Tag Archives woman

No feminist march for tonight: What spontaneous activism can teach us about maintaining unity in diversity

By Posted on 2129 views

The last-minute cancellation of the Feminist March that was set to take place in Amsterdam earlier this year due to safety concerns and organizational challenges led the organizers and participants of the march to ponder the challenges facing feminist activism. In this blog article, Elliot YangYang, who attended the event as a participant, reflects on what transpired and highlights the importance of maintaining agency amidst external pressures.

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on UnsplashPhoto

On 10 March, just two days after International Women’s Day, a march for women’s rights organized by Feminist March was set to take place in Amsterdam. Feminist March is an organisation that focuses on protests and different feminist programmes. The purpose of the march with the same name was “to work to strengthen the bonds within the feminist community and build a brighter, more equitable future for all of us.”

But the march was unexpectedly cancelled approximately three hours before the official assembly time through an announcement by the organisation, which on its official website and social media platforms cited safety concerns, exacerbated by unpredictable circumstances, the presence of law enforcement bodies, and a shortage of volunteers for crowd control. While the official event was cancelled, some participants nevertheless gathered and unofficially marched through the streets of Amsterdam.

Five days later, the organization released a statement announcing its dissolution following the resignation of some board members and the general manager, citing the inability to meet the expectations of supporters and allies. This came as a surprise to those of us who had signed up to participate in the march, yet it is unsurprising given the myriad challenges that feminist movements face. This article reflects on my experience of the spontaneous march that took place after the formal event’s cancellation and offers reflections on the challenges facing feminist marches today.

The show must go on

Even though I knew that the event had been cancelled, I still made my way to the original gathering location, Dam Square. It was comforting to see that, despite the significantly reduced turnout, around 100 people had nevertheless gathered there, spontaneously giving speeches and walking together from Dam Square to Museum Square. Most of them came on their own initiative, and their demands were varied, ranging from concerns about the current war in Gaza, to women’s rights in general, to the rights of queers and a variety of other demands. The crowd gathered spontaneously to form an improvised protest space.

When I arrived at Dam Square, a group of Palestinian protesters were already on the scene, separately protesting the war on Gaza. Then the feminist community joined the protest they had started in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, aligning with the “intersectional” ethos advocated by the third wave of feminism.(1) The topic of focus remained close to the feminist interests of responding to real crises, especially to wars disproportionately affecting women, children, and marginalized and vulnerable people. The marchers thereafter split up: feminists and protesters against the war on Gaza remained on the scene, while a group of Turkish feminist activists began waving their flags and initiated a separate walk.

Showing up instead of staying away

As an activist, I often find myself grappling with the following concern: under the umbrella structure of the march as a spectrum that accommodates all individuals, how can organizations and individual activists alike navigate different challenges without losing sight of their core objectives and the issues they seek to address?

The failure to communicate different perspectives and expectations seemed to be a core reason for the Feminist March’s cancellation and the eponymous organization’s dissolution. It is a pity that this impeded our efforts. But we can also learn from it. 

I posed the above question to Came Bilgin and Song Song — two participants of the march whom I interviewed. Before that, we had a conversation about their experiences as activists. Came Bilgin is a feminist activist from the Workers’ Party of Turkey, which insisted on continuing the march despite its cancellation. She mentioned that rallies and marches represent an active presence of activists, especially in environments such as Turkey fraught with state violence and pervasive social malice. Therefore, despite being aware of the decision to cancel the march, she still appeared at the scene along with other members of her organization to participate in the march. They did not think it would have been more dangerous to participate in a march in the Netherlands than in the feminist marches in Turkey, which shows a different perspective from the organizers of the march, who believed that it was not safe to protest.

This sentiment resonated with Song Song, a Chinese student studying in the Netherlands who had participated in the march as an individual. They also emphasized the importance and symbolic significance of simply showing up, which protesters did even when facing severe violence during protests in China. Thus, they also felt that despite possible safety concerns, it was worth showing up.

