egyptian classmates, was eager to learn how to read and write.

6 I saw how she was longing to gain control over her simple daily routines, small details that we take for granted, from counting money at the market to helping her kids in homework.

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02:43 In Tunisia, I met Asma, one of the four activist women I interviewed. The secular bioengineering student is quite active on social media. Regarding her country, which treasured what has been called the Arab Spring, she said, "I've always dreamt of discovering a new bacteria. Now, after the revolution, we have a new one every single day." Asma was referring to the rise of religious fundamentalism in the region, which is another obstacle to women in particular.

03:14 Out of all the women I met, Fayza from Yemen affected me the most.

1 She is now 26.

2 That marriage lasted for a year.

3 Her goal is to find a job, rent a place to live in, and bring her kids back with her.

4 Despite her poverty, despite her social status as a divorcée in an ultra-conservative society, and despite the opposition of her parents to her going back to school, Fayza knew that her only way to control her life was through education.

5 Fayza was forced to drop out of school at the age of eight when she was married.

6 She received a grant from a local NGO to fund her business studies at the university.

7 At 14, she became the third wife of a 60-year-old man, and by the time she was 18, she was a divorced mother of three.

04:06 The Arab states are going through tremendous change, and the struggles women face are overwhelming. Just like the women I photographed, I had to overcome many barriers to becoming the photographer I am today, many people along the way telling me what I can and cannot do. Umm El- Saad, Asma and Fayza, and many women across the Arab world, show that it is possible to overcome barriers to education, which they know is the best means to a better future. And here I would like to end with a quote by Yasmine, one of the four activist women I interviewed in Tunisia. Yasmine wrote, "Question your convictions. Be who you to want to be, not who they want you to be. Don't accept their enslavement, for your mother birthed you free."

04:55 Thank you.

04:57 (Applause) https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_boushnak_for_these_women_reading_is_a_daring_act/transcript

Laura Boushnak is a Kuwaiti-born Palestinian photographer, whose work focuses on women, literacy and education reform in the Arab world. For her ongoing series ‘I Read, I Write’, she photographed girls and women changing their lives through education in Egypt, Yemen, Kuwait, Jordan and Tunisia. Boushnak is a TED Fellow, and the co-founder of the RAWIYA collective, a photography cooperative of female photographers from the Middle East. Exercise: Cohesion (Gap-fill)

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MALALA YOUSAFZAI: THE STORY OF A HERO Girl Effect Team 10.10.13 Education Malala Yousafzai’s courage and determination has put girls’ education at the top of the global development agenda Great leaders are often defined not by their beliefs, 1______by how they react when 2 ______beliefs are tested to the limit. In the case of the Pakistani girl activist Malala Yousafzai, it's likely historians will focus on 3 ______horrific incident one year ago this week 4 ______she was shot in the head as she made her way home on the school bus. In the eyes of the world, 5______was the defining moment in her fight for education - transforming her from an unknown schoolgirl to 6 ______global figurehead in the struggle for girls’ rights. 7______the truly remarkable thing about Malala is how little that attack by the Taliban changed her.

GIRLS' EDUCATION CRUSADER Malala was an outstanding young lady long before that day in October 2012. Encouraged by her father, a headteacher and anti-Taliban campaigner, Malala began speaking out about girls' education aged just 11. 8______would be unusual in most societies, but especially in one 9______girls are often undervalued. In 2008, she spoke at a local press club meeting, telling the gathered journalists: "How dare the Taliban take away 10 ______basic right to education? Her words were remarkable, not 11 ______for their clarity and intelligence, but also for their fearlessness. Just weeks earlier, the Taliban had taken control of the Swat Valley where Malala lived and issued an edict banning girls from attending school. Most people retreated in fear, 12 ______Malala thrust herself into the spotlight to protest against the injustice. After the press club speech, she made TV news appearances in both Pakistan and the United States. She also began writing an online diary for the BBC. Clearly, Malala wanted to be heard. It's a tragedy that she had to be shot 13 ______the world truly listened.

