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"The Women's Crusade"

By: Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, The New York Times

As an old Chinese proverb says, “women hold up half the sky.” Internationally, it is becoming more widely recognized that empowering women and supporting initiatives for women and girls is the most effective and direct way to combat poverty and extremism. But far and wide, and too often than not, women are oppressed and undervalued. As Amartya Sen has captured in his writings, women’s inequality in certain places of the world has led to less women than men in those regions, despite the fact that women live longer than men and should outnumber men, as they do in some places of the world. This inequality amounts to much more than unequal pay and often times manifests itself in such forms as bride burnings, sex trafficking, infanticide, unequal health care, widespread abuse, and increased rates of maternal mortality.

Stories like that of Saima, a woman from Pakistan who took a micro loan of $65 and successfully launched a lucrative embroidery business in the face of a extreme poverty, and that of numerous women across the globe consistently underscore the fact that uneducated women and women not included in the formal economy are the greatest unexploited resources in many impoverished countries. As this New York Times article suggests, foreign assistance targeted at empowering women through microfinance efforts and promoting women’s education can help economies and curb violence and extremism.

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