Getting raised by coincidence!

Coincidence! I was told by many psychology teachers that there are factors that form and develop the child’s personality, morals and values. These features include genetic, family, environmental and social aspects. So how on earth does it come by coincidence?

Now let’s examine this statement. I find it a fact that every family screw up when raising a child and most of them aren’t fast learners.

Parents fail to raise their children because they can never put themselves in their shoes. It has a lot to do with inability to trust and believe a younger person at home. And it also has to do with inner fear that their child would one day make dreadful mistakes!

Some situations force children to build a new family out of friends from the outer world “outside home’. And you can never know which sorts of friends will your child meet and deal with. Some may be very positive and have a great impact, while others might drag him down to all wrong doings.  The choice made by the youngster relies much on the degree of his consciousness, innocence and relation with church and God.

If we study both cases well, we will find that social and environmental factors have great influence on the person and it highly develops the personality of any person. It might change some genetic characteristics and shape them like clay. A child may learn to give everything he posses and free himself, while both of his parents are misers. If caregivers are not showing respect and tenderness, the child may separate himself from the home, and shape a new attitude for interests. Some of which follow some of their friend’s sick attitude for they can’t finds friends with mutual interests and goals.

Either ways, the person will always experience good and bad times. A successful person who developed himself and challenged tribulations will always feel proud yet his parents will get good credit in front of the society who would automatically think that the house progress was very successful. While a negative person with brutal doings would undergo happiness for taking revenge of his parents neglect. Yet that same person took revenge of himself before revenging the other person, which is the main motive behind committing suicide.

To sum up, genetic and family influences can play a major role if the infant’s dominant place is home. In other words, if the child’s social life is limited. While environmental and societal factors can dominate and contour the personality if the infant himself exposed himself to these changes with all willingness.

The United Nations Millenium Goals

The United Nations has articulated the Millennium Development Goals that include ambition to attain gender equality, women education and empowerment. The essential role from this is to build democratic nations and sustained economic growth.

The UN initiated the move to allow girls the opportunity to receive education without discrimination and to enlighten their minds. Girls have been neglected for centuries in the developing nations especially in the Arab world, all in which fell negatively on girls and women. Illetracy and ignorance have pulled the nations and the poor of the poorest down with no rescue.

Thus the MD 15 year plan is to eliminate gender disparities. Indicators if this goal: ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary, and tertiary education; the ratio of literate females to males among 15-to-24-year-olds; the share of women in wage employment in the nonagricultural sector; and the proportion of seats in national parliament held by women.

How will women education help?

As female education rises, fertility, population and infant and child mortality falls and so family health improves. Among married Egyptian women ages 25 to 29, for instance, those with no education had married at age 18, on average, and had their first child by age 20; those with a secondary or higher education married at an average age of 23 and had their first child by age 25. Turkey’s 1998 DHS showed that 22 percent of girls 15 to 19 years old who had no education or who had not completed primary school were already mothers or pregnant, compared with only 2 percent of girls who had completed secondary or higher education.

Additionally, the increase in girl’s secondary school enrollment is associated with increase in women participation in the labor force and better decisions regarding marriage. Only 20% of the women ages 15 and above in the MENA region are in the labor force. Among the highest levels of native female labor participation in the MENA are Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey and Yemen where women constitutes 25% of the labor force. But these statistics are really low compared to France women participation 45%.

The majority of women who live in agricultural lands like Egypt and Yemen participate in this sector only, unlike other nations like Tunisia and Turkey where women engage in the export-manufacturing sectors.

Also daughters of educated women are more likely to live a healthy life and receive higher education that their parents due to development.

Needless to say that educated women can be more political active and better informed about their legal rights and how to exercise them.

Further more, the rate of return of investing in education is high due to several reasons such as higher income, better family planning, lower population growth and high economic growth.

Yet there is no plan without challenges.

The results of Egypt’s 2000 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) provide insights into families’ preferences for investing in their children’s education. Women with children ages 6 to 15 were asked, “If parents have one son and one daughter and can send only one child to the university, which child should they send?” While 53 percent of the women said that the decision should depend on the children’s capabilities, 39 percent said that the son should go to the university, compared with only 8 percent who said that the daughter should go. The survey also found that mothers of children who had never attended school were more likely to cite the cost of education as a reason for not educating their daughters than for not educating their sons.

Men of the Arab world are not accepting gender equality especially in the work field. So they hire women for simple works as secretariats. As a result, mismatch between market needs and graduates skills occur due to unfairness.

Cultural beliefs frustrate women pretensions to work and rule remarkable positions as it will lead them to independency which is totally against men will. Taking part of labor force will make women more aware of their rights and more powerful, while the Eastern culture shapes women as creatures who should obey their husbands, cook and clean for their family and beaten if objected.

To frustrate women ambitions to take the lead, men offer lower wages than it should to keep gender inequality.

More countries have understood that women's equality is a prerequisite for development,” by Kofi Annan

Gender inequality, which remains pervasive worldwide, tends to lower the productivity of labour and the efficiency of labour allocation in households and the economy, intensifying the unequal distribution of resources. It also contributes to the non-monetary aspects of poverty – lack of security, opportunity and empowerment – that lower the quality of life for both men and women. While women and girls bear the largest and most direct costs of these inequalities, the costs cut broadly across society, ultimately hindering development and poverty reduction,” by Gender and Development Group -World Bank

"Male and female citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, must be equally admitted to all honors, positions, and public employment according to their capacity and without other distinctions besides those of their virtues and talents,” by Olympe de Gouges.

“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves,” by Abraham Lincoln

Women achievements - Introduction

For many centuries, women suffered from poverty, malnutrition, abuses, inequality with men, illiteracy, diseases and lack of basic needs. Furthermore they were beaten, assaulted and prohibited from gaining their rights. And despite the inhumane treatment, they struggled for education, fought for equality, raised their voices and approved their capability of raising the nation and its well being. Today, a country can never reach its peak without women support. Thanks for all women who initiated the move of women empowerment. And Happy International Women Day.