Today is the International Day of the Girl Child, a day declared by the United Nations to focus on girls' issues and bettering their lives. Appropriately, CNN has published an article listing the 5 toughest places to be a girl. It is important while looking at this to remember that it is easy to judge these countries from our point of view, but as a country we rank 28th for the best place to be a girl, and we can do much better than this, also.
Additionally, this article touches on Michelle Obama's activism surrounding her Let Girls Learn initiative. I think it's cool for us to read a little bit more about Michelle Obama's work as a first lady, as we were discussing in class yesterday that we don't know that much about her. A documentary about her travels learning about girls' education and other factors is also premiering today on CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/11/health/gender-inequality-worst-countries/
Really interesting article! I think it also ties into our discussion of essentializing an issue to one key figure or event, even as exemplified by Pakistan. The article notes that when we think of female education, many of us now simply think of Malala Yousafzai. And of course, she is an amazing role model to so many young women who fight for their right to attend school, and an activist that is certainly doing much to promote an often-marginalized issue. But how many Malalas are out there that we don't know about, fighting in the unique and different struggles that we see in Yemen, Iran, Syria, and Chad (the other four countries in the bottom 5)? I'd be so curious to hear their stories as well—I'm certain they exist.
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