I read a great article (
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_53276.html) from UNICEF that talks about how young women playing sports feel empowered in their communities. I love it.
Of all the missions so far on Evoke I think empowering women is the most important, simply because I think it is a limiting factor to the accomplishment of the others (food security and financial security, ect...) I remember gardening with a young woman in Victoria, and it was hot, so she took her shirt off and continued working, for a second I was like, "BOOBS!" (in my head of course), but then I relaxed and we continued building the garden together and it was great. It seemed that by her taking her shirt off she was making it clear that we were equals in the garden. Now this woman was not a common Canadian woman (most women I garden with keep their shirts on).
Countries where women can not drive, or show their faces, or make tough family planning choices like abortion for themselves (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AbortionLawsMap-NoLegend.png); I think that their progress in areas of financial security, food security, water, ect..., will be stunted if half of the population (females) are underpowered.
I include Canada in the list of countries with underpowered women. For example "the average earnings of employed women are still substantially lower
than those of men," (
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/060307/dq060307a-eng.htm). Even in a wealthy country like Canada we still can not seem to equalize the division between sexes and I believe this hinders the development of Canada in other areas. For example, perhaps our economy would be stronger if we had both sexes equally earning money and reinvesting it into the economy.
So whether it is getting women to play sports, allowing them to terminate pregnancies, or giving them equal opportunities in employment, by not giving women equal opportunity we are halting the advancment of technology, social innovation, and other positive progressions.
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