From a VOX headline on 3/8/2019 we read what many of us have thought for years. Gender equality is the key to economic prosperity.
I was born into an island society and a cultural mind-set that saw women as destined to be married and a mother. Why would you invest in her education? Fortunately my parents were of mixed opinions — my father, who was college educated thought one-year business college was sufficient for me; my mother with only a high school education, wanted me to do whatever I wanted. And fortunately I was stubborn, perhaps born with that trait. Today I have four degrees and many years in the corporate world and in academia. So of course, I see education and participation in society as an equalizer to the playing field for women and for the economic prosperity of society as a whole.
The new book, Equality for Women = Prosperity for All by Augusto Lopez-Claros, (senior fellow at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University) and Bahiyyih Nakhjavani, (Iranian writer and novelist) tests the theory that in a society where women participate and contribute they do make a difference economically, not only to themselves and their families but to the society as a whole.
This article in Vox (Sean Illing) is a great starting point to uncover the inequalities you may not recognize on the surface. But discrimination is embedded into society — our constitutions and laws — in many mysterious, hidden ways. Gender inequalities, Lopez-Claros and Nakhjavanhi argue, lead to instability and chaos at almost every level of society.
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