After a decade of participating in civil society organizing around the Commission on the Status of Women, I came to this year's meetings to observe. It's an exciting moment for those of us who have worked for so many years to link the women's movement with the HIV and AIDS movement. For the first time, a central aspect of HIV and AIDS affecting women - the burden of care - is an explicit focus of the Commission on the Status of Women. Further, the new Executive Director of UNAIDS - Michel Sidibe - made an impassioned speech at the opening of the CSW entitled "AIDS and gender equality: time for new paradigms."
Mr. Sidibe spoke with force about the issues that women's rights advocates had been pressing for heightened attention to in the AIDS response for decades: gender-based discrimination; sexual violence; rape as a tool of war; the need for a social revolution; comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services; universal access to sexuality education; greater female-controlled prevention methods, including the female condom; and the "democratization of problem-solving." I leapt out of my seat after reading the text of this barrier breaking speech - and said yes in response to his call, "let us further unite the tremendous power of the women's movement with the AIDS movement."
The sessions organized by colleagues at this year's CSW matched the tone and tenor of Mr. Sidibe's speech. These sessions shone a light on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women living with HIV; on the need for new frameworks in the women's rights movement - such as one of reproductive justice to expand the historic category of reproductive choice; of feminist men mapping out the role and the means for men and boys to engage gender equality; on the human rights implications of current approaches to the prevention of parent to child HIV transmission; and the avenues for expanding access to family planning and HIV prevention tools, such as the female and male condom.
So I arrived at this year's CSW expecting the hustle and bustle to which I have grown accustomed of familiar faces, passionate debates, and powerful women. And while extraordinary women are here in abundance, I found myself surprised by the lack of electricity in the air. Granted, I am reflecting on one morning's experience of the CSW (at the start of the second week when the momentum hits a low.) However, I found it telling that the first three sessions I attempted to attend had dissolved or were cancelled because no speakers showed or the organizers had failed to arrive. When I finally stumbled upon a remarkable discussion in the Church Center (the aging building with rattling elevators where non-governmental organizations are provided space to convene forums), I was one among a handful of attendants. And at 36, I expect I was the youngest woman in the room as well. In that very same room four years ago, during a parallel event on a related topic, there was not a seat to be had and no place even to stand.
So the question I ask is what are we doing here? Who is listening? What is being heard? Are we inspiring the next generation of young women to share in and lead the work toward gender equality? Are we engaging men? Has our work evolved? Have our discussions changed? How do we maintain the relevance of the Commission on the Status of Women in a world in warp speed? How do we sustain movements in a moment where the economic crises overshadow all? How do we bring new voices, energy, and vision to the task when the leaders who were at the vanguards of the movement decades ago resist? How do we create room for broader, more diverse alliances and new directions?
While I am heartened to see the passion and conviction which Mr. Sidibe brought to his speech and of the Obama Administration to women's human rights, I worry that the frameworks of Beijing and Cairo now feel like ancient history in a fast-moving world. I worry that at this year's Commission on the Status of Women I did not see extraordinary HIV positive women leaders speaking with their own voice. I worry that we, as women's rights advocates wherever our focus might be - reproductive rights, land rights, sexual rights, education rights, livelihood rights - have not opened the doors of the CSW to a broader cross-section of stakeholders and that we have failed to engage young people so that the heart and soul of the movement rests in those of us who have been around this block before. So the challenge I take from the 53rd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women is that we need to get back into the streets, reach out our hands, and reclaim our roar before we fade into irrelevance having the same conversation in the same dingy room with the same folks with whom we have grown comfortable speaking.
