The need for men to back women
Life for women in the developing world is fraught with challenges. To overcome them, they need to continue pushing on their own behalf, but they also need more support from men, according to several speakers at a two-day conference at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Late in the session, the moderator of a panel on politics raised a question that underscored that notion and touched a nerve. “It’s absolutely true that we need men to encourage and support women. How can we do this? How can we get more men at conferences like this?” relayed Asim Ijaz Khwaja from a group of questions collected from the audience. Khwaja, professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, said he was initially surprised and pleased to be a male minority in a hall filled almost entirely with women, and then was dismayed to realize that there were “so few men” participating. The Radcliffe conference...