On-site photos (Workers’ Party of Turkey). Photo provided by the organiser.

Both interviewees expressed their discontent regarding the organization’s abrupt cancellation of the event and voiced their disappointment about the diminished turnout compared to previous years. Nevertheless, they commended the spontaneous march that ensued for showing the persistence of the protesters in marching for their cause.

Finding a voice and maintaining agency

Song Song’s response in particular opened up my exploration into how both organizations and individuals maintain their agency when setting agendas before and during marches. ‘This was my first time shouting feminist slogans in Chinese at a rally; it had never occurred in an organized form before. We don’t necessarily need them [the Feminist March organization itself],’ remarked Song Song. They believed that because it was an unorganized, agenda-less march, they had the opportunity to tell their story in their own language. This reflects an ongoing power dynamic where activists from different backgrounds seek to use their own language to voice their concerns and to legitimize their agendas in organized gatherings. Finding their voice in marches led by organizations from the global north can be challenging, particularly for activists from the global south, who often cannot hold large-scale protests and rallies in their own countries.

However, this is not an insurmountable problem. The decentralized place-making of spontaneous marches directly undermines this barrier. The configuration of the march as a form of “autonomy” can be “reconfigured by new and complex scale politics that reconfigure the relationship between the scale (and location) of its activities. This creates the conditions for future possibilities. In this way, a more grassroots, decentralised and extensive network can be formed.” As soon as these actors from the global south are able to reconstruct the march with will, the march spontaneously takes place.

On-site photos (Asian feminists). Photo provided by the organiser.

Improvisation and spontaneous alternatives

In her article on “margin spaces,” American author and social critic Bell Hooks suggests that our lives depend on our ability to conceive alternative possibilities, often improvised. The spontaneous march that occurred on 10 March directly responded to the challenges faced when organized marches fail. The unplanned and improvised marching creations of the activists instead created space for radical culture.

Not deterred

This march moreover took place amidst the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which exacerbated the challenges faced by those marching for other causes amidst the tensions between the political stance and actions of the Dutch government and the societal response. However, the spontaneous marchers who still showed up on the scene did not relinquish their feminist identities and spaces, demonstrating both their ability to assess and respond to risks and their wisdom in conceiving alternative solutions, thereby truly asserting their agency in shaping discourse and action. The “decentralized” mode still embodies its radical potential that emerges from scarcity and its ability to create spaces of resistance.

Endnotes

  1. Mann, S. A., & Huffman, D. J. (2005). “The decentering of second wave feminism and the rise of the third wave,” Science & society, 69 (1 — special issue), 56–91.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Elliot Yang Yang

Elliot Yang Yang is a queer feminist who studied Human Rights, Gender, and Conflict Studies at ISS, specialized in Women and Gender Studies. His research interests include transnational queer feminist movements and the intersections of gender, sexuality, and immigration.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

Four ways to boost investment in women-led small businesses

By Posted on 1905 views

Oxfam’s conversations and projects with entrepreneurs across the globe reveal a big gender gap in access to finance, says Windy Massabni. Women in business tell us that better support for them will include loan guarantees, alternative credit scoring systems and building the gender awareness of lenders.

Women selling mangos on the streets of Oyam, Uganda (picture: Windy Massabni)

“In Uganda where I come from, women still do not have the right of inheritance. All the assets and properties go to the male heir,” explains Marion Etiang, the founder of the Shea Care company in Uganda. “It’s up to men to give what they deem fit to the female in the family. Typically, when a woman goes to the bank to seek a loan for her business, the bank would require collateral which is often asset-based, even if she has the cash flow.”

Marion highlights a major root cause that holds women-owned businesses back: discriminatory gender norms over inheritance capital, capital that is therefore only available to men, not women, to grow their businesses. Such regressive gender norms lie behind the glaring gender gap in access to business finance.

