Equal play for girls and women

The US Department of Education has repealed a 2005 Bush-era policy that made it easy for high schools and colleges to avoid compliance with a federal law mandating equal opportunities for female students in schools and colleges that receive federal aid, specifically in terms of athletics.

One way to comply with Title IX was to use a survey to assess the interest and ability of girls and women to participate in athletics. Schools could use their survey results to document a lack of interest or ability and, just like that, they were off the hook for another year.

An event at the George Washington University today, April 20, marked not just Equal Pay Day but also the “Title IX Announcement” with Vice President Joe Biden, Jr., Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, and Joy Cheek, Duke University basketball player and former intern in Vice President Biden’s Office.

Secretary Duncan mentioned a recent cross-state analysis by Betsey Stevenson of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania which shows several positive effects of girls’ participation in high school athletics: being an athlete is associated with about one more year of schooling, higher labor force participation rates, higher earnings, and higher participation in male-dominate jobs and mixed-gender jobs compared to female-dominated jobs. These findings about the effects of athletic participation hold true in spite of the potential bias created by self-selection into athletics.

Vice President Biden delivered an impassioned, off-the-prompter speech in which he noted that while statistics are important, they don’t tell the whole story. Making Title IX “as strong as it can possibly be is the right thing to do.” In spite of the great progress that has been made since 1972, “we have a long way to go” to “take away every barrier that exists.” The bottom line is: “empower, empower, empower women to take control of their own lives.”

SOURCE: Betsey Stevenson, Beyond the Classroom: Using Title IX to Measure the Return to High School Sports. The Review of Economics and Statistics May 2010, 92(2):284-301.

With new spotlight on masculinity, please don’t bypass the women

Guest post by Laura Wilson

Some development and humanitarian aid experts now argue that focusing on masculinity and emasculation during a complex emergency, rather than on women and girls, may be more effective at preventing or reducing gender-based violence. On January 15th, the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) held a panel discussion titled “The Other Side of Gender: Masculinity Issues in Violent Conflict” to address the role that gender-sensitive programming can play in ameliorating violence against both men and women during conflict.

The panel’s three speakers all called for a greater focus on masculinity in addressing a variety of issues, but panelist Marc Sommers (USIP, Fletcher School), who has conducted research comparing the needs and aspirations of young people in Rwanda and Burundi, was particularly emphatic in calling for an increase in male-oriented programming.

Sommers’ comments focused on education, and he drew on survey data from interviews conducted with youth in both countries about how they prioritize higher education within their future goals. His findings, somewhat surprisingly, reveal that the majority of young people in Burundi, which is less stable and less developed than Rwanda, expressed strong desires and intentions to pursue higher education despite a severe lack of schools and opportunities for learning. In Rwanda, however, which has been held up of late as a beacon of African development and democracy, the young people interviewed expressed much less interest in finishing high school or attending college.

Part of this difference may lie in the specifics of Rwandan culture. In Rwanda, boys are expected to build a house before they can marry. Without a house, a Rwandan boy cannot achieve manhood and start a family. So, pressure is great for young men to succeed economically. As a result, many drop out of school at a young age to work and save for this major investment. Sommers argues that these Rwandan cultural expectations effectively emasculate young men, leading to frustration and increased risk of GBV.

At the same time, Rwandan girls achieve womanhood through marriage. If young men are constrained in being able to contract a marriage, girls’ attainment of maturity is also put on hold. Other scholars writing on similar situations in other African contexts refer to this bottleneck as a “marriage crisis,” which appears to be particularly acute in Rwanda.

The solution, according to Sommers: development practitioners should focus on helping young men achieve adulthood through economic development, jobs, housing and land reform. The empowerment of women and girls and social stability in general will follow.

But, experts in academia and in the field continue to debate the degree to which masculinity should be incorporated into conflict prevention. For another perspective, we now turn to Naomi Cahn, professor of law at George Washington University and co-author of the upcoming book On the Front Lines: Gender, War and the Post Conflict Process.

Laura Wilson: Where and when have you studied gender-based violence in Africa?

Naomi: I lived in Kinshasa, Congo, from 2002-2004. Since 2002, I have conducted legal research on issues of gender and post-conflict reconstruction. Before joining the GW faculty in 1993, I worked in a law school clinic on domestic violence, and I also co-taught one of the first International Women’s Rights courses in the country. I am currently co-authoring a book, On the Frontlines: Gender, War and the Post-Conflict Process, which examines related issues.

Laura Wilson: What are your major findings about the best ways to reduce/prevent GBV?

