He is really the go-to person on AIDS in Africa. He gets it. He calls it misogyny.

Did you see the quote in Lewis’ interview from a Republican–who says he went to Africa a Republican (to see Lewis’ work) and returned a radical feminist. .

“I have spent the last four years watching people die”
http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/massey/massey2005.html

I hope Hillary Clinton can move the world community to focus on this problem. We need to shame those who treat women like animals. We shamed the world community to denounce apartheid in South Africa. Why can’t we do the same on the slavery and egregious human rights violations done to women across the planet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Johnson-Sirleaf

Gender equality is written into the South African constitution, and 45 African nations have signed on to the Maputo Protocol, which guarantees women a wide range of human rights. Things are moving slowly…. but at least there is growing consensus about the goal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo_Protocol

There are some great organizations working on helping African women secure their rights, starting with the UN (UNFPA, UNIFEM) and WHO, and also some you wouldn’t expect, like the World Bank. My personal favorites are the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) and UNFPA.

There is a strange silence about feminism in America. It seems like it has become taboo to talk about gender inequality and the status of women. In other countries this is not the case. Here, its just – silence.

A bit from an interview. I just thought, to look at his website, maybe get an idea where to go with your efforts. On his website see “What we do” where he talks about women, and grandmothers. He also recently spoke out strongly against the people (I didn’t get the names) who are thwarting the distribution of condoms. He said they are responsible for thousands of deaths.I was only half listening. Was he talking about Rick Warren? I didn’t hear it all.

HOW DO WOMEN LIVE IN AFRICA? WHAT DO THEY LACK?

You know, it’s like a – it’s like an indictment of the continent, and I don’t know how else to deal with it. The absence of autonomy, the absence of equality, the absence of rights in every single field. It’s not just sexual violence, it’s not just poverty. It’s not just the absence of property rights or inheritance rights.

It’s also no economic empowerment, no political representation to speak of, except in a little country like Rwanda. But almost everywhere on the continent, the women are so depreciated in terms of their persona, their status, their beings.

And of course, when you have no gender equality in sexual terms is where it’s felt in the presence of the virus because then gender inequality is death for women. And it’s so painful, it is actually the one part of the last 5 1/2 years which is almost inexplicable to me because it’s the one part where we haven’t made progress.

We’ve made some progress on treatment and some modest progress on resources and some progress for children and, and maybe even for orphans, although it’s not immediately evident, but you sense it’s coming.

But around women, it is as though time stands still. You just can’t wrench the continent out of the predatory male sense of sexual entitlement and the tremendously grotesque vulnerability of the women, so disproportionate, so many more women infected than men are infected, and dying in such great numbers.

It’s not just heartbreaking, it’s almost beyond the capacity of the mind to absorb, and certainly visually it’s overwhelming. And I don’t understand what it will take, in a way. I don’t understand how you break through the gender inequality

This is a funny aside, but it’s so interesting. The head of the World Food Program, James Morris, who comes from Indianapolis, is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican. And he has on his website now, from a speech he recently made, that he left the United States a moderate Republican and he returns a radical feminist.

And as odd as that may seem, it captures it perfectly because you can’t be in Africa and see what’s happening to women without being wrenched to your very viscera, and so angry about the craziness of it all and the inability to treat the women, to test the women, to give women rights, to let them have the economic and social empowerment to govern their own lives.

And the indifference of the international community is startling. The absolute contempt of African governments is just, just unconscionable. It’s going to be a long, hard struggle. My god, it’s going to be a long, hard struggle.