Women's Rights: The Cause of the 21st Century

Hopefully you noticed the incredible issue of New York Times Magazine this weekend, which focused on a favorite topic of mine: women's rights.

The issue was entirely dedicated to exploring the female experience around the globe - from Afghanistan to Hillary Clinton - and made the bold statement that women's rights is the cause of the 21st century in the opening piece by Nichola Kristof:

IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.

Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater. "Women hold up half the sky," in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that's mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it's not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There's a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That's why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren't the problem; they're the solution.

The issue corresponded with the great advertisement I featured yesterday from Pathfinder International - and together, hopefully the message comes across that as women make up at least 50 percent of the worlds population, we can no longer ignore their needs, their interests, or their cause. We don't live in a post-feminist society and the New York Times has helped to confirm that for others who might believe otherwise.