"From Outrage to Courage"

When the pandemic hit, at first it was hard not to be traveling and engaging with the world first-hand. The silver lining is that I was able to take some time to slow down and work on a passion of mine: women and human rights. (Hint: Women’s rights are human rights.) The past several months I have been working through an incredible course on International Women’s Health and Human Rights via Stanford Online led by Anne Firth Murray, the founder of the Global Fund for Women. 

As a feminist and advocate for women, I was aware of many of the challenges women face around the world through such sources as Melinda Gates’ book “Moment of Lift” and others, but the depth and detail to which we dove in this course was humanizing, harrowing, and ultimately deeply inspiring.  I walk away with a dichotomy of gratitude that I was blessed to be born into the society I was, given the opportunities I have, and been supported by the incredible community of women and men I know, while my heart and soul simultaneously mourn and burn for my global sisters.

We discussed every aspect of a woman’s life, from the preference for males at birth, to the discrimination in childhood for education and health, to adolescence involving early marriage and female mutilation, to the dangers of maternity, to the violence often sustained in silence, to the perilous survival as refugees, to the unpaid and uncredited labor, to human and sex trafficking, and the daunting prospect of aging in a man’s world.  We read through Anne Firth Murray’s book “From Outrage to Courage”, watched interviews with women of myriad backgrounds, pored through research and studies, and read first-hand accounts from the voices of women and girls. It epitomized the need that “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made” and that “it shouldn’t be that women are the exception” (Ruth Bader Ginsburg). 

Through this labor of love, (spending nights and weekends reading gut-wrenching stories and statistics about the fate of millions of women worldwide is not exactly reading for pleasure), it is abundantly clear that while we have taken many steps in a positive direction, there are far more places and people that are still suffering immensely.

With all of the things happening in the United States recently that are threatening the autonomy and rights of women here at home, it is easy to get discouraged and disheartened. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death hit me harder than I anticipated, but also awakened me to the fact we cannot just rest on our laurels and rely on one or a few women to fight for our rights. We must work together to continue to the forward progress towards equality for all people, not just women standing up for women, but also men allies and people of color and of different religions, ages, backgrounds, creeds, all rising up to support and protect each other.

The words of the notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) ring true, that although “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time”, “If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.”

And I intend to be there. Join me.

For information on how to get involved in your community, see a few suggested resources:

• Global Fund for Women: https://www.globalfundforwomen.org/

• Black Women’s Health Imperative: https://bwhi.org/

• Alpha Girls Global: https://alphagirlsglobal.com/

• Polaris Project: Human Trafficking: https://polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/

• Voting in the United States: https://www.vote.org/

• United Nations Gender Equality: https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/gender-equality/ 

• Human Rights Watch: https://www.hrw.org/