It’s international women’s day, a moment to reflect on the state of affairs for women around the globe. In my world, an office move has left us pretty badly off: we used to have two toilets between seven women and now we have four toilets between twenty-three. I’ve not had to queue yet but I’m sure it will happen.
But seriously, I’m not so put upon. With 70 million girls unable to access education, those of us who have done the education thing (and spent time complaining about it) fall into the category of the fortunate.
Even in developed countries where access to education is taken for granted, there is still ground to make up. French women, for example, earn 80% of what their male counterparts take home each month, and given that 51.4% of the population is female, it’s the minority that benefits from this inequality (although ironically men don’t seem to be capitalising on their earnings advantage.) Only 12% of the French parliament is made up of women. That’s worse than Greece, which traditionally has a reputation for being a pretty macho state, and a long way behind the 47% of the Swedish Rikstag.
So, to all my female colleagues and women everywhere, happy international women’s day!
Et pour des webnauts françaises : aujourd’hui nous fêtons les femmes. Bonne journée à vous toutes !
Quand tout se fait petit, Femmes, vous restez grandes – Victor Hugo
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