During a strong and deeply personal Kapuscinski Development Lecture at the School of Public Policy (SPP) at Central European University (CEU) on May 7, Deepa Narayan challenged her audience to “rethink gender inequality.” Narayan is a development advisor and author who has written extensively on global poverty issues for more than 25 years with the World Bank, UNDP, and civil society.
CEU President and Rector John Shattuck introduced Narayan noting her many accomplishments including being selected as “one of 100 disruptive heroes to bring about changes in large organizations” by Hackers Work in 2013. In his introductory remarks, Tamás Szűcs, head of the European Commission Representation in Hungary, noted that the target date to reach the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was 2015. One of those goals is to promote gender equality and empower women.
Although the European Union and its member states spent €57 billion on development aid in 2013, Szűcs said that more needed to be done to help developing countries. He noted that more than 80 percent of Europeans believe that development aid is important, and said that “tackling poverty” should be a priority for the European Union. Szűcs said that the EU’s support for the Kapuscinski Development Lectures is part of the European Year for Development 2015 initiative. Mehmet Erdogan also welcomed the audience on behalf of the UNDP that organizes the Kapuscinski Development Lectures with the European Commission.
Narayan began her lecture by asking, “Are you a good human being?” She went on to explain that she asked herself the same question in the aftermath of the New Delhi rape in 2012, an event that “took me on a questioning and writing journey that will last a lifetime.” Narayan noted that there had been a strong reaction to this particular rape, but that when molestation and rape take place in private, which is often the case, reactions are not very strong and are even suppressed at times. "We must,” she said, “reconsider what is private."
Narayan urged her audience to also reconsider the issue of gender inequality. “No country in the world – not even Sweden – has achieved gender equality,” she said, noting that “the climate of inequity” is everywhere. Narayan shared compelling quotes from highly educated and accomplished young women in India, and in the United States, who had “learned to become invisible” and did not trust their own voices. “Learned silence and invisibility punctuate women's experiences in the U.S. as well as India,” said Narayan. She observed that better education, health, and income are necessary but not sufficient to achieve gender equality, and that “gender equity is a public good, not a private good." In her remarks, Narayan stressed that our notion of “what is public and what is private” is key to tackling the issue of gender inequality.
Narayan cited research showing that 90 percent of the decisions we make are not rational or deliberate, but are instead triggered by “habits of the mind” and that it is these habits that are responsible for the persistence of gender inequality throughout the world. But, Narayan noted, “Habits can be changed.” Narayan went on to say that what was needed to tackle the issue of gender inequality was a new approach to development policy, a strong alliance between men and women, coalitions that cross borders, and for all of us to “speak up” until we are heard.
Watch a full recording of Narayan's lecture below.
You can also watch a short interview with Narayan.