CSW 69

For the 69th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the main focus was reviewing the progress and work done as a result of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action that was made during the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. This declaration is significant because it is considered the most progressive plan for advancing women’s rights. In the 30 years since the document was adopted, many countries have made improvements in women’s rights, including increasing their political and economic power, increasing legal protections, and providing empowerment for women and girls around the world. Throughout the various panels and events we attended throughout the week, this theme came up over and over again as each speaker discussed their personal experiences regarding gender inequality. In addition to the events we attended as a group, I had the privilege of

being on the panel at an event titled Beijing +30- Girls’ Perspective: How Far Have We Come. The event focused specifically on Section L of the Beijing Declaration, which is titled The Girl Child, and outlines actions to be taken to eliminate discrimination, negative cultural attitudes and practices, economic exploitation, and violence against girls, as well as to promote and protect the rights of girls worldwide. There were also four other girls on the panel from Mozambique, South Africa, Portugal, and Nepal who also shared their perspective. For the panel, each participant had to prepare an eight-minute-long presentation on the successes and failures of this document in our everyday lives. Initially, this was difficult for me because I had never heard of this document before preparing for this trip and panel, but as I looked closer at my everyday life, I realized that there are so many inequalities that are so ingrained in society that we accept as a part of everyday life. The topics that I chose to focus my presentation on ended up being financial literacy and childhood hunger. Through my research on financial literacy, I learned that the gap in financial literacy between women and men is partly due to cultural norms relating to roles in households and even what conversations it is typical for a child to have with their parents. Because men have historically been seen as the providers for the family, the norm even today is that they handle the majority of the finances for a household, contributing to a lower rate of financial literacy in married women as well. In addition, it is more common for fathers and sons to talk about financial topics, creating a barrier for girls to learn about these topics if they are not taught well in school. The next topic I chose to focus on was childhood hunger because of how bad it is in the city of Cincinnati, which ranks second worst out of 76 major cities in the US. Hunger can affect a child’s development as well as their performance in school, leading to lifelong health problems and missed opportunities. Girls also disproportionately experience these effects as a result of women and girls stereotypically being seen as the caretakers of the household, often leading them to shoulder more of the responsibility and stress, and leading to an even greater decline in their physical and mental health. This panel not only helped bring attention to a lot of gendered issues in my own life that I had never noticed, but also opened my eyes to issues in other parts of the world that I had previously thought to be a thing of the past. During this experience, I not only learned while researching for my own presentation, but also learned a lot from the other girls' presentations. Through listening to them I gained a larger perspective on how much cultural and social norms differ in each country.  One topic that each of us on the panel mentioned was access to education. Education is so important because it is the basis for so many skills and opportunities in life. In some cultures, girls are kept home from school to learn how to do housework because the expectation of them is that they will marry as soon as they are able and become a housewife. This can be a determining factor for the rest of their life because, without any education, there is not much they can do to make a living, so they are reliant on men. The main takeaway I got from this experience is how deeply entangled almost every social issue is. While this originally made me feel more overwhelmed and helpless, it made me realize that even a small action can have a large impact as it can affect many areas of one's life.