I am currently working for one of the largest and most generously funded international aid agencies in the world. Like many large, international corporations, the agency provides healthcare for its employees through an on-site clinic staffed by international doctors - in order to ensure quality treatment and decrease cross-cultural misunderstandings that could muudle care. Aids education posters pepper the walls, and a bowl of condoms sits by the fishbowl in the waiting room for free distribution.
So, I was shocked speechless to discover that the agency's healthcare plan does not cover or provide birth control pills. The clinic staff suggest that women seeking birth control visit a local gynecologist for a prescription (expensive and time consuming), buy a generic version at the pharmacy (risking faulty, un-controlled medication), or bring it with them when they arrive (difficult for those coming form countries with private healthcare). I find this disturbing for many reasons:
1) The agency has a stated goal of increasing the percentage of female employes from an abysmal 18%. The usual explanation of this figure is that the conditions of life far from home in a hot, dusty, Islamic foreign country deter many women candidates. If this is true, providing women with the basic means to control their own bodies in this environment might be a good place to start.
2) As an international organization also committed to hiring employees representative of geographic diversity, there are many male and female employees from all over the world, including countries that don't have family-planning education. Providing birth control would be an excellent opportunity to set an example of the 'freedom and equality' the West claims to offer, educate those not otherwise exposed to family planning choices, and 'lo and behold' reduce unwanted pregnancies.
3) We are working in a conflict that, like many conflicts, has a significant rape and sexual violence component. Across Africa birth control is inadequately provided in normal health clinics and especially in displaced persons camps. Do to the pyschology of war and the increased vulnerability of women, these camps often have significantly higher rates of pregnancy and teenage pregnancy than the surrounding population. The international community has been negligent in its response. If International Aid organizations intend to promote health and empowerment, birth control for constituents and birth control for employes is fundamental.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Rape in the Congo
There has been a media trickle for the last few years about rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that is beginning to gain strength and shed light one of the most horrific experiences of the modern world. Recent pieces in the New York Times(Rape Epidemic Raises Trauma of Congo, Jefferey Gettleman) and BBC Radio (Women's Hour, Congo Sex Crimes) seek to understand how and why rape is being perpetrated in the DRC on a scale and with a brutality not seen for centuries. What is driving this phenomenon? How do we even conceive of it? in evolutionarily terms? - where women suffer rapes so brutal they fracture spines? In social terms - how can a society recover from this type of violence? How do we stop it? So far, these peices have brought more questions than answers, but at least the topic is emerging from hiding...
Saturday, March 22, 2008
The root of the root of the root of it all
If you’ve ever wondered about the source of gender roles, gendered behavior, and gendered thinking, you might want to look for the answer in cell biology. Most people recognize the roots of inequality in the division of labor between female caregivers and male providers, but why did the cookie crumble in that particular way? Why do women give birth? Of all the sexual and asexual reproductive methods, why is this method dominant and what affect does it have on us today?
In Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene he theorizes that the unit of evolution is not species or individuals, but genes. In this theory, the key evolutionary changes happen at the point in the reproductive process where one phenotype is expressed over another in a certain trait – ie. the gene for blue eyes over the gene for green eyes, or the one for height over shortness, etc.
According to Dawkins, way back in the primordial soup when proteins first began linking to form the chains that would become DNA, two dominant replication strategies developed. Some protein chains would replicate with reckless abandon as many times as possible in the hopes that some would survive. While others would expend energy building protection for their replications, and hence replicate less frequently but with a higher survival rate. Through cross-replication, the two strategies played off each other and increased the nich role played by the other, until they became mutually dependent and distinct groups – males and females.
So when looking at the goal of life as having as many babies as possible, ideally individuals would depose their replicated genes and walk away to go depose more elsewhere. But someone has to stick around to make sure the new genes survive to reproduce. And because the female has already invested more energy in the offspring (building protection) than the male, she can’t walk away, but he can, leaving her in a poor negotiating position.
At first this glance this seems to indicate women are fundamentally disadvantaged and condemned to life of home-making for philandering mates. But on closer examination, women have developed two major strategies to deal with this situation, which are clearly observable across the animal kingdom.
1) The first requires a male to invest in the offspring before copulation – ie. Build a nest or bring food. But this strategy relies on the compliance of all females. If all females withhold sex until a nest is built, men will build nests. If some females cheat and offer sex for free to get a better mate, the males will go to them and the holder-outers will have no choice but to give in.
2) In the second strategy females give up on males contributing to child rearing and choose instead to copulate with the male with the best genes - hence the deer with the biggest antlers enjoying a harem of females while doing nothing to help raise the kids. This strategy results in intense competition among males – in sometimes otherwise useless characteristics (like the size of a peacock’s tail)
When you think about how these strategies play out in the human world, it starts to explain a few things. Like the high-school jock strategy of showing-off good genes vs the nice quiet guy proving he could be helpful. And the different girls who are attracted to the two different types of males. And most interestingly, for me, the anger that good, home-making women have displayed throughout history towards ‘loose’ women who offer sex without any initial investment, and hence reduce the buy in for everyone.
In Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene he theorizes that the unit of evolution is not species or individuals, but genes. In this theory, the key evolutionary changes happen at the point in the reproductive process where one phenotype is expressed over another in a certain trait – ie. the gene for blue eyes over the gene for green eyes, or the one for height over shortness, etc.
According to Dawkins, way back in the primordial soup when proteins first began linking to form the chains that would become DNA, two dominant replication strategies developed. Some protein chains would replicate with reckless abandon as many times as possible in the hopes that some would survive. While others would expend energy building protection for their replications, and hence replicate less frequently but with a higher survival rate. Through cross-replication, the two strategies played off each other and increased the nich role played by the other, until they became mutually dependent and distinct groups – males and females.
So when looking at the goal of life as having as many babies as possible, ideally individuals would depose their replicated genes and walk away to go depose more elsewhere. But someone has to stick around to make sure the new genes survive to reproduce. And because the female has already invested more energy in the offspring (building protection) than the male, she can’t walk away, but he can, leaving her in a poor negotiating position.
At first this glance this seems to indicate women are fundamentally disadvantaged and condemned to life of home-making for philandering mates. But on closer examination, women have developed two major strategies to deal with this situation, which are clearly observable across the animal kingdom.
1) The first requires a male to invest in the offspring before copulation – ie. Build a nest or bring food. But this strategy relies on the compliance of all females. If all females withhold sex until a nest is built, men will build nests. If some females cheat and offer sex for free to get a better mate, the males will go to them and the holder-outers will have no choice but to give in.
2) In the second strategy females give up on males contributing to child rearing and choose instead to copulate with the male with the best genes - hence the deer with the biggest antlers enjoying a harem of females while doing nothing to help raise the kids. This strategy results in intense competition among males – in sometimes otherwise useless characteristics (like the size of a peacock’s tail)
When you think about how these strategies play out in the human world, it starts to explain a few things. Like the high-school jock strategy of showing-off good genes vs the nice quiet guy proving he could be helpful. And the different girls who are attracted to the two different types of males. And most interestingly, for me, the anger that good, home-making women have displayed throughout history towards ‘loose’ women who offer sex without any initial investment, and hence reduce the buy in for everyone.
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