BRINGING INVESTORS CLOSER TO WOMEN-LED SMES

In the realm of entrepreneurship, there’s often a disconnect between investors and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). While much effort is dedicated to making women-led SMEs “investment-ready”, little attention is paid to fostering “SME-readiness” or openness among investors or financial institutions. This oversight perpetuates inequalities in access to finance, particularly for women entrepreneurs.

But what if we could bring investors closer to women-led SMEs? In a survey conducted as part of Oxfam Novib’s project to support SMEs, the Impact SME Development programme, lack of collateral or assets was cited by women-owned businesses as a major obstacle. We also found that while 57% of businesses owned by men and 68% with mixed gender ownership sought external finance, only 46% of female-owned businesses did so.

Interestingly, women-owned SMEs had a 95% success rate in securing external funding, compared to 77% for male-owned and 93% for mixed-gender-owned businesses. This suggests that women entrepreneurs may be more reserved in seeking external funding. This is backed up by research by the Financial Alliance for Women, which found that women who are customers of financial service providers were more “risk conscious” then men, and more likely to sacrifice a potential upside in exchange for lower risk or less debt.

So how can we support women entrepreneurs to get the finance they deserve and that can help their firms thrive? Tackling root causes such as sexist inheritance customs and laws will of course be crucial for long-term change – but alongside this the women we talked to pointed out how NGOs and other support organisations can take action now to help them in four broad areas.

1. LOAN GUARANTEE SCHEMES

Many women emphasised the potential effectiveness of long-term guarantee schemes and partnerships. These local guarantees effectively protect financial institutions from losses if borrowers default, incentivising them to lend to women-owned businesses, even without collateral.

Abrar Shahriyar Mridha, Enterprise Development Project Manager at Oxfam GB, oversees a multi-country programme providing access to sustainable capital to help SMEs grow, and says such loan guarantees can transform the prospects for women-owned enterprises. “Partnering with banks and financial institutions gives us leverage to access women-led MSMEs, making them more bankable. These enterprises have created almost 18,500 jobs for women and reached 55,000 farmers, with 49% women in leadership positions.” Abrar’s example vividly illustrates the transformative effect that guarantee schemes can have on women-owned enterprises, fostering economic empowerment and gender equality.

2. ALTERNATIVE CREDIT SCORING – AND INCLUDING “SOCIAL PERFORMANCE”

Women are more reliable borrowers then men. Financial Alliance Women found that men are far more likely to be failing to keep up with repayments than women. Yet women continue to be underserved when it comes to accessing loans.

Different ways of assessing credit-worthiness  can help. That means analysing cash flow and business performance, rather than relying solely on traditional collateral-based assessments.

What could make a big difference is looking not just at conventional metrics but at the social capital created. Hassan Hajam, the Executive Director of Platform Impact, the Impact SME programme’s main partner in Cambodia, says: “Investors should design innovative, alternative financial instruments for impact-driven SMEs We have to move away from the typical balance sheet, profit-and loss statement, cash flow etc.. by integrating social and environmental dimensions at the end of the profit-and-loss statement if we want to see real impact thrive.”

By prioritising investments in businesses that can show such “social performance” – supporting gender equality and empowering women economically – investors can address disparities in access to finance.

3. FLEXIBLE PRODUCTS WITH SMALLER LOANS

An often-overlooked aspect of addressing gender inequality in access to finance is reassessing the size of investments. Many investors typically focus on offering large loans, often exceeding $1 million, which may not align with the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially those owned by women. These businesses frequently require smaller investments ranging from $100,000 to $500,000 to scale effectively.

Recognizing this disparity, initiatives such as our newly launched Pepea Fund aim to bridge the gap by providing smaller loans with a gender-lens tailored to SMEs, in this case with a focus on climate change mitigation. While we acknowledge that smaller investments may pose higher costs for investors, it’s imperative to take account of the social impact of such investments alongside the financial returns. We offer “mezzanine” loans, flexible loans with flexible terms that do not necessarily require tangible assets as security. This flexibility makes them more accessible to women entrepreneurs who may lack traditional collateral, such as property or equipment.

