Poverty is sexist: leading women sign up for global equality

Poverty, says a group of internationally famous and important women today, is sexist. Actors Meryl Streep and Rosamund Pike, Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg, arts director Jude Kelly, entertainers Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Angelique Kidjo and Sarah Silverman, financiers Ann Cairns and Mimi Alemayehou, along with politicians from Kenya, Germany and South Africa, have signed an open letter calling for women and girls to be put at the heart of international efforts to combat hunger and misery.

Claiming that “women get a raw deal”, the 35 signatories declared that unless women are put at the heart of change, there will be none. Empowering women, they said, is the key to fighting the world’s inequalities and poverty. Also signing were South African/American actor Charlize Theron, and US models-turned-activists Christy Turlington and Lauren Bush Lauren – of the Bush presidential family.

The letter is addressed to two powerful figures: German chancellor Angela Merkel and the chair of the African Union, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Both are at the head of key meetings later this year, the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa, which will start to set the priorities in development funding before a main UN summit in September that will fix in place new sustainable development goals for the generation. Both have put women’s empowerment on the agenda.

Launching its report, entitled Poverty is Sexist, as the Woman of the World conference in London’s Southbank closed on Sunday, and also marking International Women’s Day, the charity ONE collected the signatures from the diverse group of entertainers, businesspeople, academics and politicians to urge the focus to be on women.

The leaders should, it said, speak up for: “the girl who can’t go to a decent primary or secondary school or access healthcare; for the mothers threatened with death when they give life and who aren’t allowed to decide when to have their next child; for the women who can’t own or inherit the land she farms, nor open a bank account, own a phone, access electricity or the legal system; for the infant girl who doesn’t legally exist because her birth wasn’t registered… ; for the women and girls who can’t take those who are violent towards them to court nor access justice”.

The missive adds: “Put simply, poverty is sexist, and we won’t end it unless we face up to the fact that girls and women get a raw deal, and until leaders and citizens around the world work together for real change. Because when we deliver for girls and women, we deliver for everyone. Realising women’s rights helps deliver everyone’s rights. If we get this right, we could help lift every girl and woman out of poverty by 2030 – and by doing so we will lift everyone. Get this wrong and extreme poverty, inequality and instability might spread in the most vulnerable regions, impacting all our futures. Realising women’s rights helps deliver everyone’s rights.”

ONE’s report includes stark facts to illustrate injustice and inequality – that a woman in Sierra Leone is 183 times more likely to die in childbirth than a woman in Switzerland, that in the least developed countries working women are three times more likely to be in vulnerable employment than women elsewhere, and that literacy levels are a third lower for women than men,

Eloise Todd, director at ONE, said it was time to “unleash the human, social, political and economic potential” of women. “When citizens raise their voice it can make leaders keep their promises,” she said. Sheryl Sandberg said she was happy to embrace the campaign. “When it comes to poverty, everyone suffers – women and men, girls and boys. But the crushing blow of poverty often falls heavier on females. If we get this right for women, everyone will be better off.”

At London’s Southbank the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, will be adding her voice to making the economic case for gender equality. One key supporter of putting women first is the president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: “Poverty is sexist,” she said. “I see it all the time. Too often women and girls are worst hit by poverty and left to carry its burdens. But investing in them is also so often the solution. So let’s deliver for women because women deliver. This year through the AU and G7 Summits on women’s empowerment, through the Addis Ababa financing summit and through the new Global Goals to be launched in New York, let’s ensure that investing in women and girls is central to the strategy, and let’s call on a generation of women around the world to unite for this essential and transformative call to action.”

With 2015 such a key year for future spending on development, there will be much jostling and lobbying for all the leaders concerned over the next few months. The open letter is one of the first public declarations of what many in development feel needs to be tackled. It ends: “The choice is obvious and we know where you stand personally. But the course you set as leaders in this historic year will be critical in either creating momentum or slowing it down. In 2015 let’s all have the courage to demand better and follow through with the resources and policies that it will take to end extreme poverty by 2030. Millions of girls and women around the world will applaud your decisiveness – and will help ensure the promises made this year are truly kept into the future.”

Signatories in full

Ali Hewson, founder, Edun and Nude

Angellah Kairuki, member of parliament, Tanzania

Angelique Kidjo, singer-songwriter and activist

Ann Cairns, president, international markets, MasterCard

Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, entertainer

Charlize Theron, actor, UN messenger of peace, founder of Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project

Christy Turlington Burns, founder, Every Mother Counts

Cindi Leive, editor-in-chief, Glamour magazine;

Danai Gurira, actor, playwright, activist

Gesine Schwan, professor and former German presidential candidate

Helene Gayle, president and CEO of CARE

Jude Kelly, artistic director, Southbank centre

Jutta Allmendinger, president of the German social science institute, Wissenschaftszentrum

Karen Kornbluh, former US ambassador to OECD, senior fellow at Council on Foreign Relations

Karen Ruimy, performer, author

Lady Gaga, singer-songwriter

Lauren Bush Lauren, founder and CEO of FEED

Mabel van Oranje, initiator and chair, Girls Not Brides: The Global Partnership to End Child Marriage

Dr Maria Furtwängler, actor and physician, Germany

Marian Salzman, CEO of Havas PR

Mariella Frostrup, journalist, co-founder of GREAT Initiative

Meryl Streep, actor

Michele Sullivan, president of the Caterpillar Foundation, director of Corporate Social Innovation

Mimi Alemayehou, development finance executive

Monica Musonda, CEO and founder of Java Foods (Zambia)

Mpule Kwelagobe, activist and former Miss Universe

Naisula Lesuuda, senator, Kenya

Rita Wilson, actor, producer

Rosamund Pike, actor

Sabine Christiansen, German TV journalist, Unicef ambassador

Sarah Silverman, comedian, actor, activist

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook

Sheryl WuDunn, New York banker and author

Susan Shabangu, minister of women’s affairs, South Africa

Yvonne Chaka Chaka, president of the Princess of Africa Foundation, activist, singer