Monday, April 18, 2005

Dhimmis D'Jour: Special Edukaysion Edition

When feminism meets Dhimmitude, the results are always horrible, as perfectly exemplified here with the Beeb's report on UN hand wringing over female education. We have this:

Conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo have done incalculable damage to children's education.
A-huh, so conflict damages educational opportunities. Not sure why this would necessarily be gender-specific, but anyway:

Then, there's this:

In eastern and central Europe, there is cause for concern too.

The introduction of fees for tuition, schoolbooks and uniforms has led to rising drop-out rates - and girls drop out sooner than boys.
Ok, we'll let that jibe at private education pass, and take it as read that fees are bad for education. Still, not seeing a gender angle here.

But what's with this ?

Belarus and Tajikistan will not achieve gender equality, neither will Turkey.
Or this ?

However, it adds that many countries in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East cannot meet the target this year.
Or even this ?

In South Asia, Unicef says, progress has been made, but not enough.
Across the region, 42 million children do not go to school.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have the widest gender gaps.
For Pakistan to have the same number of girls as boys in school by 2015, it would have to increase girls' school attendance by more than 3% each year.
So, run this by me again: Unicef knows that education in central Africa is screwed because of war, while in Europe privatisation is the baddie, even though they can't necessarily prove why it would disproportionatly affect girls. Meanwhile, in the Middle East and South Asia there really is a gender gap, but they can't offer a single explanation as to why that might be. Hmmmmmmm….

I blame Haliburton myself.

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