While driving to an appointment on Wednesday, October 26, 2011, I listened to an interview with Babatunde Osotimehin on the BBC News Hour. Dr. Osotimehin is the United Nations Population Fund Executive Director. He made some comments that I think bear further reflection. Upfront, I recognize and state that I am taking his comments out of context. However, the way in which we talk about things is related to how we think about them, so words matter. Dr. Osotimehin claimed that the U.N. is working with the governments of countries with extremely high birth rates to empower, educate and provide women with access to reproductive services and family planning. Specifically, Dr. Osotimehin stated that, “when we empower women” they “make the right choices” and “that population does go down.”
I won’t reiterate the string of obscenities that flew at the radio from my mouth as I negotiated my way onto the highway in heavy traffic. What I will discuss herein is the misguided ways in which all sorts of problems are handled where population growth, birth control, access to abortion and women’s empowerment and education are concerned. Dr. Osotimehin needs to know that until men are also educated, and refrain from subjugating women, all the education and access in the world won’t make a difference for the women themselves. His comments also indicate that population control is the responsibility of women in the world and that men are not part of the equation. Why is there not an effort to educate men about monogamy, about having a single spouse and about using birth control that they control, such as using a condom? Condom use would not only keep the birth rate down, but would also keep sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, from being transmitted.
Rather than leaving it as the “elephant in the room,” I will point out that the countries with population problems, per Dr. Osotimehin’s own report and those of his colleagues at the U.N., are also the countries in which HIV/AIDS is most prevalent. It is not just women who need empowerment, education and access to reproductive services and family planning, it is men who also need to change their thinking about women, who need education and who must be a partner in family planning and disease prevention. Women should not be the only people to bear the burden of birth control, in addition to either bearing a child or seeking abortion services. Dr. Osotimehin’s description of women who take/use birth control and choose abortion when they find themselves pregnant as having made “the right decision” is offensive. The responsibility for population growth, disease and hunger cannot rest with women alone. Why are women being relied upon to, “make the right decision,” which will slow birth rates, when men are not also being asked to make any kind of “right decision” about their own actions?
Dr. Osotimehin’s words put women in the seat of responsibility, so that any failure to prevent pregnancy or birth is their personal failure. He has forgotten that women need a partner in order to become pregnant. In nations where birth rates are high, there are high rates of HIV/AIDS, as I´ve already pointed out in the paragraph above. In addition, these nations are those in which the subjugation of women is the norm and where women have few rights or few avenues for controlling their lives and bodies. Until the men of these nations are educated, change their present social mores and choose to be responsible themselves, women will continue to suffer. Dr. Osotimehin’s words merely indicate another way in which women can be controlled and used as a means to an end. Encouraging women to take responsibility for birth control and the options for terminating undesired pregnancy is not empowerment, it is control and coercion in just the opposite direction. Unless women are truly empowered to be autonomous human beings, they will move from being used by men to being used by governments.
Language is important. When we talk about empowerment, that word needs to be defined as autonomous control. It should not be part of a coercive campaign to further burden women with the desires of governments or United Nations councils. I agree with Dr. Osotimehin that if women were indeed empowered in nations where birth rates are extremely high, they would automatically seek education and they would automatically seek to control birth rates in an effort to protect their own health and well-being, as well as that of their already living children. However, I also believe that when we talk about solving issues such as HIV/AIDS transmission or birth rates, we need to include men in the conversation. Men need to be active participants in preventing disease transmission and reducing birth rates. Women cannot be held accountable for these issues while men are not. Women should also not be blamed and language around these issues needs to be carefully chosen so that women are not forced to make decisions while men are not asked to actively engage themselves or change anything about their own behaviors and attitudes.
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