Your Name and Title:
Miss Bonnie Chiu (Director and Co-Founder of Lensational Limited)
School or Organization Name:
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) or Lensational Limited
Co-Presenter Name(s):
Miss Patricia Shyr (Marketing Manager of Lensational Limited)
Area of the World from Which You Will Present:
London
Language in Which You Will Present:
English
Target Audience(s):
People who are interested in social enterprises and gender issues
Short Session Description (one line):
A global social enterprise empowering underprivileged women through photography to overcome structural constraints of women empowerment
Full Session Description (as long as you would like):
Equitable development and equal opportunities for women have been a long time embodiment in the history of human civilization. Amidst global efforts in women empowerment and gender equality, women in the world still face massive challenges to access quality education, secure economic independence and make their own decisions freely. In an effort to address the issue of women empowerment, Lensational therefore proposes photography as an innovative approach to tackle gender development disparity and stereotypes towards women in the developing countries.
Exclusions from non-agricultural paid work plus wage differentials and discrimination in labor market have placed women in a disadvantaged position with regards to financial security. Photography as a means of gaining extra income serves as a flexible method to cope with the outcome of exclusion such as economic dependence.
For women engaging in paid work, their contribution and commitment to care work are often undervalued. Such undervaluation due to social stereotypical expectations to gender roles would impart emotional burden to women and could further lead to social isolation. Photography, as a therapeutic tool, aids women in psychological health and self-efficacy.
Given the rampant stereotypes of the ‘Third World women’, women from the global South are perpetuated as subordinated. Visualizing the reality with photographs by highlighting the diversity of women’s lives, such stereotype is to be challenged and subversion of gender relations is in probability.
Notably, not only are the voices of the poverty-stricken, usually uneducated, women oftentimes not heard at a local, regional and global level, even if they are heard, their voices are often represented by other people. Teaching women photography provides a meaningful approach to engage women themselves in transnational feminism, hence build networks of trust intra-nationally and inter-nationally, and address structural constraints to gender justice by scaling out collective action.
In sum, based on theoretical literatures and empirical analysis, we would like to present ample evidence to inform the wider post-2015 agenda, and propose innovative strategy to enrich the women empowerment and education practices.
Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session:
http://www.educationpost.com.hk/resources/youth/140401-empowering-women-through-photography
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