The cover story in this week's New York Times Magazine is a great article about the under-reported plight of women around the globe. If you don't have the stamina to read the article, please consider viewing the beautiful pictorial narrated by the author of the piece.
As the authors mention, this isn't a story about what we in this country often think of when we talk about women's rights -- unequal pay, Title IX violations, sexual harrassment. This is a story about far graver injustices, primarily in developing nations -- sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings, mass rape. The vast majority of us are so far removed from these places and these people that they are merely stories told to us by the media, if the media deems it newsworthy.
The societies in which these atrocities are committed tend to be poor, male-dominated, in some cases ravaged by war. And the root of all the evil appears to be poor education and inadequate health care for girls. Without education and good health, women in these places are more easily victimized from birth through adulthood.
The article makes several interesting points. The poorest families in the world tend to spend 10 times as much of their money on alcohol, prostitution, candy, sugary drinks and lavish feasts as they do on educating their children. When times are good, men tend to spend more money on alcohol and tobacco, whereas women spend their cash on food for the family. "When women command greater power, child health and nutrition improves," says Esther Duflo, and economist at MIT.
China makes a surprising example. Most of us know about the one-child policy and the tendency for families to prefer male children to the point of aborting daughters before they are born or exposing them to the elements after birth. The result is that there are now 107 males for every 100 females in China. In the 1990s, they estimate up to 80% of assembly line workers in coastal China were women, working long hours in the so-called "sweat shops" for seemingly little pay.
The surprising part of that last fact is that the authors suggest that working in those sweat shops actually empowered women by turning them into contributors of the national economy and allowing them some financial independence. The skills they acquired along with the money has elevated their status in society to some extent, though certainly the inequality and discrimination persist.
India is painted in a far worse light in the article. The gender gap is 108:100, worse than China. People, and especially women, are forced into labor of all sorts, include the sex trade. Bride burnings for inadequate dowry occur in India at a rate of about one every two hours.
Microfinance organizations that make small loans to start small businesses are increasingly targeting women as clients because that's where they get the most bang for the buck. It's becoming increasingly clear, according to the authors of the article, that empowering women to be productive members of the economy is an effective strategy in the war against poverty and extremism.
I was so moved by this article that Janelle and I have decided to make one of these microfinance organizations our first official charity donation. Because Janelle has worked in a microfinance company in the past, she does have opinions and resources to help us decide where to put our money. Of course, recommendations are always welcome. This is a global problem that needs more attention in the media, and I think contributing to the solution in whatever small way I can is the least that I can do.
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