Blog posts by related to Women's issues

[Editor's note: This article was written by Aisha O'brien and was originally featured on Care2.com.]

Despite an economy in recovery, women workers in Asia still face a life of poverty and exploitation because of prejudice, according to a new report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Women face discrimination when trying to get better jobs or more pay. This is due in large part to cultural norms and lack of governmental investment. Women continue to remain at the lowest rung in unstable industries.

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Attention all new media changemakers on the Indian subcontinent! If you're using digital media to deliver news in innovative ways, here's an opportunity you need to know about. (Ladies, read on; guys, forward this post to your female friends, please.)

Ms. Rita Sembuya Namusisi was honored as an Ashoka ChangemakeHER, Changemakers's inaugural celebration of the world's most influentual and inspiring women. Find her fellow honorees' voices here.

by Emily Bosland / Photo by Sanjoy Ghosh

Ms. Rita Sembuya Namusisi was born in Uganda in 1956. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Joyce Fertility Support Centre Uganda. She credits diverse changemakers including Florence Nightingale, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bill Drayton as her inspiration to continue growing a social enterprise.

“Alone you cannot achieve much, so I have worked with different stakeholders to bring about change. Role models inspired me to take a lead role and be focused,” Sembuya said. "I didn't wait for other people to make things better for me, but discovered that I could cause a change in society.” [...]

Kathrine Switzer was honored as an Ashoka ChangemakeHER, Changemakers's inaugural celebration of the world's most influentual and inspiring women. Find her fellow honorees' voices here.

Pictured above: Kathrine Switzer is accosted by a judge who tried to eject her from the normally all-male Boston Marathon in 1967, when male teammates bounced the official out of the race instead and she went on to finish.  April 19, 1967 in Hopkinton, Mass. (AP PHOTO)

★★★

by Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon and to win the New York City Marathon. She led the drive to get the women’s marathon into the Olympics, and is a TV commentator and author of Marathon Woman. She will be inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame on Oct.1, 2011.

★★★

It is an interesting fact that you cannot pursue a physical activity for a long time and stay angry. When the adrenaline and aggression burn themselves off, the endorphins and reasonable-- even creative—thoughts take over.

So it was with me 44 years ago, this April 18, when I was attacked in the Boston Marathon by a race official who was so angry that I was a female in his male-only race that he tried physically to eject me. I was rescued by my male teammates who bounced the official out of the race instead, and I went on to finish.

I said that I would finish the race on my hands and knees if I had to, to prove to this official and the world that women were physically capable of running the marathon distance, and I deserved a place in this race. I was angry with the official for 20 miles of hard running, and then a light went on. [...]

Sarah Degnan Kambou, PhD, was honored as an Ashoka ChangemakeHER, Changemakers's inaugural celebration of the world's most influentual and inspiring women. Find her fellow honorees' voices here.

by Sarah Degnan Kambou, PhD, president of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)

Iredjourèma was born in 1935 to a traditional healer in Burkina Faso. She was the third of ten children, and lost her mother when she was 12.

As a young girl, Iredjourèma was regarded as a talented, graceful dancer. She was smart, too. But she never had the opportunity to attend school because she was needed to tend the family’s sheep. At 16, Iredjourèma’s family arranged for her to marry a man eight years her senior. She carried nine pregnancies to term, and nearly died giving birth to her youngest child.   

Today, there are more than 50 million child brides like Iredjourèma worldwide, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Child marriage — the practice of marrying girls younger than 18, often to much older men — is a violation of girls’ human rights. It also compromises their education, health, well-being, and productivity. [...]