[afro-nets] Reconsideing the GDI and GEM indices in women's rights

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

Reconsideing the GDI and GEM indices in women's rights
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After some rumination around the world and pondering on the
meaning of women's empowerment, I've come up with a new and im-
proved GEM for the 21st Century.

This GEM 21, also known as HI, actually calculates deprivations
in empowerment through a Humiliation Index, which is proposed
here as perhaps a more apt index to capture women's collective
experiences. Allow me to expand.

The Humiliation Index has three versions. For OECD countries, HI
1 consists of the number of times a woman's husband/partner runs
off with a secretary/best friend/colleague/neighbor/stranger,
leaving the woman stranded in the boardroom/classroom/courtroom/
farm/kitchen, divided by the number of children of the couple at
the time, multiplied by the difference in age between the two
women.

Alternatively HI 1 can be calculated by the number of kindergar-
tens/schools the woman visits divided by the age of the child by
the time she/he is accepted to these institutions and multiplied
by the tuition fees. For developing countries, HI 2 consists of
the number of times a woman is pinched in a bus/metro/bazaar mi-
nus the number of times she is able to defend herself against
such violence by raising alarm or hitting back.

Alternatively, HI 2 can be calculated by multiplying the number
of children in the household by the number of actual days be-
tween the time the woman receives a salary and the day she hands
it over to the husband/mother-in-law. For extreme patriarchal
societies in hot countries (EPSHC), HI 3 consists of the price
the woman fetches in village auctions or, alternatively, the
dowry negotiated during marriage, minus the size of the original
debt of the father/husband divided by the age of the girl when
the transaction takes place.

Alternatively, of course, a universal HI can be calculated for
all situations: The number of inches/centimeters of a woman's
shoe/heels, divided by the number of steps she has to take dur-
ing work (NB: make no mistakes, for some women sitting in a Bis-
trot all day sipping coffee consists of work.) This number is
then multiplied by the price of the shoe then divided by her
monthly earnings.

(NB: The index is still imperfect, I still haven't figured out
the proxy for women wearing no shoes in rice fields).I have a
suspicion that the results of this index will be very interest-
ing, especially when it comes to empowerment, North and South.
But I am not sure. Where is my calculator?

Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh
Visiting Professor, Human Security
Director, Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution
Sciences-Po, Paris