Ukraine

SheForShe: Why Women’s Solidarity is Still the Answer

Posted on January 7, 2016January 7, 2016 by Kristina Wilfore

Those of us in the gender biz who like to bring every conversation back to equality (yes, that’s me!) have rightly embraced the UN’s HeForShe campaign. While the movement for gender equality was originally conceived as a struggle led only by women for women in recent years men have begun to stand-up in addressing inequalities and discrimination faced by women and girls. HeForShe was created as a solidarity movement for gender equality that brings together one half of humanity in support of the other half of humanity, for the benefit of all.

I say, “hurrah!” We need you men! We cannot possibly achieve equality without your support and advocacy. Plus, many of you are hot, so it’s nice to have you around. (See what I did right there? A little bit of reverse sexism just to keep things interesting). And good one UN Women for coming with this term and organizing around it.

In fact, a great new application of this concept can be found in an excellent IFES report on male allies for women’s equality in Syria.

Yet, as I begin another year of digging into strategies to help women gain more meaningful power over their lives and choices, I still feel more urgency about ensuring that we women are supporting women, not tearing each other down. The interest in male allies is a new and important phenomenon, but let us not lift the pressure to create female solidarity at the same time. Paradigm shifts are not going to happen without this. Men will simply never be as self-interested in helping women as much as women.

I was reminded of this in three ways over the last couple of weeks:

Women are women’s worst enemy. If you believe it, what’s up with that?

I had a conversation with a newly made friend the other day about what happens when women work together — just women. The notion was that terrible things ensue! Popular culture would have us picturing cat fights, hair pulling, and high drama when too many women are forced together. Is this really fair? Everyone has their own experience, which I won’t argue against. But what we forget to consider is that perhaps the lack of desire to work together (or effectiveness at working together) is merely a byproduct of not having equal power. Women utilize what powers we have at our disposal, and sometimes that is the form of negative words and actions, competitions and rivalries to get ahead when we aren’t operating on a level playing field to begin with.

But, why do we want ALL of something, anyway? All female or all male is, literally, missing something. A workplace, a school, a local city council is more balanced with a diversity of everything – gender, sexual orientation, education, experience, socio-economic backgrounds and so on and so forth. I don’t want to live on a planet just of women, (insert stereotype or joke here), but I also reject the notion that some character flaw exists in women that prevents them from supporting each other. Let’s flip the conversation by recognizing the ways in which society actively prevents us from supporting each other when we are stopped from attaining equal power in meaningful ways in our lives.

One Turkish organizations that I am honored to work with on women’s leadership actively confronts this by doing sessions about the negative role of gossip among college-age women, which is a particularly viscous tool in the Middle East. I don’t meant to pick on the Middle East. Every country needs to do better by women. But there is an absolute correlation with women having weaker structures and less institutional power in society and the presence of discrimination. There are few political parties, very few women in elected office and conditions that prevent women from organizing politically in much of the Middle East. Take a look at the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report to see where the Middle East ranks. It ain’t pretty. So the role of gossip in these countries becomes a de facto tool of power.

2. We are a product of an environment that does not see women equally

Let’s bring it back to politics, my favorite topic. Some women don’t consider themselves as being subjected to sexism, personally. Really? Okay, I guess lucky you! You my dear are the one exception! Sorry to break the news, this isn’t how it works. Gender discrimination is not just an individual experience, but a systemic one that we have to accept is a problem for all women (yes, all women!) before we remedy this. It does not mean that all women are victims, but it means we face something unique by virtue of having a uterus!

If women don’t consider their individual role in a world that is unequal for women, how can a movement be built? A well-defined problem is half the solution. There’s loads of evidence about the way that sexism and discrimination effects voting patterns, for example. And voting is part of this little thing we call elections, which impacts whose in office, which impacts decision-making structures, which leads to whether policies to address discrimination are promoted so that women have rights and opportunities equal to men. Men comprise 78% of parliaments across the world. No wonder things are not going so smashingly!! Not because men suck, of course they don’t (see HeForShe above), but because of that little called diversity and pluralism.

The problem is two-fold:

(1) women are not running for office in equal number to men in part because party leaders are not nominating them in equal numbers. When more women run, more women win, but we need parties to see the value of female candidates and support them in advance through training, financing, leadership development, and all the activities that lead to winning candidates AND winning parties

(2) when women do run, they face discrimination just because they are women. Women have less access to resources based on their gender (and less developed networks of support), and they are often subjected to sexist media coverage as a way to demean them or remind voters that they are the lesser gender.

