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• Gender Inequality: from Roles to Rights - Commonwealth Lecture 2001

Gender Inequality: from Roles to Rights - Commonwealth Lecture 2001

Date: 13 Mar 2001
Speaker: Mrs Graça Machel, Chairperson of the Commonwealth Foundation,
Location: London, UK

Good evening, friends and colleagues. I am happy to be able to join you tonight and I thank the Commonwealth Foundation for their kind invitation to deliver this Commonwealth Lecture. But first of all I'd like to ask you to lower your expectations. This may be irregular, but tonight, you are not going to listen to a lecture. However, I would like to speak with you this evening about gender and equality; to explain why discussions about equality should shift away from a focus on differing roles and instead, emphasize the rights that men and women share. I believe sincerely that such a change will lead us to a better understanding of how women and men can contribute equally and powerfully to the democratic, just and peaceful nations we all desire.

So here we are: March 13, 2001. More than 50 years after the world embraced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; more than 25 years after the United Nations Year of the Woman; and 20 years after the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. We have had Beijing and Beijing plus five, and several other world conferences on women. Yet despite the years that have gone past, despite the speeches, the elections, the legislation and the commitments that have been made, women's human rights are far from being fulfilled.

Yes, it is the year 2001: and still your sisters, my sisters, your mothers, your wives and your daughters are assaulted in the streets, simply because they are women; 2001 - and still women are beaten to death in their homes by husbands and fathers, still raped with impunity in wars and conflicts, still battered and abused as part of our daily lives. In parts of the world doctors can speak of cloning human beings or choosing the sex of babies, while millions of women in this, our Commonwealth of Nations, continue to die in childbirth, as if science had stood still. 2001 - and no matter the country or the region of the world, violence against women is pervasive and it occurs most often in the very place where women should feel most secure: in the home. 2001 - and the majority of children who are out of school are girls; the majority of children who are bought and sold in a sordid trafficking business are girls.

So where are women's rights in all of this - as full and equal members of the human race and as articulated by all of these international agreements? I believe that the problem lies with the very way women's rights are perceived - that somehow women's rights are not important; that somehow women are a sort of second class human being. Everyone, everywhere should consider women's rights as an integral and equal part of human rights, but we have not yet managed to cross that bridge. That is why there are so few women in our judicial, governmental and political systems. That is why women throughout the world struggle to make their voices heard and to have their contributions taken seriously. And that is why the appalling violence against women that we witness in every corner of the globe is only one manifestation of the gross violations of women's fundamental rights that occur on a daily basis. The amazing thing is that we, as human kind, think we can afford to wait. We do not have a sense of urgency about changing this situation.

Let us not become apologists for this state of affairs. People sometimes offer as an excuse a perception that women have different roles to play than men. Let us all acknowledge that we build our families and our societies precisely around different people fulfilling different roles - and that in itself is not necessarily bad. In all of our countries we are in desperate need of the services of doctors, teachers, nurses, engineers - even politicians. We need them all, but we do not expect them to fulfil the same roles. We do not expect the doctor to fulfil the role of an electronic engineer; we do not expect the politician to pilot a commercial airline; we do not expect the teacher to construct our railways. More importantly, we do not discriminate against any of these people simply because their roles might sometimes differ. We need different people to play different roles at various times. And that includes women sometimes to fulfil different roles and sometimes to fulfil the same roles as men. But whatever the roles, the rights remain the same and equal. I urge you - let us concentrate on the things that unite us, not the things that differentiate us. Let us focus on our shared human rights, not on the different roles we sometimes play.

Another excuse that people offer is that the discrimination we witness against women is all about culture and tradition. So I ask you - why is it that some cultures celebrate women while others discriminate against them? The fact is that culture and tradition have never been static - a culture that does not develop over time will stagnate and die. And throughout the ages people have shaped culture and tradition - and so people can, and have, changed them. Many generations ago some of our ancestors lived in caves, but as human beings our knowledge and skills developed over time. It was in our interests to find more effective and constructive ways of living and we moved from caves to other habitats.

So I come back to the fact that this is the year 2001 - the beginning of a new millennium. We can look back and celebrate a range of medical, technological and scientific discoveries. We can speak instantly to people thousands of miles away from us. New communications technology has opened the world in miraculous ways and we have found cures for diseases that would previously have meant death. Yet our environment is being degraded all around us; throughout the world hundreds of armed conflicts tear families, communities and countries apart; pervasive violence undermines even the most stable of nations; poverty wracks the lives of millions of our citizens and HIV/AIDS threatens to set back medical and development achievements and undermine the peace and security of the whole world. These are enormous challenges that require concerted and innovative action from humankind and we will only be successful in tackling them if we work together - women, men and children. The world cannot afford to ignore 50% of its human resources, its human potential.

And so we must focus on ensuring women's rights. When those rights are equally respected, we can see the enormous contribution that women make to their society. Liberation struggles like those in South Africa and Mozambique, amongst many others, are eloquent testimony to that. So why do we struggle to ensure that contribution? The group of 54 Commonwealth countries comprise one quarter of the world's population and crosses levels of development, geography and culture. The Commonwealth has made a commitment to increase women's participation in the political process, on every level - from placing her ballot in the ballot box on Election Day, to serving her country in office. Yet only one country, South Africa, has reached the 30% parliamentary representation rate that has been set as one critical benchmark. New Zealand follows closely behind, but many of our nations are nowhere near meeting this goal. And why are we limiting ourselves to a 30% target by the year 2005? Would we say that we should aim to stop only 30% of killings in a war by 2005? Would we say that we should aim for just 30% of our children to be treated for preventable diseases? When it comes to women there seems to be a perception that we can wait. There is little or no imperative for urgent action despite the tragic consequences that result from our inability or unwillingness to guarantee women's rights.

It is time we recognised that we cannot merely legislate for change: social justice and social change requires more than international or national laws and policies, it requires more than a few women assuming the roles of politicians and leaders. True social justice requires a change in what is considered acceptable behaviour toward women and between women and men. Dealing with the pervasive violations of women's rights requires that we break the mould in our thinking and our actions. It is important that we have women in positions of political power, but it is equally important that we respect their rights to personal power, including their right to make decisions about marriage and childbearing; that we respect women's right to protect themselves from exposure to HIV, and their right to protect themselves and their daughters from harmful sexual practices.

If we want fully to realize our human rights and our potential as a human race, we must go deeper than we have thus far. We must instil in each one of our citizens, male and female, a deeply seated respect for all our rights. We must re-think our relationships and tackle inequality at its root. If such radical change is to come, as it must, I believe it will start where so many other things begin - at home. Rights and respect are learned early in life, in childhood, within families and communities. The unacceptability of violence against women must be learned early. The ways of peace must be learned early. So as adults, we have an obligation to begin to work with our children to develop that respect for all rights. We must work at home, in schools, in youth clubs and in our religious and community institutions. I have seen young people at work and at play, and I know how powerful they can be - I know that with that generation, we can make a difference.

So, finally, my friends and colleagues, I say to you that to shift from a focus on different roles for men and women to an emphasis on the universal rights of women and men must begin with every one of us. It is our individual commitment to change as well as our institutional and joint actions that will allow us to transform the world for women, for men and for our children. For all our sakes, we must not fail.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Mrs Graça Machel