5 Questions after International Women’s Day

That’s what the day does for me: it leaves me with questions. Basically they are all rooted in the same inner controversy of feeling honored and humiliated at the same time. Honored because of the attention, admiration and concern that is given to women, yet humiliated by the realization that things are pretty bad, if it is necessary to nominate a special day for this purpose.

Women & Technology?

I find this one tricky, don’t you? As a little girl I had no doubt as to which kind of toys were meant for girls and which for boys: Girls played with dolls and were creative, while boys took stuff apart and built things. No one would give me an electrical toy train for my birthday; I would play with my brothers whenever he let me. Who decided, that toy trains were not for me, just because I was girl?
When Star Wars was popular, my brother and I both built entire fleets of spaceships from paper and cruised the galaxies in the entire house for months.

Taking a closer look, though, the way he played was completely different from mine. His spaceships had a clear definition of speed, power and all kinds of technical parameters - mine had a beautiful design and carefully chosen names as well as a clear purpose. His spaceships fought wars; mine investigated the universe and send help to wherever it was needed.

An ever growing number of women are being honored for their achievements not only on this day, yet I found few who receive their recognition due to achievements in technology. A list of Top Ten TED talks by women included only one such woman: an MITprofessor with a fascination for robots. But guess what her robots are designed for? They are personal robots helping people; their purpose is to improve communication and interaction.

Women & Career?

It does seem that most women who have a successful career are not in technology. But there is no question, that women can build a career for themselves, if they choose to - at least in western society. In many cases I still wonder how they do it, though. The question for which I have not found an answer is whether a woman can have a career and still keep her family at first priority. Reading the stories of successful women, there often is a break in the plot, where they take time off to raise their children. For each of these, there are many more, whose stories will not be told, because they never managed to get back on the career train afterwards. How many male career stories do you know, that include such a break?

The issue is hot enough even for internet giant Google to do something about it or at least show awareness.  And thanks to international women’s day I learned about “Google Campus for Moms”, a workshop empowering young mothers who are also entrepreneurs. I am not at all sure they have the answer.

 

Women & Equality?

Does this mean women need to be treated special in order to be equal? The thought makes me shiver a little. It’s not like women are a minority. Neither are they less intelligent or less gifted. Or are they? There still is no consensus about that. While it is not politically correct to question women’s intelligence and abilities in a western society, it is still the way it thinks and acts in many areas of life. Why else do women still get paid less for doing the same job and why do they have such a hard time even getting certain jobs?

But equality is really a relative term. For most women in the world technology and career are not even part of their existence and the question of equality for many  evolves around being allowed to vote, drive a car, get an education or make a choice about their own lives and bodies.

 

Women & Human Rights?

But isn’t that what makes us human? The ability to make a choice, rather than act on pure instinct or conditioned behavior is what separates us from the rest of the animal world. Yet women are still denied the right to use this very ability in too many African, Arab and Asian countries. Their freedom is reduced to an extent where they do not even have a voice to speak out and make themselves heard on the day of their honor. Who is to speak up for human rights and expose violence against women in countries, where girls are made to feel sub-human? I recall few.  One belongs to Liberian Nobel Prize winner Leymah Gbowee; another to an unbelievable courageous teenage girl fleeing Pakistan after an attempt to assassinate her for speaking up.

Could it be that people really believe women to be less human? It seems unfathomable, but that’s what the evidence indicates.

 

Women & Abuse?

From this attitude the path to abuse is very short. While I am contemplating whether girls playing with dolls and boys playing war is just an imposture by society or deeply rooted in the divine purpose of life, millions of girls are sold, raped, forced to prostitution or similar labor, trafficked, mutilated, killed or simply left to die. The dimensions of abuse and brutality are hard to grasp. How can this be?

The movement “Half the Sky” has put the problem on the tables of influential and famous women around the world and inspired them to act. Watching their documentary has changed the way I feel about being a woman. It has made me humbly grateful for the way I live and the possibilities I have. It has also sharpened my awareness of female vulnerability. I came to understand that only the strength of women in modern societies can change the fate of those treated like property or worse. Only women leaving their mark on technology, striving for a career, fighting for complete equality and against the violation of human rights can state the case for those who have no voice and confront the abusers.

I am left with more questions than answers, but also one important realization: improving the status of women around the world would improve human society as such.