We have ways to fight this. Many efforts are underway in the world to support women in politics. But let’s be real, sexism and discrimination toward women has an impact. A new study shows that it’s harder for female candidates to prevail in an election because many people don’t see women as leaders as a result of hidden bias that can emerge in the voting booth. My case study from Ukraine shows how we can overcome that through evidence-based research and campaigns to change attitudes about leadership in advance of elections.

We have smart and well executed strategies to turn this around, so don’t throw up your arms in despair and believe all is lost. Yet, we need more of these, and we need to start by recognizing that this common thread of discrimination is present in politics and in everyday life in order to motivate people to embrace efforts to change it, together, women and men.

3. History shows, that when women support each other, good things happen.

I was back home for the holidays and reminded again of the pioneering kick ass women who fought for women’s rights in the part of the US where I grew up. Jeannette Rankin was the first woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. She helped pass the 19th Amendment, giving all women the right to vote, and was a committed pacifist. She was born in Missoula, Montana in 1880 and died the year I was born, in Kalispell, Montana, in 1973. Yes, Ms. Rankin, I got the baton hand off, we’re all good now. (Oh, if it were only that easy.)

I am proud of the pioneering women from the American West who fought for their voice and importantly, for the the voice of others, because they knew we were stronger, together.

“If I am remembered for no other act, I want to be remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give women the right to vote.”-Jeanette Rankin

I just finished reading Mona Eltahawy’s revealing book, Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution. There are many lessons and observations to orient one to the challenges of the Middle East. But what I am left with is the notion that no matter the country or the context, we are stronger when our voices and hands are raised together. We are emboldened to speak truth to power when we share our common stories and experiences about what it means to be a woman, together. We will have more power to address issues like child marriages, domestic violence, labor force policies, and women’s political participation when we create the conditions for women’s solidarity in spirit and voice. We are STRONGER TOGETHER. But that means we have to actually be together.

So what can YOU do?

Be kinder to your sisters in arms! It starts at a very basic level, which is to suggest, be nice! In that vein, check yourself. I love Lilly Singh’s YouTube channel with positive messages for women, including this recent #GirlLove campaign to encourage women to go easy on other women.
Recognize our leadership biases and challenge that the next time you go to the voting booth or in your professional life. One study showed that the higher a woman rose to power, the less likely she might be to help other women do the same. I have seen this in politics too. We have to recognize and fight our own biases.
Whether you are politically active or not, try to organize a project in 2016 that puts you in place of encouraging women’s solidarity, through your actions, not just your words. Do something different to show that you are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Mentor someone. Be a role model. Reach out. You don’t have to do this in a formal capacity, but think about someone who has asked you for help, or for whom you know extra encouragement and kind words would go a long ways. As Lao Tzu so wisely said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Help make that first step with a woman or girl in your life.

This is where the path to solidarity starts, in simple acts of grace and compassion toward our soul sisters in our community and around the world.

May it be a better year for women in 2016 because we want it to be, and our actions follow our desires!

Case Study: Can TV Ads Help Women Get Elected?

Posted on August 27, 2015May 23, 2018 by Kristina Wilfore

The short answer to that question is no, not by themselves. What about poll tested messages relayed through a creative advertising campaign in conjunction with a grassroots strategy to promote women as leaders? Why yes, that can work! A recent pilot project in Ukraine doing just than shows the efficacy of such an effort.

The Crisis in Leadership: Why We Need More Women

Across the globe women on average comprise 22.3% of parliaments even though they are half of the world’s population. A great deal of attention is paid to the problem of women’s political participation with far too little energy spent on innovative solutions to fix it.

We have a crisis in leadership around the world. We need our best and brightest to step up, which includes women. Why? Because it’s only fair. Need more? Okay, let’s tick off a few more reasons. We need more women in power, alongside men, checking their influence, and shaping and cultivating our society. Would the policy priorities and outcomes be better for women with respect to education, health, child care, and violence against women if more women were policymakers in parliament helping shape this agenda? Yes, undeniably.

Research shows women’s political participation results in tangible gains for democracy, including greater responsiveness to citizen needs, increased cooperation across party and ethnic lines and more sustainable peace. Simply stated, getting more women elected at the national and local is both the right thing to do and smart thing to do. It is the year 2015, women have broken through in other areas of public life and in different professions, why not politics?

