Advocating for Female Education as a Tool of Empowerment
Education is essential for people of all ages, genders, and backgrounds. In many ways, it is a fundamental human right due to the social and economic advancements it offers. The traditional family model, placing men at the head as breadwinners and women as homemakers, has confined women to a subordinate role in the home and, by extension, society. Because women did not contribute to the labor market in the past, it was not deemed necessary to educate them. The Western world has made great strides to eradicate this ideology from their societies within the past two centuries, and most developed countries have today achieved gender parity in education. Unfortunately, there are still many cultures and communities around the world that do not see the value of educating girls and women. Female illiteracy is a significant barrier in gender equality and empowerment and must be addressed to give women and girls a better tomorrow.
Rationale
The United Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization report that 63% of illiterate adults are females (UNESCO, 2019). Disparities between continents, countries, and communities definitely exist, with areas such as sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and parts of the Middle East experiencing higher rates of female illiteracy. This is due to a variety of socioeconomic factors such as poverty, conflict, and restrictive cultural norms. Certain cultures, for example, believe tertiary education is more important for boys because girls will only end up as wives and caregivers. In countries with low primary and secondary completion rates, the poorer a woman or girl is, the more disadvantaged she is (UNESCO, 2019). The combination of poverty and illiteracy is devastating for women across the globe. Education not only liberates women from ignorance, but it also helps them escape poverty. Kohli (2017) describes female empowerment as “a process of change which enables women to access resources, correct structural inequalities, build independence, and alter the patriarchal ideology.
Benefits of Female Education
Education is freedom, and it is only through learning that women and girls can be free from harmful and retrogressive practices, norms, and ideologies. UNESCO (2019) describes the education of women and girls as “an essential lever for sustainable development and peace.” Female education is a powerful tool for improving the lives of individuals, but also for fostering equality, economic growth, poverty reduction, and improved health. Organizations such as the United Nations and World Health Organization have prioritized gender parity in education, and have dedicated two Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to female education. MDG 2 seeks to achieve universal primary school, and MDG 3 seeks to promote gender equality and empower women. Achieving these two goals will not only change the lives of millions of women and girls but they also positively impact other purposes and improves their chances of even being achieved. MDG 5, for example, seeks to improve maternal health, while MDG 6 is focused on reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS.
There are numerous reasons to support and advocate for female education:
- Educating women and girls paves the way for future educated generations. Women who have received training are more likely to ensure that their children access the same educational opportunities.
- Empowering women and girls through education makes them less vulnerable to practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation. Educated women are less likely to be victims of domestic and sexual abuse, or to tolerate violent behavior from their partners.
- Female education improves maternal and infant outcomes during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum. Educated women possess more healthcare knowledge, which enhances their odds and those of their children. Educated women are also less likely to contract a disease that can be transmitted to their children, such as HIV/AIDS.
- We are educating more women results in an increase in the labor force. This means more teachers, nurses, and doctors are added to communities, and more workers are contributing to the economy.
- Educating women and girls increase their chances of attaining socioeconomic and escaping/preventing poverty. They are able to lead productive and healthy lives, contribute to society, and help their families and communities. Studies have shown that educated women marry later, have fewer children, and receive higher wages (Kohli, 2017).
Barriers to Female Education
Despite progress in increasing female literacy, there are significant challenges that hinder gender parity in education. These include a lack of access to resources, violence, and conflict, the perpetuation of traditional gender norms, cultural and family obligations, and poor infrastructure. Overcoming these barriers requires a concerted effort from various stakeholders, including governments, humanitarian organizations, and community leaders. Resources, such as books, teaching guides, and even sanitary towels, must be provided to ensure girls are in school in learning. Learning must become a priority for communities that have traditionally relegated women and girls to restrictive gender roles. Schools must be built, and teachers must be trained to provide quality learning environments for girls. It is only through addressing individual barriers that real progress can be made.
Adult education is often overlooked when discussing gender parity, as noted by UNESCO (2019). Efforts to improve female education are generally focused on girls and primary school. UNESCO further notes that even when adult education is a priority in humanitarian settings, it is focused on formal education, rather than informal learning. Female education must not be confined to the classroom. Educating women means providing them with the information and life skills they require for resilience and growth. Adult education brings with it a new set of challenges for women and educators. Language and literacy levels are the most significant barriers to learning. If a woman cannot read or write, and only speaks a native language, this severely impacts the dissemination of information. Even when writing and literacy are not a problem, many barriers prevent women from participating in educational programs. Family obligations, social stigma, and poverty are some of the obstacles to both formal and informal adult education.
The Way Forward
The goal of improving female education is realized through an increase in enrollment and completion rates. There isn’t one universal approach that can be implemented to improve access to education for women and girls. Improving female education requires overcoming the numerous obstacles discussed herein. The most important thing is to remember what education means to every single woman and girl who has been denied access to it. For many women, education is the only hope they have of escaping the desperate situations they have found themselves in. Imagine a 12-year-old girl in Chad who has had to drop out of school to marry her father’s 40-year-old business associate or the woman in Pakistan who is being abused by her husband but has no way of supporting herself and her seven children without an education.
In analyzing the role of early defenders of women’s education in Britain and Bengal, Hasan (2018) notes that both “their societies perpetuated many cultural mythologies about female literacy, which influenced social opposition to women’s equal right to education.” This is a reminder that denying women the right to education has not always been a preserve of developing countries. The world’s leading nations, which are now advocating female education, once kept education opportunities away from their women. It is unethical to deny someone education based solely on their gender, and it is even more immoral to expect someone to achieve socio-economic growth when they have been denied the tools they desperately require to do so. Women are valuable contributors to the economy, and when educated, they are capable of opening sociocultural and financial avenues for themselves (Kohli, 2017).
Conclusion
Education is the most crucial tool in the fight for gender equality and female empowerment. Increasing gender parity in education will allow millions of women and girls across the world the opportunity to develop their minds and gain social and economic independence. Their lives and futures rest heavily on their ability to access educational opportunities. Female education further allows women to contribute their knowledge and skills to solving societal issues and improving the quality of life for their children, families, and communities. For the sake of current and future generations, educating women and girls must become a priority for the global community.