THE GOAL IS PEACE, 14 ______A PRIZE The attack happened just two days before the first-ever International Day of the Girl (IDG) last October. Today, on IDG 2013, 15 ______is clear that Malala has put girls at the centre of the debate about global development and justice. The girl 16 ______struggle was once ignored now has regular audiences with presidents, monarchs and Hollywood A-listers. She's been named 17 ______of the 10 most influential people in the world (higher even than Barack Obama), called "a symbol of hope, a daughter of the United Nations" by the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon and just missed out on the Nobel Peace Prize at the announcement today.

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The youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner, the journalist Tawakkol Karman, was 32 when she won 18 ______. Malala's nomination at just 16 is 19______incredible achievement. Her profile has been transformed, but 20 ______focus and determination are the same as 21______ever were. "My goal is not to get a Nobel Peace Prize, 22 ______is to get peace," she told the BBC this week.

THE MALALA FUND Progress towards that goal of 23 ______has been rapid. Malala's education petition received more than three million signatures, and a remarkable speech at the UN on her 16th birthday in July prompted Ban Ki-moon to recommit to Millennium Development Goal 2 - universal primary education - through the Global Education First Initiative. "One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can 24 ______the world," she told the UN. Malala is now attending school in Birmingham, England. Her determination to ensure that 25______girls get an education hasn't faltered even for a moment. Two weeks ago, she launched the Malala Fund, which will support 40 Pakistani girls through 26 ______. "After a brutal attempt to silence her voice, it grew louder, and she more resolute," said actress and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie at the launch.

"She is powerful, but she is also a sweet, creative, loving little girl who wants to help others. Her goal is progress, not notoriety," added Jolie.

SUPPORT THE GIRL DECLARATION Malala's journey from Pakistani school to the floor of the United Nations demonstrates the power of giving girls a 27 ______. "Because of Malala there is a public understanding that something is wrong and has got to be done," said former UK prime minister Gordon Brown. The global community now owes it to her to make sure no other girl has to endure 28 ______a horrific ordeal in order to be heard. The Girl Declaration has been created to give girls 29 ______Malala all over the world a voice, and we are honoured that Malala herself has signed it. Today the Declaration will be handed over to the UN. 30 ______need to read it, support it and use it to put girls at the heart of global development policy. It's the least that Malala - and the 250 million girls living in poverty - deserves.

Retrieved 6 October, 2015, from http://www.girleffect.org/what-girls-need/articles/2013/10/malala-yousafzai-the-story-of-a-hero/

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The Nobel Peace Prize 2014 Kailash Satyarthi, Malala Yousafzai Malala Yousafzai - Facts

Photo: K. Opprann

Malala Yousafzai

Born: 12 July 1997, Mingora, Pakistan

Residence at the time of the award: United Kingdom

Prize motivation: "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education"

Prize share: 1/2

Works for Children's Right to Education

Much of the world's population, especially in poor countries, is made up of children and young people. To achieve a peaceful world, it is crucial that the rights of children and young people be respected. Injustices perpetrated against children contribute to the spread of conflicts to future generations. Already at eleven years of age Malala Yousafzai fought for girls' right to education. After having suffered an attack on her life by Taliban gunmen in 2012, she has continued her struggle and become a leading advocate of girls' rights.

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Exercise: read the speech below and answer the questions at the end.

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The Nobel Peace Prize 2014 Kailash Satyarthi, Malala Yousafzai

Nobel Lecture English

Norwegian Nobel Lecture by Malala Yousafzai, Oslo, 10 December 2014.

Bismillah hir rahman ir rahim. In the name of God, the most merciful, the most beneficent. Your Majesties, Your royal highnesses, distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Dear sisters and brothers, today is a day of great happiness for me. I am humbled that the Nobel Committee has selected me for this precious award. Thank you to everyone for your continued support and love. Thank you for the letters and cards that I still receive from all around the world. Your kind and encouraging words strengthens and inspires me. I would like to thank my parents for their unconditional love. Thank you to my father for not clipping my wings and for letting me fly. Thank you to my mother for inspiring me to be patient and to always speak the truth- which we strongly believe is the true message of Islam. And also thank you to all my wonderful teachers, who inspired me to believe in myself and be brave. I am proud, well in fact, I am very proud to be the first Pashtun, the first Pakistani, and the youngest person to receive this award. Along with that, along with that, I am pretty certain that I am also the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fights with her younger brothers. I want there to be peace everywhere, but my brothers and I are still working on that. I am also honoured to receive this award together with Kailash Satyarthi, who has been a champion for children's rights for a long time. Twice as long, in fact, than I have been alive. I am proud that we can work together, we can work together and show the world that an Indian and a Pakistani, they can work together and achieve their goals of children's rights. Dear brothers and sisters, I was named after the inspirational Malalai of Maiwand who is the Pashtun Joan of Arc. The word Malala means grief stricken", sad", but in order to lend some happiness to it, my grandfather would always call me Malala – The happiest girl in the world" and today I am very happy that we are together fighting for an important cause. This award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who want education. It is for those frightened children who want peace. It is for those voiceless children who want change.

