How can we improve the women's rights in the world?

2011, this is a generation called gender equality which means men and women are equal in society. In fact, many developed countries have some improvement such as equal employment opportunity. It is not perfect yet, however, it is true that many countries in the world are trying to make a better society for women. Now, we need to make change of the women's rights in developing countries. In the last post of the blog, I would like to explore what makes women's rights improve for the better.

Equal education is especially important in developing countries. Having the same and equal education between boy and girl makes possibility of equal job employment. In other word, women will be treated better in society. According to the book "Half the Sky", unequal education in developing countries causes very serious problem in job employment.

In the first world such as the US and Japan, we have very high literacy rate. That helps people especially women have better working environment. However, women have totally low literacy rate in the third world. That makes women in the third world work as cleaning lady, nannies, and sometimes sex workers. Women in the third world should have high literacy rate by offering equal education opportunity.

The most important thing is the support from men. Men are not supposed to make women over work because of any reason. In many developing countries, single mothers, poverty, and luck of fathering is very serious problem. At this point, men (ex-husband) are supposed to help women and children somehow such as giving children support.

There are many brave women in the world like Mukhtar Mai and Greg Mortenson according to the "Half the Sky". They fight for the women's rights and also they built school for girls. I hope more children in developing countries have better job opportunities and bright future.

In the end, "Half the Sky, turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide" is one of my favorite books for women's rights. There are many stories of brave women who made change. I recommend everybody to read it!

Adapted Children

As a Japanese student, one of the differences I often feel in America is that there are many adapted children compared to my country. In Japan, I hardly ever hear about adapted children. However, I realized that America has more complicated family situation. Adapted children system is good thing at the same time because that gurantees rights of women who is having hard time being pregnant because of their body problems and so on.

I have some examples for this. One of my friends is adapted when she was a little. She said she does not even remember the real parents. However, it seems like she was raised with so much affection from her parents who adapted her. I know some parents who adapted children even from overseas such as China and Russia. I respect people who adapt chidren because I cannot believe I will accept other children as part of my family in the future. However, I also consider I do want to have children when I get married. I will be sad if I cannot be pregnant, so I would like to adapt children at that time.

I think this is great thing because it guarantees both women's rights as having children and children's rights as having parents. There are still many children who do not have parents and have so many problems such as luck of education and eating habits. I hope adapting children will be common in many countries in the world so that guarantees rights of women and children.

Sex Education

Even though sex outside the marriage has been getting common in many countries, it seems like sex education is still not well organized yet in some of the countries. I wonder where young people get the right information about sex. Well, sex education should be for the better because that would absolutely prevent unexpected pregnancy and disease.

We had group presentation about sex education and teen pregnancy in one of the classes the other day. During the presentation, one of the students asked me "What's the difference of sex education between Japanese and America?" As a Japanese who is living and studying in America, I have two perspectives, Japanese and American. I usually use both of the lens when I think about something. However, I could not come up with any idea of Japanese sex education at that moment.

I remember that my class room teacher talked about the period for girls when I was in elementary school. However, we did not have opportunities to talk about sex or sexuality that much. I realized that America is more open about talking about those things since I came here. Now, I consider that we have the right to know about it as human being.

It was very nice opportunity that I was able to participate one of the women's studies event called "I Love Female Orgasm". That gave audience to talk and share about sex openly. I believe that this is very important because that gives us chance to share the right information. We should not be shy about it because I realized that it is part of our lives as human being.

I hope more countries will openly have better sex education, so young people would know the right information and that prevents unexpected pregnancy and disease, too. We just have to know we have the right to know it.

Cheap labor

As I mentioned one of my posts before, many women in developing countries have been having huge problems as cheap labors. I heard story of nannies, sex workers, and workers in the factories. In the first world, people would think that eating, working, and having at least needed things for lives without almost any problems is common thing. People also think that environment they are living in is comfortable such as house, water, air, and more. However, it seems like it would be different in the developing countries.

In the past post, I talked about the nannies and sex workers. Unfortunately, it seems like there are still so many women who work as nannies, and sex workers. I am shocked mainly because there are more women who work as cheap labors compared to men. Especially single mothers, for example, they cannot help working outside their countries or in bad working environment.

When people talk about single mothers working hard for their children, I always wonder "it is luck of fathering" and "where do their father doing?". It is very sad there are many fathers who do not care about their children any more after divorce.

