As I was perusing the Time website, I was instantly drawn to an article titled “To Fight Poverty, Invest in Girls” published on February 14, 2011. Nancy Gibbs began by talking about how girls are the way our world can be changed and how, despite the fact that more aid than ever is being sent to women, the women that are receiving it are not the ones that need it. In talking about the developing world, Gibbs states that it is frighteningly common for a girl to be married and tending to the house by the age of 12. Many cultures across the world are not conducive to a girl’s education because men see it as a waste of time and money. Gibbs continues on to state that not only is “rescuing girls” the “right thing to do”, but it is also the “smart thing to do” (Gibbs). There are proven statistics showing that the longer a girl stays in school, the less likely they are to get married young and the fewer children they will have. Additionally, she claims that, “Fewer dependents per worker allows for greater economic growth” (Gibbs). Gibbs also quotes Larry Summer, a former chief economist at the World Bank: “‘Investment in girls’ education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world” (Gibbs). The article continues on saying that we, as in the world, need to learn how to listen to women, regardless of how difficult it might be for some cultures. Her last major claim is that success is contingent on the entire community. Success will not happen without enlisting men, women, teachers, religious leaders to aid the women in seeing their potential and ensuring they do not see themselves as “prey” (Gibbs). Her last two paragraphs describe a group of twelve to eighteen year old girls whose goal is to raise awareness, and money, to help fight a myriad of prevalent issues. This group is called Girl Up. The goal of this group of American teenagers is to show other kids how hard it is to carry a jerrican of water across a village, or how donating a mere $5 will help a health-clinic in places like Malawi stock feminine supplies.
While reading this and pondering the impact that this movement could have, I began to realize the connections between our country’s struggle for women’s rights and a developing country’s fight. Our history is their future. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves on not only their current conditions but also our history so we can help them to make the same progress.
In the fourth paragraph of Gibbs’ article she notes that if a girl were to stay in primary school for only one year longer, her eventual wages would be between 10 to 20% higher. Similarly, if a girl were to stay in secondary school just one more year, her wages would be between 15 to 25% higher. If a girl were to stay in school a total of seven years she will typically get married four years later and have two fewer children than girls who do not make it through primary school. Additionally, she claims, “Fewer dependents per worker allows for greater economic growth” (Gibbs). While reading this I could not help but think back to Sojourner Truth’s Two Speeches. Truth was able to use a stereotype to make it appear as if women aren’t a threat to men with her pint and quart example (64). If it is indeed true that the less dependent a woman is the greater the economy will grow, why can we not use Truth’s claim that a woman’s pint will never match up to a man’s quart to convince men to educate the women? While it would obviously be more beneficial to convince a man of a woman’s true value and that they are capable of the same things, this could be a start. Truth’s era and the era we are in now are clearly very different but a similar rhetoric might work to convince men to educate women to allow for greater economic growth, if nothing else. If we can accomplish that, we can build off that to help accomplish “full” equality in due time.
An additional point Gibbs makes in her piece is that in order to successfully fight poverty it is not only important to raise money directly for the women. Restructuring the core infrastructure and enlisting the help of the whole community is also critical in this process. I took this as it is not only the responsibility of the entire community to fight poverty, but the entire world. As Baumgardner and Richards remark, it is crucial to “see activism not as a choice between self and community but as a link between them that creates balance” (425). From these we can see that it is every individual’s responsibility to help join in this fight for women’s equality, regardless of whether it is in our country or in a developing country elsewhere in the world. Baumgardner and Richards further this argument because it is important for all developing countries to realize that this fight to end poverty and women’s inequality is not an attempt to destroy their preexisting culture and replace it with our “better” culture, but an attempt to improve it. Helping a country in their fight for women’s equality is not an attempt to push our own ideals upon them, but it is an attempt to create a link between us to share information.
If Girl Up, and organizations similar to it, are able to raise awareness and money to “make the difference in a girl not being married when she’s 10” (Gibbs), we need to support these organizations. From our own struggle as a country we realize how little can be done without enlisting the help of everyone, and we were a developed country at the time. The struggle of these developing countries will be even greater and I believe it is our responsibility to help.
Gibbs claims that if we want to “change the world [we need to] invest in girls”. After reading this article and comparing it to our class readings and notes, I would agree with this claim. In order to fight poverty, we (as the population of the Earth) need to invest time and money into helping the girls. We need to help the girls that are married off at the age of ten to become more educated, which will in turn not only help their own well-being but the well-being of the entire country and economy. Therefore, it is true that in order to fight poverty we need to invest in girls.
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