Philanthropic trends suggest that asking for money to support services to women has somehow become like screaming ‘Fuck” in polite company.
According to a recent estimate, about 1.9% of total charitable donations go to programs for women and girls. Pet ‘causes’ get much more.
I’m talking about providing assistance to female humans who are somebody’s grandmother, mother, aunt, sisters, daughter. Around the world, we’ve got vast inequities to redress.
Employment
Depending on their ethnicity, women receive about 25-30% less than their male counterparts in every kind of job. Women constitute the largest pool of unpaid domestic workers and caregivers. Only six countries in the world give women the same work rights as men. This despite the fact that economies become more stable when women participate.
Health
Of the nearly $42 billion the National Institutes of Health (NIH) spends on medical research each year, only approximately $5 billion (less than 12%) of that funding is directed specifically at women’s health.
Many women around the world do not have authority over when they become mothers. They have limited options for birth control, options often mired in cultural/religious opposition.
When women do access health care, the quality of service is often compromised by discrimination and dismissal from doctors.
Too many states in the US have launched a full-frontal assault on women’s right to abortion and contraception. As though we are breeding stock. We keep having to fight this battle over and over with governance bodies hijacked by men with minds as useless as their dicks.
Access to Education
Globally, one-quarter of women ages 15-24 have not completed primary school. That group makes up 58% of the people not completing that basic education. Two-thirds of illiterate people are women.
Political Representation
Women remain grossly underrepresented in government and the political process. Of all national parliaments, only 24.3% of seats are held by women.
This means that issues female politicians tend to bring up – parental leave and childcare, pay equity, and sexual violence and harassment – are usually neglected.
As of 1 September 2021, there are 26 women serving as Heads of State and/or Government in 24 countries. At the current rate, gender equality in the highest positions of power will not be reached for another 130 years.
Violence
Over one billion women don’t have legal protection against domestic sexual violence or domestic economic violence. Rape culture persists, making life a misery for young women who tend to be prime targets.
In every case, the status of Black women and Latinas are worse. And worse still for non-gender-conforming people.
Those are just the headlines. Then we have all the other predations on women that somehow survive in the 21st century: bride price, forced early marriage, genital cutting, ‘honor ‘ killings and disfigurements, trafficking, and arranged marriages.
How societies value women determines their stability. But progress made through structural changes often is accompanied by pushback that delays substantive advances.
There’s no lack of women willing to do the heavy lifting to assist poor women. However, they seldom have sufficient capital to do all that’s necessary, much less all that could be accomplished.
Egregious inequity is the kindling of revolutions. Yet we women, and the men who claim to like/love/support us, are curiously unmotivated to take to the streets (the pandemic notwithstanding). A critical mass of righteous anger has not been achieved.
What will it take?
Susan Burgess-Lent 