Before reading
the article “Choosing silence: rethinking voice, agency and women’s
empowerment” by Parpart and Kabeer 2010, I was not aware that ‘empowerment’ was
an academic discourse and one that warrants a great deal of attention across
gender and development studies. I was
also interested to learn that the term ‘empowerment’ and the ways in which
women can be empowered represents a topic of contention within development
studies and beyond.
Throughout
gender and development research and in feminist literature, the idea of voice
and speaking out against issues and calling out societal inequalities produces
empowerment. On the other hand, women
who stay silent and choose not to speak out about such inequalities are viewed
as “disempowered” and their actions, or lack thereof, will be unable to illicit
any type of social change (Parpart and Kabeer 2010). Overall, silence is seen as “a symbol of
passivity and powerlessness”; but Parpart and Kabeer argue that women can be
empowered through “silence and secrecy” and I agree with the argument made by
Parpart and Kabeer 2010.
I grew up in the
United States and after reading this article, I realize how much I take
advantage of being able to speak freely and openly express my political,
personal and sexual beliefs to the people around me (both friends and
strangers). As described in the article,
many people, especially women, who live in war-torn countries, political conflict
or countries that still view men as dominate and women as subordinate do not
have this luxury. Women (or men) who
speak poorly about their government, call attention to violence in the home or
challenge the powerful are met with family shaming, embarrassment, acts of
violence including brutal rape and sometimes even death (Parpart and Kabeer
2010). Silence for these women is not
seen as disempowerment but rather as a means of survival. So much of feminist and development
literature does not consider why many women decide to remain silent.
Parpart and Kabeer
2010 describe how silence and secrecy can be used as tools of empowerment and provide
agency for women who would face these dangerous consequences if they were to
speak out. When directly speaking out is not safe, silent protest can be an
equally effective way to illicit change and draw attention to an important
issue. Some examples of these include
silent vigils and creating literal or metaphorical symbols to challenge social
injustices and inequalities.
I began to
reflect on the concept of silent protests and the first examples that popped
into my head was when the football player Colin Kaeparnick kneeled during the national anthem during an NFL game in
2016 to protest police violence, promote social justice and challenge racial
discrimination in the criminal justice system.
Although only one individual started this protest, it is now a wide
spread phenomenon with other members of the NFL and players from other sports
teams kneeling during the national anthem.
Additionally, I thought of the students in schools all across the United
States who staged a wide-spread walk out to protest gun violence and government
inaction on gun control after another school shooting occurred in Florida a
month prior. Silent protests can be
extremely powerful and have a greater impact than tradition or ‘radical’ forms
of resistance.
As I
was googling more about silent protests, I came across this article title “A
silent protest with a very loud message: Stop Kavanaugh”, published on
September 5, 2018. A group of women wore
red and white costumes similar to the ones worn in the Handmaids Tale, to
Capitol Hill in Washington DC to protest the new Supreme Court Judge, Brett
Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh was chosen by
President Trump to fill a spot on the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh is known to hold conservative viewpoints
towards the LGBTQ community and abortion.
The red dresses and white hats symbolize the oppression suffered by the
women in the Handmaids Tale, which tells the story of women who are forced into
sexual servitude with their sexual and reproductive rights completely stripped
away under a totalitarian government.
This symbology is a powerful way to protest women’s right to have
authority over their own bodies.
The
Handmaids Tale protest has direct parallels to how Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (and the other silent protests described
by Parpart and Kabeel 2010), a group of women who walked around the
presidential palace wearing white head scarves representing the diapers of
their lost children in an effort to build awareness and bring down the corrupt
and violent government in Argentina.
These
examples show that sometimes
using strong imagery and relatable metaphors to mobilize public opinion and challenge
social injustices can be more powerful than speaking out as feminist literature
has continually praised.
Silent protests
can take many forms; they can be small individuals acts like wearing white
socks and western-style clothing under a burqa or they can be collective acts
like a nationwide school walk out or a group of women dressed in costumes
protesting their right to choose.
Please find the
article I mention listed below, in addition to an article about the nation-wide
school walk out.