I think every country has to have at least some children support. Otherwise, we cannnot solve those serious problems. In Sweden, all fathers are forced to pay some children support after divorce. If the mothers did not know who the fathers of the children are because of the rape and some other reasons, the fathers will be found by DNA. This helps children of Sweden a lot. I believe that fathers should have responsibilities, too.

I hope more mothers have more time to spend time with their children and have good working environment in the near future.

Cannot work without college degree?

These days, I often hear people cannot get better job without college degree. Especially when people talk about people in the sex industry, they say "people who work for the sex industry do not have opportunity to work in the other fields because they only have high school degree or even drop out of high school. I would think they are mainly talk about women who work in the industry. However, I believe that people who do not have college degree should not be treated that way.

Of course, people who have college degree have to be treated special when they get job because they might have better skills compared to people who have never had college education. However, that does not mean people who only have high school degree or drop out of high school only have chance to work for sex industry. I think this is one of the discrimination against women.

I actually have never heard people talking about men who do not have college degree have to work for the sex industry. I assume men's rights are always respected compared to women. Women's rights should be respected as men.

In Japan, for instance, people could never write "men are required for this job" any more. People try to respect women's job opportunity, too. Even though people try something to make women's job opportunity better, it is still hard to have equal society for women. But it is getting better is sure thing.

In Sweden, people treat the part time workers as same as full time workers. This means companies offer the same insurance system and holidays for part time workers who are usually women.

I hope women's job opportunity will be respected and be better in the future.

High divorce rate and many step family situation in the US

In the class, I learned about 50 % of the US partents end up with divorce. I was very surprised at this fact because I was burn and raised in Japan and I would say Japan is the country which has one of the lowest divorce rates in the world. ( It is changing,but it used to be.) When I was a small child, all my friends have both parents, father and mother. I thought it is very natural thing to have both parents from the environment I had. However, I started to realize that having single father or mother is not rare thing any more since I started studying in America.

United States has high marrige rate, divorce rate, and re-marrige rate. I was very surprised at knowing the family situations of my friends and classmates here because many people are in the step family situation or single parent situation. According to the textbook, it says about the half of Americans today are step family situation. This means US has very high divorce rate.

I wonder if divorce gives children bad influence. It must be hard for children to accept step family situation. Here, I would suggest US has to have new policy about divorce such as parents have to be together at least children become 16.

Italy is also one of the countries which has low divorce rate because divorce was not allowed until 1970. In addtion, there are many Catholic in Italy. Still, people in Italy have to have 2 years consideration time if people want to get divorce. Those lows prevents divorce, too.

countries which have high divorce rates like the US should have at least good children support for children of single fathers or single mothers. Otherwise, children could not have fair education. I would think all children have to have at least college education like Sweden. if they want to.

Women's rights in Sweden

Last semester, I learned many women's situation in developing countries in my women's studies class 395. I was very sad to know many single mothers in the world are facing some difficulties such as working in the first world far away from their children, no support from their ex-husbands, and many more problems. Today, I was reading an article from government about family situation and women's rights in Sweden. Then I started to get interested in it.

In Sweden, one fourth of children under 18 have only single fathers or single mothers. It is considered most of them live with their mothers. Divorce is not too common in Sweden. However, Sweden has system of "Sambo" which means unmarried couples can have children and live together just like normal family does. It is considered this Sambo system is process to marriage. However, sometimes Sambo couples break up. So, there are many children who only have single mothers.

In this situation, however, children in Sweden can get good supports. For instance, their father is forced to pay the children support every month. This is guranteed right after divorce or breaking up of Sambo relations. Therefore, children can get at least some support from their fathers. If the fathers did not have ability to pay, the government helps to pay. Therefore, children and mothers would not be worry about life too much.

In addition to the children support from the fathers, Sweden government offers apartment or house support. This would often happen to people who have low incomes and many children. The government will help to pay about 50 percent of the rent or loan.

One more thing I was especially interested in is education. People in Sweden can have free education in public school untill graduate school. This means everybody has rights to have education equally. Many people in the world give up going to college or graduate school because of the economical reason. Especially, more children who have single mothers have to give up the college education compared to children who have parents. This is also support for the single mothers.

I think Sweden has a great society for children and women. I have heard the country has good system for old people, too. I hope more countries have the society like Sweden so women have more rights to spend with their children without working far away from their children. It is very hard to change the society individually, however, many countries can try by looking at the model like Sweden. I hope more happiness and comfortable society for children and women in the future.