Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Women In Public Service Project - Where Women Lead 50x50

Women In Public Service Project - Where Women Lead


The image @Crossroads is a part of the ongoing project- Women in Public Spaces by Ms. Subi Chaturvedi ©2014

WOMEN IN PUBLIC SERVICE

This month LSR celebrated Women in public spaces and in public leadership, through a three day strategic roundtable “Where Women Lead”,  in association with “The Women in Public Service Project of The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.  Over the course of three days from March 31-April 2, 2014, New Delhi witnessed global women leaders especially from South Asia which has traditionally been seeped in patriarchy, and does make attempts to confine women in defined labels and boxes, none of which include assuming leading roles in governance or public policy. 


The conference aimed at preparing and educating women particularly young women leaders for future roles in public leadership and policy interventions. With some of the most eminent names with a demonstrated public record of engaging with tough, complicated governance issues and emerging victorious through a solutions approach the roundtable uniquely had a ‘Youth Speak”, session integrated with every panel, where young students can engage and comment upon critical issues. 

Big Ideas & Key Thoughts: Take them Away - Public Policy on your Tee

  • Dismantle stereotypes
  • Women need to be recognised in public service
  • We want 50x50 - The leadership we want 50% women by 2050 in public leadership
  • Youth Speaks and how! it is collective responsibility to engage with them in governance and policy
  • Academic Spaces can create enabling environments
  • Women Colleges have a role and need to be celebrated
  • From equity to substantive equity- MDGS need to be rigths based
  • #SDGs post 2015 is more like it!
  • Every bill needs a gender guillotine before being tabled- what does it mean for women; its impact if any
  • Need a full policy reform for full citizenship
  • Women need to be twice as good as a man in leadership roles, fortunately it is not difficult :)

We do not want your revolution if we cannot dance



The roundtable culminated in the adoption of a regional declaration by these global leaders and a roadmap by the experts on educating women for public leadership and the submission of recommendations by the Delhi Platform for Action: which is a student-participants led discussion to address violence against women on campuses.





This is an attempt to capture and celebrate these incredible and powerful young and not so young women and the discussions held through these three days through image, word, sound and text, tweets. At the heart of it all remained Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath Principal LSR, an incredible woman, activist academician and an inspiration and a role model to many.






So here we go- The Story in Pictures, image, word and sound 




Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath delivers the welcome address- the 3 day Strategic Roundtable is nowOpen  with call to attain 50by50

 To have 50%women in Public Service by 2050.
Can't wait!



And laid emphasis on another key point- We have now witnessed an increasing feminisation of poverty in recent times.  






































Bushra is the VP Awami National Party, in Pakistan and uses her cellphone well to her male colleagues great discomfort and to articulate dissent  and encourage dialogue and debate
Celebrating the power of the cellphone.

India has 840 active mobile connections.

#WomeninTECH






When the action moved back to LSR- LEADERSHIP ON CAMPUS



SERIOUS DRAFTING WORK GETS UNDER WAY FOR THE TEXT OF THE REGIONAL DECLARATION- @LSR
SOME VALIDATION COMES OUR WAY - WE DO THIS WITH GREAT DELIGHT, PRIDE AND PLEASURE


SOME MORE OF THE AWESOMENESS -THAT IS LSR






THE ROUNDTABLE WAS AN ATTEMPT TO:

• Provide space for shared learning on barriers to women’s participation and strategies for their inclusion in public service;
• Build dialogues on multi-cultural, multi-contextual notions of empowerment;
• Generate new and cross-culturally valid insights on women’s political leadership;
• Train and establish mentorships for emerging and aspiring women leaders by launching the Women in Public Service Project Institute in India; and
• Establish a vibrant network of women leaders in the region who are committed to achieving the ‘50 by 50’ vision.


CONCEPT NOTE:


Educating for Public Leadership: Strategic Roundtable and Institute on Women in Public Service in South Asia

Women and Security: A South Asian Vision

Under-representation of women at all levels of policy-making is a global phenomenon but states in the South Asian Region have been under the scanner of women’s rights scholars and activists for a long time. The reason was that the Region suffered from a peculiar paradox–while almost all the states had elected women to top political positions including those of Presidents and Prime Ministers, women’s representation in the governance structures in these countries continued to be abysmally low. This reality was, in some senses, fundamentally altered in 1994 when the Indian Parliament passed the 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendment Bills that reserved 1/3rd seats at the local level representative bodies for women. Within a decade, India earned the distinction of becoming home to the largest absolute number of elected women representatives in the world – 1.2 million. This transformation in the demographic profile of local representative bodies in India catalyzed a process of change across the South Asian Region whereby affirmative action was initiated at the local, state and national levels in most of the countries of the Region. A decade and half has passed, but the vision of equal representation of women in public service has remained incomplete in some states and regressive in others.