 

Coexistence in the Jerusalem Family Garden (English version)

(Eine deutsche Version wird folgen)

If you have your own garden, I am sure you are very fond of it. Even if you aren’t the most passionate gardener or suffering from compulsory BBQ-syndrome, you’ll appreciate the joy of your private little outdoor space. The times you go out there may be relatively few compared to the effort it takes to maintain its beauty. However, knowing that the possibility is there makes the difference. A garden means a little more space and a lot of additional freedom where you feel at home. Because usually, outside is a space you pass through when you need to get somewhere. You are either on your way to some place or from some place. A garden is the only outside space where you can slow down, stop and stay for a while. 

I live on the 2^nd floor in a rather crowded Jerusalem neighborhood. No garden here to call my own. But in Jerusalem, if you don’t mind sharing, you can still enjoy the benefits of a family-garden. A huge piece of lawn stretches itself from a major junction near the entrance of the city, along the wide Ben-Tsvi-Boulevard on the one side and the Knesset premises on the other side, all the way down almost to the center of town. It is shaped like a valley, framed by trees and bushes on both long sides, surrounded and crossed by walking paths. At the north side there is a large skate park as well as basket ball and soccer fields. For the smaller children there are swings and slides and whatever people put in their gardens to entertain their offspring. And for those who like to work out there is outdoor exercise equipment under some shade providing trees. Not to forget men’s best friend, who is highly appreciative of the outdoors, has his own free running field a little to the side and away from the crowd.

The place is called “Gan Sacher”, which translates into Sacher Garden. Commonly it is referred to as Sacher Park, but I prefer to call it a garden, because that’s really what it feels like.

 We like to spend Saturday afternoons in the Garden. We, that is me - a German-born blond from a family of business people, my partner - a seventh-generation Jerusalemite from a family of musicians with Yemenite orientation and our snow-white dog Kika, who spent most of her life in a dog shelter. Our first stop is the dog field. After we set Kika free, we make ourselves comfortable on one of the benches scattered close to the fence and just watch dogs of all types, shapes and sizes romp around. People hang out on the grass or on the benches, some read books, others chat, we drink our tea.

Next we make our way to the table tennis in the main garden right next to the exercise equipment. There are always a lot of people and Kika attracts many curious children. Especially the haredic (Jewish-ultra-orthodox) children seem to cherish the opportunity to pet our serene companion. There are children speaking Russian and Arabic, some are black, their parents watch from a distance or come to take a closer look. We play a few games of Ping-Pong and sooner or later someone usually joins in. Often it’s the guy who continuously sings Israeli folk songs or talks and only shuts up when he is about to lose the game. Sometimes the foreign worker from Nigeria, who beats everyone with a smile comes by or the American lady from a fancy neighborhood, who doesn’t want her husband to know, that she comes here to play. Next to us there is always some young hunk making push-ups or pull-ups and as soon as he’s gone the next hunk jumps in.

Later we take a walk through the entire Garden before we chill out somewhere on the lawn. I never seize to be amazed at the unbelievable diversity of people and the variety of their activities. There is always something going on on the sports fields and skate park, put it doesn’t end there. Groups of people play all kinds of ballgames, including some that I have never seen and can not figure out the rules for. Young and old play baseball or Frisbee, some do Yoga or Tai Chi, some wrestle or do acrobatics. The most recent trend is to stretch a special rope between two trees at about one meter above the ground and try to walk on it.

On the paths little children ride their bikes, grown-ups make their rounds jogging, young couples walk hand in hand or with their stroller, old couples also walk hand in hand or push their walkers.

The majority of people celebrate their time outside with food. Couples have a romantic twosome picnic. Entire clans sit around their BBQs and tables full of home cooked cuisine. If you went from one to the next and tasted a little of each, it would equal a culinary trip around the globe. The smells merge in mid-air over the Garden. Some even take it a step further and celebrate their children’s birthday in the Garden. They either play music themselves or bring their loudspeakers so they can sing and dance. If this isn’t your type of fun, the garden is big enough to stay out of the noises reach.

Jerusalem is a multicultural city and it is reflected in the Sacher Garden in its most natural way. Coexistence isn’t just a word.

A group of young Arab-speaking boys will sit chatting under a tree, while little girls in their long haredic skirts are running around playing catch. An Ethiopian woman, who barely had time to learn Hebrew, yet, will bring her child to see the baby of a European Christian couple doing charity work for a year. An old man with roots in Iraq, walking with his Philippine caretaker will take a break sitting down on the bench next to the intellectual reading a book on philosophy in French. Jerusalem is the home of all of these people and they all feel that they can be themselves in their garden. When they meet they smile, make sure to give each other space and often lend a hand. And when they meet they all speak Hebrew (more or less) in the Jerusalem Family Garden.