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Bayard

(21,806 posts)
Mon Oct 21, 2019, 02:31 PM Oct 2019

Around the world, women are taking charge of their future

From France to Kenya to India and Malawi, women are feeling more empowered to make their voices heard—and to demand gender equality.

ANIMAL TRACKER, KENYA
A mother of three at 23, Mpayon Loboitong’o herds her family’s goats on her own; after her husband left to find work in Nairobi, she was told he’d been killed there. Her other full-time job: charting animal movements for Save the Elephants. For a monthly salary she and eight other women traverse the bush, unarmed, amid elephants, lions, and African buffalo. “I do this work so my kids don’t go to bed hungry,” she says.


Theresa Kachindamoto remembers the first child marriage she ended, just days after she became the first female paramount chief of her southern Ngoni people in Malawi. In Dedza district, southeast of the capital, Lilongwe, she’d walked past a group of girls and boys playing soccer, a common sight, but then one of the girls stepped away from the game to breastfeed a baby.

“I was shocked,” Kachindamoto recalls. “It pained me.” The mother “was 12 years, but she lied to me that she was 13.”

Kachindamoto informed the elders who had appointed her chief about the young mother, a girl named Cecilia. “They said, ‘Oh yes, here it’s common everywhere, but now you are chief, you can do whatever you want to do.’ ”

So Kachindamoto did. She annulled the marriage and sent the young mother back to school. That was in 2003. The chief paid the girl’s school fees until she completed secondary school. Cecilia now runs a grocery store. Every time she visits her, Kachindamoto says, “she always comes here and says, ‘Thank you, Chief. Thank you.’ ”

Gender inequality is not determined by, or confined to, any one place, race, or religion. Canada, for example, is ranked 16th on the global index, while the United States sits at number 51, dragging down the overall ranking for North America because of stagnation on the “political empowerment” subindex and a decrease in gender parity in Cabinet-level positions, as well as a slide in education.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/10/women-are-taking-charge-of-their-future-around-the-world-feature/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social


Long article with great photos.

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Around the world, women are taking charge of their future (Original Post) Bayard Oct 2019 OP
Recommended. H2O Man Oct 2019 #1
K & R Duppers Oct 2019 #2
I'm really glad to read this! Thank you, Bayard. CaliforniaPeggy Oct 2019 #3
K&R smirkymonkey Oct 2019 #4
Bookmarking for later also. llmart Oct 2019 #5
Kick lunatica Oct 2019 #6
I'm just a bit surprised at the U.S.'s low ranking. Duppers Oct 2019 #7

CaliforniaPeggy

(149,308 posts)
3. I'm really glad to read this! Thank you, Bayard.
Mon Oct 21, 2019, 03:36 PM
Oct 2019

Women are now realizing their power and their strength, and not only that, they are using them!

And the world is a safer and more just place because of their actions.

llmart

(15,501 posts)
5. Bookmarking for later also.
Mon Oct 21, 2019, 03:42 PM
Oct 2019

"Canada, for example, is ranked 16th on the global index, while the United States sits at number 51, dragging down the overall ranking for North America".

This statement alone saddens me.

Duppers

(28,094 posts)
7. I'm just a bit surprised at the U.S.'s low ranking.
Tue Oct 22, 2019, 08:32 AM
Oct 2019

Of course this country has always been quite misogynistic, especially the GOP, including their female members.

(It was one of the larger issues I always fought with my mother about, which was most surprising since she was successful business woman.)


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