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I am here to stand up for their rights, to raise their voice… it is not time to pity them. It is not time to pity them. It is time to take action so it becomes the last time, the last time, so it becomes the last time that we see a child deprived of education. I have found that people describe me in many different ways. Some people call me the girl who was shot by the Taliban. And some, the girl who fought for her rights. Some people, call me a "Nobel Laureate" now. However, my brothers still call me that annoying bossy sister. As far as I know, I am just a committed and even stubborn person who wants to see every child getting quality education, who wants to see women having equal rights and who wants peace in every corner of the world. Education is one of the blessings of life—and one of its necessities. That has been my experience during the 17 years of my life. In my paradise home, Swat, I always loved learning and discovering new things. I remember when my friends and I would decorate our hands with henna on special occasions. And instead of drawing flowers and patterns we would paint our hands with mathematical formulas and equations. We had a thirst for education, we had a thirst for education because our future was right there in that classroom. We would sit and learn and read together. We loved to wear neat and tidy school uniforms and we would sit there with big dreams in our eyes. We wanted to make our parents proud and prove that we could also excel in our studies and achieve those goals, which some people think only boys can. But things did not remain the same. When I was in Swat, which was a place of tourism and beauty, suddenly changed into a place of terrorism. I was just ten that more than 400 schools were destroyed. Women were flogged. People were killed. And our beautiful dreams turned into nightmares. Education went from being a right to being a crime. Girls were stopped from going to school. When my world suddenly changed, my priorities changed too. I had two options. One was to remain silent and wait to be killed. And the second was to speak up and then be killed. I chose the second one. I decided to speak up. We could not just stand by and see those injustices of the terrorists denying our rights, ruthlessly killing people and misusing the name of Islam. We decided to raise our voice and tell them: Have you not learnt, have you not learnt that in the Holy Quran Allah says: if you kill one person it is as if you kill the whole humanity? Do you not know that Mohammad, peace be upon him, the prophet of mercy, he says, do not harm yourself or others". And do you not know that the very first word of the Holy Quran is the word Iqra", which means read"? The terrorists tried to stop us and attacked me and my friends who are here today, on our school bus in 2012, but neither their ideas nor their bullets could win. We survived. And since that day, our voices have grown louder and louder. 59

