Gender Equality

Gender Equality at UN Women

My week was busy with UN Women! At the Monday session on Nigerian Women’s Engagement in Peace and Conflict, where I met the Igbo women for a second time in one day, I heard about education and ending violence against women.

Both are key to establishing gender equality, a focus of the two-week Commission on the Status of Women, CSW.

UN Women and Fundraising

On Thursday I attended an afternoon session on fundraising for UN Women. Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and UK were represented, along with Australia, New Zealand, Germany and France.

The consultant Don spoke about monthly giving and its importance in nonprofit fundraising. He said we’re missing out if we don’t start a program to encourage monthly giving.

I know it works for me as a donor for our church pledge and for our local public radio station.

He stressed the importance of keeping monthly donors happy with frequent thanks and regular updates. My radio station WSHU is good at saying thank you to their monthly donors. (The fundraising term is “stewarding” or showing appreciation.)

I get a regular newsletter with their thanks. I like best the special link they send me to listen to public radio “pledge-free” during their on-air fundraising appeals.

Do you make regular monthly gifts anywhere?

UN Women Presentations

I went to New York again on Friday for a full day with UN Women staff. We heard excellent presentations including:

• The Fund for Gender Equality
• The UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women
• Overview of UN Women Policy Work
• Presentation on HeForShe Campaign

All of it fascinating, but too much information in too short a time! Fortunately we were given lots of printed material to take away, and I can now read the brochures and pamphlets without puzzling over the meanings of phrases or acronyms.

I learned that UN  Women‘s Fund for Gender Equality is a grant-making body. In 2014 they made two grants to Nigerian organizations to support political empowerment. Their report says about the results, “A strong advocacy campaign that included the organization of summit on women in politics . . and a radio awareness campaign . . .increased the commitment of political party leaders to women’s political participation.”

The number of women candidates increased in Osun State in the southwest of Nigeria and the Federal House of Representatives in 2015, their report says.

Elisa Fernandez, Chief of the Fund for Gender Equality, made a strong case for those of us in national committees to work harder to raise money that her fund can give out in grants.

The best was saved for last. The Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, spoke about priorities for 2016.

I loved her suggestion: women should simply refuse to attend a panel discussion if there are no women on the panel! Simple! Can I do that? Can we all?

Nigeria Votes Against Women

Those added women in political life in Nigeria are not in the Senate where a bill for gender equality was defeated this week.

Within hours of hearing the Honourable Minister of Women’s Affairs Aisha Alhassan speak in New York on Monday, I read that the senate in Nigeria defeated legislation aimed at supporting women.

However Ventures Africa reported that several senators spoke in favour (using the Nigerian spelling!) of the bill.

The deputy president of the senate, Ike Ekeremadu, said,”‘Only last night, I was going through a document prepared by George Bush of America. Those countries that are doing well are those who give women opportunities. Where I come from, [he is Igbo] women don’t eat egg . . . But now that has changed. What is needed is time and education, not necessarily legislation.’”

His was a mixed message, but he concluded: “We will continue to encourage our women. I support this bill.”

Good for him. But it still lost. On a side note, I had heard of this prohibition on eating eggs among some Igbo, but it’s not the practice in my husband’s town of Nanka.

What will the Minister of Women’s Affairs say when she gets back to Nigeria?

I thought she might have made a statement about the failure of the legislation. I can’t find anything. There were a few comments on Twitter but less than I expected.

Women’s Pay Stuck at Levels Lower Than Men’s

The New York Times had a relevant article this week about the continuing disparity between pay for men and women in the U.S.

The writer quoted a study which showed, “When women enter fields in greater numbers, pay declines — for the very same jobs that more men were doing before.”

Among other examples, it said that when women became biologists in recent decades, the average pay in the field dropped.  Shame! Gender equality in pay is a long way off, it seems.

Fairfield Senior Center

I always enjoy speaking about my memoir and about Nigeria. But it’s especially fun when friends are in the audience as they were last Friday at the Fairfield Senior Center.

Pam, Hazen, and Carol said they attend talks frequently at the Senior Center.

As usual, there were lots of good questions at the end of my talk, and several people signed up to receive my blog. Welcome to you all!