4. GENDER DIVERSITY AND GENDER AWARENESS IN FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS.

Ensuring lenders have a gender-diverse team is also crucial in addressing the biases and barriers faced by women entrepreneurs. This requires gender balance at all levels of a financial institution – from the executive level to front line staff.

At the ANDE x Sasin Business School Women Impact Entrepreneurship Day 2024, one business leader shared her experience of intimidation while applying for a loan at a bank.

As the head of a sustainable packaging company in Thailand, she had all the necessary documentation for the loan and met all the requirements, yet faced extensive questioning from the predominantly male staff. She felt compelled to prove her legitimacy, showcase her qualifications, and justify her ability to manage her business alongside motherhood.

This unsettling encounter underscores the need both for gender balance and for gender-sensitivity training for bank staff so they can better serve women. Alongside this lenders  will need a gender-lens investment strategy, fostering an environment where women entrepreneurs feel respected and supported, without encountering undue scrutiny or bias.

BUT WE ALSO NEED TO KEEP CAMPAIGNING ON ROOT CAUSES

Initiatives such as guarantee schemes, alternative credit scoring methods, and promoting gender diversity in fund management teams are essential steps in bridging the gender gap in SME financing. However, while these efforts do help alleviate immediate barriers, they do not address the root causes of gender disparities.

NGOs such as Oxfam and enterprise support organisations have a crucial role to play, not just in providing support through initiatives like those above, but also in advocating for policies and practices that tackle root causes, that change norms and systems and lay the foundations for true gender equity in access to finance.

This article was first published on Oxfam’s Views & Voices blog

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Windy Massabni is an Impact SME development specialist based at Oxfam Novib in the Hague. She coordinates the influencing, learning and training component of the programme in all countries.

Beyond the binary: negotiating cultural practices and women’s rights in South Africa by Cathi Albertyn

By Posted on 3296 views

In a recent lecture at the ISS, Professor Cathi Albertyn of the University of the Witwatersrand discussed how South African women navigate civil and customary laws to claim women’s rights within culture. Here she shows that women in South Africa do not seek to oppose culture and custom, but desire equality within their own communities.

Women in South Africa have long opposed discrimination in the family, in both civil and customary law. When the South African Constitution was negotiated in the early 1990s as the apartheid dispensation made way for a democratic political system, few expected the conflict that occurred between women pursuing equality and traditional leaders seeking to affirm culture and custom. Women fiercely opposed the traditional leaders’ 1993 call for customary law to be excluded from the equality guarantee in the Bill of Rights, arguing that all South Africans should be recognised as rights-bearing citizens in the new democracy. In the end, the 1996 Constitution created a plural legal system that recognised customary law, as the written and unwritten indigenous law regulating the lives of many black South Africans (especially in rural areas), and subjected it—together with all law—to the values and rights of the Constitution.

As with earlier forms of civil law, women suffered multiple inequalities under customary law, including unequal status and rights in the family, to inheritance and land, as well as participation in customary courts and positions of leadership. But in calling for equal rights, they did not seek to oppose culture and custom. On the contrary, organisations such as the Rural Women’s Movement were very clear that women wanted equality within their communities. In constitutional terms, they asserted both the right to equality (section 9 of the Constitution) and the right to participate in their culture (sections 30 and 31).

The relationship between equality and culture

How, then, should we think about the relationship between equality and culture? In the early 1990s, international law did not seem to be particularly helpful. Whilst the Convention on the Eliminations of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) set out important rights, it did not engage the cultural domain beyond calling for change. Rather, it seemed to imagine completely separate and hierarchical spheres of women’s rights and discriminatory culture. This tended towards a trumping relationship between women’s rights and a “cultural other”.

South African lawyers and policy-makers imagined a different relationship, drawing on the idea of “harmonising” customary law with the Constitution. Here they were influenced by the work of Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA), who recognised that women’s rights needed to be strengthened within their customary context. Their research pointed to ideas of custom and culture that were not bounded, rigid and unchanging, but more flexible and responsive to a changing world, and to women’s needs. In contrast to the official customary law, codified under colonial rule, the “living law” revealed practices in which women secured rights to inheritance, land, and so on.

