Kenya making big strides towards gender equality through law reforms

businessdailyafrica.com - Women entrepreneurs at a meeting in Mombasa last year. Kenya aims to advance women’s economic participation and self-reliance by creating a conducive environment. PHOTO | FILE Last week, Kenya’s candidate for the African Union (AU) Commission chair, Amina Mohamed, lost to Chadian Moussa Mahamat despite her candidature looking promising.

Last year, Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump despite a promising campaign. The question on many people’s minds is whether the world ready for women in political leadership positions?

The 2016 US election opened up a lot of case studies on women and leadership positions. I would not be in a position to comment on that ( whether there was a gender card in the two elections), however in today’s rights that show that Kenya is one of the countries in the world with good legislative environment when it comes to women.

We have to understand these efforts against the backdrop of the Kenyan society where a lot of African cultures are male-oriented. The situation is not the same in the West where there have been equal rights for men and women for a much longer time.

Investing in Intersectionality

We talk a lot about investing in women, but one issue that is often neglected—or not even identified—in discussions about gender equality is intersectionality. First coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality is the idea that different systems of oppression interact. Basically, different types of oppression come as a package deal for an individual facing them. For example, white women face many obstacles and disadvantages compared with men, but black women face marginalization from both racial and gender-based discrimination—and are therefore likely to be disadvantaged even more than white women. Intersectionality acknowledges both the fact that traits like sex, gender, race, nationality, disability, orientation, class, age and other factors all affect a person's opportunities or obstacles in life; as well as the fact that discrimination happens through the combination of and relationship between these various identities, and the systems that oppress individuals belonging to them.

While we're talking about getting more women on boards and in the C-Suite, while we're advocating for women and girls around the world, and while we're celebrating women's successes every day; it's important to remember that women's empowerment is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor—and our discussions, as well as our investments, need to reflect that.

As soon as you start looking for examples, intersections become obvious. From the challenge black women face in the tech industry, to the high violence rates faced by aboriginal women or transgender women (and particularly transgender women of color), to the poverty and class stagnation faced by women from lower-class backgrounds; women's rights are tied to so many other rights.

Think of it this way: The problem of women's disenfranchisement around the world, from boardrooms and venture capital to politics and social movements, has been a failure of inclusion. Does it really make sense, now, to turn a blind eye to the inclusion of people of different races, orientations, nations, religions, beliefs, ages, abilities or other categories? In addition to a moral failure, we fail to consistently combat the root of the problem as it's existed for women for millennia. Inclusion needs to be intentional, and it needs to be intersectional.

As with anything, access to capital and education is crucial in the fight for equality, and that goes double (or triple, or more) for women facing enforced status quos, discrimination, cultural obstacles and more.

That's why we try to stay vigilant to fight for and celebrate women—of all kinds, in all places, facing all situations—at Women Investing in Women Digital. We plan to discuss specific investing and entrepreneurship opportunities as they relate to intersectionality and various communities in the near future, and we thank you for adding your own diverse voices to our growing conversation, and if you'd like to learn more about just a few intersectional efforts, see below for just a few intersectional organizations you might want to follow and support.

Investing in Intersectionality

Digital Undivided: An accelerator and outreach program supporting startups led by black and Latina women.

Women Enabled International: An advocacy and education group promoting and protecting the rights of all women and girls, especially those with disabilities.

GLAAD: A communications hub, media outreach effort, support network and more promoting understanding and rights for all LGBTQ individuals, including women.

Women's Refugee Commission: An international organization working to protect and empower refugee women and girls.

American Civil Liberties Union: A nonprofit organization that uses lobbying, education and the law to defend poor people, individuals from marginalized communities, minorities facing harassment, women facing gender-based violence or discrimination, women seeking reproductive health care and many more. They also fight for equal economic opportunities for women.

Disability Visibility Project: An online community dedicated to "recording, amplifying and sharing disability stories and culture."

Asian Women in Business: A nonprofit organization supporting Asian women entrepreneurs and professionals.

The Simple Trick Women in the White House Use to Stop Getting Interrupted

Teamwork is one of the fundamental components in a functioning business. Especially in male-dominated workplaces, it is imperative that women work together to allow each other's voices to be heard. The method we explore in this article is useful across the board in women's lives—school, work, social environments, and more. Check it out below and click through to read the whole article, and let's start sticking together and sticking up for each other!

-Victoria Mendoza

themuse.com - Competition in the workplace is normal, if not necessary, in some cases for survival.

When discussing how her lack of competitiveness held her back in her career, Muse writer Kat Boogaard says, “I’m a firm believer that the world would be a much better place if we all focused on supporting and encouraging one another…However, I’ve also learned another important lesson: As nice as that all sounds, things don’t necessarily work this way when it comes to your own career. The working world can be frustratingly cutthroat at times.”

And she’s right—you’re not going to get that promotion unless you work harder and faster than other people, you’re not going to score that big project unless you prove it to your boss that you deserve it, and you’re not even going to snag the last piece of birthday cake unless you get to the office kitchen first.

But let’s play devil’s advocate for a second here. What if we put aside our own individual ladders and starting climbing up together? Would that get us anywhere?

Read more

8 charts that show why life is still harder and more dangerous for women

While some countries have made great strides in recent decades toward gender equality, we still have a long way to go before reaching true parity. International Women's Day is Tuesday, March 8, and the theme this year is #PledgeForParity. "Worldwide, women continue to contribute to social, economic, cultural and political achievement," the International Women's Day website proclaims. "And we have much to celebrate today. But progress towards gender parity has slowed in many places."

We'd like to pass on this article from The Independent, with five striking graphic representations of areas that still need a lot of work to reach equality, safety, and happiness of all.

independent.co.uk - Women still earn less than men across all sectors and occupations, hold just a fifth of global parliamentary seats and face an estimated 118-year wait for the gender pay gap to finally close.

Those are some of the startling statistics showing how desperately initiatives to improve education, health and quality of life asInternational Women’s Day approaches.

Sexual abuse

SexAbuse-graphic

More than a third of women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives.

The most common form is domestic violence or attacks by current or previous partners, which occur most frequently between a woman’s teenage years and menopause.

Additionally, at least 46 countries have no laws protecting women against domestic violence and many nations that do enforce them poorly.

Child sex abuse

SexAbuseChildren-graphic

An estimated 120 million girls and women under age 20 have been subjected to forced sexual intercourse or other forced sexual acts – around 10 per cent.

A Unicef report found that the violence was a “global reality” across all countries and social groups that could include harassment, rape or sexual exploitation in prostitution or pornography.

Read the rest here.