In the West, women still don’t have equal pay. We’re getting about 75 pence in the pound, or 75 cents in the dollar. Plus we’re getting concussion hitting our heads on the glass ceiling, plus we’re expected to windex it whilst we’re up there. But in the developing world, the fate of females is much worse.
Girls in the developing world are runners-up in the human race. Females are fed last and fed least and one woman dies every minute in childbirth. When the mother dies, it’s the girls who are taken out of school and forced into domestic slavery or prostitution.
Yet failing to send girls to school is costing the world’s poorest countries billions of pounds a year. No education means girls are confined to dangerous, unskilled work – neglecting their earning potential and slowing a country’s recovery from the current financial crisis. The global economic downturn also means girls are the first to lose their jobs, may end up in the sex trade and are more likely to die young. As a result of the economic slump, an extra 50,000 African babies will die before their first birthday this year. Most of these will be girls.
Millions of girls never receive secondary level education across the world because culturally boys are considered more worthy and better earners. That means half the population in the poorest regions of the planet are ignored as an untapped resource. Just a one per cent rise in the number of girls attending secondary school boosts a country’s annual per capita income growth by 0.3 per cent.
In this era of financial instability, the only bank we can count on is the sperm bank. Yet as copulation equals population, an unplanned pregnancy means joining a giant missing person’s bureau. And who is missing – the girl with potential – the girl she was B.C – before childbirth. It’s a vicious cycle – a menstrual cycle, which can only be broken by education, contraception and nutrition. Female-led microfinance projects have the power to break another cycle too, the cycle of poverty.
To help highlight the plight of girls in the developing world and promote Plan International, I gathered a gaggle of inspirational women at my place, Sky newsreader Kay Burley, actress Maureen Lipman and Sinead Cusack, human rights activist Shami Chakrabarti and wife of the then Prime Minister Sarah Brown. We wanted to highlight the fact that “girl power” could kick start ailing economies. The international community must act now to save every girl who is illiterate, impoverished, ignored and ill-treated.
For the future of the planet, it’s imperative that young women be treated as equals, instead of sequels.
To this end, Plan is calling for a global 10-point action plan which includes providing girls with education, better jobs, access to land or property and leadership opportunities.
A recent study revealed that £2 billion could be added to the economy of Kenya alone if the country educated its girls to secondary school level.
Lack of education consigns girls to a life of domestic servitude . The cycle of poverty is continued as uneducated mothers are less likely to send their own children to school.
If you’re a young woman in Britain the recession could cost you your job, but in some countries it could costs you your life.
What do women really want in bed? Breakfast. Oh, and a good book.
If you’re looking for a funny, frivolous yet feisty new read, do slip between my covers. Satisfaction guaranteed.
I’ve added my fave pics of the people who are my human wonder bras – uplifting and supportive and make me look bigger and better. Plus the odd snap of me too. There may be a few faces you recognise – but nobody two-faced, that’s for sure.
I think women are each other’s human Wonderbras – uplifting, supportive and making each other look bigger and better.
If he wants breakfast, tell him to sleep in the kitchen.
Men think monogamy is something you make dining tables out of.
Many marriages break up for religious reasons – he thinks he’s a god and she doesn’t.
Love prepares you for marriage the way needlepoint prepares you for round-the-world solo yachting.
Boys will be boys, and so will a load of middle-aged boys who should know better.
Ladies who lynch.
No wife ever shot a husband while he was vacuuming.
I think therefore I’m divorced.
All husbands think they’re Gods. If only their wives weren’t atheists.
Happy wife = happy life.
I couldn’t ask for a better husband… as much as I’d bloody well like to.
Statistically, 100% of divorces begin with marriage.
Marriage is nature’s way of promoting masturbation.
Marriage is a fun-packed, frivolous activity – only occasionally resulting in death.
It’ll be an amicable split. You’ll both get 50 % of the acrimony.
A new invention is required. The monogamous husband. Patent Pending.
How Do I Hate Thee? Let me Count the Ways.
My wedding vows didn’t say To Love, Hoover and Obey.
I’m having my period so can therefore legally kill you.
You are going to enjoy this marriage, even if I have to divorce you to do so.
A happy marriage is like an orgasm – many of them are faked.
All this emphasis on women faking orgasms, but what about men faking foreplay?
Why do men like intelligent women? Because opposites attract.
Why don’t women tell jokes? Because we marry them.
What does a woman really want in bed? Breakfast.
For women, life is full of lies – I mean doctors maintain that wrinkles don’t hurt.
Legal aid cuts prove that the Tories believe a person is innocent until proven destitute.
Sexist men are so stupid it makes you want to take the ‘men’ out of Mensa.
If a man ever tells you that women fall at his feet – it’s only because he gets them drunk first.
A woman must always fight back. Never just lie back and think of Canberra.
The best cure for menopause is the toy boy diet. A case of having Your Beefcake and Eating It Too.
I don’t fake orgasms. I’m faking being six foot one and seven stone.
Trophy wives tarnish quickly and then get left on the shelf.
Lawyers work 24/7. The partners of lawyers suffer from a bad case of subpoena envy.
Most shrinks should book an appointment with themselves.
The question on the minds of most women is – why doesn’t chocolate go straight to your boobs?
Don’t fall for a man’s puppy dog look… Just get him wormed.
It’s been so long since a man has touched me, not even medical science will want my body.
My top tip for keeping your youth? Lock him in the pool house.
I told myself that it took forty-two facial muscles to frown and only four to stretch out my arm and bitch-slap the witch.