The month of March is Women's History Month in the United States, and yesterday (3/8/15) was International Women's Day. So I thought this would be a good time to note the results of the Gallup Poll in a recent international survey. They asked women all over the world to evaluate their lives (both currently and future expectations) on a scale of 0 to 10. Those who rated themselves a 7 or higher currently and an 8 or higher for the future were considered to be thriving. Others were considered to be struggling to meet their basic needs or suffering (not having their basic needs fulfilled).
Those results were not good. It turns out that only about a quarter of women in the world (26%) can be considered to be thriving. Meanwhile, about three-quarters are either struggling (61%) or suffering (13%). Those figures should shame all humans. And what should shame us even more is that we have made no progress on alleviating this struggling and suffering in the last decade (see chart above).
Humans always seem to find the money to further their own greed, to enrich their politicians, and to wage their wars. But where is the money to eliminate the poverty, hunger, and lack of education & opportunity for the world's women? Even in the rich nations, like the United States, we refuse to grant full equal rights to women or to pay them equally to men.
In the United States, the richest nation in the world, only 63% of women are thriving? Why isn't that 100%? We have the money -- we just don't seem to have the morality or political will.
Just how much "humanity" do the world's humans have? Not a lot, if this survey is even close to being true.
