Blog 8

While reading the first piece for week 13, "Women's Rights as Human Rights: Local and Global Perspectives," I really began to think about the number of women who suffer at the hands of political and religious rules in other countries. An enormous amount of women suffer losses of their "basic human rights" because of religious laws, political restrictions, and traditional gender role standards that are enforced in their countries and communities. We've learned about many non-governmental organizations that work to increase women's knowledge about their rights or help women gain access to the resources they need to succeed in thier countries. But there is still an amazing amount of women who suffer. Why aren't things changing quicker than they are?

I believe that in many cases, the rights of women are taken away by others. These women are left to suffer, and sometimes can't do a thing to get out of their situation. There is still a part of me, though, that has to question how many women suffer losses of their rights at the hands of others, but continue to suffer those losses on their own account. I know that people can hurt us and try to put limits on us, but at some point, we are ultimately responsible for many of the things that happen to us in life. It may not be a women's fault that she is continually raped by the men in her Muslim community because she is single, but she does have the choice to leave. Leaving may have other undesireable consequences, but she does have the choice to leave.

I know my opinions are definitely biased, especially considering the fact that I've never lived in a third-world country, or been forced to live by religious rules that I didn't take on myself. Even so, I still feel that for some situations, women can do more for themselves. I understand that it may be nearly impossible for one woman to stand up for women's rights on her own, but there is power in numbers. If local women from the community could get behind a movement to change things, change might happen, or at least be more likely to happen.

When it comes down to it, we can create all the organizations we want to liberate all the women around the enitre world, but if they don't really want it, nothing we do will have a good, long-term effect.