For One Hundred Days

I could, with a little effort, have woken up this morning, eaten breakfast, exercised, gone to class. I could have turned my eyes towards the summer leaves, rustling with humid Boston air, and the glistening buildings to the left and right. Instead, for the hundredth day, I awoke to the faces of Boko Haram insurgents and recalled my own imprisonment.

I would not like to dedicate this article to a discussion of violence, of the role women play in developing nations, or of the irresponsibility of the world’s governments who have so far failed to recover the lost Chibok girls. I do not want to chronicle the extent to which this horror has brought together people across the globe and called much-needed attention back to the issue of universal education and of school safety. I only wish to remind those of you reading that the girls, despite that the media’s attention has turned to pressing coverage on conflict in Gaza or the plane crash in Ukraine, are still missing, and to explain why I still care.

I have never been to Nigeria, let alone Chibok, let alone a school there. And I have never met these girls, nor do I know anyone who has met these girls, nor their families, nor their friends. I have only seen them on the news. I do not know their names. I do not know who they will become, or who they would have become had Boko Haram not so violently interrupted their lives. Yet somehow, when I hear about or imagine their distant pain, incomparable to anything I have known, I can feel a part of it too.

Malala Yousafzai, champion of girls’ education everywhere since her nearly-fatal encounter with the Taliban in 2012, called these girls her sisters when she visited their families on her birthday last week. Nicholas Kristoff, co-author of Half the Sky, calls the girls the nation’streasure. I am trying to be perhaps more radical, and consider the Chibok schoolgirls and myself to be one and the same.

There was probably a time in history when this wouldn’t have been a feasible stance to take; too much would separate a privileged, Caucasian, college student in America from young, impoverished schoolgirl in conflict-ridden Africa. Many would have considered the only factors that link us to be our gender, maybe our age. Now, however, I believe that the world has, indeed, gotten smaller in this regard. It is not unthinkable that my future could hold in it something which the actions of these girls could influence. It is likewise not unthinkable that I could do something that would act causally towards them. Given enough luck and resources, we could shake hands someday. The worlds we live in are the same worlds. Therefore, I find it unavoidable to consider my relationship to the victims of the kidnapping, and so I cannot stop being concerned for their sufferings.

One hundred days is a long time for the rest of the world to not yet have reached this same conclusion. I do not want to live in a place where young children can be kidnapped from school and remain missing months later, we should be saying. I think that if enough of us were saying it, the girls would be found. We will create the world we wish to see, if the one we’re in now isn’t the one we want.

I understand that I am still distant from these girls. I cannot, within reason, drop everything and find them myself – in fact, I would certainly be unsuccessful. But I am doing what I can: spreading the word, keeping them in my thoughts, and being grateful for the safety with which my schools in my life have provided me. It is also simple to send a message to the girls, or to useyour monetary prosperity to alleviate their peers’ burdens. Getting involved on a larger scale is wonderful, but I don’t think it’s necessary for everyone to make this their sole passion in order for the situation to turn around for the better.

The safety of these girls – and of children and even adults everywhere – is, right now, in our hands. I do not want to have to write another one of these in another hundred days. I do not want this issue to slip through the cracks and be forgotten by generations to come.

Fifteen of the girls who escaped from Boko Haram went ahead and took their exams in June. They are brave, and they are trying to move on with their lives, but they have not forgotten. To show our support, if nothing else, neither should we.

Gender Inequality at Home

Having been a strong proponent of girls' education awareness film "Girl Rising," and having been recently introduced to the book and documentary concerning a wider array of women's issues, "Half the Sky," I have been nonetheless bothered by one small fact: Why did the filmmakers not choose to include a study of gender disparities in developed nations? Surely the fact that the facts and figures are perhaps less shocking in some places compared to others cannot disqualify any domestic violence victim or involuntary sex worker from her right to media exposure. Surely the lack of de jure discrimination against females in the U.S. should not detract from that which is de facto. So I did some research.

First, I discovered Gender Inequality Index, a measurement created by the United Nations Development Program to compare the state of gender (in)equality around the world, and this interactive map. Thanks to the color-coding, it was easy to compare the U.S. more closely with countries of similar shades, such as Russia, Kazakhstan, and Argentina. Then I noticed that China - infamous for its female infanticide and historical foot-binding - actually got a rank "less unequal" than America, primarily due to less adolescent fertility and HIV/AIDS prevalence, and despite greater levels of poverty. Meghan Casserly of Forbes analyzed a similar measurement done by the World Economic Forum, where the U.S. comes in as the 22nd best country for women. This did not seem shocking to me until I noticed some of the countries in the top twenty: Nicaragua, where I have been and had to confront the looming likelihood that the female students I was teaching would be pregnant before age 16 and abused forever by their husbands; Lesotho, where we still send Peace Corps volunteers; Cuba, notorious for their recently oppressive regime; and South Africa, against which the world had to unite to finally put an end to ruthless racial discrimination.

Next I looked up the specifics on issues I know and recognize to be barriers to women in the U.S. to this day. About 30% of women are at some time subject to sexual, gender-based violence by someone they know, amounting to about 20 women per minute. Only 16.6% of congressional leaders are women, making the U.S. 78th in the world in terms of political representation. Women still make an average of 77 cents for every dollar that a man makes, not to mention that our constitution still fails to have been amended in reparation. Between one and two million sex slaves live in America, even though it is illegal almost everywhere, and about 80% of these are women.

However, two other notable gender disparities surfaced. More women in America by percentage have been graduating with a bachelor's degree than men since 1992, and fewer girls drop out of high school than boys. Also, more women proportionately and in total numbers report participating as voters every presidential election since 1980. These statistics demonstrate to me that, despite persistent subconscious or behind-the-scenes discrimination against them, women choose to take part in those actions that have the greatest societal impact, when they can. One of the common ways people demonstrate the importance of economic empowerment of women is by explaining that a woman will reinvest her money in her family and her community more frequently than a man. Luckily, enfranchisement of women and public school has apparently enabled them to invest other things too, like talent and time, into civic needs.

I understand why filmmakers trying to have an impact would skim over these intricacies. Most women here and in other developed countries do just fine, and that's not something that can be said of the places that were highlighted in those two movies. Sometimes, though, I think we need to be reminded that while for some women beating the odds means escaping FGM or owning her own business, for others it can mean being an elected official. If gender equality is going to play the role in the twenty-first century that racial equality has played in centuries past, perhaps we should celebrate the whole spectrum of victories.