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Overview
Bestselling author, journalist, and human rights activist Sally Armstrong argues that humankind requires the equal status of women and girls.
The facts are indisputable. When women get even a bit of education, the whole of society improves. When they get a bit of healthcare, everyone lives longer. In many ways, it has never been a better time to be a woman: a fundamental shift has been occurring. Yet from Toronto to Timbuktu the promise of equality still eludes half the world’s population.
In her 2019 CBC Massey Lectures, award-winning author, journalist, and human rights activist Sally Armstrong illustrates how the status of the female half of humanity is crucial to our collective surviving and thriving. Drawing on anthropology, social science, literature, politics, and economics, she examines the many beginnings of the role of women in society, and the evolutionary revisions over millennia in the realms of sex, religion, custom, culture, politics, and economics. What ultimately comes to light is that gender inequality comes at too high a cost to us all.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781487006808 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | House of Anansi Press Inc |
| Publication date: | 09/17/2019 |
| Series: | The CBC Massey Lectures |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| File size: | 742 KB |
About the Author
SALLY ARMSTRONG is an award-winning author, journalist, and human rights activist. She is the author of four bestselling books: Ascent of Women: A New Age Is Dawning for Every Mother’s Daughter, The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor, Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan, and Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots: The Uncertain Fate of Afghanistan’s Women. Armstrong was the first journalist to bring the story of the women of Afghanistan to the world. She has also covered stories in conflict zones from Bosnia and Somalia to Rwanda, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan, Jordan, and Israel. She is a four-time winner of the Amnesty International Canada media award, the recipient of ten honorary doctorate degrees, and an Officer of the Order of Canada. She was born and raised in Montreal, lives in Toronto, and spends the summer in New Brunswick.
Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1: In the Beginning(s) — the impact of agriculture, industrialization, and religion on the status of women
Chapter 2: Sex — from the pleasure principle to rape
Chapter 3: Religion, Culture, and Custom — the roles they’ve played over time
Chapter 4: Politics and Society — the power and the fury of changing world opinions
Chapter 5: The Economics and Energetics of Tomorrow — the future possibilities for girls and women
From Chapter 1: In the Beginning(s)
So many beginnings. From delicate handprints on a cave wall to goddesses in ancient Mesopotamia; from political tyranny that came in the guise of a message from God to the convoluted journey to emancipation — the story of women is the longest revolution in history. So many times change was in the wind. So many times the finish line blurred. And so many times hope soared. Still, from Toronto to Timbuktu, the promise of equality has eluded half the world’s population. Now there’s a power shift. There’s never been a better time in human history to be a woman. And despite the blowback from misguided politicians, leftover chauvinists, and hypermasculine misogynists, women are closer to gaining equality than ever before. The journey ahead is bound to be epic, and it will affect everything — our wallets, our jobs, our very future.
Why now? How come the power shift didn’t happen during the first wave of the women’s movement (1848–1920), when the suffragettes struggled to get the vote? Or the second wave (1963–80), when women “put all our faith in the pill” and attended consciousness-raising sessions that discussed the oppression of women and demanded change in the status of women? Or even the third wave (1992–2010), which began after the American lawyer and academic Anita Hill was called to testify at the televised confirmation hearing of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, whom she had accused of sexual harassment, thus challenging his fitness for the position? Hill was then excoriated by the all-male Judiciary Committee, who didn’t believe her, and Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court. The fallout became a watershed moment in American politics and a turning point in raising awareness of sexual harassment. But still the long-term status of women was mostly unchanged.
Now with the fourth wave, a movement that began in 2012 when social media took off, there’s a focus on intersectionality, a push for greater empowerment of traditionally marginalized groups — Indigenous people, people of colour; LGBTQ; ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities; people with physical and developmental disabilities; people of differing social classes — and for greater representation in politics and business. Fourth-wave feminists argue that society will be more equitable if policies and practices incorporate the perspectives of all people. While earlier feminists fought to shake off the ties that bound them to subservience, this new wave calls for justice against discrimination, assault, harassment, and it calls for equal pay and individual choices over our own bodies. Words like “cisgender,” “non-binary,” and “polyamorous” reflect the new vocabulary of a changing, more diverse society, and the clarion call for inclusion is being heard around the world.
