What Are Women Worth?

In the wake of International Women's Day 2008, I learned through news stories around the United States that as a high-end prostitute, I could make $5,500 an hour. So, I did the math. For one day as a high-end prostitute, just one day, just 8 hours, I could actually make more money than I will this entire year at my job – a job I love. As a woman, knowing that my value, as society would have it, lies in my body ... Well, that’s a hard pill to swallow.

I’ve heard the arguments before – the arguments that say, “Who is using who here?” and “Those wily women are the ones using the system – look at how much money they're making!” Yes, they're making a lot of money – tons, in fact. Say they decided to work one day a week for the entire year – just one day a week, at 44,000 a day – well, they would cash in at $2,228,000 for a year's work. Not a bad sum of money for working one day a week, I admit.

But here is the thing. What that says to women, all women, is that the most valuable thing they can do, the thing that is worth the most – is their body. The same holds true for strippers. They are not the ones that hold the cards – they are participating in a society-wide presumption that ultimately values their body far more than their mind. And that is extremely problematic. Every time an intelligent woman makes the choice to strip, or to escort, or to prostitute herself, she is reinforcing society’s decision to value her body above all other things. She is making it harder for women like me, women who could choose the route of a body-for-money trade, but who fight that choice, and the resulting social values it enforces.

And, there is more to this story, this story of women’s bodies.

A new phenomenon has emerged in recent months, a phenomenon that puts an alternative price on women’s bodies. It’s the outsourcing of birth, and, like prostitution, like stripping, it tells women that their ultimate worth lies in their bodies. But it goes one step further – it tells some women, like the women in India who are carrying surrogate babies, that they are worth less than the high-end prostitute.

Let’s do the math again. A high-end, western prostitute makes a little over $5,000 an hour. A low-end Indian surrogate, at $7,000 a pop, 9 months of full-time work, 24 hours a day (and, I think we can agree, pregnancy is full time) … that comes down to about $6.50 an hour.

So, what I’m learning, through the prices of prostitution and surrogacy, is not only do we value women for their bodies – we value some women’s bodies far more than others. If you are western, and cater to the New York governor, we will pay you! Your body is worth a lot! But, if you are Indian (sorry!), the best we can offer you is a 9-month minimum-wage job.

Is being paid to carry someone else’s baby the same as being paid to sleep with someone? Well, no … But both acts turn the women in either situation into little more than a physical entity. And that’s the problematic thing.

It’s tragic, what we are saying to women, not just here, but all over the world. All financial arguments fall flat in the face of the larger societal impact – the one that tells women that their value, their ultimate worth, lies in their ability to bodily and sexually serve society. So the question, at least for me, is, how do we create the shift to a society where the mind matters more than the chromosome?

Feminism Is Not an F Word

Last night, I was talking to a man around my age (early 30s) in Cambridge, Mass. I told him that I was attending an International Women’s Day (IWD) breakfast this morning. He hadn’t heard of IWD, so I told him a bit about it. He then asked, “Are you a feminist?” I replied, “Not only am I a feminist, I was a women’s studies major!” His reaction was surprisingly strong — he visibly backed away from me. Evidently, feminism is, for some people, an “f” word.

A heated discussion about the meaning of feminism ensued. He spoke at length about his belief that feminists want to prevent “girls and guys” from behaving according to their “true nature.” This attitude from someone my age surprised me, because I believe that women and men of my generation have benefited so much from the feminist movement. Apparently, those benefits are perhaps now being taken for granted.

For me, feminism is about women and men having the freedom, safety, and opportunity to pursue their dreams and live the lives they want to live, whether that entails taking care of children, pursuing a career, or going to school. Until this becomes a reality, locally and globally, I will proudly call myself a feminist. By doing so, I recognize the struggles of the women who came before me and stand in solidarity with the women who continue to struggle today, hoping that, some day, all women and men will have the freedom to be the people they are meant to be.

When Women Want More!

A few weeks back, I was talking to a friend, a father who, when he reads fairy tales to his young daughter, changes the ending in each one. Instead of marrying handsome princes, each woman in his daughter’s fairy tales becomes a lawyer for Amnesty International, or a doctor with Doctors Without Borders, or a musician playing packed houses – or some other independent, intelligent, powerful woman.

On this International Women’s Day, I think of this conversation and feel hopeful that not only his daughter, but all women, will be able to see their lives as ones of opportunity.

We live in a time, and, here, in the United States, a society, that gives women unprecedented opportunities. For the first time in our political history, we have a female running as a serious contender for president. We also live in a time where we have articles like the one I recently read in the Atlantic Monthly, aptly titled, “Marry Him – The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough.” This article, a microcosm of attitudes that hold women, all women, back, reduces women to little more than objects that put childbirth, and marriage, ahead of all other goals. And that simply is not the case.

International Women’s Day marks the achievements, successes, and power of women, today and throughout history. Right here at UUSC, I hear stories every day of powerful women accomplishing great things. There is the story of Serafina, a 71-year-old grandmother in South Africa who fought both the police and the South African government for her right to equal access to water. Or there is UUSC’s female on-the-ground consultant in Darfur, who is training men about issues of gender-based violence, helping them become leaders in the struggle for women’s rights. There are the leaders of the Rock Women Group in Kenya, amazing women working to improve both their own lives and the lives of children in the slums of Nairobi. There are the women unionists of STITCH in Guatemala, leaders in a movement for economic equality for women.

In a society, and a world, where some would have women reduced to little more than child-bearing entities, often at painfully early ages – International Women’s Day is a big deal. It tells women that they can do, and be, anything they want – be that a mother, lawyer, doctor, musician, political leader, teacher, or, likely, some combination of roles. International Women’s Day celebrates women’s choices – choices that UUSC works every day to grow, in number and in kind.

