I use the quote below to rationalize my inability to produce a single woman for my short video, below. I approached 6 women in the airports at Singapore and Chennai. I even explained that I was aiming for gender balance in this project and no women had yet participated and they could be the first one.
They all demurred.
I know that my lack of women in this video is a product of my unwillingness to interview as many people as it took to achieve a gender balance.
But here's what I noticed:
All the women I spoke told me that their English, or their understanding of international politics, wasn't good enough for them to contribute.
A professor at Wellesley told me this story once that stuck with me: Whenever she attended a conference in her field, she asked everyone she met whether they were an expert. Every man she met (except one) said yes. Every woman she met said no.
Taken in the context of the "Asia's missing women," the unwillingness of women to contribute, and to have confidence in their contributions, might seem insignificant.
And maybe it is.
But it could also be true that when women prefer to be polite, when they avoid taking risks, when they make themselves invisible, it's hard for them to help the women, girls, people or causes that need them most.
Or that they care about most.
My version of “Eggs in Purgatory”
4 years ago
Posts
Apparently, 75% of Japanese couples prefer girls, because they're more "emotionally accessible." Still evident of deep gender bias (and what does it say to boys when they hear that only girls are sensitive?), but there's hope.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many women one would have had to stop and ask in order to finally rack up six.
ReplyDelete