I tell my story, not because it is unique, but because it is not. It is the story of many girls. Today, I tell their stories too. I have brought with me some of my sisters from Pakistan, from Nigeria and from Syria, who share this story. My brave sisters Shazia and Kainat who were also shot that day on our school bus. But they have not stopped learning. And my brave sister Kainat Soomro who went through severe abuse and extreme violence, even her brother was killed, but she did not succumb. Also my sisters here, whom I have met during my Malala Fund campaign. My 16-year-old courageous sister, Mezon from Syria, who now lives in Jordan as refugee and goes from tent to tent encouraging girls and boys to learn. And my sister Amina, from the North of Nigeria, where Boko Haram threatens, and stops girls and even kidnaps girls, just for wanting to go to school. Though I appear as one girl, though I appear as one girl, one person, who is 5 foot 2 inches tall, if you include my high heels. (It means I am 5 foot only) I am not a lone voice, I am not a lone voice, I am many. I am Malala. But I am also Shazia. I am Kainat. I am Kainat Soomro. I am Mezon. I am Amina. I am those 66 million girls who are deprived of education. And today I am not raising my voice, it is the voice of those 66 million girls. Sometimes people like to ask me why should girls go to school, why is it important for them. But I think the more important question is why shouldn't they, why shouldn't they have this right to go to school. Dear sisters and brothers, today, in half of the world, we see rapid progress and development. However, there are many countries where millions still suffer from the very old problems of war, poverty, and injustice. We still see conflicts in which innocent people lose their lives and children become orphans. We see many people becoming refugees in Syria, Gaza and Iraq. In Afghanistan, we see families being killed in suicide attacks and bomb blasts. Many children in Africa do not have access to education because of poverty. And as I said, we still see, we still see girls who have no freedom to go to school in the north of Nigeria. Many children in countries like Pakistan and India, as Kailash Satyarthi mentioned, many children, especially in India and Pakistan are deprived of their right to education because of social taboos, or they have been forced into child marriage or into child labour. One of my very good school friends, the same age as me, who had always been a bold and confident girl, dreamed of becoming a doctor. But her dream remained a dream. At the age of 12, she was forced to get married. And then soon she had a son, she had a child when she herself was still a child – only 14. I know that she could have been a very good doctor. But she couldn't ... because she was a girl. Her story is why I dedicate the Nobel Peace Prize money to the Malala Fund, to help give girls quality education, everywhere, anywhere in the world and to raise their voices. The first place this 60 funding will go to is where my heart is, to build schools in Pakistan—especially in my home of Swat and Shangla. In my own village, there is still no secondary school for girls. And it is my wish and my commitment, and now my challenge to build one so that my friends and my sisters can go there to school and get quality education and to get this opportunity to fulfil their dreams. This is where I will begin, but it is not where I will stop. I will continue this fight until I see every child, every child in school. Dear brothers and sisters, great people, who brought change, like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Aung San Suu Kyi, once stood here on this stage. I hope the steps that Kailash Satyarthi and I have taken so far and will take on this journey will also bring change – lasting change. My great hope is that this will be the last time, this will be the last time we must fight for education. Let's solve this once and for all. We have already taken many steps. Now it is time to take a leap. It is not time to tell the world leaders to realise how important education is - they already know it - their own children are in good schools. Now it is time to call them to take action for the rest of the world's children. We ask the world leaders to unite and make education their top priority. Fifteen years ago, the world leaders decided on a set of global goals, the Millennium Development Goals. In the years that have followed, we have seen some progress. The number of children out of school has been halved, as Kailash Satyarthi said. However, the world focused only on primary education, and progress did not reach everyone. In year 2015, representatives from all around the world will meet in the United Nations to set the next set of goals, the Sustainable Development Goals. This will set the world's ambition for the next generations. The world can no longer accept, the world can no longer accept that basic education is enough. Why do leaders accept that for children in developing countries, only basic literacy is sufficient, when their own children do homework in Algebra, Mathematics, Science and Physics? Leaders must seize this opportunity to guarantee a free, quality, primary and secondary education for every child. Some will say this is impractical, or too expensive, or too hard. Or maybe even impossible. But it is time the world thinks bigger. Dear sisters and brothers, the so-called world of adults may understand it, but we children don't. Why is it that countries which we call strong" are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it, why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so hard? We are living in the modern age and we believe that nothing is impossible. We have reached the moon 45 years ago and maybe will soon land on Mars. Then, in this 21st century, we must be able to give every child quality education. Dear sisters and brothers, dear fellow children, we must work… not wait. Not just the politicians and the world leaders, we all need to contribute. Me. You. We. It is our duty.

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Let us become the first generation to decide to be the last , let us become the first generation that decides to be the last that sees empty classrooms, lost childhoods, and wasted potentials. Let this be the last time that a girl or a boy spends their childhood in a factory. Let this be the last time that a girl is forced into early child marriage. Let this be the last time that a child loses life in war. Let this be the last time that we see a child out of school. Let this end with us. Let's begin this ending ... together ... today ... right here, right now. Let's begin this ending now. Thank you so much.

Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 2014

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Questions 1 How did the situation in her country change in 2007 when she was 10? 2 Does she blame Islam? Why (not)? 3 Why are so many children throughout the world deprived of an education? 4 What is she calling on world leaders to do?

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Outcome: identifying structure and development of argument

Exercise: put the lettered paragraphs in the most appropriate order.

