Lesson 1- The Tale of Two Worlds: Of Women and Men

Today in the United States and the developed world, women are better off than ever before in human history. However, there are still countries that deny women basic civil rights. Worldwide, about 4.4 million women and girls are trapped in the sex trade. In places like Afghanistan and Sudan, girls receive little or no education, wives are treated as the property of their husbands, and women who are raped are routinely cast out of their homes for disgracing their families.

The blunt truth is that men still run the world. Of the 195 independent countries in the world, only 17 are led by women. Women hold just 20 percent of seats in parliaments globally. In America, women hold about 14 percent of executive officer positions, 17 percent of board seats, and constitute 18 percent of the elected congressional officials. The gap is even worse for women of colour, who hold just 4 percent of top corporate jobs, 3 percent of board seats, and 5 percent of congressional seats. While women continue to outpace men in educational achievement, they have not made real progress when it comes to making the decisions that most affect our world.

The difference between wages and compensation for men and women is a glaring reality. Equal pay has remained a distant dream even in the developed nations around the world. In 1970, American women were paid 59 cents for every dollar their male counterparts made. By 2010, protests and struggle increased that compensation to 77 cents for every dollar men made.

A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes. The laws of economics and many studies of diversity tell us that if we tapped the entire pool of human resources and talent, our collective performance would improve. Legendary investor Warren Buffett once stated that one of the reasons for his success was that he was competing with only half of the population. Such a statement is accurate in depicting the real plight of women and the advantages men have in the world of competition. According to Leymah Gbowee, who won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for helping to lead the women’s protests that toppled Liberia’s dictator, ‘more women in positions of power was the answer to emancipating women to achieve freedom in the truest sense of the term.

In addition to the external barriers erected by society, women are hindered by barriers that exist within themselves. Women internalize the negative messages they get throughout their lives that dictate them not to be