To Be an Educated Woman

Written on January 25, 2020

It is hardly something we think about positively, attending school and waking up at 6:30 in the morning to go.. what? Learn? Believe me, I’ve done as much complaining as the next high school student about homework, lengthy projects, nerving presentations, and “that-wasn’t-on-the-study-guide!” tests. We all complain, and that is okay. However, while my girl friends and I are discussing our heaps of homework and those tricky test questions, there seems to be a disregard for our advantages. Now, I’m not saying we are all ignorant with a blatant nonobservance of our benefits; it’s very common to see a negative stigma surrounding school in America. We overlook our access to education because of just how available it is to us, while many people, predominantly women, are being held back for numerous reasons.

With more women than men enrolled in United States’ colleges, we may assume that the education of women and girls is no issue, but that is not the case. According to data collected by  the Right to Education Project in 2016, women get an average of two years of schooling in at least 15 developing countries, while there are also over 130 million women and girls who are without an education. This being a contributing factor, approximately two thirds of the world’s illiterate are women, while women make up almost a perfect half of the world population. To us, these are just saddening numbers that we frown about and move on, but for 130 million girls, these numbers are a harsh reality.

Reasons why these women are being taken out of school, or unallowed to attend at all, are numerous. One of these reasons is poverty. The cost of education entails uniforms, bus fares, and textbooks, which bear too much of a struggle on many families living in poverty, especially if they have multiple school-aged children. Oftentimes, parents will decide to send their boys to school and let their girls stay home if the decision must be made. Poverty also contributes through children’s health. If parents lack sufficient food and water to keep their children nourished and healthy, it is doubtful that these kids will be able to attend school.

Another dominant barrier to girl’s education is child marriage and pregnancy. As girls are often pushed to marry young in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, they are also pulled out of school at a very critical age in their development. The transition between middle school and high school is a crucial point in a child’s education where they generally learn most life skills, including tactics for escaping a cycle of poverty. However, this is generally the time when girls must leave school due to early marriage and pregnancy. According to Plan International, women who become pregnant are immediately discouraged from attending school so that they can pick up their “motherly duties” as well as to escape a negative stigma surrounding pregnant young women. Other barricades to an education for women include school-based violence and gender norms in religious and cultural circumstances.

If there is one thing that we must know from being so (luckily) highly educated, it is that education is unbelievably powerful. When women are more educated, society as a whole is more educated. The benefits of knowledge are priceless, even in ways that would surprise us. 

Of course, increased literacy and the ability of women to achieve more in their careers are two expected profits that come with more women being educated, but there are many social factors of benefit that we don’t even think of. According to the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking, women are most vulnerable to sexual exploitation and trafficking when they are uneducated and poor. Additionally, in many underdeveloped countries, one in every three girls is married by the age of 18, where regions that provide women with seven or more years of schooling delay the wedding date by almost four years. Educated girls typically marry later, when they are better able to bear and care for their children. As the Afghan author Khaled Hosseini said: “Marriage can wait, education cannot.” Education of women, especially mothers, also brings about an increased survival rate for the adults of the future. According to the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, children of educated mothers are twice as likely to survive past the age of five. Knowledge can most definitely save lives. 

It can also make economies thrive. For the women themselves, their economic standing in underdeveloped countries could soar, as there is a 12% increase in wage with each additional year of schooling. “Education empowers a woman’s wallet by boosting her earning capabilities,” says Lauren Stepp from The Borgen Project, a program which helps fight global poverty. When women are provided with equal access to education, they go on to participate in business and economic activity. Increased earning power and income help combat against current and future poverty through feeding and providing for entire families. Gross Domestic Product also takes off when both women and men, girls and boys, are being offered educational opportunities. Lauren Stepp states that “when 10 percent more women attend school, GDP increases by three percent on average.” 

There are numerous statistics backing the significance of a woman being educated: so many that delving into them all would formulate a short novel. While we have been complaining about homework and derivatives in calculus, we should probably take some time once in awhile to appreciate our becoming better-educated and well-read women of society. Education is a truly powerful thing and taking it for granted would be a mistake.