Naomi: Promoting women’s independence and status, providing them with economic livelihoods and health care, promoting literacy, enacting laws, establishing shelters, and demilitarizing societies are some of the proven ways of helping women who face threats of GBV. GBV is one aspect of women’s subordinate status. It has also received a great deal of attention, but women face numerous other issues that are as seriously discriminatory in promoting their status.

Laura Wilson: Do you think focusing on the challenges that boys/men face will drain resources to support programs for women and therefore be counterproductive for women?

Naomi: In our book project, although we definitely pay attention to masculinities and recognize their centrality to the issues we think about, we also recognize the danger in such a focus. We worry about what will happen to women if donors and policy makers start to think about men. There is an obvious risk that this will replicate other biases that we know too well exists.

Laura Wilson: While masculinity is an important factor in conflict prevention, I agree with Naomi that the focus should not stray too far from women’s needs. Gender programming is a two-sided coin. On one side, development experts must acknowledge the special issues and challenges that men and boys face within different contexts, and especially during conflict. On the other side, to achieve gender equity in most places, projects must continue to put the needs of girls and women first, because the cultural, political, and economic barriers preventing them from independent action and self-determination are far taller than those facing men. Only when gender equity is realized should programming equally target men and women.

Laura Wilson is a candidate for an M.A. degree in international development studies at The George Washington University with a focus on gender, human rights and development. She received a B.S. degree in foreign service from Georgetown University in 2007. She is currently the program assistant for the International Development Studies program.

Image: Women in Action Cameroon, November 25 – December 10, 2008. Creative commons licensed Flickr content by user CWGL.

Anthro in the news 1/25/10

• Cultural anthropologist on key aspect of Haitian devastation

It’s rare that a cultural anthropologist is quoted on the front page of The New York Times or of any of the mainstream media. So it’s especially noteworthy when it happens. In this case, the article is even above-the-fold. “Burials without Rituals” describes the extreme psychological stress of Haitians facing loss of many family members, friends and others. This stress takes on an extra edge given the critical importance of proper burials to ensure good relations with the dead. The article draws on insights from Ira Lowenthal, a cultural anthropologist who received his doctorate in the United States and has lived in Haiti for 34 years. He comments: “Convening with the dead is what allows Haitians to link themselves, directly by bloodline, to a pre-slave past…” With so many bodies denied a place in family burial plots where many rituals take place, important spiritual connections are severed: “It is a violation of everything these people hold dear … On the other hand, people know they have no choice.”

• OMG limited brain capacity for Facebook friends

The Daily Mail, UK carried a piece highlighting the research of Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford University. Dunbar is well-known for his work on sociality, grooming and friendship in nonhuman primates and throughout human evolution. He claims that the size of the human neocortex limits us to manage about 150 friends max. This figure has come to be known as Dunbar’s Number. It has been tested in various contexts from neolithic societies to contemporary office environments. Dunbar is now studying social networking sites to see if Dunbar’s Number applies. It seems to. “The interesting thing is that you can have 1,500 friends but when you actually look at traffic on sites, you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people.” The published study will appear later this year.

• Thanks for the compliment

According to an article in the Chicago Herald-News, studies of social scientists and psychologists point to the nuanced meanings and effects of compliments. Peter Wogan, associate professor of anthropology at Willamette University in Oregon, highlights how gender affects the giving and receiving of compliments. He says that women tend to compliment other women on their appearance while men do not. If men compliment women on their appearance, women perceive it as a come-on and often deflect it. Blogger’s note: I was struck by how heterosexual these patterns sound. So I went to Google Scholar to learn more about Wogan’s research. I think I found the source (PDF file), a brief chapter based on a class project Wogan conducted a few years ago. Students in his “Language and Culture” class collected 270 compliments on the campus in Salem, Oregon. An intriguing glimpse into campus compliments, and a pilot study that would merit replication in different contexts.

• Thoughtful review of Secrets of the Tribe

Secrets of the Tribe is a new documentary exploring the ethical controversies related to anthropological and other research among the Yanomami of the Venezuelan Amazon since the 1960s. It will premiere in Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Competition. The reviewer comments that the film is “…an often provocative interrogation of how all ambitious people impact the world around them and how difficult (or impossible) it is to be a mere observer.”

• Upcoming event noted in the The Nation

As posted in The Nation, The Palestine Center in Washington, D.C., is hosting a briefing: “Humanitarianism: Prolonging the Palestinian Political Plight?” with Ilana Feldman, assistant professor of anthropology and international affairs, The George Washington University. She is the author of Governing Gaza: Bureaucracy, Authority and the Work of Rule (1917-67). The event is free and open to the public. A light lunch will be served to registered guests at 12:30pm. The briefing and question/answer period will be from 1 – 2 p.m. on January 27. Registration is required.

