A Little Bit Of Attention Can Go

I Think When Hundreds Of Thousands Of Lives Are On The Line, You Might Have To Set Aside Some Principles.

So Let Us Be Clear About This Up Front: We Hope To Recruit You To Join An Incipient Movement To Emancipate Women And Fight Global Poverty By Unlocking Women's Power As Economic Catalysts. That Is The Process Under Way - Not A Drama Of Victimization But Of Empowerment, The Kind That Transforms Bubbly Teenage Girls From Brothel Slaves Into Successful Businesswomen. This Is A Story Of Transformation. It Is Change That Is Already Taking Place, And Change That Can Accelerate If You'll Just Open Your Heart And Join In.

If One Is Talking To A Finance Minister Of A Poor Country, Moral Arguments Tend Not To Get Very Far. But If You Can Argue That Their Country Is Going To Grow 2 Percent Faster Per Year If They Can Just Harness The Power Of The Female Half Of The Population More Effectively, That Is An Argument They Consider.

The Equivalent Of Five Jumbo Jets' Worth Of Women Die In Labor Each Day, But The Issue Is Almost Never Covered.

When Anesthesia Was Developed, It Was For Many Decades Routinely Withheld From Women Giving Birth, Since Women Were "supposed" To Suffer. One Of The Few Societies To Take A Contrary View Was The Huichol Tribe In Mexico. The Huichol Believed That The Pain Of Childbirth Should Be Shared, So The Mother Would Hold On To A String Tied To Her Husband's Testicles. With Each Painful Contraction, She Would Give The String A Yank So That The Man Could Share The Burden. Surely If Such A Mechanism Were More Widespread, Injuries In Childbirth Would Garner More Attention.