Guest blogpost on The Women’s Media Center’s Majority Post by Marie Wilson, founder and President of The White House Project, August 28, 2009
This week, The New York Times Magazine dedicated their pages to a special issue: Why Women’s Rights Are the Cause of Our Time. In the lead article, The Women’s Crusade, authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn drove home this powerful statement, “The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution.”
For decades, women in the U.S. and across the world have taken this stance – and have dedicated their time, energy, creativity, and philanthropy to the cause. From pioneers like Robin Morgan and Charlotte Bunch to the millions of women who have served as advocates, educators, service providers, and donors, making women’s suffering and their abilities as agents of change visible and significant in the eyes of the world has been a widespread – yet largely unnoticed – undertaking.
This week’s Magazine illustrated an invaluable ingredient to advancing the cause of women’s rights: the active participation and support of male allies.
Women like Morgan and Bunch have written prodigiously on these issues; they are held in respect and have been honored for their years of service. Whole fields of study, as well as industry, focus on advancing women. Yet the visibility and consideration paid to the issue has been next to nil.
As his writing career demonstrates, Kristof is a bright and sympathetic man, with a talent for delivering complex issues in a “human” way to the general public. Partnered with WuDunn, an equally committed woman, their work at the Times has finally gotten the attention these issues deserve in ways that writing, traveling, and exhorting has previously proved necessary but insufficient.
While the Times piece is only a first step towards building the understanding and commitment necessary to transforming the role of women throughout the world, it is an important and instructive step. It is a telling example of why the movement towards women’s social, economic, and political parity greatly needs male allies – especially those in power within the media landscape who can not only fuel change, but bring their brothers along.
This is a theme that we have seen time and again. Two years ago, The White House Project – along with The Council of Women World Leaders and the Women Leaders Intercultural Forum, supported by The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands – held the historic International Women Leaders Global Security Summit. It was the largest gathering of women leaders on the issue of security to ever be held in the United States. From Prime Ministers and Presidents to the biggest names in the non-governmental and private sectors, over 120 women worked together for three days to shift the paradigm of international security.
Despite the historic, timely, and critical nature of the summit, not a single large newspaper would cover the conference. Nor would they publish an opinion piece by Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and Summit co-host. Over one hundred women world leaders taking on the biggest issues of our time was apparently too audacious to be newsworthy.
This is, I think, the second part of the problem: when women are seen as victims, especially those who turn their victimization into power, people respond. Yet when women are seen as forceful and engaged agents of change, working to prevent suffering and joining in full partnership with men, the media shies away.
What we need moving forward are male allies like Kristof who will not only take up the issue of women’s rights to end their victimization but to promote women as leaders in their own right. And we need them to recognize and share that this goal is not just for the benefit of women, but for men, our communities, our countries, and our world.