This idea of “living law” in which women were agents within an evolving system, able to draw on multiple ideas to negotiate change from within, became a key idea in both legislative and judicial reform of customary law in South Africa.

For example, research in South (and southern) Africa which showed that women actively seek out rights in marriage, reaching to civil marriage when they could not secure rights in customary marriage, influenced the enactment of the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act in 1998. The RCMA granted women equal status and rights in marriage, while preserving customary forms of celebration and—controversially and directly against CEDAW—recognised polygamy.

In addition, Classens and Mnisi’s research into land rights—with land usually held by men—has uncovered practices in which women (particularly single women with children) are able to negotiate access to land in their communities by drawing on customary and constitutional values of equality, democracy, need and dependency.

Criticism of “harmonising” two law forms

These examples point to the possibilities of claiming women’s rights within culture, and that cultural rules and practices can accommodate and affirm women’s rights and gender equality. But this approach is not without problems, nor is it uncontested.

A major criticism by writers, such as Himonga (2005) and Nhlapo (2017), is that legislative and judicial attempts to “harmonise” customary law with the Constitution are too reliant on civil forms and lack the imagination to embed customary values in new legal forms. As a result, they have not always been followed within rural, customary communities.

Others, such as Nyamu-Musembi (2002), point to the problems of power and vested (male) interests within communities, suggesting that the potential for change is limited as long as women lack authority and voice. Even where women succeed, it is by conforming to gendered “stereotypes”, such as the “dutiful daughter”. Further, meaningful cultural change is often only possible with support from “outsiders”, such as local NGOS (Nyamu-Musembi, Hellum and Katsande 2017,).

Working from within is a contradictory and uneven strategy. However, it cannot, and should not be dismissed. Women need rights within their communities and “top-down”, trumping strategies, while important, can have significant limits. In the end, there is no magic bullet for women’s rights.

List of useful references
Catherine Albertyn ‘Cultural Diversity, “Living Law” And Women’s Rights in South Africa’ in Daniel Bonilla Maldonado (ed) Constitutionalism in the Global South (2013) Cambridge University Press 163-.
Aninka Claassens & Sindiso Mnisi-Weekes ‘Rural Women Redefining Land Rights in the Context of Living Customary Law’ (2009) 25 South African Journal on Human Rights 491.
Anne Hellum & Rosalie Katsande ‘Gender, Human Rights and Legal Pluralities in Southern Africa: A Matter of Context and Power’ in Giselle Corradi, Eva Brems & Mark Goodale (eds) (2017) Human Rights Encounter Legal Pluralism: Normative and Empirical Approaches 119–136.
Chuma Himonga ‘The Advancement of Women’s Rights in the First Decade of Democracy in South Africa: The Reform of the Customary law of Marriage and Succession’ 2005 Acta Juridica 82.
Thandabantu Nhlapo ‘Customary Law in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Constitutional Confrontations in Culture, Gender and “Living Law”’ (2017) 33 South African Journal on Human Rights 1.
Celestine Nyamu-Musembi ‘Are Local Norms and Practice Fences or Pathways? The Example of Women’s Property Rights’ in Abdullahi A An-Na’im (ed) (2002) Cultural Transformation And Human Rights In Africa 126.
Bhe v Magistrate Khayalitsha [2004] ZACC 17 http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2004/17.pdf
Shilubana v Nwamitwa [2008] ZACC 9 http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2008/9.pdf
UN GA Report of the independent expert in the field of cultural rights, Ms. Farida Shaheed, submitted pursuant to resolution 10/23 of the Human Rights Council, 22 March 2010, A /HRC/14/36
UN GA Report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, 10 August 2012, A /67/287
UN GA Report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, 17 July 2017, A/72/155

Picture credit: Max Pixel

image-20160512-16407-1phc8djAbout the author: 

Cathi Albertyn is Professor of Law at the School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, where she teaches graduate and post-graduate courses in Constitutional Law and Human Rights. Prior to joining the School, she was the Director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (2001-2007) and headed its Gender Research Programme for ten years (1992-2001). She was appointed to the first Commission on Gender Equality and later served on the South African Law Reform Commission. research interests include Equality, Gender Studies, Human Rights, the Judiciary and Constitutional Law.

