Branches Book

BRANCHES

Lilly Weidhaas

WOMEN’S EDUCATION AS A SOLUTION FOR A SUFFERING WORLD

I can say without a doubt that almost everyone reading this article, including myself, has never had to worry about their right to receive a high school education. Perhaps there have been struggles, questions about attending public versus private school or worries about a grade in a class, but I think it is safe to say that very few of us have ever simply lacked an option when it comes to education. This choice seems like a basic right, but in today’s world it is a privilege. Can you imagine being a girl in a developing country, where after elementary school your schooling will end and marriage will begin? Can you imagine watching your brothers continue into middle and high school while you are no longer expected to learn anything, except how to be a good wife and mother? Now not only are these girls being denied an education that could provide them with a better future, but they are also no longer safe and protected from a world of child marriages, starvation, child fatality, death at childbirth, and other atrocities. Education is not a cure all, but it is a solution. Not only does getting an education allow a girl to delay her venture into adulthood, it also provides her with the tools to make a better future for herself and her family. Viewed as an individual entity, women’s education can be brushed to the side, taking the backseat to other issues that are currently threatening the lives of children, such as starvation and disease. Short term solutions may provide a family with the money to pay for food for a year, but using education as a long term solution has the potential to eradicate poverty in the first place. Although one of many issues facing the world today, education for women stands out as a pressing issue because of its ability to better the lives of communities in regards to family wealth, safe marriages, children’s mortality rates, and the ability of others to access an education in the future. A girl in school is safe. Let me explain. She is allowed to be a child, recognized as a girl who is learning and not as a woman who is ready to enter the world as an adult. In many countries, girls are not guaranteed to receive an education past primary school, the equivalent of elementary school in the United States. This means that by the age of twelve, a girl is expected to finish learning, and to be ready to become a woman. For many young women, this includes marrying a man picked by their families, who is often much older

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