'But there’s another side of Islam as well, represented by an extraordinary Somali Muslim woman named Dr. Hawa Abdi who has confronted the armed militias. Amazingly, she forced them to back down — and even submit a written apology. Glamour magazine, which named Dr. Hawa a “woman of the year,” got it exactly right when it called her “equal parts Mother Teresa and Rambo.”'
Heroic, Female and Muslim - NYTimes.com
But one night in the midst of the secession crisis, while staying at the house of another black leader, a vision came to Tubman in a dream that all of America’s slaves were soon to be liberated – a vision so powerful that she rose from bed singing. Her host tried in vain to quiet her; perhaps their grandchildren would live to see the day of jubilee, he said, but they themselves surely would not. “I tell you, sir, you’ll see it, and you’ll see it soon,” she retorted, and sang again: “My people are free! My people are free.”
There’s much debate about why women in some countries are presidents and business executives, and women in others are locked up in the home and beaten or brutalized if they try to stand up for themselves. Obviously the differences are rooted in culture, but there are diverse theories about why some cultures resulted in more emancipated women and others in more oppressed women.
One theory, which originated with Ester Boserup in 1970, is that it has to do with the emergence of the plow in agriculture. The idea is that in areas (such as Africa or southern India) where plows were little used, women engaged in agriculture and became important to the economy. They became valued by society to some degree. In contrast, where the plow was introduced, such as northern India and parts of the Middle East, women could not compete so readily because plowing required great physical strength. The result was that women were relegated to work in the home, were valued less, and even today women have less labor force participation in those countries.
This issue is the topic of a thoughtful new paper and Aid Watch blog post. Apparently there’s a correlation between plow use and the marginalization of women, and it makes sense to me. But I also think much depends on whether women were part of the cash and trading economy: where they were, they had more economic value, while where they grew vegetables for subsistence they had less value. I also look at China, and it’s not apparent to me that there’s any correlation in terms of the status of women with those parts where the plow was used and those where it wasn’t.
Your thoughts?
She's been the face of Versace, Dior, Armani, and Gaultier -- and after 16 years commanding catwalks around the globe, the porcelain-skinned belle is still at the very top of her profession.
But beyond the extraordinary physique and angular, painterly features that define her appearance, O'Connor has emerged as a vocal proponent of change within the pressurized, often exploitative industry she inhabits.
Miller once called Marilyn “a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes.” - Maureen Dowd
During their time as correspondents in China, WuDunn and Kristof learned of the phenomenon of an estimated 30 million "missing" baby girls in the nation.
WuDunn says part of the gap could be attributed to infanticide by families who were determined to have a male child under China's one-child policy and in part to the development of the sonogram. That medical device can be used to determine the gender of a child before birth, prompting some parents to obtain abortions.
"One peasant in the southern part of China once told us, 'The sonogram's great, we don't need to have baby girls any more.'