The university of paleness by Willem Schinkel

By Posted on 2569 views

In a recent attempt to address the underrepresentation of female professors in the Netherlands, the Dutch government made extra funds available to universities to appoint women. To the dismay of many people at Erasmus University, the university refused to fill over half of the available positions and sent the money back. This triggered Willem Schinkel’s personal essay in which he explains how he feels alienated from a university whose masculine dominance is closely tied to its corporate character.

 

If an alien from an exoplanet came to Erasmus University, or to any other university in the Netherlands, and if that alien considered the composition of the university in terms of gender and race, it would most likely draw one of two conclusions. One, this space has been invaded by white men. Two, the model that best describes the spread of white men through institutions of higher learning is that of some kind of plague or epidemic. Of course us earthlings would be quick to explain to our alien friend that the unequal distribution of men and women, of white people and people of color, is normal – even though it is not a normal distribution in the statistical sense! You see, we would tell this alien, the principle that governs our distribution over institutions of knowledge and power, is what we call quality. To which the alien might rightfully respond: ‘I see. And what is the principle that governs the distribution of your quality?’

At this point in time, I don’t think administrators at Erasmus University have a good answer to this question. Recently, our university refused government money for the appointment of so-called Westerdijk chairs for female professors. The dean of the Rotterdam School of Management, Steef van de Velde, made a classic patriarchal move and wasn’t shy about it: in an interview with Erasmus Magazine he said he hadn’t appointed any women because he wanted to “protect” them. After all, an appointment on a Westerdijk chair would be perceived as “stigmatising”, since people would think ‘that they needed this type of appointment because they could not get an appointment on their own merits.’ Moreover, he said, this was not at all a question of money – the RSM has plenty and doesn’t need such money to appoint women. To top it, he said there were plenty of upcoming women in tenure tracks – and why give some women some money (in Dutch, he spoke of a “sweetener”, or douceurtje) and others not?

This kind of reasoning and rhetoric is an affront on so many levels, including the level of intellectual discussion befitting a university. I have no intention to counter it with all the good reasons for the appointment of women. I don’t think it’s my place in particular to make that case, and I also think that the case has been made over and over again. We know all the arguments – that is, if we choose to pay due attention to the scientific study of “diversity” – but they run aground in the morass of the white male dean-dominated powerhouses that university faculties are in this country and elsewhere in the world. So this essay is not a case for diversity. If anything, it’s a case for a university that may be gone, and that more likely may have never existed.

The alien in my hypothetical example might assume that an invasion had occurred. And in a way, of course, the invasion has always already taken place. We are in a state of occupation. Getting serious about undoing it is what is called “decolonising the university”. Here’s another way to think about what it means that our appointments are so one-sided. If I often feel alienated from the university  it has something to do with the model of living together we embody.

The university, like any other setting, is always also one answer to the question how to live together, how to be social, how to practice sociality as being in the world together. And I guess it just keeps on being disappointing that this – the current composition of the university – is the modality of sociality that keeps on being reproduced. Ours is a conditioned stupidity. It is conditioned by an imagination limited to market-based modes of finding value in life. But being so conditioned is not a condition; it is a constraint that is enforced, but over which we might have control.

So whatever happens, let it be obvious that our “diversity”, that is, the composition of our togetherness, is a choice. And the university as it is produces what might be best called a form of paleness. By this I mean a uniformity and homogeneity, a desire for and expression of an order of looking and working alike, an order of whiteness and masculinity, in which “I don’t recognize this picture of the university” even counts as an argument. This paleness is of course a form of whiteness. But the paleness I’m alluding to is also an intellectual desolation or drabness, an achromatics of thinking. And it is a submission to neoliberal procedural routines in the ways we work, as well as a general appreciation of mediocrity sold as “excellence” – remember that, after appointing men on half the positions available, we’re tapping into the lower tiers of intellect and creativity if we continue to appoint men.

