Let’s start this week’s column with a quiz. How many years of schooling, on a global average, have women who are 25 years old had? Hint: When the Sweden-based Gapminder Foundation asked Americans, 24 percent said three years, and 52 percent said five years. The real answer is much longer: seven years. In comparison, the answer for males is eight years.
This question came from Gapminder’s Ignorance Project, which strives to teach citizens about their lack of knowledge. As Hans Rosling, the founder of this organization, says, “How can you fix the issue when you don’t even know what the real problem is?” When it comes to education, as the Ignorance Project points out, girls are indeed risking their lives to go to school. Just think of Malala Yousafzai — a Pakistani activist who was shot by a gunman for attending school where the local Taliban banned schooling for girls. No, getting girls to school isn’t the big issue any more. The big issue is what comes after. Many girls fight for their right to a secondary education, only to end up married young or otherwise unable to go to college.
Why do we bring this up? Well, last week marked an anniversary for events closely related to education and women’s rights in two different countries where progress in either regard is lacking. In Nigeria, last week marked one year since terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 school girls from the town of Chibok. This atrocity sparked a global digital campaign called “Bring Back Our Girls.”
Although some blame the Nigerian government for not bringing back the girls despite the resources made available to them, we say, how could they? The real issue lies not in finding the location of the girls but, rather, dealing with the issues of why Boko Haram exists in the first place. It’s a mix of economic and political instability that allowed such an extremist group to form. There is no safety or security for girls and their education in Nigeria until the unrest that victimizes them is quelled.
In the U.S. last week, we were similarly reminded about an issue that educated women in our country face: unequal pay. While many know that the average woman earns 78 cents to a man’s dollar, the reasons as to why are lesser known. Unequal pays does not stem solely from one reason but from how companies treat families, how women are taught to negotiate and from popular culture, in general.
Education is the basis for both sociopolitical independence and economic equality — two factors that lead to immeasurable improvement for women throughout the world. Without prioritizing the education of girls, we’re not making the right strides to the latter two goals.
The fact of the matter is that when we are dealing with complex issues, it’s always important to uncover our ignorance first. Last week, we were confronted with the aftermath of two issues that not only still exist but that put women’s rights and education at risk. Solving either one is not a matter of putting Band-Aids on any one issue but on creating greater understanding in general first.
