Gender in the Developing World
One’s gender shouldn’t determine an individual’s roles and rank in society, but so often it does. In the western world, women enjoy more freedom than previous generations, yet there still are gendered norms that we are inevitably socialized into. For those in western societies, this may be the notion that women should take up a matriarchal role in family life while men should provide economically. We at illuminAid believe that gender empowerment is crucial to every nation’s development and are happy to see the progress women’s rights have made in our country over the last half-century. This progress is self-sustaining. Empowered individuals with greater knowledge and freedoms ultimately live more stable lives and have access to productive employment opportunities. Unfortunately, many places in the developing world continue to exhibit harsh gender disparity gaps. Even now in the wake of COVID-19, we see that required social distancing leads to increased gender-based violence in the home.
illuminAid wants to empower all individuals across the developing world so that disadvantaged regions have a better chance of developing and creating better lives for their inhabitants. Although there is a huge gender disparity in these places, illuminAid believes that it is important to give every individual access to crucial information and lessons, regardless of gender. In many disadvantaged communities abroad there are several sectors in which women carry an overwhelming majority of the burden. We seek to empower men to contribute in realms that may be considered to be traditionally female for their community’s benefit.
One of the most crucial topics discussed by NGO think tanks and at NGO conferences is how to empower women in the developing world. Not only to avoid human rights abuses like female genital mutilation or child marriage but to increase economic cohesion in the regions that need it most. This principle holds true across the whole world, not just underdeveloped regions. Studies have shown that if the United States increased female employment to reach the levels of Sweden, our nation’s GDP would increase by $6 trillion. While this figure is conditional on advanced job opportunities found primarily in developed countries, disadvantaged communities would still benefit massively by increasing female employment. Currently, over 2.7 billion women, more than one-third of the world’s population, are legally restricted from having the same job choices as their male counterparts. This lowers the available employable population in a given country and restricts the opportunities that disadvantaged countries need in order to transition to the first world.
Women in impoverished regions of the world not only lack equitable employment opportunities but often are provided insufficient medical care, even throughout the dangerous cycle of childbirth. While childbirth has become a safe routine procedure in the developed world, this is not the case globally. Unfortunately, Sub-Saharan Africa is plagued with an infant mortality rate that is nearly 6 times higher than that of the United States. This tragic statistic was a big reason why we teamed up with Arba Minch University in Ethiopia to spread awareness of proper maternal care in the region. We helped shoot video in Amharic, the local language, which detailed the important health measures that a mother should take to better the chances of survival for herself and her child. Such projects help to save the lives of disadvantaged women who have not been previously equipped with the knowledge or resources necessary for childbirth.
As previously mentioned, gender empowerment projects are not exclusively female-orientated; there are several key areas where men must step up to help their communities continue to develop. Recently, illuminAid conducted a project in collaboration with Africare in the Lodwar Province of Kenya. In this region of Kenya, malnutrition and a lack of diet variety has resulted in mass stunting and health problems for the community’s children. In Lodwar, farming is primarily viewed as a women’s job while many young men in the region are simultaneously unemployed. A key goal of our project in Kenya was to encourage youth, especially young men, to engage in farming to help their community fight the ever prevalent child malnutrition rates. Using illuminAid’s video technology, we overcame the struggle posed by the region’s high illiteracy rate and provided an avenue for Africare to increase the available agricultural workforce in the region.
We have seen from our work with Africare and others, that illuminAid is particularly apt to help tackle issues of gender roles and inequalities. A 2015 study found that of the world’s 781 million illiterate adults, approximately 496 of them were female. The disproportionately high rate of illiteracy amongst women intersects with general subservient social roles to further disadvantage women in the developing world. Thankfully, one does not need to learn how to read or write in order to benefit from video. illuminAid’s strategy for creating and disseminating video helps to ensure that all have access to crucial information on a variety of topics, regardless of gender.
Consequently, services like illuminAid’s are highly sought after in the NGO realm because they function to increase gender equality while simultaneously maximizing economic productivity. Our use of video to empower individuals also helps to alleviate the low levels of education and high illiteracy rates which oftentimes characterize disadvantaged communities. We look forward to continuing to work with our partner NGOs in enacting change that results in all members of society becoming involved in the civic and economic realm. Empowering all individuals in the developing world is crucial in accelerating the development of these regions. We must ensure the human rights of all, doing what we can to protect these rights wherever they need protection.
