Panel discusses women’s experiences


(From left to right) Sangita Shresthova, Isabella Carr and Sara Brown discussed global women’s issues at the International Women’s Seminar Monday. (Julia Rosher/Daily Trojan)

Panelists at the Price Women and Allies’ International Women’s Seminar discussed global issues women have continued to face domestically and abroad Monday at the Ronald Tutor Campus Center.

The panel featured Sara Brown, a postdoctoral fellow at the USC Shoah Foundation; Sangita Shresthova, director of research of the Civic Imagination Project@CivicPaths at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism; and Isabella Carr, assistant director of the Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics. PWA member Tanya Shah moderated the discussion.

The panel started off with each speaker introducing herself and telling stories about some of their trips and projects abroad. Shresthova said that when she was a dancer in India, her landlord scolded her when a male teacher drove her home from a performance during the day. The landlord told her that she caused problems by bringing men back to the house. Shresthova said her landlord made assumptions about her because she is half Nepalese.

“That moment kind of drove back home to me how the layers work in different ways, and there’s yet another layer to peel back around assumptions [of] women’s roles,” Shresthova said. “It also was a moment where I was like … I’m going to stand up [for myself] here.” 

Shresthova said that while she understands the importance of being culturally sensitive, she confronted her landlord and moved out that day because she didn’t want to support the landlord’s prejudiced beliefs, even if they were ingrained in his culture. 

The panelists also discussed the main differences they noticed between America and the various countries where they visited and worked. Brown said she realized on a trip to a refugee camp in Tanzania that she has acted with a large amount of privilege and agency compared to women in other parts of the world. 

She said it was difficult to teach ideas of gender equality and independence at a refugee camp where people must follow a strict schedule and rules to get food or leave the premises. 

“How do you go into a refugee camp where someone has to get a pass to even be able to leave the immediate vicinity without risk of being jailed … how do you go in and then talk to them about gender mainstreaming and empowerment and agency?” Brown said. 

Shresthova said that when volunteers and workers complete projects in developing countries, they must consider the local culture and speak with the people they are aiming to help. For one project in Nepal, she said they built water taps in villages so that women didn’t have to walk for hours to get water; however, the women were not happy. 

“When all the male experts left, and I was just chatting with them, they were like, ‘Actually, that time to walk was the time we had to hang out with each other and to speak,’” she said. “So something that would seem like a straightforward technological improvement to their lives was actually disrupting their female community.” 

Carr said that women in America, especially after  #MeToo, are more open to sharing stories of sexual abuse than women in countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina. She said many of the Bosnian women refused to talk about the forcible rapes they endured for years while in captivity.

“[They] were not comfortable, it felt like they weren’t allowed to speak of it, a lot of it because they work in a small community and everyone would know,” Carr said. “Shame was something that came out a lot.” 

Brown said traveling to various countries that oppress women means having to take certain precautions to avoid being sexualized and abused. She said that in Egypt because of negative stereotypes toward Western women, she was instructed to wear a wedding ring and dress conservatively. Otherwise, she was told she would be “inviting men to touch [her].” 

“At the time, I wanted to balk and say, ‘Well, I’ll do whatever I want,’ but at the same time, I was very mindful of the fact that the advice I was being given was advice from an informed source trying to protect me,” Brown said.  

Brown said she and her friends saw a woman at a market in Cairo wearing long shorts with her head uncovered being chased by men who were trying to grab her.

At the event, Sarah Fisher, a graduate student studying public administration, asked how to approach women’s issues differently in someone’s home country versus a country with different customs and cultures. 

Carr said it’s important to focus on solving local issues rather than criticizing international practices. 

“I think it is irresponsible to some degree to not be engaged with your local community and to be engaged with these issues just internationally,” Carr said. “Though I think that obviously you should and can be doing both, but it is a good reminder for me that it’s not always productive for me as a Western woman to go into these other [countries] and be like, ‘This government, how could they do this?’”