Money Well Spent

You've probably already seen it, but there's a v interesting article in the NYT about how microloans -- given to women -- can improve not only the lives of the women's families, but can also empower those women within their own families. Truly, the personal is the political.

The article covers some territory that we've known for some time, but it's fascinating to see how the power structure within a family changes when women get microloans. Not surprisingly, In general, aid appears to work best when it is focused on health, education and microfinance (although microfinance has been somewhat less successful in Africa than in Asia). And in each case, crucially, aid has often been most effective when aimed at women and girls; when policy wonks do the math, they often find that these investments have a net economic return. Only a small proportion of aid specifically targets women or girls, but increasingly donors are recognizing that that is where they often get the most bang for the buck.

Investing in women is also a national security issue: Yet another reason to educate and empower women is that greater female involvement in society and the economy appears to undermine extremism and terrorism. It has long been known that a risk factor for turbulence and violence is the share of a country’s population made up of young people. Now it is emerging that male domination of society is also a risk factor; the reasons aren’t fully understood, but it may be that when women are marginalized the nation takes on the testosterone-laden culture of a military camp or a high-school boys’ locker room. That’s in part why the Joint Chiefs of Staff and international security specialists are puzzling over how to increase girls’ education in countries like Afghanistan — and why generals have gotten briefings from Greg Mortenson, who wrote about building girls’ schools in his best seller, “Three Cups of Tea.” Indeed, some scholars say they believe the reason Muslim countries have been disproportionately afflicted by terrorism is not Islamic teachings about infidels or violence but rather the low levels of female education and participation in the labor force.

If people who spend their time criminalizing abortion actually wanted to, you know, decrease abortions, they'd quit demonstrating outside clinics and start teaching girls to read, write, do math. Or giving them clothes to wear to school. Another Kenyan study found that giving girls a new $6 school uniform every 18 months significantly reduced dropout rates and pregnancy rates. Likewise, there’s growing evidence that a cheap way to help keep high-school girls in school is to help them manage menstruation. For fear of embarrassing leaks and stains, girls sometimes stay home during their periods, and the absenteeism puts them behind and eventually leads them to drop out. Aid workers are experimenting with giving African teenage girls sanitary pads, along with access to a toilet where they can change them. The Campaign for Female Education, an organization devoted to getting more girls into school in Africa, helps girls with their periods, and a new group, Sustainable Health Enterprises, is trying to do the same.

Read all the way to the end for the magical spell. ;)

Domestic violence and men's rights (by Suzie)

This article on Alternet suggests society should help men who experience domestic violence at the hands of women. That seems only fair. But the article is a good example of how statistics can be misused and experts presented as objective. It states:

     

Although [U.K.] government statistics estimate that one in six men suffer some form of domestic abuse during their lifetime compared with one in four women (and there is consensus among those working in the area that men are far less likely to seek help than women, meaning the number could be even higher), violence perpetrated by women against men remains one of the least openly discussed problems in today's society.

        Some readers might assume that 1 in 6 men suffer abuse by women since the article tells the story of two men attacked by female partners, and never mentions same-sex relationships. But gay men experience a fair amount of domestic violence. Here are statistics for the U.K.  and the U.S. (Yes, I understand that women also abuse other women.) 

        From the statistics in the Alternet article, readers might get the impression that women abuse men almost as much as men abuse women. Professor Richard Gelles has an excellent response to similar statistics in the U.S.:

    

   To even off the debate playing field it seems one piece of statistical evidence (that women and men hit one another in roughly equal numbers) is hauled out from my 1985 research - and distorted - to “prove” the position on violence against men. However, the critical rate of injury and homicide statistics provided in that same research are often eliminated altogether, or reduced to a parenthetical statement saying that “men typically do more damage.” The statement that men and women hit one another in roughly equal numbers is true, however, it cannot be made in a vacuum without the qualifiers that a) women are seriously injured at seven times the rate of men and b) that women are killed by partners at more than two times the rate of men.

     The Alternet article makes no mention of politics. But Erin Pizzey, the quoted expert, thinks that feminists are man-haters bent on destroying the family, and that gender has nothing to do with domestic violence. 

     Have you heard all this before? Yeah, me, too. So, why do journalists still muck it up? Are they biased? Or, are they so ignorant of the issues that they don't even know enough to do a quick search of the Internet?