A Woman's Worth

"Women are just men with less money"-Paul Samuelson once quoted, addressing women's growing role in the modern society. Today, millions of women are now empowered and are independent, working alongside men in society. The recent issue of The Economist addresses the quick advancement of women, and the seeds of feminism, planted in the early years of the past century.

The first generations of successful women insisted on being judged by the same standards as men. Many carried the belief that by working harder and thinking smarter, women could push through the moulds created for them by a patriarchal society.

The rebellious nature of women is hard to tame, and evidence is scattered throughout history--Elizabeth I, Joan of Arc, Catherine the Great, Cleopatra, Amelia Earhart, Catherine de Medici, Rosa Parks, Queen Victoria, Harriet Tubman--to name a few. These powerful women didn't allow for men to tie them down, setting examples for women of a younger generation.

Many pioneering businesswomen pride themselves on their toughness; and indeed, the attributes of pride, toughness, and perseverance are the qualities that helped women achieve independent status.

The entrance of women into the workforce was 'official' during the times of the first and second World Wars, between 1914-1918 and 1939-1945--with some women reluctant to leave their factory jobs once the men came back from war--making weapons and parts for machinery required for the war.

After the men decided to waltz back into the lives of women and casually brush them off, the rebellious nature of them sprung up and, and idea of feminism was finally formed. Suffragists and many other women of every social class imaginable, banded together to rise up, and finally defeand themselves. Women were finally recognised as 'persons'.

Some of today's most influential feminists contend that women will never fulfil their potential if they play by men's rules. Women are wired differently from men, not just in trivial ways. They're less aggressive and more consensus-seeking, less competative and more collaborative, less power-obsessed and more group-oriented. These attributes, when listed against the traits of men, cannot help but make one wonder how differently the world would be if women sat in the seats of major power--one came extremely close in recent politics.

Wars would be non-existent, and the great divide that separates nations would be blurred, allowing humility to cover the Earth.

Peninah Thomson and Jacey Graham, the authors of A Woman's Place is in the Boardroom, assert that women are "better lateral thinkers than men" and "more idealistic" into the bargain. These seem to be qualities that are becoming ever more valuable in business. The recent financial crisis proved that the sort of qualities that men pride themselve on--risk-taking, bare-knuckle competition--can lead to disaster. Some of the best companies are abandoning "patriarchal" hierarchies in favour of "collaboration" and "networking", skills in which women have an inherent advantage.

Though much progress has been made, it's not happening at a faster rate. Britain's Equality and Human Rights Commission calculated that, at the current rate of progress, it will take 60 years for women to gain equal representaion on the boards of the FTSE 100. With countries struggling for democracy (i.e Afghanistan), the fight for equal rights for women will take longer, if gender equality ever happens at all.

Although the future for Afghani women seems bleak, first steps towards equality are happening in schools all across the world: women now outperform men--more prominently in university.

In short, the past century is only the beginning of what is to come and what can be expected from women in the near future. The positive changes empowered women bring to the economy, politics, and social aspects of a country are welcomed in a world that has been too-long dominated by men.