Anyone looking for vivid lessons on women’s lives – from the impact of the beauty culture to wage inequalities to domestic violence – will find them in The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World (Penguin Books, 2009) by Professor and Chair of Global Studies Joni Seager.
Now in its fourth edition, the atlas uses eye-catching maps to present otherwise dry data. Previous iterations earned Outstanding Reference Book honors from the American Library Association and won the Chicago Geographical Society's Publications Award.
“Mapping is a powerful tool, because it makes information more accessible to people who are not specialists,” explains Seager. “Patterns, or the lack of patterns, are revealed on maps that would never be apparent in statistical tables or even in narratives.”
For example, one world map uses four colors to portray the average age at which women marry. In countries shown in red, the average is 20 years or younger. The United States is among the “orange” nations, where women tend to marry at age 26 or older.
Another map, with all countries rendered in purple, illustrates the troubling universality of domestic violence. Bright green boxes show the percentage of women who reported recent physical abuse by a male intimate; numbers range from 6 percent (Togo) to 80 percent (Pakistan).
Expanding Horizons
Seager joined the Bentley faculty in September 2009, with experience that includes teaching and chairing the Geography Department at Hunter College, CUNY and serving as dean of environmental studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. She earned a BA at the University of Toronto, and MA and PhD degrees at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.
“It’s a rare pleasure to see a freestanding Global Studies Department,” she says of the move to Bentley, where her courses aim to broaden students’ perspectives. “These days, if you don’t take a global view in business, you’re behind the curve. That’s true whether you work at a small firm in Iowa or a multinational corporation.”
The professor had to expand her own horizons for the first edition of the women’s atlas, co-authored with Annie Olson and issued in 1986.
“If we had relied solely on established datasets, such as those maintained by the United Nations, the book would have had only about five maps,” Seager notes. “We decided instead to start with what we knew about women’s lived experience.”
Their list quickly grew to more than 100 topics, including marriage and divorce, seats of power, and sex trafficking. The data come from wide-ranging global sources such as reports by the Pew Foundation, International Olympic Committee, and U.S. Department of Justice.
A World of Challenges
Having mapped women’s lives from many angles, Seager considers the thorniest challenges to be violence, the threat of violence, and economic inequalities. As she puts it: “The threat of violence is used to police women everywhere.”
Still, the professor sees considerable progress over the past 20 years – gains reflected in the data, but more important, in women's lives.
“Globally, the most notable good news is a dramatic increase in girls’ education rates,” she says. “In the USA, the women's movement has won significant progress in equal employment legislation, in laws and a cultural shift to recognize marital rape, and in the treatment of women who have experienced violence and sexual assault. But there's a long way to go.”
Africa has been a recent destination for the professor herself. In late 2009, she was tapped by the Mozambique government to consult on the emerging topic of gender and climate change. Her work with the country’s Environmental Ministry centers on developing a national strategy to address the relevant issues.
“Most environmental things -- including climate change -- happen in the physical realm, but are actually rooted in social issues. That is, they are caused or solved by social efforts, have impact on social efforts, or prompt policies and actions,” explains Seager. “And once you start talking about social arrangements, there is always a gendered dimension.”
She credits Mozambique for “progressive thinking” on the issue. “Very few governments have developed policy vehicles on gender and environment, although more are likely to do so in the next few years.”