This blog is intended to go along with Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues, by John R. Weeks, published by Cengage Learning. The latest edition is the 13th (it will be out in January 2020), but this blog is meant to complement any edition of the book by showing the way in which demographic issues are regularly in the news.

You can download an iPhone app for the 13th edition from the App Store (search for Weeks Population).

If you are a user of my textbook and would like to suggest a blog post idea, please email me at: john.weeks@sdsu.edu

Friday, March 8, 2013

International Women's Day

It seems very sad to me to that we have to have an "International Women's Day," but every year since 1975 the United Nations has celebrated this on March 8th. Of course, this does seem like a good idea given the recent attacks even in the United States on women's reproductive rights. This year's theme is violence against women, and is summarized on the USAID website:
Gender-Based Violence is a global pandemic that cuts across all borders - ethnicity, race, socio-economic status, and religion. It takes place in the home, in school, on the streets… at the hands of the state, community, and the family… during times of peace, but especially at during conflict and war.
President Obama just recently signed into law a strengthening of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in the United States. The reference to violence is largely in terms of physical abuse, but it can easily be argued that any kind of discrimination against a person on the basis of being a woman could be thought of as violence against women. Thus, the long-term goal is a seemingly simple one--equality of men and women.

2 comments:

  1. Interesting new material here:

    http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/PDRSupplements/Vol38_PopPublicPolicy/Pritchett_pp55-71.pdf

    Would enjoy your thoughts on this article if you please.

    --Abu Daoud

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  2. The article really deserves more than a short comment, but overall I see it as incredibly ethnocentric. I think that most Europeans understand that there is no shortage of human beings on the planet, and no imminent danger of the human population being on the edge of depopulation. Furthermore, larger families in wealthy countries that use a disproportionate share of the earth's resources could well lead to "suicide" if we use up the earth's resources at an unsustainable rate.

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