Everywhere throughout the world, the debate about the fate of women is on the rise, in all its dimensions, economic, political, social and moral. There is one among them, however, which is less spoken about than the others and which, nevertheless, determines everything: education of girls. Today, girls constitute the bulk of the 800 million illiterates. They are much less numerous than boys to go to school. And when they go, they stay there less time, and in poorer schools.
And yet, nothing matters more, for the future of humanity, than their education.
First, all studies show that education of girls is the best economic and social investment for a country: the more girls go to school, the more maternal and infant life expectancy increases, the more children then have regular access to clean water and hygienic toilet practices, and the more sexually transmitted diseases decrease. Similarly, the more educated girls are, the fewer children they have: four more years of study, it’s one child less. Finally, the more girls are active at school, the more successful their children will be, because educating a girl is educating her children, whereas educating a boy is only educating himself, because it is quite unlikely that, as an adult, he will take care of education of his children.
Quantitative studies abound to support these analyses on all continents. For example, a World Bank study in Africa shows that children of mothers, with 5 years of primary education, are 40% more likely to survive their early childhood than those of mothers that have studied less. And all studies confirm it, in other regions, and for other dimensions.
Even more, developing education of girls is giving them the means to have more power in society. In general, however, women are more concerned about the future than men, because mothers are more concerned than fathers about the future of their children. Moreover, they find happiness in the one they give to children and thus they understand, before men, the pleasure that can come from altruism, on which depends the survival of humanity. Here again, studies show that in places where women status is more important, society is more positive, that is, it allocates more money to investments, makes less debt and cares more about environment.
For men, the time has come to realize, all around the world, that they have nothing to lose: women won’t take their place. They will create new ones. They will invent new jobs, new needs, new services.
Finally, we shall go beyond that and not make a war of sexes from it, but instead make a change of mentality; and it will probably take a century, at least, for every man to realize that he is a woman like any other.
If we can’t reach that goal, women will, to succeed, resign themselves to using the same means as men: they will get rid of motherhood constraints and the planet will become a juxtaposition of asexual and narcissistic individuals, having made from virility their utopia.
What is at stake right now is, thus, not a conflict of genders, but a chaotic and complex mutation, leading towards the highlighting, for each human being, of the positive values of respect for life.