When Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, he made it clear that gender equality was high on his agenda. The very first piece of legislation he signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which allowed workers greater latitude to sue their employers for equal pay. Since then, his administration has made sexism and violence against women priorities; creating the White House Council on Women and Girls and launching the It’s On Us campaign to tackle sexual assault on college campuses.
As his time in office draws to a close, Obama has underlined his commitment to gender equality by convening the first ever White House summit on the United State of Women, which was held in Washington DC this week. It was a chance to take stock of the current state of women’s rights in America, as well as further afield, and to plan for the future.
The Walter E Washington Convention Centre was buzzing with energy and purpose as attendees lined up, from as early as 6.30am, around several blocks to get in. Even the queue was inspiring – the woman behind me explained to her neighbour how her organisation uses mentor coaching to improve outcomes for at-risk young women. Inside, speakers from Gloria Steinem to Amy Poehler mingled and shared their stories. There was an enormous sense of solidarity, with a rousing cheer when House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi described standing up to an early experience of sexism as a congresswoman in an overwhelmingly male-dominated government.
The summit saw leading political, cultural and campaigning figures come together to share their experiences, with a focus on action: sharing strategies and techniques that are already working in some areas in the hope that they may be successful further afield.
Vice-president Joe Biden spoke passionately about the importance of shattering the myths and misconceptions surrounding rape. He recalled a college survivor he had met who, when told by her student adviser that what she had described sounded like rape, said it couldn’t have been, because “I knew him”. Changing the law, Biden said, is not enough – we have to change a national culture that condones and promotes violence against women.
There were sobering statistics that backed up Biden’s calls for a cultural shift. Despite the fact that just 4% of US companies have female CEOs, a recent poll found that many still blame women themselves for the problem. 41% of Americans, we heard, believe that “women hold themselves back in the corporate world”. Laurie Fabiano, President of the Tory Burch Foundation, revealed that despite being drivers of the economy, women receive just one in every 23 dollars of business loans.
Many attendees spoke with grief about the recent shooting in Orlando, and the importance of an intersectional approach to gender inequality; tackling it alongside issues such as racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ageism and disablism. Joanne Smith, executive director of Girls for Gender Equity, spoke passionately about the need for domestic violence to inform gun control policy, because guns are the most common weapon used by men to kill their partners. Bamby Salcedo, president and CEO of the TransLatin@ Coalition, said that “systems within our governments, organisations and homes fail trans women of colour who are murdered simply for living their lives authentically”, and stressed that the visibility of trans women in the mainstream media, while positive, doesn’t automatically solve the wider problems of prejudice and violence.
There was talk of American women’s struggle for control of their reproductive health, with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards pointing out that women in America are now six times more likely to get a college degree than they were before birth control became legal. President Obama later touched on the same subject, saying: “A society that does not give women control over their own bodies is a society that will not work.”
Obama also spoke passionately about the importance of shattering gender stereotypes, citing the negative impact they have on both men and women. He said:
We’re still boxed in by stereotypes about how men and women should behave… We need to keep changing the attitude that raises our girls to be demure and our boys to be assertive. That criticises our daughters for speaking out and our sons for shedding a tear. We need to change the attitude that punishes women for their sexuality but gives men a pat on the back for theirs. We need to change an internet where women are routinely harassed and threatened when they go online. We need to keep changing the attitude that congratulates men for changing a diaper, stigmatises full-time dads and penalises working moms … We need to keep changing a culture that shines a particularly unforgiving light on women and girls of colour. About how they look. About how they feel. About what they should or should not do.”
The most exciting aspect of the summit was the sharing of tried-and-tested strategies for change, from Reverend Traci Jackson Antoine’s description of working with faith leaders as part of a coordinated response to domestic violence; to Neil Irvin, executive director of Men Can Stop Rape, who argued: “We need to teach social and emotional intelligence in an everyday, ongoing basis in the lives of adolescent boys”. Kim Wells, from the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence, shared innovative techniques for involving corporations in the battle, pointing out the powerful business case for solving a problem that costs billions of dollars in lost employee productivity.
For a room full of activists and frontline workers, First Lady Michelle Obama’s conversation with Oprah Winfrey provided strength and solace, as she urged self-care and valuing your own time and worth. “If you don’t prioritise yourself,” she said, “you keep falling lower and lower on the list of priorities”. When it comes to experiencing abuse on social media, she said: “There are times when you just can’t be reading all that.” And speaking about the memory of waving her girls off to school for the first time with their secret service agents in the car, she remembered wondering how the experience would impact them, and realising: “If I was going to protect them, I needed to protect myself.”
She also spoke about the role men can play in achieving gender equality, saying:
Be better. Just be better. Be good fathers. Provide solid examples of what it means to be a good man in the world. Be better husbands. Be a part of your family’s life. Do the dishes. Don’t ‘babysit’ your own children…
Be a better employer. When you are sitting at a seat of power and you look around and just see men like you… be better.”
But perhaps the biggest cheer of the day came in response to President Obama, who said: “I may be a little greyer than I was eight years ago, but this is what a feminist looks like”.
