Violence Against Women
Higher Rates of Poverty
Women in the U.S. and worldwide are more likely than men to live in poverty. In the U.S., they're 35 percent more likely to live in poverty than men. One in eight women over 18 lived in poverty in 2017, and 11 percent of elderly women were poor. While 16 percent of male-headed households lived in poverty in 2017, 34 percent of female-headed families were poor.
Forced Sterilization
Around the world, women have been forced to submit to sterilization, rendering them unable to bear children. This coercive family-planning method has been recognized as a violation of human rights and a crime against humanity. And yet it is still practiced in many countries around the world as a method of population control, disease control and poverty management.
Women as Refugees
Women and children make up nearly three-quarters of refugees worldwide, and displaced females are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and violence. As refugees, they have even fewer opportunities for education, lack health care (including during pregnancy) and are at increased risk for harm.
Less Education
Millions of girls around the world are denied education, including 31 million of primary school age who cannot attend school regularly. There are 34 million adolescent girls out of school. Young women make up 58 percent of the world population that has not completed primary school, a statistic much lower among boys. Two-thirds of the 774 million illiterate people worldwide are female.
Abortion Access
About 39 percent of women in the U.S. live where they cannot access abortion services due either to total bans or procedures only available if a pregnancy is life-threatening. Women carrying fetuses with fatal health problems in many instances must carry the pregnancy full-term or pay the expense of traveling to another country (or, in the case of the U.S., another state) where the procedure is legal.
Men Make Laws About Women
In 2017, an all-male panel of the U.S. Congress decided whether a new health care bill should include maternity care among its essential health services. A new California law outlawed all-male boardrooms, perhaps setting an example for the rest of the country — and maybe even Congress someday.