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 1/25/10” →

My challenge to David Brooks

As you may have heard, New York Times columnist David Brooks recently wrote about how Haiti’s culture is mired down by vodou and is anti-progress. And as you might imagine, his comments drew a lot of criticism from cultural anthropologists and others who have spent time in Haiti and with Haitian people.

Brooks apparently adheres to the simplistic and misleading idea of culture as used by political scientist Samuel Huntington (pictured) and former USAID administrator Lawrence Harrison. Neither of these men is an expert on culture as it is understood by the social scientists whose central mission is to study it, understand it, write about it and teach about it: cultural anthropologists.

Brooks and other conservatives no doubt find comfort in the Huntington-Harrison approach to culture. Pro-progress cultures are winners. Funny enough, they are pro-capitalist cultures along the lines of the United States with its strong emphasis on individual economic success, competitive social relationships and multiple car ownership. Anti-progress cultures are losers: they value some degree of social equality and group relationships that might include, heaven help us, labor unions. Low on car ownership among other things.

The H&H model goes against basic principles in cultural anthropology by labeling “others” in ways that are blatantly U.S.-capitalist-ethnocentric. Moreover, adopting the H&H model means that you will never recognize the viability, sustainability and warmth of so many other cultural systems. In fact, you are likely to directly or indirectly participate in the destruction of those cultures through economic, political and cultural imperialism. This is where Huntington and Hirshman lead and where David Brooks has followed.

So here’s my challenge to David Brooks: take an introductory cultural anthropology course now. Open your eyes and your heart to “other” cultures that may look like losers according to H&H but in fact hold the clues to a better future for all of us. If we would only give them a chance. I teach a six-week, distance ed version of my intro class every summer: Anth 002.10 at George Washington University. Mr. Brooks is most welcome to enroll.

Image: Samuel Huntington by Flickr user World Economic Forum via Creative Commons.

There is no pill against poverty

No pill can cure poverty. This is an old truth but one that needs repeating. Again and again. An article in the prestigious American Journal of Public Health (reprints can be ordered at the journal’s website) reminds me of this need. Three co-authors with Ph.D.s, two of whom have nursing experience, have published a “Field Action Report” assessing the affect of the formation of fathers’ clubs on child health in rural Haiti.

The article summary reports the key findings:

“The presence of a fathers’ club in a child’s birth village had a positive effect on vaccination status, growth monitoring and vitamin A supplementation after we controlled for socioeconomic status, time and the quality of the village health agent. Child weights and mortality were not affected by the fathers’ clubs.”

That pretty much says it all, but let’s break it down.

The study is based on detailed and extensive individual and household-level data gathered by the Haitian Health Foundation (HHF). The HHF was established in 1985 and is now operating in 104 villages in southwestern Haiti. The HHF instituted fathers’ clubs in 1994 in response to the discovery that fathers play an important role in child care in this region.

The clubs were meant to enhance child health and welfare. The fathers meet regularly to learn about child and family health from a nurse or village health agent. Education focuses on the 12 key family and community practices identified by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. The model outlines three pathways through which child health should improve.

Focusing on data from 23 villages with fathers’ clubs, the authors used children born before the clubs were established as the control group and children born afterwards as the “intervention group.” While not ideal, this approach is scientifically acceptable.

The presence of fathers’ clubs is associated with children aged one to two years being vaccinated, having their growth measured and taking vitamin A supplements. Here is what the authors say about this finding:

“Actual weights of children and infant mortality — measures that are arguably more important than the more proximal outcomes of growth monitoring, vaccinations and vitamin A supplementation — did not improve with the intervention. Furthermore, child weights remained flat over the years of study. Malnutrition is still a major problem in Haiti and continues to contribute to high morbidity and mortality in the first year of life. Malnutrition appears resistant to HHF efforts and is instead affected by factors well beyond the scope of a public health services program such as the underlying conditions of economic deprivation in rural Haiti and the political upheaval that has endured in Haiti for many years.”

I don’t need to remind you that the article under discussion was written before the earthquakes of January 2010.

So what to do? The authors mention the WHO recommendation to educate parents about feeding supplements for infants through 24 months. But they note, “This recommendation may not be feasible, given the economic constraints …. Further research is needed to develop programs that can be successful within these constraints.”

“Constraints” indeed. The kind of “constraints” that prevent the usual well-meaning educational interventions to work. At all.

