WHAT the artist writes

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THE EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN CAN ABOLISH POVERTY

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali looks out at you. The curser has selected a rectangle around her eyes. Perhaps the curser is alluding to her past, or maybe her freedom from it. But, maybe it’s to tell the viewer to pay attention.

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This concept discusses the two major problems within our global culture – the inability to share the basic means for survival with all those that exist within our world, and the inequality of gender. There is a solution. Through the empowerment of women, we can pull ourselves into a better world. This empowerment needs to take the form of education, political equality, social equality, and the return of the reproductive rights and freedoms. The starting point is to educate women who are not afforded the same rights to education as their male counterparts. This education allows individuals to become freethinking and explore their own world, enacting their own choices rather than accepting it as it is told to them. These actions will begin to break down political and social barriers that have been implemented commonly by a patriarchy or religion, and will allow women to actively better their circumstances economically, politically and socially. The obvious benefit of this is that the median intelligence of a community will increase, which will also create larger skilled working forces and allow an expansion and innovation of the community’s economy.  Even simple education around sex and reproduction (paired with the access to birth control products) allows women to break a cycle of things such as unplanned or juvenile pregnancies, which commonly forces women to forgo continuing their education or personal development (if even socially or culturally allowed). With such sexually educated women, a better environment is created for the individuals and for their offspring, if the choice to reproduce is made.

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The empowerment of women needs to be implemented to achieve basic human equality, and as an added benefit, poverty can be eliminated in the process of achieving such equality.