Women Gain in Education but Not Power, Study Finds
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/world/13gender.html?ref=education
This article, “Women Gain in Education but Not Power, Study Finds”, starts off by stating, “Women still lag far behind men in top political and decision-making roles, though their access to education and health care is nearly equal”.
In its 2008 Global Gender Gap report, the forum, a Swiss research organization, ranked Norway, Finland and Sweden as the countries that have the most equality of the sexes, and Saudi Arabia, Chad and Yemen as having the least.
Using United Nations data, the report found that girls and women around the world had generally reached near-parity with their male peers in literacy, access to education and health and survival. But in terms of economics and politics, including relative access to executive government and corporate posts, the gap between the sexes remains large.
The United States ranked 27th, above Russia (42nd), China (57th), Brazil (73rd) and India (113th). But the United States was ranked below Germany (11th), Britain (13th), France (15th), Lesotho (16th), Trinidad and Tobago (19th), South Africa (22nd), Argentina (24th) and Cuba (25th).
“The world’s women are nearly as educated and as healthy as men, but are nowhere to be found in terms of decision-making,” said Saadia Zahidi of the World Economic Forum
The report said the inequalities in those countries were so large as to put them at an economic disadvantage.
What my favorite quote of the piece was “A nation’s competitiveness depends significantly on whether and how it educates and utilizes its female talent. To maximize its competitiveness and development potential, each country should strive for gender equality.” This gender equality is something that is still debated on today. The fact that women lag in the work force shows how this country, although moving forward, is taking its time in doing so. Seeing the rankings of the US (27), i believe it should be higher since our country is advanced, but apparently, not advanced enough.
December 2, 2008 at 4:09 am
This article was very interesting to me. I wish it didnt always have to be a man vs. woman thing. I mean, do we have to group everyone into a category and then file their success and failure under their sex and gender. Is it a novel idea that a society functions better when people are treated equally? I liked this article, and I liked the favorite quote as well. But when are we going to get past this sort of thing and just realize that making these differentiations and classifications is only pushing us further from the goal of equality.