Welcome to our class on International Women's Health and Human Rights. I am Anne Firth Murray, and I teach at Stanford University on these topics. I am also the Founding President of the Global Fund for Women, an organization that raises money and gives it away to women's groups working on female human rights issues. The class is an overview of women's health and human rights, covering many issues, organized around a woman's life from infancy through old-age. With such a title we could be looking at issues of women and development. When we think internationally we often think in terms of economic development, and improvements in health and educational outcomes, for example. And we will certainly talk about such issues in this class. But when we are focusing on international women's issues, as we do in this class, I want to hold up a lens of human rights and justice. For example, educating girls is not only a good economic policy. It is also the fair thing to do; it is just. This is the sort of value that underlies this class. So what is this class about? Of course it's about women's health issues, but which specific issues? When I was putting together my class at Stanford a few years ago, I wondered the same thing: what would I cover in a class on international women's health? I thought about it, and I decided to go back and review my experience at the Global Fund for Women and remind myself of what women around the world were writing to us about. What were the issues that they thought were so important that they would create organizations to address them? I identified those issues, and I built my classes around them. So as we go through the eight weeks in this on-line course, I will be reminding you that these are the issues that the women themselves thought were very important. Something else that I did when I began putting together the course at Stanford was to go to various books on global health and see what they had to say about women. I lifted up these heavy volumes and looked in the index for the word "women." Sure enough, there was one entry: it took me to a chapter called "maternal and child health." That was the only reference under the entry for "women." Thinking that there must be something more about women in such a huge book on global health, I looked in the index for the word "violence," assuming that there would be an entry for something as common as domestic violence, given that one woman in every three worldwide will experience it. Guess what? The entry on violence took me to a chapter on traffic accidents. In other words, I learned that at that time in a text on global health, "women" meant "maternal and child health." As we move through the weeks of this course, you will see that we certainly do have a week when we speak about maternal health. But we have many other issues to discuss, issues that women themselves have identified. Why have I made the effort to put together this class, not only at Stanford University but now here on the internet? I am doing it because the students in my class at Stanford find the class interesting and informative, and I thought other people might like to have a chance to learn too. My class is very participatory, and I hope this class will be like that too. Perhaps the main reason I am doing this, though, is to make sure that among these huge on-line classes there is at least one that focuses on women. After all, women are about 50% of the world's population! And if we are going to have a class about women, let it be mine, with its emphasis on women's rights and justice. As I reviewed the many issues that women considered important, there emerged for me four "critical themes" -- critical because they can mean life or death to women, depending on whether or not they can exercise their human rights. These themes are: First, being born female--which brings with it discrimination and demeaning. We will see this exemplified in the issues that we talk about over the eight weeks. The second issue is poverty. The majority of people living in poverty in the world, in all countries, are women. The third is unequal access to various rights and services, such as education, health, paid work, and food. And the fourth critical issue is: violence, gender-based violence, in the home, in society in general, and in situations of war and refugee status. I'll remind you as we go through the weeks that the issues we discuss are ones that women themselves highlighted as most important to them. So what are these issues that I keep referring to? The class is organized rather loosely to follow a woman's life from infancy through old age. This week, in the context of a discussion of human rights, we focus on something that happens even before infancy. This is the reality of son preference: the preference for people to have sons rather than daughters. Although such preference is not true in all places, almost everywhere sons are preferred. In some countries, the preference is so strong that it has skewed population ratios between males and females. We go into this further this week. I place our discussion of son preference in the context of our human rights discussion because I believe that son preference is a basic expression of the problem of being born female. We move in subsequent weeks to consider childhood, spending significant time on the role of girls' education. Many people think that girls' education is the key intervention to deal with almost all issues of development and equality, and, indeed, it is important. We will look not only at the value of education, but also at some of the problems in its implementation. This reminds me to say that throughout this course, we