How would you feel if you had a malnourished baby and no money, and someone tried to educate you about the importance of providing more food for your baby?

You might, as I was, be surprised to read the upbeat concluding paragraph:

“In conclusion, fathers’ clubs appear to be an effective strategy in child health programs. The success of fathers’ clubs in Haiti may encourage other global efforts to include fathers in a wide range of child health programs that use a community-based participatory approach.”

What? An “effective strategy” if your goals are limited to increasing the rate vaccinations, growth monitoring and vitamin A intake. But for improving children’s health? No success at all.

I’m all for fathers’ clubs. They may work in ways that this study overlooks: social support for parents (notably fathers) through the regular meetings. But they are not going to put food in the mouths of Haitian babies.

Source: Elizabeth Sloand, Nan Marie Astone, and Bette Gebrian. 2010. The Impact of Fathers’ Clubs on Child Health in Rural Haiti. American Journal of Public Health 100(2):201-204.

Image credit: Flickr user shouldbecleaning, licensed by Creative Commons.

Recent sources on Haitian culture and social change

This list is intended to provide a guide to recent resources on culture and society in Haiti for people who wish to be better informed about the context in which the recent earthquake and its devastation are occurring. With apologies, most of the journal articles are not public access.

Furthermore, we really encourage everyone to visit InterAction’s Haiti response page, which includes a variety of ways to help out.

Benoît, C. 2007. “The politics of vodou: AIDS, access to health care and the use of culture in Haiti”. Anthropology in Action 143, 59-68.

Coreil, J. & Mayard, G. 2006. “Indigenization of illness support groups in Haiti”. Human Organization 652, 128-139.

Curci, S. 2008. “Mapping Haitian history: a photo essay”. Journal of Haitian Studies 142, 120-30.

Farmer, P. 2004. “An anthropology of structural violence.” Current Anthropology 453, 305-325.

Farmer, P. E. 2001. “The consumption of the poor: tuberculosis in the 21st century.” Ethnography 12, 183-216.

Farmer, Paul. 1992. AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Farmer, P. E. 2008. “Mother courage and the future of war.” Social Analysis 522, 165-184.

Giafferi, N. 2004. The violence of relations in fieldwork: the Haitian example. Terrain 43, 123-40, 159.

Guilbaud, P., & Preston, M. 2006. “Healthcare assessment study in Les Cayes, Haiti: towards a framework for rural capacity development and analysis”. Journal of Haitian Studies 122, 48-69.

Hastings, A. 2007. “Eradicating global poverty: is it really achievable?” Journal of Haitian Studies 132, 120-134.

James, E. C. 2004. “The political economy of “trauma” in Haiti in the democratic era of insecurity”. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 282, 127-149.

Continue reading “Recent sources on Haitian culture and social change” →

Chagas disease on the move in Peru

Chagas disease affects 8 – 10 million people in the Americas. Previously limited to the rural poor, it is spreading to the poor of urban areas. A qualitative, interview-based study (PDF file) of five per-urban communities of Arequipa shows that men who have recently migrated to the city’s “new shantytowns” from the countryside are most at risk of contracting Chagas. But the migrants tend to come from Chagas-free areas and therefore do not bring the vector with them. Instead, it appears likely that they become infected through short-term migration to the Chagas-endemic valleys west of the city for seasonal agricultural labor.

Thus migration is involved in the spread of Chagas but the causal chain involves more than simply rural to urban migration. First, poverty in the rural areas prompts people, even young children on their own, to migrate to the city to seek work. Once there, limited employment options force many migrants to take on seasonal work in Chagas-endemic areas. They return to the shantytowns bringing the vectors with them. The disease then spreads rapidly in the new shantytowns, given their suboptimal housing, population crowding and high density of animals. Suggested methods for improving vector control include: focusing vector surveillance on mobile populations, motivating the Arequipa Ministry of Health and Ministry of Housing to work together to include new shantytowns in their vector surveillance and launching education campaigns for migrant workers who go to Chagas-endemic areas.

Improving vector control is certainly important, and I hope it proves successful in keep Chagas out of Peru’s cities. But what about programs in rural areas directed at protecting livelihoods and entitlements so that fewer people are compelled to migrate to cities in the first place? And how about focusing intense poverty alleviation efforts in Chagas-endemic areas? Such endeavors would help reduce the need for surveillance. If the conditions that foster Chagas were reduced and Chagas eventually eradicated, then education campaigns could focus on other, more productive kinds of learning.

Image: “Chagas” by Flickr user Clonny, licensed through Creative Commons.