Hunger Series - Hunger and Gender

 

In our final Hunger Series installment we look at the connections between hunger and gender. We look specifically at how hunger impacts women—not to be exclusive of men, but because women bear burdens that are unique to being female.

Women may face greater likelihood of unemployment, lack of equal pay, more restricted access to education, greater likelihood of experiencing physical and/or sexual violence, as well as greater roadblocks to comprehensive health care. These problems exist in concert with conditions of poverty and hunger.

In Colombia women experience hunger and poverty within the specific context of a civil conflict. The civil conflict generates not only high levels of violence against women but is also a huge driving force of displacement for women and their families.

It is estimated by a U.N./Amnesty report that 60 to 70 percent of women in Colombia have been victims of sexual assault. The U.N. reports that targeting women in communities for sexual and/or physical violence sows terror, forces people to flee, wreaks “revenge,” creates “trophies of war,” and in the most extreme circumstances the creation of “sexual slaves” to armed forces.

Women’s bodies become a new “battleground” where armed actors can destroy the men of the community (and hence the perceived power of the community) by victimizing women and girls. After attacks women are often stigmatized by the community and perceived as having “asked” for it and bringing shame to the family/community.

The high level of violence against women creates unplanned pregnancies, higher rates of STDs, HIV/AIDS, and destabilizing levels of depression and trauma. Women face many roadblocks to comprehensive health care in particular psycho-social support as women’s clinics and facilities are often seen as “subversive” and targeted for attacks.

Women, in attempting to deal with hunger and poverty, may face displacement, sexual violence, physical violence and cultural norms that limit their ability to work and be secure especially without a male partner.

Unlike other obstacles to ending hunger and poverty like the removal of farmland “gender” cannot be solved or changed. Women may get land back, remarry after losing a partner, etc. but they cannot change their gender or the assumptions that are attached to being a woman.

That is why it is very important that we as national and international bodies recognize gender discrimination as a human rights violation and seek to enforce gender specific supports and laws to keep women and girls safe. Initiatives like the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women from the U.N. are steps toward acknowledging that women and girls need protections specific to being female so that they may be empowered fully within their own contexts.

It is also a step toward recognizing that we will not solve problems like poverty and hunger unless we fully empower women and girls. So join us in the actions and meditations below as we work to end hunger!

Video
Watch this video courtesy of Women for Women International's YouTube Channel. Alice Walker narrates her preface from The Other Side of War, a book by Women for Women International founder Zainab Salbi with striking images and stories of women survivors of wars in Sudan, Bosnia, Rwanda, the DRC, Kosovo, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Colombia.

Actions
Amnesty International is working to pass the International Violence Against Women Act which is an unprecedented effort by the United States to address violence against women globally. Join a variety of actions and check out the slideshow!

Send a free ecard to a friend with an image of women to help spread the news of an organization working for change. Women for Women International mobilizes women to change their lives through a holistic approach that addresses the unique needs of women in conflict and post-conflict environments.

Meditation
"Aint I a woman? Look at me, look at my arm! I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns and no man could head me...And ain't I a woman? I could work much as a man and eat as much as a man when I could get it and bear the lash as well as a man and ain't I a woman? I have born thirteen children and most all sold into slavery and when I cried out a mother's grief none but Jesus hear me....and ain't I a woman? If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone together women ought to be able to turn it right side up again." Sojourner Truth