Wanted: A Council of Ministers with gender parity

Beyond the afterglow of an election well-organized, in a very large democratic country there are few opportunities for lesser mortals working outside the capital to make their wishes known. I've felt very strongly that I haven't made a serious enough effort to work on this issue. I've let myself feel isolated and alone. After all, what I can achieve alone in Chennai that the power feminist NGOs of Delhi haven't done? 

This afternoon, on an impulse, and urged by a friend, I impulsively created a petition addressed to Narendra Modi asking that he appoint women to half the posts in his Council of Ministers.  As I posted on Facebook:

"Sometimes I really want to do something, and I ask too many people for advice, and finally, I don't do it. Either their misgivings kill my enthusiasm or they make it all too hard to do. Today, I just did something on impulse. I started a petition to demand 50% representation for women in the new Council of Ministers. Me. Just me. Not Prajnya. Not all feminists of India. Me, just by myself, as a citizen. I must say, it feels good and could turn out to be addictive."

It's a simple petition:

Democracy without equality is flawed. Equal representation for all groups is essential and gender parity in your Council of Ministers is an easy first step. This means:

1. Women should make up 50 percent of the members of your Council of Ministers, at every rank. 

1. This means, if you end up with 30 ministers in all (Cabinet, Deputy and MOS), we want to see 50% women in each rank. 
2. 
   
3. Women should be allocated portfolios with no gender stereotyping. 

1. This means, we want to see women in charge of ministries like Defence, External Affairs, Internal Security and Finance, as well. 

Exclude outright those charge-sheeted with sexual and gender-based violence. A related sign of your commitment to gender justice would be to explicitly exclude anyone charged with speaking or behaving in a manner that hurts women and other gender and sexual minorities. 

"Experience" and "competence" are excuses that apply only to the appointment of women. Be as decisive as Indian voters have been, in dismissing those excuses and identifying women to appoint. 

Demonstrate to us that you are committed to equality by appointing a Council of Ministers where there is equal gender representation.

Thanks to like-minded friends, the petition is almost at 60 likes. It needs a hundred to be taken to him. 

All day I have been engaged with people on Twitter and Facebook about this. On Facebook, it's been mostly support; they think like me so they're my friends, maybe?

On Twitter, people have read this as a call for reservations and I have ended up engaging in a number of conversations, that I would like to bring together here in the form of my answers to frequently asked questions:

1. I don't believe in reservations as a permanent solution.
My reply:
a. I am not asking for reservation in this petition. I am just ask Narendra Modi to decide to appoint 50% women.
b. I agree that reservations should not seem like a permanent solution. They are a temporary measure and should be designed as such, along with the structural measures that will make them redundant. But they are a necessary temporary measure in the short-term and intermediate-term to level the playing field in many contexts.

2. I believe in quality or merit.
My reply: So do I, but consider that if quality or merit (defined as education, experience or competence) were a factor in selecting men for the same jobs, the posts would likely go unfilled. It is the nature of democratic politics that experts don't enter politics, and you don't want a Minister to be an expert in one field but able to think from multiple perspectives and imagine solutions that take many things into account.
My question: Why is the question of merit raised only in the context of any kind of affirmative action (statutory or not) or quota?

3. Women do not need help. If you believe in their competence, you must believe it will simply rise and shine.
My reply: Women need help at this moment because even if they are competent, they are invisible. We have learned not to see them even when they are there. A petition like this will at least get all of us asking about the women who have now entered Parliament: Who is this? What has she done? What is she like? She will not be a nameless, faceless member of a 62-person group.
However competent, you cannot hire a person you have learned not to see.
@Septisme suggest gender-blind, merit-based auditions for ministries. I'd go along with that if all women MPs would surely be seriously considered.

I want to thank @Septisme and @StrangelyYours for their serious engagement with this issue this afternoon.