Handmaids Tale:
School walk out:
PS. I'm sorry this post is so long... I realize now I may have wrote a bit too much!
Elaborating on your post that I find it's summarizing the reading and the argument made in it in details. What you wrote about the other silent ways of protests and participation examples made me want to add also another example back in June 2012 during the revolution in Egypt .there were massive reports of sexual assaults happening during the port.ests against women that made women afraid to participate in the demonstrations. That made a group of women activists decide to make a silent protest of only women and men can be there for support.and they announced for it on different social media platforms, and it started with a small number of activists and ended with a considerable amount of women protesting their right in participating in public spheres and decision making. Unfortnutalley this protest has been attacked by harassers and ended badly. But that when more people heard about what happened and decided to do something to prevent this from happening again.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast with earlier women’s rights activist, the primary objective of the 2012 anti-public sexual violence work done by those groups, was not the legal change. While activists took pride in 2014 amendments to the penal code on harassment, a primary short-term goal was to intervene to prevent cases of Public Sexual Violence physically .
Silence is not Always Powerful...
ReplyDeleteThank you Janee for sharing this post. I didn't realize it was long until you mentioned that. Anyway, one major point that drew my attention and I would like to elaborate more about it is this sentence “women who stay silent and choose not to speak out about such inequalities”. I do not think that there is any woman in the world chooses to remain silent. Silence is imposed; it is not a choice. Reading throughout the post, I am aware that you did not mean it this way but I want to highlight it in view of my own context.
I like how the authors explain other ways/mechanisms for women to raise their concerns in pursuit of the social change and elimination of inequalities. Besides, all your examples are awesome, but I do not agree this works out in a developing country; at least where I come from. One reason I said above that no woman chooses to remain silent is that restrictions are not limited to governmental bodies and restrictions on freedoms. There are different forms of suppression that prevent a woman from speaking up; the most prominent of which, I believe, is the society. The biggest sector of the society that practices suppression and oppression against women is other women in the society.
There are social norms and constraints that obliges, for example, a girl/woman to not report a rape incident against her to the police or even share it with a relative of hers. She prefers to remain silent to not be shamed or killed as you mentioned. Nonetheless, launching messages against rape, rapists and the patriarchal norms even through a silent protest/mechanism will inflict upon her the same consequences. One would say that other women or activists can organize and silently protest on behalf of the victims, yet the society will not get that message. The society will rather criticize and reject any activity that stand for a raped woman because the society already believes that she is the one to be blamed for this crime; she incentivized that rapist to do what he did. I do believe in the power of words as well as silence but these proposed alternatives could bring negative consequences or at least no positive impact unless the society itself is ready to abandon these social illnesses. I am addressing here the social constraints, let alone, governmental restrictions that are aligned with the social norms in a given society.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThank you for sharing your thoughts about the reading. I consider that using silence or speaking, as tools to defend a cause are both effective depending on the country that women live in. For example, in the case of Saudi Arabia, silence and symbolism may be the best strategies to express a women's reluctance to certain aspects of everyday life that diminish their dignity or the value of their work. Whereas, in a country such as the U.S., as you mentioned, speaking out could represent the best option because domestic law backs up women’s freedom of speech.
ReplyDeleteIn this sense, I believe that the silence and speaking strategies have a greater impact when they are held collectively. In other words, in my view , both have a bigger effect when a certain number of women support the same ideas, as in the case of Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina. This is because women could attract more attention from the government, international organizations, the news, other states, etc., to take action. Moreover, by joining efforts, I think that women can show that it is not only one woman that thinks that certain gender inequalities exist, but also that their view is shared among many others nationally and internationally. In this sense, it is relevant to mention that women have been able to relate each other around the world because of network facilitation due to globalization and technology (Datta & McIlwaine, 2003, p. 376).
In addition to the speaking and silence strategy, I consider that a third one that could empower women to achieve equality and equity is writing. I believe this because writing evokes emotions and sometimes it inspires people to think out of the box or even take action regarding a problem. For instance, women that have written theories about Gender and Development have been able to diffuse their ideas about women’s inclusion in the development field worldwide. In this way, they have been able to gain relevance in the mentioned field and highlight the importance of studying women’s roles in it as well as the relationships that shape these roles.