Are Women Devalued by Religions? Sister Joan Chittister, 01.10.2014

1 The bad news came in the 2013 “State of the World’s Mothers” report. Of the 30 best countries in the world to be a mother, the survey reports that the United States ranks 30th—behind all the countries in Scandinavia, Australia, Canada, and most of the developed world.1

A This scriptural exaltation of women’s equality only makes the actual condition of women in our society more questionable—and the attitudes of many male religious leaders on the subject more suspect. After all, at its best, religion frames our values and invites each and all us—not just men—to reach for the heights of the human spirit.

B After all, the Judeo-Christian scriptures, which are the foundation for how so many of us understand the nature and role of women in society, are very clear about women’s worth. The Book of Genesis reads, “Let us make them in our own image, male and female let us make them.” It is, as the theologian Mary Daly says, “the creative potential in human beings” that is the image and incarnation of God’s power in this world—in women as well as men.

C How can this situation exist in the United States—one of the world’s most religious countries—where so many of us believe that religion is a great force for good? Moreover, what exactly are our religious institutions—our churches, mosques, synagogues, and faith communities—doing to advance the development and status of women?

2 Religion, we also know, is a compelling arbiter of personal ethics and public actions. Human behavior is based on assumptions, and where women are concerned, religion has helped define the human community’s assumptions about the place and role of women in society. Religion tells us that women are valuable, of course, but also that women are secondary to men.

A Galileo and science were not the only segments of society attacked by Western theologians for being outside the assumptions of the time. Other debates raged for centuries. Were indigenous peoples fully human? Were American Indians fully human? Were black people fully human? Could these types be baptized, be ordained, or really be as rational and intelligent as whites? Could they be more than slaves, more than property?

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B The astronomer Galileo, for instance, knew that everything to be known about nature and life was not revealed by theology alone. Galileo was silenced and excommunicated for proposing that the Earth traveled around the sun, not the other way around. He responded: “I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” Galileo, and science with him, paid a high price for staying true to the data when the facts of science and the assumptions of doctrine clashed.

C In fact, religion’s power to determine human reality and public morality in every arena has a long and troublesome history.

3 It took centuries for the barriers of “otherness” that marked these groups to begin to fade away. It took centuries before we began to speak of humanity as a whole—to see humanness as more than ethnic identity, more than color.

A But even as far as we’ve come, women are still one class of people who are set apart, separated, and given less value and worth by multiple religious traditions. Religion has defined women by their maternity—just one dimension of a woman’s multifaceted humanity. Religion has defined women as “helpmates,” as too irrational to lead, too intellectually limited for the public dimensions of life. Though they are endowed with the same degree of sense, reason, and intellect as men, women have been locked out of full humanity and full participation in religious institutions and society at large. This marginalization of women masquerades as “protecting” them and even “exalting” them. Instead, these attitudes serve to deny the human race the fullness of female gifts and a female perspective on life.

B What religion has said about women has long been used to justify what society has done to limit their development. Not only does what our churches, mosques, synagogues, and faith communities teach and do about women become the morality of the land. What they do not say or do on behalf of women condones what becomes the immorality of the land.

C As a result, women make up two-thirds of the hungry of this world. Women are two- thirds of the illiterate of this world. And women are two-thirds of the poorest of the poor, because they lack access to the resources and recognition men take for granted. That’s not an accident. That is a policy—one supported by religious institutions that call such discrimination “women’s place” and “God’s will.”

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4 The “State of the World’s Mothers” report defines five indicators essential to the well- being of women and their children, and the United States fails on three of them: economic status of women, political opportunities for women, and universal health care. When will religions call for these things to be the moral imperatives of a woman’s life?

A In our own country, rapes in the military and rapes on college campuses go unpunished because “boys will be boys,” and winning wars and football games are more important than protecting the integrity of the women who are the victims of rape.

B In our own country, Carie Charlesworth, a mother of four children, was fired from her Catholic school teaching job because her husband violated a court’s “protection from abuse” order by stalking her workplace. Apparently, she is the problem, not he.

C In our time, a young woman by the name of Malala Yousafzai lives with a bullet wound in her head for wanting to go to school. The Taliban had banned girls’ education in her region of Pakistan, and the assassination attempt by a Taliban extremist was meant to intimidate other young women who want to learn how to read.

5 In our own country, religious people who insist that caring for children is a woman’s major responsibility in life have not yet called underpaying single women with children the sin that it is.

