“Thirty years ago global warming was not widely understood,” observed Richard Robbins in our 2013 interview with him about his acclaimed film, Girl Rising. He believed the most powerful argument in favor of educating girls was as a strategy to eliminate global poverty.
Gender has continued to be at the forefront of our culture. Despite this, a World Economic Forum 2017 report found that globally, gender parity was shifting into reverse. Although it noted that many countries had made considerable progress and that these nations were reaping the benefit of that strategy, even in nations where women were getting a good education, many businesses were not hiring, retaining or promoting them.
The Millennial Bloggers are based all over the world. They are innovators in entrepreneurship, journalism, education, entertainment, and academic scholarship. This month we ask them to share their perspectives on Gender. How else can we amplify the current dialogue around the empowerment of women?
“Gender equality is about good people supporting each other,” writes Reetta Heiskanen. “We should aim for equal social, economic and political rights.” Read: Gender Equality Today.
“Teachers have the obligation to make students think, examine, critique, and arrive upon their own conclusions,” writes Kamna Kathuria. “I have full confidence that with the honest participation of both genders, at an age when societal beliefs haven’t caught up yet, we can instill lifelong values.” Read: Girl Rising (I, too have a dream).
“As a starting point, we could ask ourselves if our schools are doing three things,” writes Bonnie Chiu: “taking away the gendered nature of school subjects; enabling students to question gender bias in curriculum; and enabling relatable role models for students to look up to.” Read: Single Sex Education to Address Gender Inequality: 3 Lessons Learned.
“There is still a lot of work to be done,” writes Alison Rao, who encourages a further call to action to accelerate Gender Equality. “Do it for the girls who don’t have the opportunity to share their own voice and let’s become more knowledgable and find ways to take more action, to give more girls at least part of the education that we were lucky enough to have received.” Read: Women Empowerment is Long Overdue.
“Gender equality doesn’t mean taking away little boys’ chances of running for office or stopping them from thriving in their respective career fields,” writes Zita Petrahai. “But think about it, do we really think gender is the best deciding factor when it comes to ruling a country? A company? A friend group? When did we decide that gender was to be the deciding qualification for success? And why?” Read: Girls Can Run the World.
“As world renowned figure skater, Kim Yuna hoists the Olympic torch above PyeongChang, South Korea, the crowd goes wild and the athletes down below cheer,” writes Leslie Ma. “Hope is not something that those young women in less fortunate situations around the world have much of, it’s time to make them believe in a future where they are safe from harm and have easy access to education. Hope is something that no one should have to ever give up on, not today and not tomorrow.” Read: Keeping Hope Alive.
All photos are courtesy of CMRubinWorld.
Join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. MadhavChavan (India), Charles Fadel (U.S.), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. EijaKauppinen (Finland), State Secretary TapioKosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Geoff Masters (Australia), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Professor Manabu Sato (Japan), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (LyceeFrancais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland, is the publisher of CMRubinWorld and is a Disruptor Foundation Fellow.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
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