In conclusion, I consider that, as the WID and GAD approaches suggest, empowerment involves processes of integrating women in development projects as well as in economic and political arenas (Datta & McIlwaine, 2003, pp. 370-371; Young, 1997, p.53). It is about women having an active engagement role in the world so they are not defined as “passive recipients of development assistance” (Young, 1997, p.51). In my opinion, this active engagement could be achieved through speaking, silence and/or writing depending on the women’s country.
Janee,
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting about this topic! I found this post and the article referenced to be a real eye opener this week. You're right- coming from the U.S I believe it is hard to realize that speaking freely could be met with consequences. Whether that be from the home or political sphere, those in the U.S have been encouraged to speak out against sexual violence and let their opinions be heard. Since we arrived back at OU from summer break, my inbox has flooded with allegations of rape and I’ve seen banners hung on sorority/fraternity houses that encourage victims to speak out. However, after reading Kabeer and Parpart's article, I realized how silence can be a form of empowerment and now think quite differently about women and silence as a form of empowerment.
Possibly the worst mistake someone could make is to associate silence with helplessness. Silence can be a really powerful measure of protest, as you mentioned, and should be taken into consideration on all fronts. I’ve watched Handmaids Tale and I think that was a great example to bring in- a lot of those women are stuck and if they speak out or step out of line violence and death are usually what come from it. After reading Kabeer and Parpart’s article, I realized that the mentality behind the show translates to other areas of the world and makes me realize how powerful silence can be.
I wanted to post on this topic, but honestly you stole the words out of my mouth! This was a great post with a lot of good examples. I’d like to leave you with a picture I took right down the street from my house. The banner states “BREAK THE SILENCE-END THE VIOLENCE”
I guess we realize there are two sides to every story- we should not be so quick to encourage someone to speak out if they are in a position where they could feel uncomfortable or hurt. It is hard to imagine the pain of reliving a traumatic experience. Support from other women/groups/grassroots programs are key in giving women a safe space.
(picture won't add to comment so I will post in a separate blog post)
Interesting post Janae, Thank you for posting.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience with talking to some women about silence and voice, I've found it to be a contextual approach. I totally understand how protesting in silence for women in Egypt (from Habiba's comment) was an impact. To the extent that laws were changed and many women were liberated from this experience. However, where I come from (Southern Africa) I've noticed that the more women are silent the more they are scrutinized and blamed for their violence. There were a couple of women who organized a silent protest in South Africa and all they got was a chain of memes from both men and women talking about how they are the problem with their situation. On the other hand, powerful and impactful protests in Botswana that receive coverage and attention are those that follow the popular protest style of music and dance. People running in the streets with placards playing music, singing songs they created with meaningful lyrics that support their agenda, and dancing till they can call it a day. One of the most popular protests that young women in the capital organized was early last year when a girl was stripped naked at the bus rank with accusations that she was already half naked and asked for it. The protests started off as silent protests with the leaders explaining that they preferred that route. The general members of the public did not respond well with protesting silently as they believe that for change to be taken seriously, one needs to create a disruption and get people's attention on the matter.
On another note, there are women who live every day under oppressive situations and keep it that way. Some women prefer having peace in their households, they prefer not to be killed as a result of their protest, and some prefer to not bring upon shame to their families. In the end, I believe that empowerment is a personal and self-identifying phenomena that cannot be imposed on anyone. Some women live under oppression every day and they may be aware of it or they may not. On that note, whether someone decides to be silent or to be vocal, as long as they have a choice and they choose to do one or the other, I believe that that is being empowered. Although some situations may not let women to act in some ways, it does not necessarily mean they are not aware or conscious about their liberation.
I like the examples you gave of the women who have been protesting against Kavanaugh. I believe that media coverage, many voices (though silent) join the protest, and a huge social media presence helps in making the silent protest loud. I remember the Women's March in D.C earlier this year that had celebrities, thousands of women and girls, as well and media from all corners covering the event. I don't think this is considered as a silent protest, but to me I can categorize it as one since there was no havoc caused.