I also read @EchoofIndia's tweets asking if this could be a serious petition given there were so few women in the new Lok Sabha. I think it's a fair question. Of course, this is an impulsive petition and not a long-term plan for social change. But the point of the petition is partly to convey this concern to those who will decide, and partly to get this conversation going among us.

Can we start by answering the question that @manekshaws posed: "Name 10 honest competent women"? Are there ten such women? Of course. Have we bothered to find out who they are? Maybe, maybe not. Professor Kannamma Raman of Bombay University has been studying them for ages, so she knew off-hand, but like most people, I would need to research this more.

So to pre-empt this response to my petition, "There are no women or else we would have definitely appointed more of them," with Professor Raman's guidance and the list generated by PRS Legislative and with the BJP's own website, I drew up this list of women ministers and suggested portfolios for each of them, based on their profession, education and age:

Name	Age	Education	Profession	Possible ministry
Jyoti Dhurve	47	PG	Agriculture/Horticulture	Chemicals and Fertilizers
Savitri Thakur	35		Agriculture/Horticulture	Agriculture
Riti Pathak	36	PG	Agriculture/Horticulture	Water Resources
Khadse Raksha Nikhil	26	Grad	Agriculture/Horticulture	Youth Affairs and Sports
Neelam Sonkar	38	PG	Agriculture/Horticulture	Earth Sciences
Anju Bala	34	Grad	Agriculture/Horticulture	Drinking water supply and sanitation
Deol Hema Malini Dharmendra	65	PhD	Artist	Culture
Smt. Kirron Kher	61	PG	Artist	Tourism
Maadam Poonamben Hematbhai	39	Grad	Business	Commerce and Industry
Jardosh Darshnaben Vikrambhai	NA	Grad	Business	Consumer Affairs
Poonam Mahajan Alias Poonam Vajendla Rao	33	others	Business	Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
Santosh Ahlawat	57	PG	Business	Labour and Employment
Krishna Raj	47	PG	Business	Steel
Smt. Meenakshi Lekhi	46	Grad	Lawyer	Law
Shyal Bhartiben Dhirubhai	50	Grad	Medical Practioner	Health
anoDr.Gavit Heena Vaijaykumar	26	Grad	Medical Practioner	Panchayati Raj
Priyanka Singh Rawat	28	PG	Other	Science and Technology
Rekha Verma	32		Other	Food processing industries
Sadhavi Niranjan Jyoti	47	Plus 2	Other	Parliamentary Affairs
Smt. Bijoya Chakraborty	75	PG	Political or/and Social Service	Urban Development
Rama Devi	65	PG	Political or/and Social Service	Power
Patel Jayshreeben Kanubhai	55		Political or/and Social Service	Family Welfare
Shobha Karandlaje	47	PG	Political or/and Social Service	Social justice and empowerment
Sumitra Mahajan	70	PG	Political or/and Social Service	Speaker/ Human Resource Development
Sushma Swaraj	62	Grad	Political or/and Social Service	External Affairs
Savitri Bai Phule	33	Grad	Political or/and Social Service	Railways
Uma Bharti	55		Political or/and Social Service	Textiles
Maneka Sanjay Gandhi	57	Plus 2	Political or/and Social Service	Home
Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah	64	Plus 2	Political or/and Social Service	Environment and Forests
Kamla Patle	48	Grad	Social work	Rural Development

The Rajya Sabha list, information sourced from the Rajya Sabha site:

Heptulla, Dr. Najma A.	74	Ph.D. Cardiac Anatomy, MSc Zoology; Politician	Health/ Women and Child Development/ Home
Irani, Smt. Smriti Zubin	38	BA, Actor	I&B
Rai, Smt. Kusum	46	Intermediate, Social Worker	Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation
Sood, Smt. Bimla Kashyap	52	BA, Social Worker.	Statistics and Programme Implementation

Of course, these allocations are open to debate. But that is the point of this list, this blogpost and this petition: To get us started seriously thinking about appointing and expecting to see women in important positions--regardless of whether they are already famous or not.

