The horrific rape and murder of a young woman last December in New Delhi sparked conversations and protests in favor of the rights of women globally.
Lipscomb’s international students are in unique positions to examine women’s rights in the United States versus the rights in their homelands.
Samha Siddiqui, a junior from Pakistan, said there is little similarity between what she experiences here as opposed to the experiences of women in her homeland.
“In comparison to the U.S. where almost all women have protected rights, in Pakistan, especially in rural areas, even if they do have rights (and) even if the government does grant them, they are not protected,” she said.
However, Siddiqui pointed out that Pakistan already had its first female prime minister. Benazir Bhutto took office in 1988 and was re-elected in 1993.
Bhutto later was assassinated in 2007 after returning from years of exile to once again seek the nation’s top office.
“Women do have rights that protect their opportunities for getting jobs in all kinds of fields, be it educational institutes, or banking or maybe the political offices,” Siddiqui said.
Pipe Del Basto, a freshman from Colombia, provided a historical background on the escalation of feminism there.
“A movement called feminism has been rising since before World War I, with women asking for the right to vote, the right to participate in politics, to get involved in public life,” Del Basto said.
“When World War I came around, feminism took place, and, well, first of all, you have to understand what feminism is. Feminism is where they wanted the equality between genders. They didn’t want the supremacy of women. They wanted the equality of humans.”
Del Basto’s mother Liliana Del Basto Sabogal has written two books about feminism in Colombia.
The New Delhi rape case hit close to home for Merlyn Thomas, a freshman from India.
“With the recent rape case in New Delhi, it brought on a whole new women’s rights issue to the front,” Thomas said.“There are still the rural areas where women are considered second-class. It used to be, and still is, where doctors don’t tell the parents whether their child is going to be a boy or girl because in some cases, parents do still throw out the baby if it’s a girl.”
In India, women have the potential to rise to positions of high authority. Sonia Gandhi, president of the Indian National Congress, has quickly become one of the most influential women in the world. She is the daughter of Indira Gandhi, who was considered one of the world’s greatest female leaders, and widow of Rajiv Gandhi. Both those prime ministers were assassinated.
While women have advanced to high positions, they haven’t risen to roles of equality in daily life, according to Thomas.
“You still have the role of the man in the woman’s life. You still need the man to protect the woman in some ways. There is still that kind of discrimination, but in the modern text, people are moving away from that slowly and getting more educated,” Thomas said.
“Compared to that, the U.S. is a place where feminism thrives and drives the nation.”