A Human Rights Journey

To honor International Women's Day (IWD), a group of us from UUSC are attending a breakfast at Simmons College, where Johanna Chao Kreilick, manager of UUSC's Economic Justice Program, will be a featured speaker. I try to take whatever opportunity I can to learn from my fellow staff members, and this event is of particular importance to me.

I am an alumna of Simmons College and the Women’s Studies and Political Science Department. It will be great to visit my alma mater, and it will be the first time I return as a human-rights worker, a dream of mine.

I entered Simmons college in my sophomore year as a 19-year-old student with idealistic dreams, an activist's zeal, and a thirst for knowledge. I found a home in the Simmons community. I met and worked with incredible women, who taught and supported me. Learning about antiracist activism, the women’s movement, and other social-justice movements, I felt empowered to make a difference in the world. I was armed with the knowledge to forge ahead and do my small part to help bring justice to the world. Now, 10 years later, I have a new family at UUSC, a group of incredibly dedicated staff and constituents who feel compelled to right some of the wrongs of this world.

On this IWD, I want to thank all of the women (and men) who brought me into their lives as a fellow human-rights defender. I want to honor their support, as on every other day, and keep all of those who do not have the privileges and opportunities I have had in my thoughts and prayers. I want to pay tribute to the women of this world who fight to overcome incredible hurdles only to live and love.

On this IWD, I think of the women surviving sexual and gender-based violence in Darfur. I pay tribute to the female street vendors in Kenya who tried to protect themselves and their children as their country erupted in civil unrest. I pray for the mother whose one-month-old baby was killed by a ricocheting bullet in the Gaza strip. I support the fight of single mothers struggling for a living wage. I also keep in mind the reason that I have the strength to grapple with all of this sadness and injustice: I have incredible people with me on this journey, who continue to lead by example. Their work compels me to continue to do my small part to fight for justice.

STITCH Helps Women Open Spaces for Justice in Their Lives

After a slow, bumpy ride on a dirt road that winds up through the lush mountains outside of Guatemala City, I arrived in San Pedro Sacatepéquez. I was on my way to meet UUSC's Economic Justice partner STITCH and the members of its Labor Advisory Group -- women who are organizers, former and current maquila (or factory) workers, and members of agricultural unions from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador. This group acts as the sails and rudder for STITCH's work in Central America, and they had already been holding their meeting for several days when I arrived. I was invited to attend the last part of the meeting, when the Labor Advisory Group discusses its strategy for the upcoming year.

When I stepped into the meeting room, I encountered something unexpected. To ward off the cool mountain air, a fire was chewing on some logs in a big stone fireplace. There were candles lit on the mantel, and soft, lyrical music was wafting through the wood-smoked air. Although I'd never met any of the members of the Labor Advisory Group, nor STITCH's Guatemala City staff, I instantly opened up, ready to listen.

I tossed my shoes into a pile of sneakers and sandals at the entrance and began walking around the room to see what the women were working on. The first thing I saw was a collection of flip-chart papers taped up around the room, expressions of the work the women had been doing in the days before my arrival. Each chart detailed examples of accomplishments the women had achieved in their unions as a result of their involvement with STITCH.

Over the last three years, UUSC has supported STITCH to develop a Women, Labor, and Leadership project, which has culminated in the completion of a training curriculum for women unionists in Central America. The curriculum has four modules -- Gender, Globalization, Women's Leadership, and New Directions in Unionism -- each with multiple chapters that address the unique challenges faced by women workers, that offer strategies and analyses of power, and that expand women workers' ability to address and overcome violations of their rights. STITCH used an extremely thoughtful, participatory process to develop this curriculum, continually incorporating feedback from members of the Labor Advisory Group, who field-tested modules with their fellow women union members.

The most exciting aspect of this curriculum is that it strengthens women's understanding of their rights and boosts women's confidence so much that they take on positions of leadership in their unions. In some cases, they've formed women's committees within their unions and have even ventured out to form new unions. The charts spoke volumes...

We have a deeper understanding of our rights as women in both the labor and private spheres.
We have learned how to plan and give a workshop.
In our lives, as women, we value ourselves and have more confidence.

I walked around some more and began chatting with women who were working in small groups on artistic murals that depicted their vision for future years of work with the curriculum. STITCH plans to launch union schools, which will grow out of a process in which members of the Labor Advisory Group bring what they've learned about women's rights, labor rights, and popular-education methodology back to their own unions and communities. The ripple effect will generate new possibilities for women's groups within their union structures, as well as for advocacy around women's rights provisions in the unions' collective-bargaining agreements.

Using flowers, branches, and pine needles that the group had gathered from a meditative walk through the surrounding mountains, they built an altar -- a practice rooted in Mayan tradition -- to help center their work and impart a spiritual presence to the meeting. Then, they carried out a number of participatory activities, infused with ritual and symbolism, which clearly served to build mutual support and commitment among the women to help them tackle the difficult work ahead. Many of the exercises focused on supporting the women in leaving their fears and obstacles behind and bringing positive energy into their new phase of work.

Although what I encountered was a bit unexpected, it wasn't surprising. It was right in line with the reputation that STITCH has for doing its work in an innovative, gender-focused, and participatory way. STITCH recognizes that acknowledging the spiritual aspect of working for social justice and human rights entails an understanding of our wholeness as people. As part of an interdependent web, we must bring spirit into our work in order to sustain and propel ourselves as we confront injustice. And this must all be rooted in our everyday experiences, with an approach that allows women to begin opening spaces for justice in our lives as a whole -- at home, in the workplace, and in our communities at large.