So, I know everyone is privy already to the whole idea of microfinancing, and some people have their criticisms about it too. But after I commented on Dane's posted video about the interconnected nature of women's rights, successes, and consciousness-raising with other issues/markets/fields of awareness, I recalled this article - The Women's Crusade: How Changing the Lives of Women and Girls In The Developing World Can Change Everything. It is definitely heartening to remember that affecting change can happen through investing just a little bit. The exceptional thing about investing in women (their education, businesses, and training) though, is that it more often benefits whole communities. Maybe everyone already knows that too. Well, tell your friends then :)
The most shocking statistic that I frequently rely on when people try to tell me women's equality has been achieved is this one: globally speaking, less than 1% of all property is owned by women. Just that statistic alone can get people thinking. I also like remembering that there's just no way we are utilizing our full potential as a species if some people aren't included as much as others in participating, designing, innovating, and organizing our society.
Call me a feminst ;) - but I think working for women's greater inclusion and representation in society very well might be the proximate way to effect creating new, more balanced systems overall - in politics, families, business, and even (or especially) in our own personal relationships with ourselves. Investing in women's plans and goals even at small levels is a good way to start moving into tackling redesigning bigger institutions (laws, education systems); with every penny comes a message to woman - you can do it and what you do is worth investing in. I think it's especially empowering when women invest in women - both sides get these messages about women in general, then, and start listening to and valuing each other and other women more.
So many women are still told more often that they just generally CAN'T - in both covert and overt ways, by large educational institutes, or even, in my case, some partners I've had. (Oh yes, in the 21st century.) Everyone, to some extent, walks around with fears inside themselves that they "can't" at some level, about something, in a society that really makes it so that some can't and some can.
If you don't have time for the whole article - here are a few snippets I like. The term "gendercide" really hit me reading it again this time around, especially with our DeCal's gender conversations still in my thoughts lately.
"The global statistics on the abuse of girls are numbing. It appears that more girls and women are now missing from the planet, precisely because they are female, than men were killed on the battlefield in all the wars of the 20th century. The number of victims of this routine “gendercide” far exceeds the number of people who were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century."
"If poor families spent only as much on educating their children as they do on beer and prostitutes, there would be a breakthrough in the prospects of poor countries. Girls, since they are the ones kept home from school now, would be the biggest beneficiaries. Moreover, one way to reallocate family expenditures in this way is to put more money in the hands of women. A series of studies has found that when women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing, and consequently children are healthier."
"In many poor countries, the greatest unexploited resource isn’t oil fields or veins of gold; it is the women and girls who aren’t educated and never become a major presence in the formal economy. With education and with help starting businesses, impoverished women can earn money and support their countries as well as their families. They represent perhaps the best hope for fighting global poverty."
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