We Have a Dream to Change the World
Katie McCabe
Dr. K. J. Verwaayen
WS 1020E
Monday October 21, 2012
We Have a Dream to Change the World
The operation of power concerning gender is an issue that has been around for many years. Power is the possession of control or command over others. It divides a group or community of people from the inferior, making them seem more important, valuable and worthy as some might say. I recently travelled to Kenya, Africa where before, during and after my journey I learned a lot about the importance of women in this third world country. Although I was taught that these women were a huge importance to the community, in Africa, men are still considered dominant. Women are inadequately served when it comes to education, health and even legal rights. One of the main reasons why these countries are still struggling economically is due to the lack of importance on educating women. These women have the power to create great change for these third world countries, so in order to reduce gender inequality and build the soci-economic status of these third world countries; we must promote the evolution of women empowerment.
Education for girls, mostly in third world countries, has been extremely hard to access. A conference known as the Beijing conference held in 1995 had a strong concern for the female child. They took statistics from 1990 where 130 million children worldwide had no access to primary education, 81 million of which were girls. An even higher number of girls had no access to secondary education. The UN then realized that they needed to one; “increase girls’ access to both primary and secondary education,” two; “alter representations of women and girls in the curriculum” and three; “increase the number of female teachers worldwide” (United Nations). By realizing this, they have also unknowingly brought up the realization that gender equality and economic development go hand-in-hand. In the poorest countries only 5.4% of adult women have some sort of
Dr. K. J. Verwaayen
WS 1020E
Monday October 21, 2012
We Have a Dream to Change the World
The operation of power concerning gender is an issue that has been around for many years. Power is the possession of control or command over others. It divides a group or community of people from the inferior, making them seem more important, valuable and worthy as some might say. I recently travelled to Kenya, Africa where before, during and after my journey I learned a lot about the importance of women in this third world country. Although I was taught that these women were a huge importance to the community, in Africa, men are still considered dominant. Women are inadequately served when it comes to education, health and even legal rights. One of the main reasons why these countries are still struggling economically is due to the lack of importance on educating women. These women have the power to create great change for these third world countries, so in order to reduce gender inequality and build the soci-economic status of these third world countries; we must promote the evolution of women empowerment.
Education for girls, mostly in third world countries, has been extremely hard to access. A conference known as the Beijing conference held in 1995 had a strong concern for the female child. They took statistics from 1990 where 130 million children worldwide had no access to primary education, 81 million of which were girls. An even higher number of girls had no access to secondary education. The UN then realized that they needed to one; “increase girls’ access to both primary and secondary education,” two; “alter representations of women and girls in the curriculum” and three; “increase the number of female teachers worldwide” (United Nations). By realizing this, they have also unknowingly brought up the realization that gender equality and economic development go hand-in-hand. In the poorest countries only 5.4% of adult women have some sort of
Bibliography: Dollar, David and Gatti, Roberta. "Engendering Development." Gender and Development. May 1999. The World Bank. 9 October 2012. http://darp.lse.ac.uk/frankweb/courses/EC501/DG.pdf Free the Children. "Me to We." Get to Know the Issues . 2004. . 9 October 2012. http://www.freethechildren.com/get-involved/we-youth/resources/issues-backgrounder/