Another friend, @Raja_Sw, suggested on Twitter:

"In the interest of women empowerment, how abt Modi first tries to fill each Cabinet spot with a woman? If none available, open it to men."Surely there are plenty of competent, ambitious women who could hold a Cabinet portfolio? Time for them to be visible, stake their claim."

Surely, there are. It's also up to us to learn to look for them and spot them, because we teach them as children how to be self-effacing and as adolescents, how to second-guess themselves.

Maybe Mr. Modi will take a second to think about this petition, maybe he won't. But I am doing what I can and am happy and proud that I haven't given up without trying this time. And if we can have lots of these conversations along the way, I will have made a small contribution to getting equal representation for women and others in the Indian executive.

Finding the "fun" in fun(d)raising

If you are reading this blog, you probably know that Prajnya is in the middle of its annual fundraising drive. We're trying to raise Rs. 300,000/- towards this year's 16 Days Campaign against Gender Violence.

Trying to raise money is a serious affair. It's serious because money is a key instrument that enables people to do what they wish to do. It's serious because our work is serious. It's serious because one is driven by need and held back by inhibition. It's serious because asking for money is not pleasant. I read somewhere about cold-calling being hard. I think asking the same people again and again is also hard. Asking for money is hard, period. For some of us, who grew up in a time when nice girls did not learn how to talk about or negotiate money, it has taken effort to be able to ask on someone else's behalf, but it's still unpleasant. And while our greatest need is for fundraising help, volunteers will come in and say, looking at their toes, "Just don't ask me to ask people for money."

But money makes the world go 'round, doesn't it? It makes programmes and events possible. It makes it possible to purchase electricity, Internet and water. It makes it possible to anchor talent in work they might believe in passionately but not be able to do for want of a livelihood. So, someone has to raise funds.

It has to be done, but why can't it be fun?

I am sure others have read those (mostly American) comics where children and adolescents sold lemonade and washed cars to raise funds. We're in a context where children do that to feed their families, so let's return to the drawing board. In India, we see a lot of fundraising concerts. The main performers may volunteer their talent, but there are dozens of related costs that cannot be wished away. The return to the organization is minimal, and honestly, does not seem worth the effort. I prefer what we have done; used the art of the performer to try and communicate our message in a different language, and made the experience available to whoever is interested. Events during Joy of Giving Week are an attempt to make giving fun and attractive.

We have had people try to raise funds while doing something that was enjoyable--ideally, for them and for others. So last year, through the year, we had Hollaback! Fridays at Vivanta by Taj Connemara which offered us an outreach opportunity but also got us a small percentage of the proceeds of those evenings. During the fundraising campaign, Neela Thamara from Kurnool sold a special collection of shopping bags and shared the proceeds with us. The year before that PERCH contributed a percentage from the sale of the soundtrack CDs of their production, Miss Meena. 

But how do you make fundraising fun for individuals? What are ways in which a group of friends can undertake fun projects that can also be fundraisers? I turned to the Internet to look for the lists of ideas I was sure were out there. Here are some lists I found, in no particular order:

1. Signup Genius  has this list of 50 Fundraising Ideas.

Some might work in India, like:

• "9. Buy a Meal – Volunteers donate homemade meals to sell." This could work in the large IT/ITES companies where hundreds of young people live away from home and eat in food courts. It could work as a meal served in a home and also as a special 'canteen' on a specific day.

 On the other hand, this list suggests:

• "40. Spa Night – Offer to have female volunteers give manis, pedis and 5 minute massages at a Women’s Night Out for donations." Why female volunteers and why only for women? So, moving on!

2. World Land Trust lists "20 Easy Ways to Fundraise." 

I really like some of these.

"1. Get Active Choose something challenging, maybe walking 5 miles, swimming 100 lengths or even eating 50 doughnuts and get sponsored to do it." This is something that could be adapted, but finding that sponsor is not easy. It would work for bored children being challenged to do something constructive and parents who want to create a good incentive for them.