A It is time for religions to repair this distortion of the will of God. Like Galileo, it is time for both women and men to contest such untenable conclusions. For all of our sakes and for the sake of all humanity, it is time.

B It is time for religions to repent the acceptance of assumptions about the social place and roles of women—assumptions that spring from theological definitions of women as less fully rational, less fully human, and less fully essential to the public arena than men.

This piece is an excerpt from The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink in partnership with Center for American Progress.

ENDNOTES

[1]: Save the Children, “State of the World’s Mothers 2013” (2013), available at http://www.savethechildrenweb.org/SOWM-2013/.

http://shriverreport.org/are-women-devalued-by-religions-joan-chittister/

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Comment on Are Women devalued by religions Published on Sojourners (https://sojo.net)

Religion, Scripture, and the Value of Women [1]

By Anna Hall [2] 01-14-2014 Print [3]

Gender equality wordcloud, mypokcik / Shutterstock.com

The third edition of the Shriver Report [4], a media initiative spearheaded by Maria Shriver to call public attention to women’s evolving role in the home, workplace, and society, was released this month.

With a large body of articles, research, polls, data, and personal stories, the report assesses the unique needs, pressures, and realities women face. Contributors within the faith, health, academic, economic, and political communities are represented, coupled with intentional cultural and social diversity. This gives the Shriver Report a richness of deep and thoughtful voices. The aim is to strike up provocative, meaningful, national conversations on how progressive policies can be better directed to advance gender equality in the United States.

One of the most eye-catching article headlines for me in reading the report was “Are Women Devalued by Religions? [5]” In the article, sister Joan Chittister remarks on how our assumptions about religion influence our actions, and how the outworking of our actions shapes the norms and policies we guide our lives by. Unfortunately, these assumed beliefs can lead to commonly accepted views that completely distort what God has to say about women.

Through her many examples, Chittister [5] makes us keenly aware that “religion’s power to determine human reality and public morality in every arena has a long and troublesome history.” However, I’d like to qualify that statement a little more, rephrasing the sentence to read “the 66 manipulation of religious teaching and its subsequent power to determine human reality and public morality … has a long and troublesome history.” It’s not religion per se, but it’s how humans have (mis)interpreted it that has served to undermine many Scriptural teachings, one of them being the status of women.

It’s a sad truth that God’s intention — with male and female equally made in the imago dei in Genesis 1 — has been co-opted by many in the church to relegate women to a “helpmate” to her superior Adam. For those who stand to gain from the perpetuation of this negative status quo, it has become socially and morally expedient to limit women’s voices in leadership. Whatever the insidious reasons to keep this patriarchal hierarchy intact, the result has been an undue burden on hundreds of millions of women throughout history, and, even worse, a denial of God’s original declaration and intent of women as co-equals of men.

If this puzzle was played out as an equation, it would look something like this:

Jesus’ view: men = women

Many in the church’s view: men > women

When I think back to myself as a middle-school student in my church youth group, I knew that math didn’t add up. I grew up in a church that did not support equal rights for women. Of course, those words were never spoken, but in practice, sexism was rampant. Women could not preach, for example — unless they were pastoring in the mission field overseas, which somehow made female leadership okay — nor could they hold a pastoral role or serve as church elders.

The repercussions of this teaching really struck me as a young teen in youth group. The girls were consistently singled out and reprimanded, while a “boys will be boys” attitude was tolerated by the youth leaders. That was the time I knew I was joining the multitude ranks of “those who have been hurt by the church.” And it did really hurt.

Thankfully, by the grace of God, I had enough conviction at 13 years old to know I couldn’t abandon my faith or angrily leave the church altogether. Somehow, deep down, I just knew that I knew that specific teaching about women was not okay — that it was not in line with the teachings of Jesus. I never blamed or doubted God. What hurt me was the manifestation of a sinful assumption. That assumption had unfolded in our church philosophy. Whether the congregation knew it, that assumption had become a part of our identity and shaped our worldview.

Warped and distorted, such views have severely limited women in their roles in the church and in the home. Many Christian women carry this weight around, unsure of how to use the gifts God has given them. Often, they believe the lie themselves. Sadly, women have walked away from the church, never knowing the truth Jesus speaks about them. The truth is the Holy Spirit does not discriminate on the basis of gender what gifts are given to each person. Both men and women can preach, teach, and serve in the children’s ministry.