Okay, so now that’s out of the way, how do we get there? What is the path to increase women’s participation, exactly? Well, turns out there are several things in that toolbox, like quotas. But let’s focus for a moment on the ingredient that may be most central, yet is paid attention to the least in international development projects to increase women’s political participation: we need more sophisticated communication campaigns to change attitudes toward women as leaders before, during and after elections.

Step 1: Focus on Creating an Enabling Environment
to Build Political Will

Establishing a proper setting where more women can lead — and thus more people are willing to vote for women candidates — requires a deeper set of strategies to create an enabling environment for women in advance of an election.

In every country I work in people tell me, “Voters are not willing to vote for women here, period. Our country is not like (fill in the blank, mostly likely it will include referencing a Nordic country, can you say Sweden or Finland?).” Keep in mind it is Rwanda that has the highest percentage of women in the world in parliament, at 63.8%, because of a quotas policy that opened the gate. In the process of rebuilding the country Rwandans made a conscious decision to put inclusiveness and equality at the heart of their reconstruction process. Now the prominent role played by women in parliament and throughout the government has helped transform attitudes throughout Rwandan society toward women. More work needs to be done, but it has created the opening to make that more possible.

Furthermore, a little known fact: in Scandinavian countries quotas were not introduced until the 1980s, when women’s parliamentary representation already exceeded 25%. Women’s representation increased even further as a result of their long history of mobilization of women into the labor market and into political life. The point being: the conditions in which women are a greater part of parliament comes down to political will and the acknowledgement of women’s contribution. There has to be a desire on the part of stakeholders to address the systemic barriers blocking women’s entry into the workforce and elected office.

Political will to change the system is one part of the solution.

So how does that desire begin, and more importantly how can we influence it? If it’s not there on its own we can influence it through organizing and communication to transform the idea of women as leaders. For each country the problems and the solutions for involving more women in politics differs slightly, but they all have in common the need to change the values behind leadership in order to create a greater desire for women leaders among the voting public.

So, how do we get there?

Step two: Test your Assumptions about
Public Willingness to Vote for Women

First, let’s examine the assumptions underlining the lack of women’s political participation. How do we know people are not willing to vote for women? Is this a gut feeling or a research-based position? Are we basing this conclusion on election results or actual data?

Research can show us the pathway to influencing rigid gender roles about women and their place in society. We cannot simply rely on the low number of women elected to justify the conclusion that people are not willing to vote for women. If women are less than 20% of all candidates, how can we expect they are going to comprise 50% of parliament anytime soon? Low representation of women is also the result of having so few women to vote for in the first place. Low representation is not evidence enough of voter attitudes toward women.

Unfortunately, political parties fail to recruit women as candidates also based on these assumptions, which turns into a self fulfilling prophecy. If women are blocked from leadership positions in the party or politics, or not given the opportunity to be candidates in equal proportion as men, how can we ever hope to vastly increase their numbers, or overcome stereotypes about women’s leadership qualities and qualifications in order to reach some type of parity?

While we can determine through other means that women candidates face barriers at the ballot box, we still need to have the specific evidence of why and how exactly. We need to understand what the attitudes, assumptions and stereotypes are in very specific and measurable ways. It is only through this evidence that we can hope to organize a targeted campaign to tackle what we assume to be insurmountable attitudinal barriers among voters that create an obstacle for increasing women’s participation.

Step 3: Do the Research! Seriously, you really can!

The tools of advocacy campaigns, including public opinion research, have become much more affordable and in the reach of NGOs. I do not accept the assumption that research is too expensive, this does not match the reality of how polling is used all over the world. Research-based evidence, through public opinion surveys and focus groups, to redefine the leadership qualities of women, is fundamental to challenging sexist perceptions about women candidates.

Do we have research that shows all things being equal, men and women are going to discriminate against a qualified candidate just because of her gender? And on what basis? What are the underlining assumptions behind such attitudes? And most importantly, have messages based on altering attitudes been tested, in order to be used in change oriented campaigns? Millions of dollars are spent on sophisticated ad campaigns to get people to stop smoking, use a condom or vaccinate their children. Where are the ad campaigns, and the research efforts, about voting for women? I can count the number of such campaigns on one hand.

CASE STUDY: Research into action

Over a two year period I was an adviser to the National Democratic Institute’s effort to increase women’s political participation. Among other activities we chose to focus change the role of women as leaders in the minds of Ukrainian voters through a public opinion-based ad campaign using tools of grassroots organizing. This campaign was made possible by the generous support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation and several others.

