>>>>Dean Grillot: Regarding identity and identity
crisis in the global community, let's talk
a little bit about women and women's rights.
Dr. Cruise, women making up well, around half
the population but yet struggles -- this segment
of the population struggles, it seems to me,
more than the male population in the sense
that much of what we talk about in the global
community, whether it's health concerns, environmental
concerns, refugees, those who are are civilians
and noncombatants that are, you know, damaged
in in war and poverty and development. And
all these things have a very significant impact
on women, disproportionately on women. And
so why is that? What is the concern about
the impact of these things on women, and how
can we address it?
>>Dr. Cruise: Well we, we do know and the
United Nations in various conventions has
has confirmed and verified that women and
children are often the most adversely affected
by conflict and natural disaster. If we think
about conflict, we think about the fact that
most often men are the ones that are fighting
in the conflict, and women and children who
are at home are then having to take care of
of the everyday necessities and those sorts
of things, so they're affected quite differently.
They can also then be victims of rape, of
other forms of violence. If they are refugees,
again, they are naturally targets. If we think
about the developing world, women are often
-- whether it's in a conflict area or not--
they're the ones that have to feed the family,
take care of the home, go and collect water,
to try to find clean water, a lot of waterborne
illnesses that women seem to contract at a
much higher rate than men. So they're often
in a situation where they are more susceptible
to some of these, these issues that you you
mentioned. And the good news here is that
we have seen a lot more discussion of this.
I'd say in the last 30 or so years, a number
of organizations have been created, a number
of conventions have been held, and people
are talking about these issues in a much different
way than they did in the past.
>>Dean Grillot: Particularly education, women's
access to education, I think one of the things
research really tells us is that if you educate
girls, they are much more likely to educate
their children. They are much more likely
to provide for themselves, to gain employment,
obviously, to provide a living, to make a
living. And so educating girls is is clearly
a fabulous method that's been shown in terms
of the research to pull women out of poverty--
but health issues still remain a concern.
I mean, there are still far too many women
around the world that die from childbirth,
for example, or that have consequences as
a result of childbirth, injuries that they
then have to live with, and it leads to all
kinds of other consequences. I'm thinking
fistulas, in many parts of the world a a very
common injury after after childbirth. So you
know there's still there's there's much progress
that's been made, more awareness being made
about education among girls and women, but
still concerns about health, and I might even
mention about employment. I mean, women still
suffer significant amount of discrimination
in the workplace around the world, and that's
all parts of the world. Discrimination in
the workplace, divergence in pay, that you
know, if you want to call it that, "glass
ceiling" of being able to achieve higher levels
of employment and higher rates of pay. But
you know, as you mentioned, conferences on
this, people talking about it. It's definitely,
you know, out in the forefront now; advocacy
organizations popping up to help address issues
of women's rights. What other kinds of solutions
do we have on this issue?
>>Dr. Cruise: Well something that's been really
interesting is the framing of the issue. When
early organizations got together, they talked
about women's rights as a human rights issue,
which it most certainly is. But when they
they didn't get a lot of of play with that
and when they started reframing the issue
to look at it as an economics issue. As you
mentioned if women are educated, if they're
working, they're making money. They're supporting
the economy, they're helping their children
and providing and creating a better community.
So if we look at it from an economic standpoint
and get away a little bit from this human
rights standpoint, then we have found that
there are more supporters, so that's been
a pretty successful tactic. The other thing
I would say as you you mentioned the conferences
is getting women into politics. We know from
various studies that at 30% of Parliament,
if you have women in 30% of Parliament, that
laws change, that new things are considered.
And so there's been a real effort in this
country and and elsewhere and been to varied
success, to get women into Parliament because
it, they can change the dialogue and can change
the discussion. In this country, for example,
if you think about the fact that the #1 killer
health concern for women is heart disease.
30 years ago, people weren't really talking
about female heart disease because the signs
of heart disease in women are much different
than the signs in men. Scientists were not
paying attention to that, politicians were
not paying attention to that. You get women
into the political process, you get them into
the economic system, they start paying attention.
So there were positive things that have come
out of that, but as you mentioned, again,
there's a long ways to go in this country,
and certainly in other countries as well.
>>Dean Grillot: So like you said -- much has
been done, still more work to be done. Students,
what do you think about women's rights? Is
this something that we should focus on? Should
the global community be concerned about women's
rights, and how would you go about addressing
them?
