Category Archives: Women

Nobel Prize Winner Yousafzai Gets As in School

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Education for All:

Malala Yousafzai, the teen who was shot by the Taliban for advocating for girls’ education, will be celebrating a string of academic successes this week.

On Friday, Ms. Yousafzai’s father took to Twitter to announce that his award winning daughter had received excellent scores on her GCSEs, an important exam taken by all British teenagers. The 18-year-old who once dodged bullets in Pakistan to attend school, can now boast of a string of As, placing her within the top tier of students who took the exam.

Yousafzai has dedicated her young life to promoting the importance of girls’ education. Her story first garnered public recognition through her anonymous diary, which was published on the BBC’s Urdu website in 2009. In her diary Yousafzai described her desire for girls in Pakistan to have access to an education. At the time, many girls’ schools were being destroyed by militants in the Swat Valley where she is from..

After she was shot by the Taliban in 2012 in retaliation for her advocacy, Yousafzai was rushed to the United Kingdom for medical treatment. Following her recovery she and her family resettled in Birmingham, England, where Yousafzai now lives and studies in a private girls’ school. Her recovery, however, did cause some delays in her education, and Yousafzai took the GSCEs two years later than most British school children.

While catching up with her studies, she continued to campaign for girls’ education. That work earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

“For her 18th birthday on July 12, 2015, also called Malala Day, the young activist continued to take action to make global education a worldwide priority. Instead of presents, Yousafzai asked her supporters on The Malala Fund website: ‘Post a photo of yourself holding up your favorite book and share why YOU choose #BooksNotBullets – and tell world leaders to fund the real weapon for change, education!’” Yousafzai’s biography reads.

But despite her international celebrity status, Yousafzai has consistently prioritized her education.   Inundated with invitations, she eventually began to refrain from attending a variety of events in order to focus on her schoolwork.

On Friday, people in Pakistan celebrated the test results of their local star.

“Nothing that Malala Yousafzai achieves seems startling any more but she continues to make Pakistan proud,” the Express Tribune reported.  

Note: The Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 is to be awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzay for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education. Children must go to school and not be financially exploited. In the poor countries of the world, 60% of the present population is under 25 years of age. It is a prerequisite for peaceful global development that the rights of children and young people be respected. In conflict-ridden areas in particular, the violation of children leads to the continuation of violence from generation to generation.

Education First

Women Rangers in US Army?

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Two Army soldiers are still in the running to become the first women ever to earn a Ranger tab.

On Friday, the Army announced that these women, along with 125 men, successfully passed the second phase of Ranger school – the mountain phase – in the north Georgia mountains. 

Coming into the mountain phase, three of the 19 women who originally began Ranger School back in April were still at Ranger School. One of these women and 60 men will now be offered the opportunity to recycle, or repeat, the mountain phase of the training.

For the rest of the students, their next stop, starting Sunday, will be Camp Rudder at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, where they will begin jungle training, the final step in their efforts to earn a Ranger tab. 

The soldiers are part of a pilot program this year to allow women to participate in Ranger School. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno has said that he expects the pilot program to be extended for at least a couple more rounds of Ranger School. The move is another step toward erasing historic discrepancies within the military that have contributed to a perception that women were second-class soldiers, advocates of the change say. If they pass, the women would not serve as Rangers, but would instead earn the tab, which could offer them additional credibility with fellow soldiers.

All of these students have demonstrated “grit, refusal to quit, tactical competence, and perhaps most importantly, teamwork while under extreme individual conditions,” said Maj. Gen. Scott Miller, commander of the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga..

The swamp training, as with all phases of Ranger School, is intense. In February 1995, four soldiers died during swamp training, due to “severely lowered body temperatures” after conducting military exercises, including building rope bridges, in chest-deep water for an extended period of time. Four others, suffering from hypothermia, were sent to the hospital. Though this is unlikely to be a problem in the summer, the swamp phase will test the Ranger students in a number of ways. 

It will include 17 days of “extended platoon level operations” in the “costal swamp environment” near Valparaiso, Fla. During this time, there will be two jumps for those soldiers who are airborne-qualified. The training also will feature four days of “waterborne operations,” including small boat movements and stream crossings, as well as 10 days of field training with student-led patrols. All of this training is meant to simulate warfighting in the jungle. 

Ranger 

Feminist Alert: Propose

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Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts senator and Sorceress of Swag, cemented her status as the IRL version of Leslie Knope this weekend when she published a Facebook post commemorating her wedding anniversary. Thirty-five years ago the senator married Mr. Elizabeth Warren, Harvard professor Bruce Mann, after she proposed to him.

It can happen.

