Equality

WHAT NOW?

Illustration by Manon Libine

A QUALITY WEEK

Hannah Besson and Maddie Johns

Equality Week, a student-led project that aims to challenge and educate our community on a variety of issues related to diversity and inclusion, is coming to a close today. Over the last five days, our school was taken over by a barrage of debates, songs, exhibitions, and lectures, that offered perspectives on topics such as genocide, racism, unemployment, sectarian violence, or gender discrimination. The project team, led by six Year 12 students with the support of a group from Year 11, as well as Ms Moran, Ms May and Mr Ivett, had been working for months to prepare all the activities, contact external guests, and drum up participation. The week kicked off on Monday with talks by Billy McCurrie, who was incarcerated for a murder he committed during the Irish Troubles. Mr McCurrie, who could not be physically present as his flight got cancelled, spoke via Skype on his own journey of acceptance and reconciliation, and his work on prevention of extremist violence. Monday evening saw a gathering of parents, alumni, teachers and students to listen to Kristian Skeie, a Norwegian photojournalist who has covered the efforts to recover from genocide in places such as Bosnia, Rwanda and Iraq. Kristian, originally trained in the UK, moved to Switzerland in 2012, with the idea to work with the Olympic movement or corporate photography. His involvement with a number of NGOs led to his work on a series of documentary projects, and from then sprung his connection to war zones and areas after genocide. He says that his work is about “relationship building” with the people he photographs: “People ask how do I photograph people I don’t know, but I do know them.” Of the areas he has visited, his favourite is “Rwanda, a tremendously beautiful country that often reminds me of Switzerland, and then there was the awful thing that happened there”; the main subject for his photographs there “experienced literally hell.” Currently a professor at Webster University in Geneva, Kristian believes “it is super important to educate and remind ourselves of what is going on all the time. There was a survey in which a third of the student population in America could not picture who Hitler was, what the Holocaust was, or politically what was going on around the world; that’s kind of scary.” One of the main events of the week was the performance on Monday evening of “Borderline”, a satire of the refugee camp in Calais. The play, performed by a mixture of European and refugee actors, kept swinging between humour and confrontation, and ended with the provocative question “What now?” Sophie Besse, founder of PSYCHEdelight and director of the production, stated that she wants to “use theater as a tool to help depression but to also shine a light on certain social issues”. Having worked as a volunteer in the Calais jungle, she “noticed a very different image of refugees than the one that is usually portrayed in the media, and wanted to show the other side” - their extreme resilience in difficult circumstances. Commenting on the tone of the performance, Sophie pointed out that she was “initially concerned where the boundaries are”, but that the refugee performers “weirdly enough, were the ones who wanted to push it further.” These actors want to “shine on stage and to share their message but in a way that would make them look good or fun or attractive, rather than generate pity or tears”; she quotes one of her company members saying “I have had enough sadness; making people laugh makes me feel better.” The other main event of the week was ISL TalX, an evening of lectures delivered by a combination of ISL students and external guests. The keynote speaker was Bisi Alimi, a Nigerian gay rights activist who challenged the audience to become “angelic troublemakers”. When asked to describe the most difficult aspects of fleeing Nigeria and arriving in the UK, Bisi mentioned that “the most challenging thing” for him “was becoming black” because before he “left Nigeria [he] wasn’t black”. At first he felt that thought maybe he “made a mistake” because he felt that he had developed an understanding of how to fight homophobia in Nigeria, “but nobody prepared [him] on how to fight racism.” Bisi also clarified that he doesn’t regret his decision to come out and in turn moving to the UK because “It was the right thing to do because if [he] had not left, [he] might have been killed and would have never had this opportunity.” He also shed light on the stark differences between being a gay man in Nigeria and being a gay man in the UK. Of course, in the UK there is still discrimination against the LGBTQ community however gay marriage is legal. In contrast, in Nigeria, “if you get married you go to jail for 14 years, and if you witness the wedding you go to jail for 10 years.” Additionally, he revealed that in Nigeria “there is a societal perception of lesbian and gay people; 90% of Nigerians believe that nobody is born gay and 83% of Nigerians support the law that puts gay people in jail. So, expressing yourself is very difficult.” Bisi also wanted to offer his advice for young LGBT people: “If you are reading this and you are an LGBT person, I want you to know that it’s okay. You love differently, it does not mean that you are different, and no one has a right to determine whether you are normal or abnormal. The people that love you don’t care, and the people who care are not your friends.”

