“Changing your body is
the most selfish thing a parent can do! If you are seen anywhere near your son,
I would personally come to your door to arrest you!”
This is not some insult
thrown by a random person, this was an explicit warning given in front of many
people in the court room by a Judge in California. 2nd International
conference on Gender and Sexuality 2019 began with a very intense and powerful
personal narrative by Jessica Lynn, Transgender advocate and activist from US.
Sharing 50 years of her life, she began the session with the statement: when a
child is borne, the first question ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ seals the gender of
the new born. No one talks about intersex while 1.7- 2% children are born with
both genitalia who don’t fit into the binary. She then shared that she began
questioning her gender identity of boy at the age of 3-4 when it didn’t make
sense, all she knew was that she wanted to be a girl. At the age of 7 years,
when she came to know that it is because of sex organs, one is assigned gender;
she tried to get rid of her penis.
Post this, Conference
chair Prof. Shahana Rasool, Associate Professor and Head of Department of
social work, University of Johannesburg welcomed all the researchers,
activists, presenters and attendees leading the session on the thematic of the conference – “Rethinking Gender and
sexuality- What do we know? What have we learnt? What’s next?” She focused on
current scenario of women issues and education. Various interesting data and
reflections were shared which depicted inter dependency between women’s
development to health and development of children.
‘For children whose
mothers have secondary education the chances of survival of those are more than
triple compared to those with mother without education’ - UN Women 2014.
This also brought out
triple burden of care on women: Reproduction, Production – labor force
production, paid less than men, engaging in informal work – no entitlement for
salary and vacation and lastly community – where there is emphasis on care
giving role, there is no payment and it is undervalued and overused. According
to OECD, 2014, Gender, Institutions and development database: In every part of
the world, women spend more time on unpaid work than men do. She pointed out
how funding for gender work is decreasing and the available fund is not really
put in good use. The session ended with a very crucial note – “Gender equality
must become a lived reality”
The research paper
presentation line up was impressive and diverse, it was really difficult to
choose between simultaneous run technical sessions. The session on ‘sexuality’
began with Dr. Ngcobo from South Africa presentation on ‘Sweetening the Pot:
Negotiation of Entry into Sugar-Daddy relationships by Young women from an
Urban University’ – a very unconventional and interesting topic. She threw
light on the context of Urban Universities where girls get into these
relationships to wave off heavy student loans and lead a better life, thinking
that they have power, choice and authority to lead the relationships but is
that really true? – because the traditional names itself declares the power
dynamics. Her effervescent way of delivery of presentation along with ease of
answering queries was very impressive.
Next in the line was
the presentation by Dr. Preya Pilally from University of Witwatersrand, South
Africa that talked about heteronormative discourse in Four SADC High school
Buisness Studies Textbook. The last one was research study on struggles of a
closeted Bakla engaged in same sex romantic relationship. It was interesting to
hear both the perspectives of openly gay person and closeted person in the
relationship – their beliefs, struggles, conflicts and idea of romance given
the context of Philippines considering how they say they are LGBT friendly
country but acceptance of the same is far off and also same sex marriage is
still banned in their country. Implications of this study showed that the
thought of being closeted shouldn’t be treated as problem, but an opportunity
for a couple to thrive. The question of being comfortable still depends on the
intimacy of the relationship. What I loved about the presentation was the in
depth interview, simplicity of presentation and personal connect to the
situation.
Post lunch, the session
was led by Rita Bencivenga from Trinity Centre of Gender Equality and
Leadership, Trinity College, Ireland. She
talked about FIAGES (Feminist Institutionalist Approach to Gender Equality in
STEMM) - a two year research project funded with
the core thought that studying and working in organizations having a
satisfactory level of gender equality can foster gender-sensitive innovation in
STEMM fields in academia and in high tech companies, creating a virtuous circle
that reinforces a culture of Gender Equality. FIAGES applies the lens of
Feminist Institutionalism to explore academic and workplace organizations, in
particular STEMM disciplines and ICT companies, seen as a continuum from
training, to employment, and building a career, but also, potentially, sources
of a variety of discriminating situations. She also threw light on SAGE –
systemic action for gender equality which focused on driving stronger action on
gender equality in higher education and research. Gender equality has yet to be
fully realized, and the European Commission recognizes the structural barriers
that impede progress, namely: unequal pay, absence of work/life balance, the
persistence of harassment and discrimination, and the under-representation of
women in decision-making.