Through a series of surveys and focus groups conducted by Lake Research, the following picture emerged:

In 2012 nearly half of Ukrainians believed there were too few women in elected office. The research showed us that demonstrating how women are different, and priming the areas where they are perceived as better managers than men, could help convert this sentiment into greater support for women candidates.
There was only a 2% difference between men and women in terms of strong likelihood of getting involved in political life.
By 2014, 49% of all Ukrainians thought there were not enough women in elected office. And nearly half of women, irrespective of age, believed that increasing the number of women in power in Ukraine would have a significant impact.
Research also showed that women enjoyed strong advantages on a host of substantive issues, including child care, health care, education, and ending discrimination against women. Respondents also saw women as much more likely to help children, families, and seniors, and better equipped to address concerns over pensions and retirement security—though this last issue exposes a gender gap in the data. While many of these associations stem from traditional stereotypes of women as “caretakers”, they also provide a strong foundation on which to build a profile for women leaders on issues more central to the ongoing public debate in Ukraine.

Step 4: Put the Research Into Action,
Start a Campaign

With a team of local and international ad campaign experts that included GMMB and the Ukraine-based firm Me Too, we made a strategic choice to target women in this campaign given that women were more receptive to the call to action and to our messages. The evidence showed that creating a narrative through a visual story — showing women as leaders in their everyday lives, while working with men collaboratively — should be the basis of the campaign. Further research showed that despite upheaval in the country there was still an opportunity to link the desire for change with the role of women in political life and to capitalize on women’s strengths in terms of both issues and values.

The campaign had three prongs:

Media component: Identifying effective ways of changing the portrayal of women leaders through targeted advertising campaign on TV, outdoor, Internet, social media
Civic action component: Maximizing positive perceptions of women in politics through local pilot public relations campaigns and warming up media environment in advance of the advertising campaign
Public education component: Identifying ways to minimize negative gender biases in media through innovative web-based anti-sexism campaign and training of journalists on gender sensitive coverage Anti-sexism web campaign: www.povaha.org.ua
(“Povaha” means “Respect” in English)

Watch the ad

Web hub with the ad campaign, http://50vidsotkiv.org.ua

Using social media to stir the environment and generate conversation on gender
Facebook campaign, https://www.facebook.com/povaha.org.ua?fref=ts

A pool of journalists from across Ukraine were also trained on gender-sensitive news and editorial coverage. A network of trainees is active and keeps applying standards of unbiased coverage, and women leaders are starting to pushback themselves, like when a deputy minister told Ukrainians to stop “beauty shaming” women politicians.

The Results: More Women Were Elected and
the Conversation about Women as Leaders has exploded

The Revolution of Dignity and the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine have been explosive events through which successful positioning of women candidates was made possible, by message research that enabled advocates to help women seize ground on dimensions of strength, leadership, and an ability to bring order, while simultaneously elevating the salience of the qualities that women are perceived as dominate in — such as ethics, justice, and empathy. This message environment made possible through research and deep examinations of women was illustrative in the 2014 local elections in Kyiv and special parliamentary election.

The 2014 parliamentary election was a small improvement overall in the position of women in the parliament (nearly two points compared to the 2012 Parliament), which amounts to 11.3%, but given the circumstances of a snap election and a country in war time, any increase of women elected to higher office is significant because it demonstrates the perceived contribution and potential of women leaders even in times of conflict when “strength” and “toughness” (qualities often associated more with men) are of greater importance to voters.

In 2014 a much bigger leap forward was made by the women standing on party lists, largely as a result of the introduction of a gender quota in 2013 and decisions made by some parties to place more women in winnable positions. The trends are positive for future women candidates and the commitment of new parties to ensuring more gender parity.

The end result: Progress for women in 2014 is an indication of Ukraine’s ability to systematically address barriers to women’s political participation election by election.

In addition to parties nominating more women in the winnable positions on the party lists in the last election, new parties have worked on gender mainstreaming and adopted strategies of women’s empowerment since. For the first time in many years a woman was nominated as vice-speaker of the Ukraine Parliament. Political parties have also adopted internal quotas for women, established women’s departments, and are acting more strategically about the role of women in advance of the 2015 local elections.

A quotas reform legislative package has been developed in the context of election reform and will continue as these legislative debates on election law continue. The need for corrective affirmative action is now obvious for both the civic activists working on gender and for the parliamentarians themselves.

Success: Raising measures that remove barriers for women in Ukrainian politics into the public dialogue have been made possible by spurring the conversation about women and politics in a more public way with an organized advocacy and communications campaign about women as leaders.

