PHA-Exchange> Reconsideing the GDI and GEM indices in women's rights

[Claudio]

SURF HDR - Messurement Sub-NetworkFrom: Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh 

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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 improved 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 kindergartens/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 minus 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 between the time the woman rece! ives 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 during work (NB: make no mistakes, for some women sitting in a Bistrot 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 interesting, 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

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