Trinidad leading gender equality!

Good news - maybe the day is coming when I can rejoice!


 GENEVA, Switzerland, November 12, 2008 -

Trinidad and Tobago not only leads the Caribbean and Latin America in closing the gender gap, but it's among the top 20 countries in the world making that progress, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2008 released today.



The twin-island republic jumped 27 spots up from its ranking last year to be number 19 in the survey of 130 countries this time around.



"Trinidad and Tobago makes a remarkable climb up the rankings to hold the highest position in the region and to become the only country from the region to hold a place among the global top 20," the report said. "This is partly due to an improvement in the economic participation and opportunity sub-index, but can be mainly attributed to an increase in the number of women in parliament."



Argentina, at 24, is the second-highest ranking country in the region this year, moving up nine places due to an overall increase in political empowerment, driven by large gains in the percentage of women in parliament and among those holding ministerial level positions. Cuba, a new entrant last year, fell three places to 25; while Barbados, one spot down, took the fourth highest spot in the region as it entered the ranks for the first time this year.



Suriname (79), Bolivia (80), Belize (86), Mexico (97), Paraguay (100) and Guatemala (112) occupy the lowest positions in the region.



Norway leads the chart, followed by Finland, Sweden, Iceland and New Zealand. The United Kingdom is at 13 while the United States is ranked 27.

Read the full story here: Caribbean: News in the Caribbean - Caribbean360.com

44 women murdered in T&T so far this year...

In Trinidad and Tobago, 44 women have been murdered this year to date.
That's double the number from last year.

So Obama's in the White House, all's well with the world?

Not when women (the majority of the population) are being murdered in ever-increasing numbers, when US media commentators are not censured for abusing female candidates in ways that they would not dare to do to an african-american male; when in the Cairo courts last week, the magistrate informed the male accused on the best way to beat his wife without running afoul of the law;

and we are 52% of the population.

The world rejoices when a representative of a 15% minority wins an election, but what about the total lack of representation world wide of the 52% majority?

Women don't have anywhere near proportional representation in ANY government.

So when will I have a reason to go out into the streets and celebrate?

When the promises of Beijing are finally met, when half of our population is no longer paid less for the same work; when we are fully represented in the halls of government and in the White House; when we no longer live in fear of our husbands, our fathers, our brothers; when the courts of law cannot say provocation is a defense for the violence of rape; when anyone who expresses misogynistic views on cable or network television is treated as severely as if s/he expressed a racist view; when our daughters are proud to be female and have all the opportunities that should be there for the 52% majority of the population!

THEN I will put on my t-shirt, I will cry on television, I will run down the streets rejoicing.

Until then - I will contiue to work for TRUE change, change we can ALL believe in - change for the unrepresented and abused MAJORITY of the people of the world.

Change for the WOMEN of the world!

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Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?

Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?
real interesting article. Seems as if the work we did in 2000-2001 worked, but was not sustainable. Obviously the PR and activities to push tech careers to girls from 9-12 needs to be repeated for every cadre of girls. This is interesting as funding for these projects is rarely open-ended.
The drop is catastrophic - seems as if there are even fewer women going into tech now than before 1999, when there were so many programmes starting to get girls into tech.