The great news is that research shows voters are looking for a new type of politics, which Ukraine deserves and aspires to. Women are strongly associated with the new way of doing politics as those who are in touch with people and well equipped to make reforms. Those standing at the forefronts of gender equality campaigns need to take the next step to build on what was achieved and push out more public communication efforts to alter public sentiment. The opportunity for women is greater than it has ever been in Ukraine’s history, which is significant because realizing the ambitious goals set forth by the Revolution for Dignity requires that women get the political respect they too fought side by side men to achieve.

Feminism Does Not Work Here

Posted on May 25, 2015May 26, 2015 by Kristina Wilfore

I hear this far too often when working on strategies to increase women´s political participation, especially in counties where such efforts are most desperately needed. The idea stems from this argument: feminism is an “export” or a Western phenomenon that does not translate because of the “cultural constructs of gender in our country.” News bulletin, feminism isn´t a widely popular construct anywhere, even in the United States and Western Europe.

Yet, this rationalization in developing democracies ends up sounding reasonable, even among advocates for the cause, and here´s why that´s wrong.

First, it´s important to recognize that creating more equitable systems for women does not automatically work anywhere. It takes effort to get women to take up the mantle of equality, even women MPs. It takes work to motivate people in countries with broken politics to believe that they can change the situation, and that women are valuable partners in that change. It is difficult to figure out what issues are most ripe for action. You cannot boil the ocean, so choices have to be made about which issues are most likely to capture attention, influence the public dialogue, and help create a greater space for women. But, it´s less work when you develop a strategy, and pushback a bit at the same time.

Secondly, let´s keep in mind that resistance to “feminism” is often the result of resistance to the values behind feminism. Simply stated, some people are rejecting to the concept that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities (see the clever infographic to the right). Some people don´t like the idea of equality, no matter what words you use. The trick is to find those people and avoid them in your communication´s strategy, because you will not likely win them over, at least in stage one of your efforts, which should build a base of messengers first in order to move to broader persuasion later.

Advice for dealing with the anti-feminists

There are three ways to constructively create a movement for women´s equality, no matter the country.

1. Find the right words.

So if feminism does not work here (wherever “here” may be), find the words that do. What is the shorthand, what language best connects? I am a big advocate of using research-based evidence to form arguments around women´s political participation and have been involved in several polls and focus groups to figure out the right language, and better understand the barriers. Sitting in focus group after focus group, I can confirm, concepts of women´s equality are not well understood because the conversation is often muted. It is no coincidence that the countries most resistant to the language of feminism are the ones with the lowest participation of women. As advocates we have to find the balance of being culturally relevant with our terminology (and just as importantly the narratives) that move public opinion versus being overly timid because we think we have a problem of syntax when really we have a conflict of values. Country´s like Georgia and Ukraine have done in-depth research to examine public opinion and use this information to shape smart advocacy campaigns, like the Women are 50% campaign. Efforts to help illustrate the impact of sexism are also necessary.

2. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

This famous quote is music to an organizer´s ear. Every country is at a difference place in the spectrum of women´s rights. Decide where to start, what issue to tackle, and what tactics to use. Progress will happen over time, but there has to be movement in this trajectory. Choose not to be cynical and convince others of the value. Even in the US and Europe feminism has gotten a bad rap. To some it is a proud way to identify not only their work, but their entire believe system which defines who they are. To others it is an old and tired concept with issues and ideas that a new generation of women don´t relate to. And so what? The walkaway lesson is to develop a theory of change, find your targets and organize around them. Do what you can, but do something. And spend less time worrying about the critics and instead build power with people who share the same values.

3. Put your communication`s strategy at the forefront.

The road to women´s equality is not filled with a bunch of handbooks (although I have helped author some of those!). Like any movement, change comes through the actions of people. You have to move from theoretical to the actual. I could talk for hours about quotas formulas (constitutional or legislative), mechanisms within political party for gender equity, and model legislation to protect women against domestic violence. None of these things matter if we don´t have the political will to challenge stereotypes about women and fight sexism in media and politics — the very foundation of feminism. Our policy cart is often before the organizing cart of social change.

Opportunities

There is good news. There are new openings in many countries where women activists and policymakers are pushing the boundaries on gender equality, by focusing not just on technical parameters for equality, but rather communication strategies to create an enabling environment for women´s participation.