If the issue of women’s participation were only within the realm of law and institutions, perhaps political representation would have been sufficient, but factors such as culture, religion, the structure of society, the nature of the regime, and women’s status in the society all have enormous influence on the participation on equal terms by women. Legislative changes that provide quotas for access are only one part of women’s access to public spaces. The policies adopted with regard to family, marriage, divorce, child custody and other related matters, strongly influence how social life is structured and whether or not women have the ability to access the opportunities without barriers. For instance, research has demonstrated that women who are subjected to domestic violence or marital rape are less likely to be able to participate to the fullest extent in the economy as workers. They are also less likely to participate in politics or administration. In fact, bodily integrity and good physical and mental health are crucial prerequisites of any citizen’s participation in political life.
The human development indices reveal a disturbing trend. South Asia is witnessing increasing feminization of poverty, agriculture, old age, migration and HIV-AIDS. Sexual and Gender based violence remain pervasive and the region is considered one of the most insecure places for a woman.1 The social and economic costs of this gender based violence including sexual violence are enormous on the South Asian region. The discrimination that girls face at a young age in terms of access to education, denial of equal property rights, gender bias in access to livelihood opportunities and limited participation in the public sphere all continue to undermine women’s security and wellbeing.

While the experiment of reservations in local bodies in India and other representative bodies in Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh have led to a number of good results, showing that women can learn political skills on the job and become effective supporters of women’s interests, the critical importance of education for women in making political opportunities


1
TrustLaw, ‘FACTSHEET-The world’s most dangerous countries for women’, Thomson Reuters Foundation, 15 June, 2011. Available at http://www.trust.org/item/20110615000000-5d4ib/?source=spotlight


meaningful for them and in giving them voice once they attain a political position cannot be underestimated. Education plays many valuable roles in women’s lives, from opening up employment opportunities to giving women more control over life choices. Here the role of family is central to creating conditions for girls’ ability to access opportunities. Unless the family provides both boys and the girls an education that can facilitate later participation in politics, there is little room for hoping that women will be able to cross the barriers they encounter on the way to life of dignity and equality. It is therefore important to unpack the ‘private’ realm of family which to a large extent renders women able or unable to function productively in the public realm. There is an urgent need to explore the interstices of right to equal political participation and women’s right to violence-free life at home, in public and at the workplace.

Perhaps when women are full and equal participants in the political system they will be able to bring about change in the substantive content of laws with concerns of gender justice and sexual equality in view.
If recent developments in India are an indicator of how this process could pan out in the region, there is lot of hope. Making use of the public awareness and outcry generated by the Nirbhaya Rape Case and the Justice Verma Committee Report, women’s groups in India highlighted a disturbing legacy of violence against women that is reinforced by cultures of impunity and silence. The debate and public pressure led to the passage of two landmark legislations: Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013, The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. Together, these two legislations have made changes to the Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act and thereby sought to alter the experience of women’s security in public spaces and at workplace.

India’s new law to punish sexual violence has also become a rallying point for women’s groups in the South Asian region. It has catalyzed a new movement that is bringing together women and male activists, scholars, civil society stakeholders and disparate social movements. This moment in the history of the women’s movement needs to be seized and multiplied in order to ensure that it has enduring effect and transnational impact on the larger goal of achieving gender justice.
To quote Justice Verma Committee Report, “Unless and until the state pursues a policy of avowed determination to be able to correct a historical imbalance in consciousness against women, it will not be possible for men and indeed women themselves, to view women differently and through the prism of equality. It isn’t enough that women occupy a few symbolic political positions to evidence true empowerment of women in the country...the ethos of empowerment of women does not limit itself to political equality, but also extends, in equal terms to social, educational and economic equality.”2

The forthcoming roundtable seeks to provide a forum for identifying pathways towards actualizing the vision that has been articulated by the Verma Committee Report and which could go a long way in realizing the vision of ‘50 by 50’ (having 50% women in public service by 2050) in South Asia.

The roundtable brought together academics, activists and grassroots practitioners drawing inspiration from the statement made by Martha Nussbaum, a leading feminist scholar, ‘Good theory can illuminate the directions practice has been taking and thus reinforce the struggle of those who have been attempting to promote beneficial change, and map out directions for policy that are productive and precisely targeted rather than obtuse and neglectful.’
--
2

Report of the Committee on Amendments to Criminal Law, Government of India, January 23, 2013: p.8.
The program constituted a series of dialogues over a two day period and was structured around different thematic areas to explore how the leadership of women can alter the vision of security for women—social, economic or political— and provide full and equal citizenship. At each dialogue the senior experts shared their experience of entering public service and foregrounded two or three lessons that had the potential to redefine the way women’s security is understood.

The key highlight remained the YOUTH SPEAK
Where time was set aside for Youth to Speak, where young and mid- career professionals and students were provided an opportunity to engage with the senior experts and in the process enhance their own capacity to be future change agents.


The report is curated and submitted by Subi Chaturvedi
Asstt. Professor Journalism and Communication, 
Lady Shri Ram College For Women
Delhi University
& Team Member
tweets @subichaturvedi






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