And what a bleak picture it is to see those with a ticket to inclusion! What has happened when students (they are not to blame for this!) don’t even think to criticise the curriculum set by the order of pale sameness? What has happened when technocratic markers of achievement that are “evidence based” take precedence when in fact most have no clue what a genuine spirit of inquiry would be, what intelligence might be as a mode of sociality beyond individuated IQ indicators, or how study might be a shared venture to recompose the world in ways that subvert the pale order of sameness to which we currently sacrifice ourselves, but mostly others, for the noble cause of producing “knowledge”?

If anything is clear, it’s that the university is invested in state and corporate power, including criminal fossil fuel companies, and divested in diversity. And when we keep on seeing how diversity basically functions as what Sarah Ahmed calls a “non-performative”[1] – something designed not to produce its stated goals – the only way to move forward is to step up our critical reflection on, and our subversion of, the university at large. The point is thus not to consider the university as basically fine as it is, and to just grant access to it to a greater number of people, or by people of a variety of gender and “race”. It’s not about letting others get a piece of the pie, of sharing in the otherwise unchanged corporate paleness that marks the university today. Much more fundamentally, it is a matter of living as such, of living together. After all, this is what we do on campus: during the day, ours is a specific modality of being together, a selective, tilted, and pale form of intimacy. So the question who gets to be there is pertinent, and concerns us all.

[1] See: Ahmed, S. 2012. On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life, Durham: Duke University Press.

An earlier and longer version of this piece was published in Erasmus Magazine: https://www.erasmusmagazine.nl/en/2018/05/19/opinion-the-university-of-paleness/?noredirect=en_US


willemschinkeloverracismecensuurenpolitiekecorrect-0-0-820-540About the author:

Willem Schinkel is Professor of Social Theory at Erasmus University Rotterdam and a member of the Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

 

 

Striking at the glass ceiling: a tale of seven judges (and a lawyer) by Ubongabasi Obot

By Posted on 3015 views

Memories came racing back for Ubongabasi Obot during a recent book launch at the ISS. The book’s theme? Breaking through the glass ceiling as an African woman. Obot’s own journey to become a female lawyer in Nigeria had been fraught with challenges, and she identified with the seven female Africans who are now judges in international tribunals and whose stories are captured in the book. Here she reflects on the launch, and on trying to make it in a male-dominated sector.

I remember the day that I was called to the Nigerian Bar Association as an admitted attorney. How happy and proud I was. But after graduating, people around me already began giving me unsolicited advice. Get a job in a private company! You should join the civil service and push the ranks! Get married, have children and build a good home! I wanted to engage in legal practise, and by that I mean litigation. A courtroom-style kind of life is what I yearned for. However, it was already made clear to me that litigation was men’s turf and that the perception existed that you could not be a successful litigation lawyer and a good wife.

I began practising as a lawyer in a private law firm. I also engaged in voluntary work for non-governmental associations, pursing my passion. Not too long after, I got married and moved to a different state. I became engaged in voluntary work, again while looking for a paid job. Oh, how tough and glaring it became. This was now the survival of the fittest, and by fit, I mean you had to be a “man”!

I wrote examinations for many private legal firms. I wanted the best, so I applied to those. I had the grades to match it. I passed the written examinations, moved to the oral interviews, and then the rejections kept on coming. I was broken. How was I ever going to get to the top? I had bills to pay, too. It was better to work in good law firms, as this would help me acquire more knowledge, build my clientele, and I could be on big profile cases. If I did well, worked with the right crowd and won the right cases, I could eventually be recommended for the position of a judge.

