Last month I read an article titled, \u201cThe Future Is Young and Female.\u201d\u00a0 Soon after, I saw a photo of Finland\u2019s new prime minister, Sanna Marin, who is 34 years old.\u00a0 She was surrounded by the party leaders of her country\u2019s coalition government. All are women, and four of the five are under the age of 35.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, I thought, these women certainly can\u2019t do any worse than the (mostly male)\u00a0 leaders of today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consider:\u00a0 Australia is ablaze, America has impeached its president and seems to be moving toward both a Constitutional crisis and perhaps even a war with Iran, the United Kingdom is no longer united, Syria is ruined and most of the Middle East remains a tinderbox, Asia is ascendant, the Amazon continues to burn, much of Latin America is in chaos, Russia is preparing to interfere in our elections (once again), and floods and fires exacerbated by climate change are ravaging the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Time to put women in charge?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Large numbers of women, in fact, are stepping up to offer their ideas, their talents, and their leadership.\u00a0 In the United States in 2020, we have more women serving in the U.S. Congress than ever before. The number of female governors, female state legislators, and women serving on boards and commissions continues to increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Internationally, we have Christine Lagarde of France, who is president of the European Central Bank.\u00a0 We have Ursula von der Leyen of Germany, who is president of The European Commission. We have Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, who was the world\u2019s youngest head of state (she is 39) until Sanna Marin of Finland snatched away that title last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have the teenaged Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist who was named Time magazine\u2019s Person of the Year in 2019 for shaming the world into addressing global warming.\u00a0 \u201cI want you to panic,\u201d she told the annual convention of CEOs and global leaders last year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. \u201cI want you to feel the fear I feel every day.\u00a0 And then I want you to act.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have more women filmmakers.\u00a0 Some 10.6 percent of the top-grossing films in 2019 were directed by women.\u00a0 Though this seems like a paltry number \u2013 and it is \u2013 it was the highest percentage in the past decade.\u00a0 Greta Gerwig, age 36, was one of those directors; her transcendent remake of \u201cLittle Women\u201d was released on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have more bright newswomen today, covering everything from politics and business to sports and the arts.\u00a0 Indeed, when I watch programs on cable TV these days, I notice that often there are three or four young female reporters and pundits for every male.\u00a0 (Women continue to be woefully underrepresented in the executive ranks of the news media, however. It\u2019s still mostly men who make the decisions.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have more talented female athletes, such as those playing on the sterling U.S. women\u2019s soccer team.\u00a0 Led by the cheeky and skilled Megan Rapinoe, these young women won a record fourth World Cup in 2019, all the while agitating for equal pay, gay rights, and social justice.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Closer to home, we have innovative businesswomen such as Lou Kennedy, president and CEO of West Columbia-based Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corporation.\u00a0 She was named Health Care Entrepreneur of the Year for the Southeast in 2019 by Ernst & Young.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have scores of other talented businesswomen in the state, too, including Barbara Rackes, who last year helped found a nonprofit corporation called SC Women in Leadership (SC WIL) to encourage women to step up and lead corporations, boards, and governments; Cheryl Holland, president and founder of Abacus Planning Group; Fiona Martin, founder of FGM Internet Marketing; and Uchechi Kalu, founder and owner of Outlier Admissions \u2013 to name just a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why is it so important for more women to take their places at the table?\u00a0 A look at Nevada tells you why. Since Nevada seated the nation\u2019s first majority-female state legislature a year ago, bills \u201cprioritizing women\u2019s health and safety have soared to the top of the agenda,\u201d according to The Washington Post.\u00a0 \u201cMounting reports of sexual harassment have led one male lawmakers to resign. And policy debates long dominated by men, including prison reform and gun safety, are yielding to female voices.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bills were introduced in Nevada that deal with sexual assault, sex trafficking, and sexual misconduct.\u00a0 Bills to ban child marriage and examine the causes of maternal mortality also were introduced.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can say with 100 percent certainty that we wouldn\u2019t have had these conversations a few years ago,\u201d Nevada Assembly Majority Leader Teresa Benitez-Thompson told The Washington Post.\u00a0 \u201cNone of these bills would have seen the light of day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we want female perspectives and priorities to be taken seriously — in government, business, the arts, sports, the environment and everything else — we must put more women in charge.\u00a0 As an extra added bonus, I am confident that women would lead us into fewer wars. How important is that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last month I read an article titled, \u201cThe Future Is Young and Female.\u201d\u00a0 Soon after, I saw a photo of Finland\u2019s new prime minister, Sanna Marin, who is 34 years old.\u00a0 She was surrounded by the party leaders of her country\u2019s coalition government. All are women, and four of the five are under the age…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}