Miscellaneous Forum

Sounds as though Richard has wandered a little into his brother David's territory ! Well of course - I am all for it too - it's just as important for women as it is for men.

oh have i got it wrong again??? i swear i am going doolally

no the point he was making was that educated women will only marry educated men so you educate the women first to encourage the men

he was saying it is more imnportant to educate women than it is to educate men

Jen, this is a little off the subject but I read a great one several years ago and you are most likely familiar with it. It is "The Road from Coorain" by Jill Ker Conway.

Join the club, Jen, somehow I remembered this - thought might be interested:) populationmatters.org/attenb...

I am all for it ..in Denmark around 60% on University are female so we men with a higher education is getting to be a rear commodity.

Believe it or not, there are communities even in Western countries where women are discouraged and/or prevented from having an education beyond primary/elementary school: youtube.com/watch?v=g1eMV3jk... In the vid, I feel sorry for Lizzie at 7:30min - quit school before junior high, 18 years old and has the reading skills of a 6-year-old, and doesn't think she needs an education because she's going to be a housewife (which is what her culture expects of her). Noreen at 11min is my favorite.

Education and knowledge are power. if a woman is educated and something happens to her husband she has the skills to earn money, if she has no education her earning prospects are much lower and it is much more likely that she and her family will enter a cycle of poverty. If she is educated about such things as health care her children are less likely to die or suffer disease, in community where less children die there is less expectation to have a lot of children putting the mothers life at risk, knowledge of health care also decreases the risk of death during child birth. Many micro finance organisations are based on the idea that if you give a woman skills and means to earn money you can break the cycle of poverty.

Everything I have read indicates that if women in a culture get at least a 3rd Grade education that poverty rates, child mortality rates, and birth rates all decline significantly.

'The Hand That Rocks The Cradle Is The Hand That Rules The World', a poem by William Ross Wallace, says it all. When you educate a girl child, you educate an entire family. The distilled wisdom of the mother passes on to her children, the community, the village, the world.

i have hear of the book the road to coorain but not read it yet

I heartily agree with all of the above - but what happens when you have an oppressive regime in place that actively tries to prevent female access to education? The Taliban springs to mind, but it's only one of many, and they're not all in the developing and/or the Islamic world: for example, some fundamentalist Christian sects also have a lamentable stance on this issue.

I have little to add on the subject under discussion i.e. the education of women but I do know that Attenborough clan are like media royalty in the UK, they are hugely respected. I'm just wondering is there another generation "waiting in the wings".

> for example, some fundamentalist Christian sects also > have a lamentable stance on this issue. Some of those have a lamentable stance on education, period, even about what is in their own scriptures. Unfortunately I've spent enough time circulating in fundamentalist Christian circles to see some of the unfortunate results.

I dont think we want to get into a religious or political discussion here. Lack of education limits opportunities for women across all religions and political sitiutions. Poverty does not discriminate.

Agreed, Glenn. Sadly 'fundamentalists' of any religious flavour don't always seem to grasp the fundamentals of their reference documents!