Report on the Annual Gathering of the Group of Women Parliamentarians
33
The Fight for Gender Equality in the Context of
Reconstruction and Political Instability in Haiti
Ms. Etienne, Member of the Chamber of Deputies, began by sharing a quote by Jacques Rousseau with the audience:
“I conceive that there are two kinds of inequality among the human species; one, which I call natural or physical, because it is established by nature, and consists in a difference of age, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind or of the soul: and another, which may be called moral or political inequality, because it depends on a kind of convention, and is established, or at least authorized by the consent of men. This latter consists of the different privileges, which some men enjoy to the prejudice of others; such as that of being more rich, more honoured, more powerful or even in a position to exact obedience.”6
Though women’s equality may be universally recognized as an irrefutable right, Ms. Etienne said, in Haiti – as in all countries – power has resulted from conquest and sexual discrimination.
It is easier for men to offer women
chocolate or flowers than for them
to accept to share decision-making
spaces or social privilege,
6 From Rousseau’s “A Dissertation on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality Among Mankind” (1754).
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