“None of us are equal, until all of us are equal.”
That’s the main message in a new video by ONE to draw attention to the sexism women in poverty face. While there’s a lot to fight for in our own lives (like anti-reproductive rights laws and sexual assault prevention to name a few), women around the world, and even in the U.S., face those struggles — and more.
ONE, an organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty, released this as part of their “Poverty is Sexist” campaign. The video features women and girls of all different backgrounds, countries and ethnicities facing their version of everyday sexism and uses one word to drive the point home: “No.”
"We wanted this piece to make sense to women everywhere, no matter where they live or what language they speak," Meagan Bond, ONE's creative director, told Teen Vogue. "We realized that ‘no’ is something that women hear universally and at every age, and wanted to lean into the power of collective experiences women share."
One teenager sees a photo on social media with “no” over belly fat, then looks at her own. A woman attempts to speak up at a meeting surrounded by men, but is told “no,” by her boss. A young girl in a third world country is handed off by her mother for an arranged marriage, and told “no” when she attempts to turn away.
“While the video does depict hot-topic issues like gender roles and the treatment of women in the workplace, we want this video to be a clear message that issues like child marriage and girls’ access to education MUST be included in the call for gender equality,” ONE wrote on their blog.
While conditions for women are improving, many women in countries like sub-Saharan Africa are still left behind. Maternal deaths declined worldwide by 45 percent, but in poor regions like Africa, only half of women get the care they need. Girls are still married before they turn 18 and 7% less likely to finish school, according to ONE.
"We’re talking to women – and men – around the world who are passionate about gender equality but might not yet have grasped the link in many places between poverty and gender, or understood that the struggles of women in the developing world are inextricably linked to their own," she said.
They launched the initiative three years agree to draw attention to these issues and even celebrities like Lady Gaga and Blake Lively spoke out last spring about the challenges women and girls face every single day.
As the video makes clear, not all of us have reached equality, so let’s get to work.
Related: Republican Men View Gender Inequality WAY Differently Than the Rest of America
