Empower Women, End Poverty

If you haven't yet read the series on women and poverty at The New York Times, I highly recommend adding it to your weekend reading list.  The paternalistic on-line title notwithstanding, the collection of articles details the collective economic improvements in poor communities and households resulting from investing in women's and girl's education, health, bodily safety and autonomy, and work opportunities.  The focus of the issue is mainly on the developing world, where the majority of the world's poor - and poor women - live.  This is always somewhat frustrating for domestic anti-poverty activists, as if our nation is a haven of gender equity and parity.   Nonetheless, there's some important lessons on education, policy and power for those of us fighting for equality and an end to poverty stateside.

First, as Secretary of State and Women's Rights activist Hillary Clinton explains, "I am also struck by every international public-opinion poll I’ve ever seen, that the No. 1 thing most men and women want is a good job with a good income. It is at the core of the human aspiration to be able to support oneself, to give one’s children a better future."  She is introducing here her long-time support for microfinance, which is growing in the U.S., and is traditionally focused on women - who are more likely to save and repay on time and use their earnings to feed, clothe, shelter and educate their families.

What I take from this statement, combined with the long-term returns we see to educating girls, is a call to stop treating the poor in the US - disproportionately women and female-headed households - as suspect in their lack of sustainable work opportunities.  What I hear is a need to prioritize affordable education for girls, women and mothers so that they can pursue careers, not jobs, that will provide a stable, sufficient wage for safe housing, stocked cabinets, and education and childcare and medical care for their children.  More women go to college now than men, but only if their household can afford it.  For women who face substantial barriers to education, or who are stuck in generational cycles of poverty, there are few policy-supported exits.

This points to another lesson in the NYT series, which is to evaluate the gender impacts of public policy.  The Obama Administration appears to have already embraced this, as its new White House Council on Women and Girls is specifically charged with "[ensuring] that all American women and girls are treated fairly in all matters of public policy."  The Council's responsibility goes further, to pursue the design and implementation of policies that promote gender equity, through, e.g., fair pay, friendlier work-family legislation, ending domestic violence, and improving women's health.  Feminists have offered up specific foci for the Council; what are yours?

Finally, there is limited improvement to women's lives and opportunities to end poverty without expanding women's political and economic power.  From the NYT sidebar: "1% of the world's landowners are women."  Recently we've seen a rise in wealthy women philanthropists funding programs specifically targeted at women's economic opportunity and equity.  Yet, the U.S. has shamefully low women's representation in government and business for such a wealthy, democratic nation. On the subject of women's political representation, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf answers a timely question with a question:

[NYT]: Why do you think we’ve never had a female president in the United States?
[EJS]: I have to ask you that question. You’ve got to vote for her.

(Top Photo: Afghan Women's Network, 2004; Bottom Photo: Arvind Grover, of GWU graduation)