Are Women Really Inferior?
I remember very clearly the argument I had with Trista on the bus ride home from Moore Junior High School that winter afternoon. She was the best 7th grade basketball player, and I was a middling to average 7th grade basketball player who was destined to not make the 9th grade team. She and I were arguing who would win a one-on-one basketball game. This was no Billie Jean King v. Bobby Riggs in national importance. But the heat on that bus was intense. I was incredulous that she thought she could beat me. What girl could beat a boy in basketball? That couldn’t happen. No offense to her and all. But boys were just better basketball players. Even middling to average ones. I never asked her why my attitude bothered her so much. I thought it was just a plain fact. But she thought it was an affront to her being.
Little did I know how millenia of prejudice against women would fuel the fire of a 7th grade girl that day. And little did I realize how I had bought that lie hook, line, and sinker. And it persists today, 32 years later (although hopefully not in me). Look at these facts:
- Girl babies are still killed in countries where male babies are considered more valuable.
- Women are denied property rights and inheritance in many countries.
- Women own less than 1 percent of the world’s property.
- Women work 2/3 of all the world’s labor hours.
- Women earn 10 percent of the world’s wages.
Rich Stearns makes a startling statement in his book, The Hole in Our Gospel.
“The Single most significant thing that can be done to cure extreme poverty is this: protect, educate, and nurture girls and women and provide them with equal rights and opportunities – educationally, economically, and socially. This one thing can do more to address extreme poverty than food, shelter, health care, economic development, or increased foreign assistance.”
I for one owe Trista a long-overdue apology. How about you?