Technology, such as social media, enables advocates to change the conversation and question stereotypes about women as well as expose everyday experiences with sexism. Such campaigns are opportunities to bring more people into a conversation about the political implications of gender. Crowdsourcing or crowdmapping platforms are being used creatively to focus attention on a range of women´s issues, from projects to prevent violence, to those that motivate the armchair activists to action.
As mentioned above, framing matters. There is more sophistication in efforts to engage the public in a dialogue around gender roles and how this impacts women’s political participation. Public opinion research has given advocates better tools to evaluate effective messages, choose the right messengers and make specific word choices in order to talk effectively about the implications of rigid gender roles and impact of discrimination. For more on effective message development, download my how to guide and Toolkit.
Public attention to violence against women creates openings in which to redefine women’s roles in society. Creating a groundswell of “outrage” is important (check out recent examples from a range of different countries and cultures, Toolkit-Domestic Violence Campaigns). When women are subjected to inequality or violence, especially of a high-profile nature, we can turn these tragedies into opportunities and create a strong and more stable platform in which to demand changes for women. The role of civil society in this regard is extremely important.

Georgia case study and women taking the lead

A great example of all of these efforts can be seen in Georgia, a country I have been lucky enough to support in their efforts to increase women´s political participation, which is growing stronger month by month, year after year. Watch a newly released documentary on how the women´s movement is organizing their efforts, all across Georgia, to pivot from violence against women to women´s political participation.

Pointing out the hypocrisy of focusing on women politicians and what they wear and not offering the same scrutiny toward notable male politicians.

It was a privilege to present some of these concepts at a recent forum on women´s leadership organized by National Democratic Institute with the support of USAID and in cooperation with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR). My ideas for developing a strategic communications campaign around pushback can be found here, Tools for Women´s Leadership-Research, Communications & Technology.

Sixty women came together representing 15 countries in southeastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Each participant was from a position of power in government, politics, civil society, and/or the private sector. A lot of great lessons were shared that give me reason to be more hopeful than discouraged at the power and potential of change happening all around the world for women.

In sum, there is no shortcut to the hard work involved in bring attention to discrimination, building resistance to it, and ultimately changing attitudes and behavior that make the world more open to the ideals of feminism, regardless of what you call it.

Belgrade group picture — Changemakers across Southeast Europe and Eurasia working to redefine women´s leadership by example.

Let’s talk about boobs

Posted on January 15, 2015January 19, 2015 by Kristina Wilfore

A headline like this is sure to peak the interest of many, and equal discomfort of others. It is a problem that not enough countries outside of the West are in fact talking about boobs and the issues surrounding women’s health care. In conservative cultures across the world it is taboo to talk openly about breasts. This reality has a direct impact on the detection and treatment of breast cancer and possess some serious challenges in how we organize awareness and advocacy campaigns for prevention.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. One out of eight women is diagnosed with breast cancer annually and 143,000 deaths occur each year in Europe as a result. While the reality of cancer is grim, the good news is that efforts to address this as a health care crisis have substantially changed attitudes, approaches and outcomes for women who face the disease.

When did Women Get Active?

In Western countries, campaigns to bring attention to breast cancer began in the 1970s as women increased a sense of control over their own health and healthcare options. Women began to believe that they had a right to be active participants in their health care treatment decisions — a right that was earned and not assumed. Awareness about breast cancer shifted dramatically when women began speaking out as survivors rather than staying hidden as victims. Attitudes toward breast cancer moved from thinking of the disease as a death sentence to something that was treatable.

The second stage of breast cancer awareness moved into advocacy in the 1980s and 90s with women and healthcare activists decrying the lack of understanding of the causes of breast cancer. Advocates were successful in pushing for additional funding to examine causes and assess effectiveness of various prevention and treatment options.

What was the outcome of increased advocacy?

Increased attention to breast cancer research resulted in:

Better surgical options
Improvements in turnaround of pathology reports
Treatments centers within hospitals, and
Studies into environmental toxins and other potential causes of breast cancer, which are increasingly examined and regulated, although some would argue that despite the $6 billion raised for breast cancer each year, we are woefully behind understanding causes

The challenge: breast cancer prevention advocacy in conservative cultures

In more conservative cultures open discussion of breast cancer has historically been taboo. If the breast is associated with sexuality instead of health, some view it as immoral for women to go to the hospital for screenings or discuss it even within their family.

