We ignore women, their needs, their rights, their abilities, at the peril of our future.\u00a0 Their issues are not ‘women’s issues’, they are humanity’s issues. The attempts to marginalize and\/or ignore women may well be major factors in why the world is in such trouble economically and politically.\u00a0 Gayle Tzemach Lemmon in her recent TED talk<\/a> points out that women are marginalized in financing: they get micro-loans rather than entrepreneurial loans.\u00a0 Granted, a micro-loan is better than no loan, but her point is that when a woman creates a business it is viewed as less important and less economically valuable than when a man creates one.\u00a0 Treating women as ‘less than’ negatively affects all aspects of not only their lives, but their children’s lives, and, although the men generally do not recognize it, the lives of men, too.\u00a0 Simple reasoning makes this obvious: women make up half of humanity; or, as in the Chinese proverb that provided the title for Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book Half the Sky<\/em><\/strong>, “Women hold up half the sky.”<\/p>\n As I write this, it is reported in the news that an Afghani women was strangled by her mother-in-law<\/a> because she gave birth to a third daughter and not a son.\u00a0 Her husband also appears to have been involved in her murder.\u00a0 Sons are valued so much more than daughters that failure to give birth to one can lead to a woman’s death.\u00a0 A woman can destroy her family’s honor by being raped.<\/a>\u00a0 The ‘solution’ is for her to marry her rapist, or to be put to death.\u00a0 Being jailed for being raped actually protects the woman from abuse and\/or death.\u00a0 The girl’s hymen is no longer intact, so she no longer has value and has thus dishonored her family. As Kristof and WuDunn state, “The paradox of honor killings is that societies with the most rigid moral codes end up sanctioning behavior that is supremely immoral: murder.” (p. 82)<\/p>\n Young girls are ‘sold’ into marriages where they become virtual slaves.\u00a0 Choosing your own boyfriend can result in your death. <\/a>These examples all involve Afghanis, but any culture that does not value woman equally with men will find ways to demean, mistreat, and abuse women.\u00a0 For instance, a judge in Canada (and he is not alone in this, as similar views have been expressed by judges in the United States) gave a mild (no jail time) sentence to a rapist because he, the judge, felt the woman had asked for it<\/a>. These actions are done to keep women in their place, a place that is well below that of men.<\/p>\n Kristof and WuDunn have written a moving book highlighting the many, many ways women suffer from oppression throughout the world.\u00a0 But they have also written about the women who have fought back against oppression and who are making better lives for themselves and other women.\u00a0 For this to happen, the women must see themselves as valuable and as equal to men.\u00a0 Education is the key.\u00a0 Cultures that oppress women seek to deny girls access to education.\u00a0 But cultures can change.\u00a0 This is something that is too often ignored.\u00a0 Simply because it has ‘always’ been done this way does not mean that it always will be done that way.\u00a0 Holding back girls and women results in holding back the future.\u00a0 Clinging to the culture of the past not only marginalizes women, but marginalizes that culture in an interconnected and globalized world.\u00a0 Cultures can and do change.\u00a0 Education is the first, vital step.<\/p>\n Education gives girls knowledge and with knowledge they begin to realize that they should have a voice in their lives; a say in what happens to them. With knowledge comes the power to fight back against injustice.\u00a0 The first girls and women in their communities to come to this realization are very courageous.\u00a0 They frequently must endure great abuse and hardship.\u00a0 But they and their stories, as told by Kristof and WuDunn, serve as examples to other women and girls that change is possible, and change begins to happen.<\/p>\n Enmeshed with education are the healthcare needs of girls and women.\u00a0 Girls who do manage to attend grade school often disappear from school when they begin to menstruate because the schools lack the facilities the girls need during their period.\u00a0 A husband and brother in India realized just obtaining pads for menstruating girls and women was a problem, so he set out to solve this.<\/a>\u00a0 Girls are also often forced into marriage at that time, which also ends their education.\u00a0 They need a way to manage their menstrual cycle and to obtain birth control so that they can continue their education.\u00a0 Denying birth control to girls and women because of religious reasons (as has been done with US foreign aid) in effect denies them a future of their own choice.<\/p>\n When a large percentage of women in a particular country are educated and enfranchised, their political power is harder to ignore.\u00a0 Issues that had been ignored, such as public health and children’s health, move to the political mainstream.\u00a0 When women become the majority in the government, massive cultural change is certain.\u00a0 In 1994, Rwanda was the scene of a bloody genocide.\u00a0 When peace was restored, a new government decreed that women had to hold at least 30% of the seats in all legislative bodies.\u00a0 Women now hold 56% of the seats in Parliament.\u00a0 Rwandan culture has changed dramatically.<\/a>\u00a0 Rwanda is leap-frogging into the 21st century because the country realized that women are as valuable as men.<\/p>\n China has a long history of valuing sons more than daughters, so much so that with the one child policy and elective abortion, the country now has an unbalanced male\/female ratio.\u00a0 However, the government now realizes that a better policy is to educate girls and women.\u00a0 When women are well-educated, they want to use their skills in the workplace.\u00a0 This delays marriage and child-bearing while also improving the economy. Parents now realize that daughters can be just as valuable as sons. A win-win for China: slowed population growth along with rapid growth in gross domestic product. India also sees the value of educating women.\u00a0 Bunker Roy created the Barefoot College<\/a> which educates the poor to become technicians and engineers, among other occupations.\u00a0 According to Roy, men are untrainable.\u00a0 Instead, the Barefoot College trains grandmothers.<\/p>\n In the 21st century, women in all cultures must be equal participants in all aspects of life and business if we are to deal with the challenges the world will face.\u00a0 Corporations are discovering that those boards of directors with a higher percentage of women <\/a>are significantly more profitable than those with the lowest number of women on their boards.<\/p>\n