will be highlighting positive interventions addressing these problems, and we hope that you will share examples and descriptions of programs from your own experiences. After a discussion on education, we turn to a couple of health issues that relate particularly to childhood and adolescence. The first is female genital cutting, which can affect some two million girls, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, each year. The second is HIV/AIDS, a human rights and health issue that is particularly destructive to the health and well being of adolescent girls. For reasons that we will discuss, girls between the ages of twelve and nineteen are particularly vulnerable to contracting HIV and AIDS. Issues that pertain to adolescence, which lead us to a subsequent week, are early marriage and early childbirth. We take up these issues as we delve into the vast field of reproductive and maternal health. Our readings and discussions that week attempt to cover a number of issues, including pregnancy, contraception, maternity, and sexuality. Everywhere, in all countries, women are challenged to control their fertility. This broad issue unites women around the world. Moving on from reproductive health and related to it in many unfortunate ways, we come to the issue I consider central to this course, and frankly, central to any discussion about women's health and human rights. That is the issue of violence against women, particularly in the home. Violence is the strategy of those in power to maintain that power and thereby maintain their place in a hierarchy. One out of three women will experience violence at the hands of an intimate partner in her lifetime, according to a 2004 study by the World Health Organization. If violence against women were a disease, we would declare an epidemic. The following week, when we learn about women in war and refugee circumstances, we realize that we are studying violence intensified. Women in country after country have come together to form groups to work on issues of conflict and peace and to deal with the shocking levels of violence that women and girls experience in conflict and refugee situations. These issues are extremely hard to confront, and therefore it is important to learn about and highlight the positive interventions that many people are implementing to address such issues. In a subsequent week, we discuss globalization and its implications for women's work. Women seeking to escape poverty follow many roads. You may recall that earlier I identified poverty as one of four critical themes as we discuss international women's health and human rights. Poverty underlies so many of the causes of disease and injury. During this week we look at ways that women attempt to escape from poverty, often by joining the ranks of workers in factories in export processing zones, moving into sex work, or being trapped in the dangerous business of trafficking. During the last week our class will be talking about women and aging. Older women, particularly in resource-poor countries, are often illiterate and the poorest of the poor. They may lack access to rights and services. On the other hand, they may be the carriers of culture, and they are often the caregivers of the next generation, especially in the context of HIV and AIDS. That last week, we will conclude the class by reviewing our experience and highlighting positive programs, effective strategies, and success stories that have been shared by our newly formed community of participants. Let me take another couple of minutes to talk about how this class will work. Each week, we will offer you a variety of resources. We will have a video introduction and then interviews with scholars and/or practitioners who work directly on the issues. There also will be readings, which are essential to this course, particularly if you want to receive a Statement of Accomplishment. Many important ideas will be found in the readings. To neglect the readings will be to miss a great deal in this course. One of our goals is to convene and build a strong community, and we enthusiastically welcome your participation. We will offer numerous channels for you to engage with the class and to interact with other students. We will have global forums and will also offer tools for you to find and engage with people taking the course in your cities or regions. We recognize that members of our community may have different goals. If you are someone who wishes to earn a Statement of Accomplishment, we will have quizzes for you to check your learning. On the website, we will lay out the requirements you must meet to earn the Statement of Accomplishment, so please read the website carefully! Others of you may simply be interested in expanding your knowledge by watching the lectures, while still others will wish to delve into specific issues. Whatever your level of interest, we welcome you all! We hope you will take the opportunity to engage with the community, participate in the activities, and take advantage of the resources we offer. Speaking of which, the first activity we ask of you is to respond to our introductory survey. Please participate in this survey. These surveys are very important
and help us carry out fundamental research
on teaching and learning. It will help us customize the course for you and improve your experience. Finally, each week I will be pouring myself a cup of tea and responding to your questions through a weekly video webcast, another channel for your voices to be heard. We look forward to learning from you and your diverse experiences. We hope you will learn from each other. We are excited to begin this adventure. Welcome and thank you.
