Tag: gender

The End of Men: Hanna Rosin

The attitudes and social behaviour of men will have to change if they are to compete successfully against women in the modern global economy, claims Hanna Rosin in the latest edition of The Atlantic.

“With few exceptions, the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success,” Rosin writes. “Aid agencies have started to recognize this relationship and have pushed to institute political quotas in about 100 countries, essentially forcing women into power in an effort to improve those countries’ fortunes…

“Last year, Iceland elected Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, the world’s first openly lesbian head of state, who campaigned explicitly against the male elite she claimed had destroyed the nation’s banking system, and who vowed to end the “age of testosterone”…

“Researchers have started looking into the relationship between testosterone and excessive risk, and wondering if groups of men, in some basic hormonal way, spur each other to make reckless decisions. The picture emerging is a mirror image of the traditional gender map: men and markets on the side of the irrational and overemotional, and women on the side of the cool and levelheaded.”

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Extremism impacting Maldivian women: Inter Press report

Authorities in the Maldives view women’s issues as a core human rights problem and are keen to tackle them head on, but cultural and religious issues often stand in the way, according to an Inter Press Service report by Feizal Samath.

‘No doubt the government of President Mohamed Nasheed recognises many problems and is willing to tackle them, but there’s limited ability to do so because of deep-rooted cultural and religious issues,’ according to a Maldivian journalist, who declined to be named.

Member of parliament Eva Abdulla, who belongs to Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) — which won power in May 2009, thus ending the 30- year-old reign of dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom — said the government firmly believes in affirmative action policies benefiting women.

‘The President has called for gender mainstreaming in both formulating and implementing government policies,’ she said. She stressed, however, that lack of staff and resources are undermining Nasheed’s good intentions.

Particularly worrying, she said, is the growing religious extremism in the Maldives and its impact on the lives of Maldivian women, who comprise around 48 percent of the country’s population of around 340,000.

‘Religion is all too often used as an excuse to limit women,’ she added.

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