Investing in Women: The Start of Something Big

Midtown Manhattan this week has been turned into an extra-specially intense maze of flashing lights, motorcades and those dudes selling noxious candied peanuts -- the former heralding the advent of the U.N. General Assembly and the latter simply a New York Thing That Will Not Go Away, Ever. This year's festivities will probably best be remembered for Muammar Qaddafi's theatrical hijinks (the tent, the rant, the shredding) and for the triumphant return of the United States to the world forum -- but on the sidelines of these conventions, there's been some significant (and long overdue) attention paid to the role of women in creating a better, more peaceful world.
A depot for foreign policy grand wizards, this year's Clinton Global Initiative (held in New York City and timed in conjunction with the General Assembly) focused on the theme of investing in girls and women -- a lynchpin in cutting "across the global challenge areas of education, energy and climate change, global health, and poverty alleviation. Each year of schooling increases a woman's income by 10 to 20 percent, and closing the gender gap in education adds .5 percent to a country's per capita GNP."
In the same vein, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof led discussions all over town this week with his wife and co-author Sheryl WuDunn about the issues they address in their new book, "Half the Sky." In it, the authors contend that the key to global stability and economic prosperity lies in unleashing the potential of women and girls. Kristof and WuDunn have received a boatload of attention for their book, which chronicles the stories of women in conflict areas (Congo, Cambodia, Pakistan, and others) who rise above outrageous hardship to create a better life -- not just for themselves, but for the communities in which they live. It's heart-swelling, triumph-of-the-human-spirit stuff, but it's also a ringing endorsement for making women's education and economic empowerment a centerpiece of our foreign policy.
There's also some terrifying, heart-sinking material to contend with. Kristof and WuDunn point to the shocking statistic that 60 million to 100 million women are missing in the world today. What's more, "It appears that more girls and women are now missing from the planet, precisely because they are female, than men were killed on the battlefield in all the wars of the 20th century. The number of victims of this routine 'gendercide' far exceeds the number of people who were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century."
But one of the most succinct arguments on behalf of women's empowerment is a video advocacy piece that's part of a new campaign called the Girl Effect. The argument goes something like this: "Girl + Poverty + No Education = Husband, Babies, Hunger, HIV." But, "Girl + Education = Loan, Business, Community Development, Gender Equality." And with 600 million girls in the developing world, it might be a prescription for changing the world.