This wave created hashtag feminism and put abusive powerful men on notice. And by all accounts, this one got liftoff. The symbiotic relationship between social media and individualism is likely driving the bus for change. The internet is all about “instant.” Twitter and Facebook can elevate people and create extreme celebrity and propel movements. Some of these, like #MeToo and #TimesUp, have been amplified by attention from influential entities such as the New York Times and the Hollywood film industry, but others have been simmering over the last decade. As a journalist, I have watched human rights and the rights of women and girls become the focus of conversation, whether in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo or the savannah in Kenya, in the deserts of Afghanistan or the college campuses in North America.
We have always depended on political will to change up the agenda — the stroke of the politician’s pen to install the stop sign or build the shelter or legislate a new law. It often took public will — marches and petitions — to push the politician to make change happen. But in the last few years, I’m seeing what I call personal will as the driving force behind both public and political will. Malala Yousafzai is a good example. She was fifteen years old, living in the Swat Valley in Pakistan; she wanted to go to school to learn to think for herself. But the Taliban, who claim they act in the name of God, forbade education for girls. She defied the cowardly thugs by speaking out publicly on girls’ rights to an education. On October 8, 2012, she climbed onto the school bus. The last words she heard were: “Which one is Malala?” The Taliban gunman shot that child in the head for going to school. But Malala recovered, and then she started a movement. Today everyone knows her. She’s become the world’s daughter, not because a politician in the Swat Valley insisted that the girls go to school; not because there were marches and petitions demanding education for girls. It was personal will that propelled Malala.
The other telling side to this episode is that atrocities like this happen every day. But this time the world grabbed on to the story and didn’t let it go. I believe it was more evidence of liftoff, of the changing status of women; proof that people realize that dismissing half the world’s population is dangerous and expensive and wrong.
The holy grail for the social innovators of the twenty-first century is knowing how campaigns such as #MeToo and the rise in personal power can be sustained. Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms, authors of New Power, think they know the formula. They call it the difference between old power and new power. “Old power works like a currency,” they say. “It is held by few. Once gained it is jealously guarded, and the powerful have a substantial store of it to spend. It is closed, inaccessible, and leader-driven. It downloads, and it captures.”
As for new power, as exemplified by the #MeToo movement, it operates “like a current. It is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven. It uploads, and it distributes. Like water or electricity, it’s most forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it but to channel it.” Their conclusion is that #MeToo gave a sense of power to the participants, and that each individual story was strengthened by the surge of the much larger current.
Today that empowerment is taking on everything from date rape to old lingering mores that cling to the lives of women the way barnacles attach to ships, slowing them down, denying their fair passage. It is also fuelling change — enormous, life-altering change.
What People are Saying About This
PRAISE FOR SALLY ARMSTRONG AND POWER SHIFT:“This is a far-reaching account of the plight of women and girls throughout history and across continents, often told via the moving personal stories of survivors who have endured sexism’s many atrocities . . . With her thorough research and undeniable gift for personal storytelling, Armstrong dispels faulty beliefs and damaging myths; lays bare horrific injustices; and illuminates a variety of economic, political, and cultural truths . . . An ambitious and thoroughly convincing undertaking.” — Quill & QuirePRAISE FOR SALLY ARMSTRONG AND ASCENT OF WOMEN:#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER “For every tragic, no-hope-for-humanity-level injustice in Ascent of Women, there’s a corresponding story of triumph.” — Globe and Mail“Armstrong writes that women in the Congo, in Senegal, in India, in Pakistan and other countries the world over are questioning their oppression and banding together to make positive change . . . Armstrong’s stories are difficult to hear, but do contain grains of hope.” — Vancouver SunPRAISE FOR SALLY ARMSTRONG AND VEILED THREAT:“Sally Armstrong views Afghanistan through the eyes of its women. Her story [of Dr. Sima Samar] is one of hope and triumph, as are most of the tales in this straightforward, uplifting volume.” — Washington Post“Veiled Threat’s strength lies in its empirical portrayal of the injustices and inhumanities visited upon the Afghan people, especially woman and girls . . . [and] is to be applauded for its emotionally gripping disclosure of suffering and injustice.” — Globe and Mail“A brief but brilliant book about the hidden power of the women of Afghanistan . . . written in blazingly clear language, blessedly free of academic pretensions.” — Winnipeg Free Press“Emotionally demanding reading . . . a passionate portrayal of recent events in Afghanistan from the perspective of a committed, feminist outsider.” — Hamilton Spectator“A powerful book that shows how women can change the world.” — Toronto Sun