Elizabeth Warren posts:   By the time I was 30, I thought my life was settled. Granted, not quite what I’d expected—but settled. I was a single mom with two little kids, and I’d just started teaching law in Houston. And then I met a guy from Massachusetts named Bruce. I was completely crazy about him, and I still am. When I proposed to him, he said yes. I bought a sundress that could double as a wedding gown, and 35 years ago today, I married Bruce.

Bruce has about a million good qualities, but I want to mention one: Throughout my career, and all the unexpected twists and turns, he has never once discouraged me from taking on a fight. He’s always believed that if I wanted people to listen to my ideas, I might as well shout from the highest mountain I could find. This anniversary, I’ll celebrate living in America where everyone can marry their own Bruce – their best friend, biggest supporter, and love of their life. Happy anniversary, Sweetie! I love you.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Warren

US Tired of SameOldSameOld?

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Risk and Economic Change

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Laura Tyson writes:  Over the past year, the global economic environment changed markedly and in unexpected ways. Energy and commodity prices plunged. Growth in China (which accounts for about 40% of global growth) fell to its lowest rate since 1996, even as its stock market soared to unsustainable heights. The United States and the European Union ratcheted up economic sanctions on Russia in response to its military excursions in Ukraine, highlighting the geopolitical risks associated with cross-border investments. And there have been large swings in exchange rates, fueled by actual or, in the case of the Federal Reserve, anticipated changes in monetary policy.

These rapid changes have rattled global financial markets and spooked investors, reducing their appetite for risk – a cautious attitude that has been reflected in emerging markets. Investors have sat on the sidelines, and the MSCI index that tracks returns on emerging-market equities has stagnated.  Growth and Change

Growth

 

Work Transformed by Technology?

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Jean Pisani-Ferry writes:  In 1983, the American economist and Nobel laureate Wassily Leontief made what was then a startling prediction. Machines, he said, are likely to replace human labor much in the same way that the tractor replaced the horse. Today, with some 200 million people worldwide out of work – 30 million more than in 2008 – Leontief’s words no longer seem as outlandish as they once did. Indeed, there can be little doubt that technology is in the process of completely transforming the global labor market.

To be sure, predictions like Leontief’s leave many economists skeptical, and for good reason. Historically, increases in productivity have rarely destroyed jobs. Each time that machines yielded gains in efficiency (including when tractors took over from horses), old jobs disappeared, but new jobs were created. Furthermore, economists are number crunchers, and recent data show a slowdown – rather than an acceleration – in productivity gains. When it comes to the actual number of jobs available, there are reasons to question the doomsayers’ dire predictions. Yet there are also reasons to think that the nature of work is changing.

Rather than try to stop the unstoppable, we should think about how to put this new reality at the service of our values and welfare. In addition to rethinking institutions and practices predicated on traditional employment contracts – such as social security contributions – we will need to begin to invent new institutions that harness this technology-driven transformation for our collective benefit. The backbone of tomorrow’s societies, after all, will be built not by robots or digital platforms, but by their citizens. Laborers’ Future

The Nature of Work

Entrepreneur Alert: A New Niche in Baking?

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Michal Muskal writes:  he former owners of an Oregon bakery have been ordered to pay $135,000 to a lesbian couple who were refused a wedding cake, in the latest front in the battle between religious liberty and individual rights.

Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian ordered Aaron and Melissa Klein, who owned the Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery in Gresham, Ore., to compensate the couple for emotional and mental suffering that resulted from the denial of service.

The Kleins had cited their Christian beliefs against same-sex marriage in refusing to make the wedding cake for Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer.

Avakian’s final order, issued Thursday, had been expected in the dispute that dates from 2013, one of several around the nation involving bakers, florists and photographers who have refused to provide services to same-sex couples on religious grounds.

Oregon law bars businesses from discriminating or refusing service based on sexual orientation, just as they cannot turn away customers because of race, sex, disability, age or religion.

If we take unclesmrgol’s thinking to its logical conclusion, then we are all slaves, and we are all owners. We all have the right to walk into a for-profit establishment or government office and “force” the workers to provide goods and services that are available to all customers…

According to the state Bureau of Labor and Industries’ report, Rachel Bowman-Cryer and her mother attended a bridal show in Portland where the Kleins had a booth advertising their wedding cakes. Bowman-Cryer and her mother went to a cake-tasting at the bakery in 2013.

When Aaron Klein was told there would be two brides, Rachel and Laurel, he responded that he was sorry, but the bakery did not do wedding cakes for same-sex couples because of his and his wife’s religious convictions, according to the report.

The Bowman-Cryers held a commitment ceremony in June 2013 and were married in May 2014, shortly after a federal judge struck down Oregon’s ban on same-sex marriage.

