Women's Crossroads

I always find it interesting to look at the list of “Most Popular” articles in The New York Times online edition—it’s a little window into the preoccupations of the target audience of The Times (educated, upper class, privileged).

For several days now, Number One on the list has been the article “Modern Love: What Shamu Taught Me About A Happy Marriage,” Amy Sutherland’s account of how, using techniques she learned at a facility for training wild animals, she overcame ennui and annoyance in her marriage, and trained her husband to behave better.

“The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers,” Sutherland says, “is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don't. After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.

“Back in Maine, I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I'd kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller.

“I was using what trainers call "approximations," rewarding the small steps toward learning a whole new behavior. You can't expect a baboon to learn to flip on command in one session, just as you can't expect an American husband to begin regularly picking up his dirty socks by praising him once for picking up a single sock. With the baboon you first reward a hop, then a bigger hop, then an even bigger hop. With Scott the husband, I began to praise every small act every time: if he drove just a mile an hour slower, tossed one pair of shorts into the hamper, or was on time for anything.”

Now, I admit that I read this article with interest, and saved it in my Times file so I could refer back to it if needed. Sure, the American wife needs all the advice she can get, and positive feedback seems like a good idea, if nothing terribly novel.

But it just astonishes me that with all that’s going on in the world, Sutherland’s article is the most popular article the Times has printed in the last four days!

It must be because all of us privileged New York Times readers prefer not to think about all the real news that’s been going on these last few days. Who would want to confront the re-ignition of the Israeli-Palestinian war, or the grim statistics coming out of Iraq, or the continued inaction of the world community in the face of genocide in northern Africa? Who would want to contemplate global warming, or pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables, or the accelerating extinction of species on this planet?

The temptation to escape, especially for those of us comfortable enough to be able to do so, is always present. But I stubbornly persist in believing that it’s still not too late to turn this civilization around—that all it takes is sufficient will, and human beings can reverse the tide of destruction we’ve started.

In Oakland last week, I met an inspiring woman who has refused the path of escapism and apathy, and is working hard to improve life for women on this planet—not by “training” their husbands one by one, but by mounting an aggressive campaign to make family planning accessible to everyone.

Jane Roberts, a retired tennis coach and French teacher, read in the news one morning in 2002 that the Bush Administration had reneged on its commitment to contribute $34 million to the UNFPA, the population fund at the United Nations. Most of us, reading that, would have muttered a quiet curse and gone on to the next story.

Not Jane Roberts. Working with Lois Abraham, she launched a campaign called “The 34 Million Friends of UNFPA,” which is pledged to raise $34 million from Americans, $1 at a time.

“I knew I had to do something when the decision came down from Secretary of State Colin Powell on July 22, 2002,” Jane recalls in her book 34 Million Friends of the Women of the World. “A letter to my Congressman wasn’t enough. A letter to the editor wasn’t enough either. A brainstorm came to me at 3 a.m. as I lay awake, anger simmering in my brain. Why not, I said to myself, ask 34 million of my fellow Americans who appreciate their contraceptive choices and doctors in the delivery room, to chip in a dollar?”

The UNFPA was initially simply bemused by the idea, but agreed to allow Jane and Lois to circulate a letter on the web calling for donations. Stirling Scruggs, former director of the Information, Executive Board and Resource Mobilization division of UNFPA, recalled that “some in UNFPA were doubtful about such a grassroots movement. They thought it would last a few weeks, and that the two women would tire and it would end quickly. That is until bags of mail started piling up at UNFPA’s mailroom.”

Within months, the campaign reached its first $150,000, most of it coming in cash, in small bills. Now at the four-year mark, Jane Roberts and Lois Abraham have raised over $3 million for UNFPA, and the work goes on.

When I had dinner with Jane in Oakland, both of us exhausted after two days of intense participation at the National Women’s Studies Association conference, we talked about our mutual passion for improving the conditions for the women of the world, especially those women who have the least, in terms of education, health care, and opportunities for advancement. My admiration for her grew as we talked.

This is a woman in her sixties, who could be spending her time reading novels by the pool, but instead has chosen to trot around the country and around the world trying to galvanize others to take action to give women more control over their reproductive health, and to combat violence against women, female genital mutilation, rape as a weapon of war, early marriage, obstetric fistula, and other grave problems that women face today.

It has been proven that as women’s education and social standing goes up, fertility goes down. Women who are able to exert control over their reproductive health almost always want to do so—the grim statistic, quoted by Jane Roberts in her book, that around the world 40 women per minute seek unsafe abortions, speaks volumes.

“The fact that clandestine abortions are rampant shows utter contempt for the lives and full humanity of the female sex,” says Roberts. The UNFPA does not fund abortions, but it does fund reproductive health care and contraception all over the world.

Maybe we can’t do anything today about ending the violence in the Middle East, or stopping the genocide in Darfur. But there is something we can do for the women of the world. We can become one of their 34 million friends by contributing to the 34 Million Friends Campaign. Surely we can all spare $1?