March Newsletter: MHI Celebrates Women's history month

Happy Women’s History Month! The 2022 Women’s History Month theme, “Women Providing Healing, Promoting Hope,” is a tribute to the work of caregivers and frontline workers during the ongoing pandemic, and the ways in which women have provided healing and hope throughout history. Globally, women and girls contribute more than 70 percent of the world’s caregiving hours. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns, school closures, and overrun elder care facilities, many women were forced to choose between staying at their paid work and caring for their families at home. Caregiving should not singularly be an individual family’s burden – research shows that policy solutions at a governmental and systemic level can help alleviate the burden of caregiving from women and provide them with greater resources to care for their families, contribute to their economies, and confront persistent and harmful gender norms. Addressing the gendered burden of caregiving is critical to ensure gender equity worldwide.

Below, you can find our recent white paper, The Lasting Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women’s Work, Health, and Safety. Stay tuned for our next quarterly policy brief, which is focused on The Global Care Economy and coming soon.

In light of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, we also draw attention to the role of women in wartime. In Ukraine, women are leading humanitarian efforts and many have taken up arms against Russia. Before the war, fifteen percent of Ukrainian soldiers were women, and as women are faced with the excruciating choice of leaving their country to protect their children or stay and fight, that number continues to rise. Conflict puts women and girls at an increased risk of experiencing gender-based violence, exploitation, and trafficking. They also have limited access to essential health care services, clean water, and food supplies. This year, during Women’s History Month, we recognize the bravery of women in Ukraine, and women in conflict settings globally.

We had the honor of speaking with Ukrainian Member of Parliament, Kira Rudik about what she is living through in Kyiv, the role of women as leaders, and the outsized impact this war is having on Ukrainian children. Through the combined efforts of several Wilson Center programs, we hope to amplify her voice and efforts and those of other women and girls facing conflict.

Below, you can find this important conversation with MP Kira Rudik and other work from MHI published in recognition of Women's History Month. We are also taking this opportunity to highlight the incredible work of our colleagues from around the Wilson Center on women’s leadership, history, and gender equity.

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Sarah B. Barnes, Project Director, Maternal Health Initiative

“Without bodily autonomy and self-determination, women and girls are subject to virginity tests, to forced marriage, to forced pregnancy, to rape and violence. Their education may end and their employment prospects may diminish, leaving them increasingly dependent on others, potentially unsafe and without hope for a better future for them or for their own children.”

"The White House and Gender Policy Council are at the forefront of developing meaningful policies and programs, therefore to prevent and respond to gender-base-violence and to combat sexual harassment, to increase access to comprehensive healthcare, address health disparities and promote sexual and reproductive rights, to increase economic security and opportunity by addressing the structural barriers to women’s participation in the labor force and by decreasing wage and wealth gaps, and above all to supporting women and girl’s human rights."

“Every human being really has the right to own their body, to own their decisions, to own their choices regarding their life, their futures, how they want to live, who they want to partner, whether they want to have children or not, what kind of families they want to have.”

“As we are all familiar and as this global pandemic showed, these structural barriers [to keeping women in the workforce] still include lack of daycares, access to safe public transportation, and unequal pay.”

“The pandemic has laid bare and amplified pre-existing challenges including challenged health systems, gaps in social protection, and has also amplified inequalities, vulnerabilities, and barriers faced by women, by girls, marginalized and vulnerable populations in accessing services with respect to sexual and reproductive health. We have witnessed widespread losses in access to services including family planning, with consequences for unplanned pregnancies and increased levels of gender-based violence.”

“It’s taken a very long time, 230 years, in fact. We’ve been controlled and oppressed for a very long time. I just feel like, it’s time. It’s time for our people to thrive, and to be equal.”

"Maternal mental health is often omitted from conversations and clinical treatments surrounding maternal health. Many preventable causes of maternal mental health conditions could be prevented if mental health were included in maternal health assessments, and people weren’t left to fight the unseen battle of poor mental health."

"Adolescents are a key group that must be reached in discussions about sexual and reproductive health (SRH). Young people often face discrimination when trying to access HIV services and other SRH services. Healthcare providers can be judgmental and question why young people need contraceptives."

Meet our MHI Team

Sarah B. Barnes, Project Director

Deekshita Ramanarayanan, Program Coordinator

Shariq Farooqi, Claire Hubley, and Chanel Lee, Program Interns

Check out more from MHI at the Dot-Mom Column on New Security Beat