In August 2013, the brides filed a complaint with the state Bureau of Labor and Industries, and the agency brought charges against the Kleins in January 2014.

Aaron Klein said his family had suffered because of the case and the glare of media attention.

The bakery’s car was vandalized and broken into twice, he said. Photographers and florists severed ties with the company, eventually forcing the Kleins to close their storefront shop in September 2013.

Growing the Marriage Market?

 

 

Entrepreneur Alert: Lingerie Etc. in Saudi Arabia

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A growing number of women in Saudi Arabia are joining the workforce and chipping away at discriminations enshrined in its laws. But they face conservative opposition and — even now — a ban on driving.

Juliane von Mittelstaedt and Samiha Shafy write:   Every time Hanin Alamri sells a pair of shoes, it amounts to a revolution. Stilettos, platform heels, gold peep-toes — all lined up on white shelves on the second floor of the Red Sea Mall, one of the biggest shopping centers in Jeddah. 27-year-old Alamri wears trainers with her floor-length black and white abaya. Her hair, hidden underneath a headscarf, is dyed red. She recently got divorced. “Every day I say thanks, thanks, thanks that I am free,” says Hanin Alamri. If it weren’t for her job, she’d still be married.

Her marriage was arranged, and she only met her husband-to-be after they got engaged. He promised her he would be tolerant and open-minded, but once they were married, he forced her to wear a niqab, which left only her eyes uncovered. He was unemployed and unhappy. “He didn’t want me to be happy either,” she says. She was stuck at home, with no money of her own and nothing to do. She had a daughter, but became depressed. Her husband controlled her every move and forbade her from working. Alamri begged him to change his mind. After two years, he gave in.

Her first job was selling cosmetics. Then she began working in a shoe store. Four years ago, female shop assistants were few and far between. Most people working in stores were men from overseas — from the Philippines, Bangladesh and Malaysia. Foreigners account for one third of the population in Saudi Arabia, working primarily as drivers, waiters, housekeepers or salespeople for clothes and cosmetics — and even lingerie. In a country that insists on segregation of the sexes, women had to buy lingerie from men.

“Once I had to give a shop assistant my bra size,” says Alamri. “He told me I had it wrong. I was deeply embarrassed.” Trying anything on was out of the question. There are no changing rooms in stores in Saudi Arabia. So Alamri did what all women there have to do – she picked up a random bra, paid and left. And got used to badly-fitting underwear.  Women at Work in Saudi Arabia

 Lingerie in Saudi Arabia

China: Mothers Helping Daughters Fly

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For the chief cleaner of the new city courthouse, service is all she’s ever known. Serve the parents. Serve the pigs. Serve the future. Serve the family.  Right now Xiao Zhang is serving the people with a feather duster, carefully working round the gold stars on the crimson emblem of state above the judge’s high-backed chair.

Across the empty courtroom, her husband is perched on a window ledge, polishing the glass that looks out on to iron bars, security gates and a city street that 10 years ago was an expanse of shimmering green rice paddy.

Xiao Zhang does not miss that greener past. For her, there was nothing romantic about life on the land.  She’d started helping with the farm work almost as soon as she could walk and when she was 11, she dropped out of school.  “Every family was poor but we were poorer,” she says.

When I started coming here 10 years ago to chart the transformation of White Horse Village into a city, Xiao Zhang was already complaining that change was too slow.  Amid all the anguish of elderly farmers forced to give up their fields and move into tower blocks, she was impatient, longing for the day the government would demolish her home and concrete over her fields.

Women like Xiao Zhang’s position are making sure their duaghters have every educational opportunity the sons do.  They want their daughters to be able to be teachers and doctors and business people.  And CHinese girls are taking advantage.

Chinese Women Leaving the Farm

 

Dynastic Women Succeed in South Asia

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Indira Ghandi and Benair Bhutto became Prime Ministers because they were part of important political families.

On the ground, women have a tougher time in South Asia than thtey do anywhere else in the world.  According to a report by Save the Children, a British organiation, the Asian subcontinent rates lowers in infant mortality, children’s survival and women’s access to politics.

While Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minsiter of Bangladesh, is proud of her founder father, she is still spoken off with disdain by Prime Minister Modi.  He remarked, after he said she was tough on terrorism, “despite the fact that she is a woman.”

In Sri Lanka, where a daughter has succeeded a mother, women still find it difficult to go into business and succeed.

Modi came to office without acknowledging his wife, who he was forced to marry as a teenager and has never lived with.  He rushed to his mother’s side when he was elected, but he appears to find women’s presence uncomfortable.

Yet India is a good place for women to find their place in the sun because it is a dynamic and growing country.  Perhaps Modi can use all his talents to help them.

Modi and women