"6. Go Without  Give up something you would really miss, like sweets, TV or your mobile, & get people to sponsor you for each day that you manage to go without." This would work in our culture. The idea of giving up something as a mannat or after a life-changing event is very much part of our culture. Imagine if someone were to pay you for each day of abstinence? Especially, if they wanted you to give it up in the first place.

"19. Be Creative For those talented artists out there; design a Christmas card or other craft that is easy to make lots of, and sell them to your family & friends." This is also a great idea if you have kids at home. For the price of paper and felt pens, you could have busy kids, a full new set of custom-made stationery that they can sell to friends and family in order to donate the proceeds.

3. This Pinterest board has one idea that caught my eye; it's from another website.

 

This is a "made for India" idea. And yes, we may adapt it for Prajnya. All of us above a certain age hoard glass and plastic bottles and containers and we habitually re-use them. If the team could collect bottles, we could put Prajnya stickers on and people could simply collect their loose change and then donate the collection to us. But you know what, this could also be a project that our friends could start for us! It doesn't need more from us than the logo .jpg? Anyone who has scrimped and saved and gathered their coins for real use will tell you they do quickly add up. 

4. SheKnows has a list of 101 "Fun Ways to Raise Money."

A list that has 101 items is surely a list with an Indian soul. I like several of these ideas; they're meant for those who are running marathons to raise funds for breast cancer, but will work in other contexts.

• "45. Movie Party: Host a movie party at your house. Every time the word "walk" is said in the movie, everyone antes up 1 dollar in a donation bowl. Have pizza donated and ask for a suggested donation at the door." How can this not work? Adapt away--a Tamil film with a donation for every "punch dialogue" or even better, to raise awareness, Rs. 100 for every sexist phrase used in a film in any language. That should quickly raise a few thousand rupees and start some very interesting conversations. "54. Movie/TV Marathon" is similar but a marathon of many films/episodes.
• "46. Theme Dinner: Hold a theme dinner party for at least 10 of your friends; donation 50 dollar a person. Spend just 20 dollar per person on food and you've raised 300 dollar in donations. Better yet, have all of the food donated!" There must be gifted cooks out there and hospitable friends who can make this work.
• "57. Game Night: Host a game night; Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Poker, Bridge, Bingo. Serve donated food and drinks. Ask for a suggested donation at the door." A possibility!
• "74. "Loose Change Day": Ask your child's school to have a "Loose Change Day." Make a flyer
  encouraging each child to bring in loose change from their house to be donated. Encourage the 
  math classes to assist with counting, predicting and rolling the change. This is a great way to  
  involve the entire school. You can hold this event multiple times; every week or every month." This could be a class project or a club project.
• "77. Dress Down Friday: Ask your boss if you can host a "Dress Down Friday." Employees buy a button and get to dress down on an assigned day." Lots of companies already have casual Fridays but maybe that could be tweaked to be a "Wear Red" day or something like that.

Many years ago, when we started Prajnya, I read and re-read the Global Fund for Women's "Women's Fundraising Handbook," entranced in particular by what seemed like simple things one could do within the community (listed on page 8). Take a look at this resource, if you haven't seen it. I think there are several useful things in there--but it is ultimately a resource for serious fund-raising.

And what I now want is a way to highlight the "fun" in fundraising. I want people to feel like they like us and like our work, and fundraising for us would be a fun thing to do. I want whatever they do to also be a meaningful process--so I particularly like the idea of the movie night where they think about sexist language or something like that. The actual amount raised doesn't matter as much to me as that process, but yes, the process of raising funds should not be so expensive as to absorb most of the gains of the exercise.

Do share your ideas! Let's make fundraising a fun adventure rather than an onerous undertaking--because that's when it can become a community effort rather than the weary petitions of anxious non-profit managers.