So, let`s get this straight. Not only are the body parts of women objectified all around the world in entertainment, media and culture in general, but when those said body parts have a problem, it is suddenly inappropriate to discuss them in what may be a life or death situation? The risk of this cultural discomfort is that women tend to die at greater rates in countries where the disease is detected later and understanding of related health care options is more rudimentary and advocacy of any sort is often viewed as inherently political.

The Middle East tends to have younger sufferers of breast cancer in comparison to the rest of the world. In Lebanon, for example, 50 percent of breast cancer patients are below the age of 50 – this compares to 25 percent in the United States and Europe. While the incidence of breast cancer in the Middle East is much lower than say Europe or US, the mortality rate is higher. According to the World Health Organization, this is because the region lacks a culture of regular breast cancer screening and therefore, early detection of the disease in part because talking about boobs is uncomfortable culturally.

Another issue concerns visibility events to raise awareness are whether they are culturally appropriate. Women and men in Saudi Arabia are not going to be running a marathon together raising funds against breast cancer anytime soon. Campaigns like Race for the Cure, which has been a great vehicle to raise awareness in the West, just don’t translate in countries like Kuwait, Libya and the like, although the United Arab Emirates started “The Pink Walkathon” a few years ago which is one of the biggest breast cancer walks in the Middle East. Where there is a will, there is a way!

So what can we do? 4 Simple Lessons

1. Target daughters as educational vehicles for their mothers

Take the approach of Europa Donna in Turkey, an organization I work with in Istanbul. Given increased attention to breast cancer prevention, every woman in Turkey above the age of 50 is entitled to a free mammogram. However, not many women take advantage of this option. The value of prevention cannot be overstated. Evidence has shown that outcomes are better when women are diagnosed and treated in units that meet the standards of EU guidelines. For this reason Europa Donna remains committed and steadfast in its mission to ensure that all women have access to high quality breast services.

“In Turkey, woman taking care of themselves is not important. They are mostly taking care of other people. If you tell them you should go to get the mammography, they don’t do it. But if you explain to their children the impact of early diagnosis through mammography and healthy living, healthy eating with regular exercise, which is hugely beneficial in the prevention of breast cancer, than they can be convinced and can encourage their mothers”¨ says Violet Aroyu, National Representative of the Turkey chapter of Europa Donna.

Through Europa Donna, high school students are the targets. All across Turkey programs are organized to provide education about breast health and cancer, so that they in turn can convince their mothers and other women in their families and neighborhoods, emphasizing the important of early diagnosis.

Peer-to-peer education has proven to be an effective means to get information to their target audience. Europa Donna uses seminars, documentaries, videos and social media sources to get their message to a teenage audience who is very receptive to the information. Read more about programs for breast cancer awareness in Turkey published in Lale, the magazine of the International Women of Istanbul. Turkey and Breast Cancer Awareness

A similar strategy, to find culturally relevant ways to motivate women to seek breast cancer screening, was rolled out in an animation video, ‘Shared Wisdom,” sponsored by GE. The video highlights GE’s “healthymagination” initiative, that works towards increasing access to high quality medical care to more people at lower costs with an emphasis on early diagnosis. Addressing the various societal concerns that discourage women to undertake breast cancer screening, the video also demonstrates how the new campaign has made screening convenient and easy to access for women.

2. Mind the culture

womeninME In countries were men are not going to be participating in the pink ribbon campaigns or talking openly with the women in their family about breast cancer, we can still push for creative and culturally appropriate awareness strategies to soften the ground, like Pink Hijab day.

Furthermore, in a campaign from Qatar, advocates designed a presentation with messages specific to the principles of Islam — what it means to be healthy and protect women through their guidebook on Muslim Women and Breast Cancer Prevention. In their material they use the words of Prophet Muhammad to make an argument for women to take care of their health as a tenet of the religion.

Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) is quoted as saying: “Make the best use of five things before the onset of five others: your life before your death, your health before your illness, your free time before being too busy, your youth before your old age and your wealth before you end up in poverty”. [Related by Al-Hakim and Al-Baihaqi on the authority of Ibn Abbas.]

3. Share stories

The power of storytelling cannot be overstated as an essential advocacy tool on a wide range of topics. Stories help humanize an issue. Stories create a sense of shared experience. Breast cancer survivors have been encouraged to speak out publicly as a way to reduce the stigma of the disease and educate others. Stories from survivors are used to inspire hope, motivate and comfort others. Personal testimonials are used by nonprofit organizations, large and small, as well as a frequent feature in popular culture, as exemplified in the Women’s Health Magazine. In the Middle East, an online publication in the UAE is an example as well as the Model of Courage event in Qatar, sponsored by Ford. You may recall that it was Former First Lady Laura Bush who made breast cancer in the Middle East a focus through a trip taken to focus on joint partnerships for prevention. When high profile people speak out, it creates a climate where survivors can come forward without as much stigma.