She
ended the session on a very important note with an emphasis on “Promoting
conversations from gender to diversity but not forgetting gender issues.”
The
first session ‘Gender based violence in LGBTQIA+ communities’ on the next day
of the conference began with a very honest declaration calling out the
reproduction of heteronormativity at the Conference pointing out the logo which
has stereotypical image of men and women; also the identity card that has Mr or
Miss assigned to names of the participants. She said – “I am suffering from
normativity and this shouldn’t have happened at least here in Gender and
sexuality conference!”
The
next presentation gave a snapshot on access to justice for LGBT people in
Southeast Asia when they are victims of sexual and gender based crimes; LGBT
people especially women also face challenge to have access and equal
opportunity in the legal professions and consequently in the justice sector.
This paper was based on the direct research and interviews conducted in various
South East Asian countries including Rohingya refugees. The third presenter was
not there to defend their research but it was disappointing in many ways –
primarily the title says third gender instead of Transgender – it is appalling
how people in the field of gender and sexuality especially researchers still
feel that it’s okay to use this term which downright negate the struggles of
Transgender community.
The
technical session on ‘Gender and Education’ had two very impressive
researchers. One of them presented on ‘Persistence of Glass Ceiling in
Academia: The case of Women Academics in Kenyan Universities’ This paper gives
empirical statistics on the number of female PhDs that have come through the
rank in Kenya during the past 15 years. It is guided by African feminism theory
in the analysis of reason behind the absence of female professors in Kenyan
universities. This paper also evaluates the strategies that female academicians
have adopted to break the glass ceiling in the Universities. The other research
paper talks about adolescence issues and role of comprehensive sexuality
education in South African schools.
Post
this, a Professor from deemed University and a journalist spoke about women
issues, education and current scenario of gender based violence in India. I was
appalled, disappointed and baffled by the statistics and ignorant approach
towards the issues! Using words like girls are dominating, tasting waters
before getting into relationship, Indian education system being superior and
many more trying to negate the seriousness of women issues and not giving the
clear picture of current state pissed me off. She was blasted off for her naïve
and shallow approach by a very brutal volcanic answer by a PhD research scholar
from India. She threw light on how current education system is not reproducing
better individuals but well defined employees, how even today in metro cities
even well education women have no choice in selection of their partners, a huge
pay gap for same work and so for. She was applauded by for her answer.
One of
my favorite session was the one led by Jennie A. Williams, Trafficking and
Gender specialist from Thailand – she spoke in details about gender, sexuality,
women issues and above all the very concept of Consent! She also threw light on
sex work, women companions to men and biased jurisdiction regarding sex work in
Thailand. Her approach to questions, concepts and openness to conflict made
people hear her!
The
last technical session ‘Violence against women’ started with Milliam K.
presentation ‘Socio economic and cultural factors that hinder women from
escaping Intimate Partner Violence: Experience
of 30 female prisoners convicted of Murder in Uganda’. The findings of in depth
interviews revealed their harrowing experiences of physical, sexual and
psychological violence in the hands of intimate partners. The victims of female
prisoners reflect on the context of violence – 27 out of 30 women killed their
family members. The narratives depicted how they were tormented at each step
that led them to kill the person and also they have no remorse for the act.
The
next in line researcher talked about Malay female survivors of intimate partner
violence. The narratives were harrowing, disgusting and extremely painful – for
example when one of the women tried very hard to leave her husband’s house with
children, her grandmother refused to let her in and forced her to go back
inspite of knowing that her husband might kill her. The research also talk
about choices and agency of women in extremely patriarchal society.
We
then presented our gender work with women in Baghpat, India at Sahas sharing
the narratives of rural women through the intervention study conducted in 2017.
The emphasis of this study was to give agency to women where with the adequate
knowledge and understanding they can stand for themselves and say No to
Violence.
The
closure session of the Conference brought out lot of conflicting topics of
white vs black feminism, Feminism Vs traditional culture, appearance of new
issues, whose feminism is right feminism and the very usage of the term
Feminist! I was amazed that even after 2 day of elaborate conversations,
narratives and such a diverse set of research on gender and sexuality – the idea
of my body belonging to me was called a romantic notion! I don’t understand why
even in 21st century we hide behind culture, media, religion to not
address gender and sexuality issues! Why it is so difficult for us to
understand that men being protector or not – no one has asked for protection,
it is more like this is me being me and please don’t force on me, all of us can
co-habitat without taking away each other’s basic rights!
