Gender Equality: Too Close To Home
Other cultures have a lot to teach us all, but what we often learn is that “they” are “us.” In Ireland, Trocáire, the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church, runs an annual Lenten ad campaign, which asks for more than just alms: it asks for contributions for movements that seek justice. To get the word out, they use public TV information spots, poster campaigns and public information brochures. Previous campaigns sought to bring attention to apartheid in South Africa, the liberation of child soldiers, and the plight of slave laborers around the world, all of which were supported by the Irish government (the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland [BCI]) and the church.
But this year’s campaign was just too much, and the BCI decreed that it must be removed from its commercial airwaves because it was too “political.” Hmm.
The campaign advertisement this year, according to the National Catholic Reporter, “features an unending grid of diapered babies, black and white, all infants, all charming and bright-eyed and lively. Finally the voice-over says, ‘ These children will have less education, live in more poverty, contract more disease, suffer more violence, face more disadvantage than if they had malaria or HIV. They will never even be given a chance. Why? Because they’re female.’ ”
Gender equality is too political. Apartheid, child soldiers and slave laborers are not. Why? Could it be just too close to home?
