News: Movement for the equality of women

“...the road to full equality is in its first building stages and has a long, long way to go.”

The movement for the equality of women with men may well be the most consequential development of our time. Yet, the road to full equality is in its first building stages and has a long, long way to go. A recent United Nations’ report reveals how true that is.

There are some 920 million illiterate people in the world today, and some two-thirds of them are women. Educational opportunities for women are steadily increasing but a male has a far better chance of finishing grade school today than does a female.

The situation as regards health care may even be worse. In third world countries health care for men is scandalously inadequate. For women, it hardly exists, at all. In the world’s poorer nations the maternal death rate among women is 100 to  200 times higher than in the industrialized nations of the West.

Then, women are much more likely to be sexually and physically abused today than are men. Women are not only subject to the cruelties of sexual traffickers, they are often abused at the hands of their boyfriends,  husbands and other family members. So terrible is this situation that gender based violence harms and kills as many girls and women between the ages of 15 and 44 as does cancer. The list goes on.

The appalling treatment of women in these ‘advanced’ days must be a cause of deep concern for all, perhaps especially, for members of the Church. This outrageous and common injustice is certainly a matter for Church people’s concern. For perfectly obvious reasons, it should rank at or towards the top of their concerns.

Thus, while the position of women has a long way to go in moving in the direction of achieving  equality with men, the good news is the necessity of traveling that road is now more and more recognized and progress is being made.