Chittister [5] got it right when noting that “not only does what our churches, mosques, synagogues, and faith communities teach and do about women become the morality of the land

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— what they do not say or do on behalf of women condones what becomes the immorality of the land.”

God, the founder of my Christian faith, does not undermine God’s own teaching. To deny women are equal is to deny what God has said is equal. It is people who are undermining religion, not religion undermining women or other people groups.

Faulty religious interpretations have long defined and confined women’s places in society. It is my hope and prayer that the church can be one of the vehicles at the forefront of remedying past and present wounds of our nation’s systemic gender inequality. If we get back to the heart of God, we find women as fully whole and just as human as men. We are not “equal with some stipulations.” We are not “equal, but …” We just are equal. Period.

Anna Hall is campaigns assistant for Sojourners.

Image: Gender equality wordcloud, mypokcik [6] / Shutterstock.com

Source URL: https://sojo.net/articles/religion-scripture-and-value-women

Links [1] https://sojo.net/articles/religion-scripture-and-value-women [2] https://sojo.net/biography/anna-hall [3] https://sojo.net/print/135131 [4] http://shriverreport.org/ [5] http://shriverreport.org/are-women-devalued-by-religions-joan-chittister/ [6] http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-50788p1.html

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The Spectator FEATURES Feminism is over, the battle is won. Time to move on It should be celebrating its triumphs. Instead it has descended into pointless attention-seeking

Emily Hill 24 October 2015 It would be easy to believe from the papers these days that women have never been more oppressed. From the columnist Caitlin Moran to the comedian Bridget Christie, a new creed is preached: that we are the victims, not the victors, of the sex war. Feminists claim we are objectified by the builder’s whistle, that a strange man attempting to flirt with us is tantamount to sexual assault. Suddenly, just as it seemed we women were about to have it all, a new wave of feminists has begun to portray us as feeble-minded — unable to withstand a bad date, let alone negotiate a pay rise. Worse still, they are ditching what was best about the feminist tradition: solidarity with the sisterhood and the freedom of every woman to do as she pleased. Feminism 4.0 consists of freely attacking other women over, erm, crucial issues such as bikini waxing, wearing stilettos and page three of the Sun. Moran writes that it is childbirth that ‘turns you from a girl into a woman’ (causing every woman in my office to snort involuntarily) and that feminism will only triumph ‘when a woman goes up to collect the Oscar for Best Actress in shoes that aren’t killing her’. The revolution will be televised, with ‘Nicole Kidman in flip-flops’.

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Well, if this is feminism, then feminism is dead, and the triviality of the fights feminists pick is the surest proof of its demise. What started as a genuine crusade against genuine prejudice has become a form of pointless attention-seeking. I was born in 1983, and was fortunate to grow up in a country where it was blindingly obvious that women ruled: with a queen on the throne and a woman in Downing Street. I was a grocer’s daughter, educated at a state school, living in the flat above the shop, and I looked to that real feminist icon Margaret Thatcher as objective proof that I could get wherever the hell I wanted in life, provided I sharpened my wits and gave it my all. I knew, without having to be told, that where you were born was not necessarily where you’d end up, because Maggie, facing far greater odds, bulldozed every obstacle foolish enough to stand in her way with sheer bloodymindedness and an attitude that screamed ‘never say die’. Feminists in the West, if they had any sense, would stop moaning and whingeing, order Germaine Greer a crown of laurels, stick her on a four-horse chariot, and march her in triumph through the streets of Rome so she that could offer a blood sacrifice to Emmeline Pankhurst. The totemic battles were hard fought — and they were won. The next generation should be encouraged to enjoy the spoils, not worry old wounds. Today, girls outperform boys at school — and have done since the mid-1970s. They are more likely to get five good GCSEs. A third of them go to university, compared with just a quarter of men. Once in university, they do better and are significantly more likely to graduate with a first or 2:1 degree. And equality? In many courses, it has gone a bit beyond that. Last year, women constituted 55 per cent of those enrolling in courses in medicine and dentistry and 62 per cent of those enrolling in law. Business, banking and the professions may be dominated by men today but, judging by the rapidity of our ascent, this won’t last long. As Boris Johnson has observed, when my generation reach the peak of our careers, the entire management structure of Britain will have been transformed — and feminised. Since the suffragettes won us the vote, women have made greater strides than men have made in millennia. In fact, the demographic doing worst in schools is white boys on free school meals — only a quarter of whom gained five decent GCSE grades. So yes, there are gender equality issues — but they are deeply unfashionable. Who will wave placards, or lie on the carpet of film premieres, for the cause of under-performing boys? Most self-styled feminists argue that we still struggle in the workplace. On close inspection this isn’t borne out either. Women in their twenties have out-earned men in for the last few years; now the under-40s are doing so as well. The speed of our trajectory is startling. Across Europe and America, and particularly in Scandinavia, women are pushing their way on to executive boards and into the seats of power. The French government has passed a law which will require that two in five executive board members of the largest public companies are women. Feminists argue we need quotas in this country, too, but isn’t there a sweeter triumph in the sisters doing it for themselves? So the next generation have everything to play for — if only they aren’t encouraged to view themselves as helpless victims at the mercy of an insuperable patriarchy. Only 19 per cent identify as feminist nowadays, which perhaps isn’t surprising since it’s become so dull. In the 1970s, feminists were ball-breaking, ass-kicking, devil-may-care thinkers — the likes of Greer, Gloria Steinem and Susan Sontag. Now the ‘voice of a generation’ is Harry Potter star Emma Watson, who delivered a highly praised speech to the UN, lamenting that her girlfriends had given up competitive sport because they were worried it might make their arms look ‘muscly’. But while Watson frets about the tyranny of the male gaze, it’s being eyeballed by a feminist which is truly terrifying. These middle–class aesthetes love to boss other — particularly

