{"id":2403,"date":"2014-03-07T14:54:05","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T19:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/orgs\/lids\/?p=2403"},"modified":"2014-04-01T18:55:47","modified_gmt":"2014-04-01T22:55:47","slug":"women-at-work-a-post-in-honor-of-international-womens-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/lids\/2014\/03\/07\/women-at-work-a-post-in-honor-of-international-womens-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Women at Work: A Post in Honor of International Women\u2019s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>March 7, 2014 &#8211; Sarah Weiner<\/p>\n<p>One morning, while getting ready for work\u2014at a leisurely, \u201cisland\u201d pace that law school no longer affords\u2014Vai Leka showed up on my doorstep wanting to go with me. My two-year-old neighbor was going through a stage of stealing her father\u2019s shoes, and the photo I snapped of her, pencils in tow, ready for work, is one of my favorites from the two years I spent in Tonga as a Peace Corps volunteer.<\/p>\n<p>Having researched women\u2019s rights in developing countries during college, I arrived in Tonga keenly aware of its gender inequalities. However, as I settled in to my village, I of course realized that I knew little about the way men and women actually interacted in day-to-day life in the small archipelago. Women actively participated in town meetings, ran stores, and trekked into the capital for their coveted government jobs. Furthermore, my conversations with them revealed that the women in my village wanted the same thing as the men: a way to support their families and opportunities for their children to do the same.<\/p>\n<p>One theme of Professor David Kennedy\u2019s course at Harvard on Law and Economic Development is that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.harvard.edu\/faculty\/dkennedy\/speeches\/11%2015%2013%20Thailand.pdf\">development is about making hard choices<\/a>\u2014prioritizing certain policies based on your idea of what brings about development (and what development means) under the reality of limited resources. Reflecting back, this is exactly what I had to do. Not that it wouldn\u2019t have been a worthy pursuit, but my time in the Peace Corps was not the time to be advocating for gender equality under the law. It was the time to be teaching children and youth\u2014girls and boys\u2014English, computer, and other skills that would help them compete for Tonga\u2019s limited jobs.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps that is why a recent World Bank report, <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldbank.org\/content\/dam\/Worldbank\/document\/Gender\/GenderAtWork_web.pdf\">Gender at Work<\/a><\/i> caught my eye. It calls for bold action to address the inequality that exists between men and women in the sphere of work. It focuses on making the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldbank.org\/en\/news\/opinion\/2014\/02\/28\/world-bank-group-president-jim-yong-kim-discrimination-law-price\">economic case against exclusion<\/a>, so the argument resonates both with people who see development as an increase in GDP and those who see development as improvements in human rights. Among its many findings is that in 128 countries, there is at least one law that contains a sex-based differentiation, \u201cmeaning women and men cannot function in the world of work in the same way.\u201d There are five or more such differences in 54 countries.<\/p>\n<p>At yesterday\u2019s kick-off for the LIDS-WLA International Women\u2019s Day exhibit at Harvard Law School, <a href=\"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/womeninspiringchange\/\">Inspiring Change, Inspiring Us<\/a>, Dean Martha Minow suggested that perhaps by \u201cchanging the pictures on the wall, we can change biases.\u201d Symbolism can be powerful. Changing the pictures on the wall matters, as does changing the laws on the books. Maybe Vai Leka, so eager to go off to work with me in her father\u2019s shoes, will grow up to be Tonga\u2019s first female Prime Minister. Or maybe she will be a teacher that inspires her students to change the course of Tonga\u2019s history. And maybe she can become this woman in the current environment. But we owe it to girls like Vai to remove obstacles in their way so that all girls\u2014in developed and developing countries alike\u2014have a chance at joining the large group of women around the world that \u201cinspire change and inspire us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>March 7, 2014 &#8211; Sarah Weiner One morning, while getting ready for work\u2014at a leisurely, \u201cisland\u201d pace that law school 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