LEADING BY EXAMPLE?

Khwaish Vohra wants to balance the scale

At ISL, we promote a variety of ideals, such as fairness, kindness and equality.

Does the fact that we are an international and diverse community exempt us from the influence of world issues? Unfortunately, the answer is no. One of the most prominent examples is the gender imbalance that is present in our leadership team here at ISL.

If we look at gender imbalance through a global lens, we see that almost 4 in 10 businesses in G7 countries have no women in senior leadership positions and globally, only 24% of women hold a senior business position, according to Forbes. Currently our secondary leadership team consists of six members, of which only one is female. So, even though we just dedicated a full week to equality, does ISL really practice what it preaches?

When talking to Ms. May about this issue, I asked her why she thought gender imbalance continues to thrive on as a global, and perhaps local, issue. She answered, “There is definitely bias in the world. If we are talking more broadly, beyond ISL, you look at Donald Trump and his ability to make lewd comments about sexually assaulting women and remain president of the free world. We clearly have a collective problem.” It is interesting to think of gender imbalance being a result of bias or sexism in the world. Of course, put on paper, it seems obvious, but the link is not always as evident. Ms. May, further added, “Maybe gender imbalance in leadership is about traditional roles of men and women more broadly.”

What are the traditional roles of men and women in our world? Upon researching the phrase, you will find that there is no such thing. The roles each gender has played in society have been versatile throughout history, constantly adapting to the needs of society. For example, many Native American systems were matriarchal, meaning women were considered as the leaders of the tribes. In fact, the idea that women are the child rearers and dependent on their husbands, the providers, is new and ironically, outdated in philosophy. Yet, these ‘traditional gender roles’ seem to affect us quite profoundly. Mr. Cairns described one of the consequences in our interview: “Research shows that men are more willing to put themselves forward for positions of authority versus women. That is a societal and a fundamental problem. Imagine if you have 30 people putting themselves forward for a job and only five of them are women. Within the 25 men, you have much greater variation and that is just because people are people. The fact is women end up less likely in getting the job just because of lower representation.” He added, “Research seems to suggest, anecdotally, that men tend to think that they are more competent even when they are not and women think they are not competent, even when they are.” When asked about what we need to do as a school to shift the imbalance present in our leadership team or the world in general, he told me a story about a friend. This friend talked about how someone said something to her which she found quite offensive as a woman but did not say anything against it. He went on to say, “I think if you let things pass, things will never change. In a casual context, I think you have to be brave enough to say, ‘I am sorry, I’m not happy with you talking about women in that way.’” The thing about tackling gender imbalance in leadership, or sexism as a whole, is that it is an intricate and delicate issue, with many opinions and prejudices deeply intertwined with one another. There is not just one answer, or as Mr. Cairns put it, “a button, which we can press to solve this issue” It cannot be that one of us comes up with a set of rules that everyone has to follow, and like magic, the problem is eliminated. The encouraging aspect is that ISL is aware and willing to change and progressively move forward. In fact, one of the three points the administration plans to review in order to better our school addresses this very particular issue. Gender imbalance is the direct consequence of the notion of traditional gender roles, which is the direct consequence of sexism and discrimination. ISL sits amidst all the injustice and inequality present in our world, and it would be naïve to think that it could be immune to all of it. The change needs to start within us. As an intelligent community, we need to be conscious of the problem and challenge the established mindset in a way that allows people to change their inner values so that we may tackle a problem as deeply rooted in society as sexism.

Illustration by Jade Tan