70 working-class — women around, sneering at how they dress and behave. They disapprove of Beyoncé and Rihanna flaunting their beautiful bodies in pop videos with a vehemence you might expect from the Taleban. In April, an advert featuring a busty model appeared on the Tube, with the tagline: ‘Are you beach body ready?’ Within hours it had been defaced; within days 44,000 signatures had been appended to a petition demanding it be removed. Making sure women are covered up in public, so their bare flesh doesn’t offend anyone, is something you’d expect in Saudi Arabia, not here, where we should be free to dress as provocatively as we please. Why shouldn’t we wear make-up, stockings and suspenders if we like? From Elizabeth I to Bette Davis, women have considered lipstick, high heels and killer hairdos to be legitimate weapons in our arsenal, as effective, in their own way, as crossbows and bazookas. But new feminists are determined to drain the fun from life, and illustrate how awful it is to be a woman in the UK. Another challenge girls apparently quail at is trolling on the internet. So let’s say you have received threats from some maladjusted loser who disagrees with something you’ve said. Should you call the police? Abandon Twitter? Or perhaps relish the insults, in the manner of Maggie, who said: ‘I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding. It means they have not a single political argument left.’ Alternatively, you could remain impervious to insult entirely, like rock goddess Chrissie Hynde, who last month was trolled by feminists after confessing that she had suffered a sex attack aged 21 and took ‘full responsibility’ for it. Twitter lit up with the unedifying spectacle of hundreds of women attacking her for expressing her honest opinion, until even the Guardian’s Julie Bindel felt moved to point out that Hynde herself was ‘not a rapist’. Hynde’s magisterial response? ‘If you don’t want my opinion, don’t ask for it.’ But when it comes to sex, new feminists are excessively squeamish, so much so that one timid male, Samuel Fishwick (24, 6ft 3in, GSOH) has compiled a guide to romance in the age of equality. Approaching the Vagenda blog for advice, he was roundly informed that a man must never ask a woman to meet him for a drink at a location near his abode: ‘It makes women think you’re going to turn their skin into a lampshade.’ Does it, though? Or are feminists exaggerating ridiculously — spending so much time dwelling on their own vaginas that they fail to use their brains? Surely we should be revelling in the fact we’re the ‘second sex’ no longer, and teaching our girls how to rely on what Emily Bronte called our ‘no coward’ souls. Emily Hill is a freelance writer. The Evening Standard Londoner’s Diary had her gatecrash a funeral and the Mail on Sunday sent her down a sewer.

Retrieved 24 October, 2015, from http://new.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/the-decline-of-feminism/

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