Women’s Leadership
I am looking
forward to attending Susquehanna’s Women’s Leadership Symposium in Philadelphia
later this week. This is one of the signature events of our Women’s Leadership
Initiative.
When I am visiting
alumni and friends of the University, I am sometimes asked if such an effort is
anachronistic. Sadly, it is not. Although, like most universities, we enroll
more women than men, we continue to see our alumnae encountering different
challenges in the workplace from those of their male counterparts. We are
committed to providing all our students with the tools to be successful
leaders, and to accomplish that goal, we are creating necessary networking and
professional-development opportunities for our female students to level the
playing field.
It is my hope that
our efforts will help all of our students to be advocates for gender equality
around the world. There is much work to be done. These are nine leading issues
affecting women around the world today as identified by Global Citizen:
1.
Inequality
in the workforce: In the United States, a nation that regularly declares itself
a leader in equity and human rights, women are paid less than men across nearly
all employment sectors. In 2015, the differential was 21% even though women
began outnumbering men on college campuses in the 1980s, and in 2014 women in
the U.S. surpassed men in overall academic achievement.
2.
Inadequate
access to education: According to UNESCO 31 million girls of primary school age
are not in school.
3.
Reproductive
health and rights: Worldwide, 225 million women lack family planning resources.
4.
Maternal
Health: The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 300,000 lives are
lost each year from preventable pregnancy-related causes.
5.
Gender-based
violence: The World Health Organization reports that 1 in 3 women will
experience physical or sexual violence.
6.
Child
Marriage: According to the United Nations Population Fund, during this decade
over 140 million girls will become child brides.
7.
Female
Genital Mutilation: The World Health Organization estimates that over 200
million women and girls have been victims of these practices across 30 nations.
8.
Female
infanticide: Globally, when left to nature, human beings have an even
distribution of men and women through what is known as Fisher’s Principle.
Women generally live longer, but this is balanced by a slightly higher male
birthrate: 107 male births for every 100 female. When the World Bank first
collected global population data by gender in 1961, the world population was
within 0.09% of gender equilibrium. A gap has continued to grow since that
time, so that there are now over 60,000,000 more men than women in the world.
Much of this can be attributed to female infanticide in male dominated
cultures.
9.
Political
inequality: 95% of the world’s nations have a male head of state. The 19th
amendment, which finally granted U.S. women the right to vote, is now 98-years-old,
and yet, until two years ago, no major party had nominated a woman to be their
candidate for president.
As Susquehanna students become global citizen leaders, they
will need to be champions for gender equality and gender justice. The work our
alumnae and students will share at the Symposium inspires me to know they will
continue to be agents of positive change.