The value of women
If slavery and totalitarianism were the great moral issues of the 19th and 20th centuries, then the worldwide oppression of women and girls will be the defining issue of the 21st, said Nicholas D. Kristof, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, in a talk Monday (Sept. 27) at Harvard Medical School’s Carl Walter Amphitheater. Ending that oppression is an issue not only of justice but also of economic progress, Kristof said. Educating girls and empowering women to enter the labor market or run businesses — even on a small scale — makes a huge difference in a community’s economy. Empowered women may help lower poverty rates and diminish support for terrorism, he said. “Women are more likely to invest money or assets in their children or small business, and men are more likely to spend on instant gratification, like alcohol, cigarettes, prostitution,” said Kristof. Kristof’s talk, “Half the Sky: A Journalist...