Candidate name: Jae’lle Bourne

Group Members: Hope Moonilal

Saharan Taylor
Leah Sahadeo
Emily Jaggernauth
Candidate Number:160025
School: Holy Faith Convent Couva
Centre Number:160025
Territory: Trinidad
Year of Exam: 2021
Teacher: Khanifa Barrington
Subject: English
Topic: Women Empowerment
 Table of Contents

Plan of Investigation………………………………………………..1
Stimuli 1……………………………………………………………..2
Stimuli 2……………………………………………………………..5
Stimuli 3……………………………………………………………..6
Reflection 1………………………………………………………….8
Reflection 2………………………………………………………….9
Reflection 3…………………………………………………………10
 Acknowledgements

Firstly, I would like to thank God for helping me through this School Based Assessment process

successfully. Also, I would like to thank my teacher, who used all the resources possible to help

me and my fellow members. Concludingly I would like to thank my group members for their

friendly, knowledgeable and funny attitude throughout this process.

 Plan of Investigation

My group chose Women Empowerment, and my subtopic is “Lack of Women in Positions of

Power”. It was chosen because women are seen as lesser in the political world. I expect to

benefit by learning a new sense of vocabulary and proper speech. I will be using a speech, poster

and one article, sourced from the internet. In my SBA, I expect to develop effective formation of

words and proper usage of paragraphing and transitional words. My English Language skills will

be used with incorporations of argumentative, persuasive, facts, opinions and informative

discourse in my oral presentation and reflections.

 Stimuli Piece 1

‘Women in Politics by Julia Fursova’

How to change the system

To empower women for political action,

While we deal with systemic oppression

Disguised under the “myth of equality”?

“So many people still ask why

We call for more women in politics”,

Women are allowed to be in this room,

What else do you want?

We are being nice to ‘Mary’.

‘Mary’ is white, cis-, middle-class politician,

Which doesn’t make her a ‘bad person’,

Only a privileged one.

What is intersectionality?

Women who are other than ‘Mary’ –

Women of colour, trans, Indigenous,

queer, differently able –

To change the system

We need different women around the table.

We are navigating uncertainty

 Of shifting political climate,

Changing election dates,

We deal with locally entrenched power,

aka ‘the old boys club’.

We encounter resistance

of political parties and structures

to the inclusion of women.

Gender equity is women’s work –

Under-resourced, underpaid or unpaid.

We are changing the system

on a shoestring budget

designed for short-term projects.

“It is doubtful that we will

achieve the expected results in 3 years”

“Five years would have made more

possible to make changes”.

Systems change work is dangerous.

It is a risky endeavor

to confront ‘the old boys club’,

Especially in the contexts where

“Everyone knows everyone”.

“It puts entire people’s livelihoods at risk.”

“We sometimes walk on eggshells”.

 Yet we are determined.

We come together united

Around shared goals and values,

Unlearning competition

And advancing collaboration,

Navigating our differences

Through the lens of equity,

Applying intersectional feminist framework

To ourselves and our partnerships.

We need long-term, flexible funding

that enables us to respond to emerging needs,

bridge geographical distance,

build each other’s capacity,

bring in new partners,

who are other than ‘Mary’,

and learn together.

This is how we can change the system

to empower women for political action.

 Stimuli 2

Poster created by ZenPop. Illustrating a picture of Hillary Clinton who was in a political position

of power. Hillary's historic campaign as the first female nominee of a major political party, also

saw her win the popular vote by almost three million votes. The poster is constructed of many

worldly recognized American women (political and non-political) that has show women

empowerment.
 Stimuli 3

Why so few women hold positions of power? By Northwestern

A possible mechanism for bettering the ratio of female-to-male leaders involves the thorny topic

of quotas. Beaman described several studies of social experiments she has led, looking

specifically at how quotas might have helped increased the number of women in positions of

power.

In India, a constitutional amendment requires that one-third of village council president positions

be randomly reserved for women. In the short term, Beaman discovered that quotas led to more

women being elected.

She also finds long-run impacts: In villages that had a woman leader for more than a decade,

voters tended to be less prejudiced about woman leaders overall. In one experiment, Beaman had

men and women recite the same political speech word for word, and then asked villagers who

listened to it about the speaker’s effectiveness. In places that had not had a woman leader,

villagers were likely to say the female speaker was ineffective when compared with the male

speaker. However, in those that had a woman leader, “that prejudice vanishes,” Beaman

explained.

In places where quotas had been in effect for 10 years, women were much more likely to run for

election and more likely to win their races than in places that had only had woman politicians for

a short time, or not at all.

But perhaps one of the most important long-term effects of the quota system was that in villages

where a woman had led for at least 10 years, teenage girls, and their parents, were more likely to
hold higher aspirations for their education and their careers than were girls in places that never

had a female leader.

“By influencing aspirations, these woman leaders might be able to have a big influence beyond

just their direct policies, by serving as role models for future generations of girls,” Beaman said.

Given the U.S. political climate, Beaman doubts whether quotas would ever be possible here, but

“there’s a lot that we can learn from India’s experience, even in the U.S.,” she said.

Njoki Kamau of Northwestern University’s Women’s Center closed out the Q&A portion of the

event by asking a question on everyone’s mind: Will Hillary Clinton become the United States’

first female president?

While both Eagly and Karpowitz noted that the answer to this question mainly depends on who

she might face if nominated, Eagly remarked that Clinton has already been responding to the

backlash against woman leaders by conveying both strength and warmth at the same time. “I

think she is very aware,” she said.

 Reflection 1

The speech entitled ‘Women in Political Action’ by Julia Fursova is about the oppression of

women in politics and tools needed to change this. The line that stood out was ‘To change the

system we need different women around the table’. This made me question why women are

perceived as weak in society?

The poster ‘Historic Women: Hilary Clinton’ by Zenpop is about women who have made

powerful footprints in politics. The information is presented in an artistic form and I wondered

how hard these women had to work for their position?

‘Why do so few women hold positions of Power’ is an article about the quota system and its

ability to empower women for positions of power. A question that arose is; why said system can

be used in other cultures? A revelation to the previous question is the quota system may not work

in a systematically white society.

 Reflection 2

In the poem, diction of formal language is used. It is used to emphasize the need for differences

in physical appearance in politics. It is written in third person and the speaker's voice is indirect.

The mood being expressed is irritated and annoyed when the speaker stated” What else do you

want? We are being nice to Mary” and such is being reflected in the inconsistent length of lines.

The poster is used to inform about the women who have made a political impact through visually

descriptive imagery as the words are formed to conclude a picture of Hillary Clinton who was

previously an important woman in politics.

In the article there is information presented as to why women in India are not in politics and

what can be done to change that. It is a subjective piece that concludes on a “Perhaps” showing

an opinion from the author.

 Reflection 3

This SBA has helped me to enhance my collaboration skills as working in a group gave me a

deeper understanding of collective responsibility. For me the most meaningful aspect was our

willingness to help better each other’s ideas either by helping search for the suitable artefact or

aiding in grammar issues or sentence phrasing. This has helped me to communicate more

actively in group discussions and exercise more patience when working in pairs.

Consequently, I strengthened my communication skills as we had to come together on many

different occasions and verbally communicate what our problems were and how to solve them as

a group.

Additionally, I became better as at handling responsibility, and analyzing pieces critically as they

were given to me. I express opinions more confidently when talking to others and i will continue

to use and reflect on this knowledge as I continue my academic life.