International Women’s Day Awareness

This Saturday is International Women’s Day, a day when conferences and meetings will occur around the world celebrating what’s already been accomplished in gender equality worldwide. It will also be calling for more awareness and opportunities for women across the globe.

I have five sisters who are confident and accomplished in life, so I agree completely with Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Women’s Executive Director, on the statement she made at the 6th Annual Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) Event, Gender Equality and the Global Jobs Challenge, featuring attendees from UN Women and UN Global Compact,

“By promoting women’s equality, we make progress for all…When we empower women and girls through education and training, and support their full participation and leadership through equal opportunity, we advance equitable and inclusive economic growth and reduce poverty. It’s a win-win situation.”

In the U.S., female workers are still paid only 77¢ for every dollar their male colleagues make. A union in Sweden recently made a woman into a man on an advertisement to emphasize that point. You can watch it here!

Also, only a mere 4.2 percent of chief executive officers at Fortune 500 companies are women! However, those women do get a lot of coverage in the media. A perfect example is Sheryl Sandberg, CEO of Facebook. She is making global waves in Silicon Valley!

Only 32 billionaire women or 1.9% of all the globe’s billionaires–had a meaningful hand in building their own fortunes. This of course is opposed to women inheriting one from a parent or through marriage.

The work for gender equality is progressing, but it is still far from over. In face, one study showed that the majority of men also feel that the “country has made most of the changes needed to give women equal rights as men,” but just 29 percent of women felt the same. That’s not all, nearly 30 percent of women report experiencing discrimination in the workplace. That is not ok!

As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” So ladies, don’t let us pigs get you down. Go out there and do you!

I encourage you to take the time and think about what International Women’s Day means to you personally and just in general. I challenge women and girls to learn from the example of the females already in leadership roles and have had the courage to persevere and to overcome mediocrity. We need you just as much as men to get this economy back in action, so give yourself an opportunity to do something great. Take a chance and be extraordinary!

Homeschooler in the Real World

Emma Folts, a sophomore at Wheaton College, shares her experience about her transition into college and how homeschool has both helped and hindered her.
How has your homeschool experience benefitted you, especially in your transition into college?
I think the one thing that homeschooling did that was really helpful as I entered college was that it taught me time management. As a homeschooler I had the same freedom as a college student has to put things off during the day and go see a friend instead. Since I had that experience, I knew the cost of that.
Also, personal responsibility and accountability with assignments. I feel like a lot of the other students had more expectations for gentler grading and that the professor would give them retakes or extensions, but that wasn’t something that ever happened to me in school. That learning curve wasn’t added because I never had it the other way. I think another thing was that because I was homeschooled, I was familiar with the format of teaching and then studying on my own.
Did you see any issues with your transition socially?
I think that homeschooling had two ramifications for me socially. One was helpful, one was hurtful.
It was really helpful because as a homeschooler, I had spent a lot of time realizing and developing who I was as a person and learning to recognize people who were being themselves, and those were the people I sought out as friends. Friendship as a homeschooler takes a lot more investment. I knew I was choosier with my friends which made me a lot less anxious and a lot more content.
The only real negative impact of the social bit was that I was really used to getting to choose the time I got to spend with people. As a homeschooler I spent a lot of time with people, but that time was controlled by me. As a college student, I found that you can’t really control the time you spend with people and alone time is not really available. Learning to deal with that was a lot harder than anticipated.
Any last comments on homeschool and how it has affected your college experience?
I think homeschooling is really helpful, however it does take a slightly increased amount of advocacy with your peers when you’re entering into college. I think a lot of people come in with certain assumptions about homeschool, especially students. You’re going to get a lot of, ‘oh my gosh, you don’t seem like a homeschooled person!’ [You can’t] take that too personally and explain your experience so that friends can understand it’s an important piece of you, though it might not look like the homeschooling that they’ve seen.
My encouragement to anyone who is a homeschooler transitioning into college is to realize the benefit that you have having been homeschooled, and to realize that the bit of advocacy and explaining that you need to do with your peers is totally normal and that it’s not a big deal. Once they understand your experience, it’s not something I’ve experienced being looked down on for.