However, I did not get the big law firm jobs. I never understood why until one day, I received a call from one of the law firms I had applied to. ‘Hello is this Ubongabasi,’ I replied. ‘Yes, oh, I thought you were man,’ said the recruiter on the other line. You see, my name is quite masculine, which some may feel is misleading, but I do not apologise for that. The recruiter continued, ‘we received your application. Are you single or married?’ I answered, ‘I am married.’ The recruiter responded, ‘I’m sorry, but we cannot give you the job.’ No other explanation. I was denied the job by reason of being female and married. Therefore, in their opinion, I could not be a good lawyer.

I received the next blow from a regional manager of one of the top banks in Nigeria. Here, I did have connections. The manager and my uncle were friends. He mentioned that they had a vacancy for a legal / loan recovery officer. My uncle told him he knew a young and intelligent lawyer who fitted that profile. He asked that I send him my CV. Not bad, I thought—I could still go to court. The manager later called my uncle after and said I could not get the job, stating: ‘a married woman could not do that kind of job.’

The importance of sharing narratives

Thus when, on 7 May 2018, the book International Courts and the African Woman Judge: Unveiled Narratives was launched at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, the stories of the powerful women resounded with me, and resided with me. I had dreamed of a life in the courts, but my reality was different. It is so important for those who did make it to share their journeys through such books. And it is equally important those who didn’t make it to do the same.

The book launch was attended by numerous dignitaries from the International Courts and other organisations, was sponsored by the African Foundation for International Law, the ISS, and the Institute for African Women in Law. Edited by Dr. Josephine Jarpa Dawuni and Akua Kuenyehia, this book narrates the lives of seven female African judges who, through hard work and determination, now sit as judges of International Tribunals. Drawing on legal theories, feminist legal theories, post-colonial feminism and feminist institutionalism, it provides an intersectional analysis of how gender, geography, class, politics of the judiciary and professional capital contributed to shaping the lives of these women. Dawuni, who attended the launch, explained how the book celebrates the lives and laudable achievements of great African women judges.

The launch was followed by a panel discussion, beginning with Judge Julia Sebutinde of the International Court of Justice. She remarked on a number of questions that people ask her. Questions such as: ‘what you regard as the most important achievement of your life?’ This, she said, is a “curious question”, insinuating that women who did well in their careers had to sacrifice their family life to get to the top or that connections secured their jobs.

Listening to Dawuni’s and Sebutinde’s words, I knew I was in the right place! Daniela Kravetz talked about the Gqual campaign and their strategies to promote gender parity in international tribunals and bodies. When Judge Liesbeth Lijnzaad, the third and final panellist of the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, later referred to the books on the shelves of her library, there were four books on how to succeed in the legal career—and none was written about women. All were about men who had succeeded in the legal field.

The book is thus also an important contribution to scholarship. The personal narratives of successful women in the legal sector have not been systematically written about. Women often find it very difficult getting to the top of their careers and if they do so, many in society immediately draw a number of presumptions. For example: they ‘had connections’; or ‘it was just by a stroke of luck’; or ‘they are not doing well as family women.’

We will see each other at the top!

I am glad that I attended this event. The words of these women continue to resonate in my head. As Lijnzaad offered me a bitterbal and smiled at me at the reception, I asked her, ‘how can I make it to the top?’ She answered, ‘become an expert in your field, work hard, and you will be able to play with boys on the same field. You will shine.’

I agree with her, but thought about how, in addition, some structural and cultural factors work against some women especially in less developed societies. These factors can be challenged through legal recourse, and through continuous and consistent exhibition of the works and achievements of successful women in all fields. We can also create movements to pressurise the government to create/implement laws against discrimination of married women in this and other professions.

Women should not be discouraged. These women judges have made it to the top, and there are other women who are extremely successful in their careers, too. We need to read about them more often. Every young girl or woman can make it if they put their mind to it. We will work hard, and we will see each other at the top!

An ebook has been made available to students of Erasmus University

ubby picAbout the author:

 

Ubongabasi Obot is a practising lawyer from Nigeria who is currently on leave to complete her MA in Development Studies at the ISS.