4. Run for office, ladies!

When it comes to issues of equality, ultimately all paths should lead back to getting more women elected to public office. Advocacy and civic efforts outside of the halls of parliament are not enough. Although women comprise half the population of the world, currently men make up 78.1% of seats in national parliaments worldwide. If the rate of progress stays the same as last year (about one percent difference), it will take us another 20 years before we reach parity. Likely it will be much longer! Why is this so important? Because when women are at the policy making table, issues like domestic violence, rape and breast cancer are moved from outside of the shadows and dealt with as public issues, with real solutions.

Women leaders like Pakistani politician Fehmida Mirza, a breast cancer survivor and prominent leader, have made great strides to break the silence surrounding cancer. When women are in parliament they are in a better position to advocate for women’s health issues. Not all women need to take the mantel of breast cancer or focus just on women’s issues (a label which tends to marginalize the importance of social, economic and health care topics that disproportionately impact women), but some of them have to. While we need male allies, there is no country in the world were men are the primary architects of campaigns on breast cancer or violence against women. Madeline Albright makes an excellent case for the power and potential of women and their impact on policy in her Ted talk “On being a woman and a diplomat.”

Rather than these issues being a negative to women as candidates or elected officials, they can be used as organizing vehicles and leadership opportunities. In 2010 in Ukraine I was training candidates to run for office by teaching them how to organize their campaign, develop a message and implement a “door-to-door” program in order to talk to voters about why they should elect them (what a novel concept, but in developing democracies these are the building blocks of campaigning that have to be taught). I was lucky enough to work with Zinayida, age 65, who was running for local office in Zaporizhzhya. She won her race by mobilizing a team of 20 volunteers to go door-to-door and to speak directly with voters. She was a civic leaders who ultimately gained the support of her constituents by her experience providing rehabilitation and treatment to cancer patients. Zinayida, a breast cancer survivor, made a promise to herself during treatment to step into political office in order to push for health care policies as an elected official, if she lived. She survived the cancer, ran an all-volunteer campaign with little support from her party, and she won. She wrote about her personal experience in her campaign literature making the issue of breast cancer and her personal experience an asset — in fact her main campaign message.

Women can do what politicians are failing to do in many places around the world, connect better to average voters. After all, women tend to be in touch with everyday issues. Women know the price of groceries, moms know what is like to worry about a sick child home from school, and daughters know what it is like to care for aging parents who have poor access to health care and small pensions. Some women know what it is like for be a survivor of breast cancer. We need more people in power who are in touch with the lives of ordinary people and willing to talk about issues that are fundamental to women’s health and well-being.

Tools for future candidates:

Download the OSCE-ODIHR Handbook on Promoting Women’s Participation in Political Parties” which aims to encourage political party leaders, men and women alike, to support the integration of gender aspects into internal political party decision-making processes. It also seeks to develop the capacity of women politicians to advance their political careers.
Turn your attention to the Barbara Lee Family Foundation´s new guide on “Keys to elected office, the essential guide for women” or a newly launched campaign VoteRunLead, based on making it as simple as possible to reach across the aisle and encourage women to get involved with tools that can help them succeed.
An excellent library of campaign training material can be found at the National Democratic Institute‘s website in the updated Democracy and the Challenge of Change modules. These new training materials take best practices and approaches from NDI’s work around the world and make them into a set of tools to increase the quality of training programs for women as voters, advocates, elections officials, political party members, candidates and office holders. The training materials build on the 2011 guide, a resource for democracy practitioners to help them develop and carry out effective programs to bring more women in government and politics.

The Goodbye Boobs Party

Although this would not be possible or culturally appropriate in a Muslim country, it is useful to review the spectrum of communication at the grassroots — from women once they are empowered to take ownership of their health care decisions. After losing both her mother and her sister to breast cancer, Claira Hermet learned she had the BRCA 1 gene that significantly increases the risk of getting cancer. Claira made the incredibly brave choice to undergo preventative surgery by having a double mastectomy. She also had the courage and sense of humor to blog about it, raise public attention and funds for Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention. She held a Goodbye Boobs party before her surgery. When we take what are otherwise private issues and shed some light and levity on them, real change becomes possible and women begin to see that they are not alone.