When my son first started school, an interesting incident occurred. He was asked to write a few sentences about his mother. So he wrote his mother’s name and that she is tall – and he also wrote that she is fat – and that is where the problem arose. Apparently, two teachers tried their best to convince him that he could not write this description about his mother. He was adamant that he could. My wife, for her part, had a good laugh. However, the incident does reveal a lot about our attitudes towards body appearance and that old subterfuge beauty.

Beauty has been part of history and folklore for millennia. Men, we are told, have desired and admired beautiful women. Standards of beauty have, of course, varied from age to age and culture to culture, and just as customs and traditions have changed, so has the idea of what beauty is. It’s no secret that good-looking people are popular even when the facts tell another tale. Take the myth about Cleopatra’s beauty. The Egyptian queen, who was of Macedonian descent, was, according to historians, not the iconic beauty we have seen immortalised on the big screen; she was in fact a woman with a strong personality.

However, talking about the personality of a woman without clubbing it with the word beauty seems like heresy in our modern day and age. We have experienced quite a few revolutions in the past 150 years, and one of them has been the rise of the body positivity movement. The logic we hear time and again is that everyone (women in particular) is beautiful. To suggest anything else would warrant a lynch mob and brands, it seems, have embraced this mantra. Dove especially has won accolades and public support for embracing body positivity and empowering women to believe they are beautiful.

From an ethical perspective, the reality is different and global brands are dangerously spreading Western ideals of beauty – especially of fair skin. Even in Africa, women are turning to whitening creams, while closer to home in India, there has been a backlash against fairness creams, the ripples of which have been felt in Pakistan. Rights activists have castigated the emphasis on fairness as whitewashing and colonialist. However, to be honest, brands do prey on people’s low self-esteem, so it is not surprising that activists and even ordinary people have been condemnatory of certain brands – and while it is true (hate it or love it) that the world is appearance-driven and to a large extent obsessed with perfection, this mindset is nevertheless a dangerous one that breeds low self-confidence at best and self-loathing at worst.

Do brands generate low self-esteem especially among women or do they rely on it? Although this seems to be a chicken-and-egg discussion for most, I feel that brands zero in on the insecurity and sense of inadequacy created by the negative incidents that affect our lives. Do brands in the beauty and personal care business have a moral responsibility to change the way they communicate and advertise? Yes, they do; more so in the age of social media where the veneer of fakeness has become so thick and can lead to damaging mental and emotional consequences.

So are beauty and personal care brands stepping up to the plate? While some have, by embracing plus sizes and ethnically diverse faces, most are still perpetuating the fair skin, slim figure and thin waist stereotype that has influenced millions of impressionable women globally. This is not to say that efforts have not been made towards diversity and inclusivity. I remember when I was doing my A’ levels, a student from Somalia joined our class. To introduce himself he told us his name and which country he came from. As expected, very few of us had heard of Somalia, so he asked us if we had heard of supermodel Iman, informing us that she too was from Somalia. We all knew that Iman was among the most beautiful and celebrated women in the world, but for that student, it meant representation and global prestige for his country.

So has enough been done? The answer is that small steps have been made. We all know how Dove made body positivity a cause. Furthermore, the popularity of people like Priyanka Chopra and the launch of brands by Rihanna has meant that women who are not necessarily fair or slim can find suitable products for their skin tones. In Pakistan, however, it is rare for a beauty or fashion brand to divert from the stereotypical skin colour, body type and height seen on international ramps and screens. For things to change, we need to accept our colourism and prejudice towards darker complexions first.

As any sociologist will tell you, beauty is a social construct, and although it varies from society to society, the ideal of beauty is the same; to be thin and fair. Cindy Crawford made a telling point when she said she wished she could look like Cindy Crawford when she is on screen.

Today, brands in the beauty and personal care segment are endorsing body positivity and as far as good intentions go, this is worthy, but it is not enough. In my view, beauty standards are not the issue. Beauty as a standard is.

We need to drop the slogan that everyone is beautiful and I also think that the adage that beauty is only skin deep is even more toxic. We need to tell ourselves and especially our children that what we need to do is focus on what is beneath – that is what really matters. As a society, we – the public, the activists and brands – need to learn to celebrate substance instead of something as superficial as skin. Ed Sheeran embraced this mindset in his song Beautiful People: “That’s not who we are; we are not beautiful. Yeah, that’s not who we are; we are not beautiful.” And that is not something to be ashamed of.

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Before becoming a mom, I witnessed this balancing act at its height during the pandemic, when school closures left women with far greater child care responsibilities, and many were forced to step back from their careers. But the post-pandemic labor market landscape is now taking a favorable turn for women: With more remote work opportunities and a greater variety of nontraditional work arrangements, such as freelancing and gig work, women are becoming the main beneficiaries of a flexible work revolution.

It’s no surprise that flexible job arrangements can make it easier for moms to juggle both parenting and their careers. And in fact, decades of economics research show that women tend to self-select jobs with greater flexibility, in large part because they need to schedule working hours around childcare activities. The expansion of intermittent, part-time and casual jobs also contributed to the growth of women entering the labor force throughout the 1980s and ‘90s.

Today, two key labor market developments are making the future of work brighter for women. First, employers are becoming increasingly more open to work-from-home arrangements. The share of remote job postings is up by 10% from just a year ago, and the share of remote work continues to be higher than it was pre-pandemic.

A recent study has underscored the value of these remote-work arrangements for women. Using data from U.S. household surveys and time-diaries to assess the prevalence of remote work, the authors found that in fields where the opportunity to work remotely increased, so too did the employment rates of mothers, compared to women without children. In particular, their study found that, on average, a 10% increase in the availability of work-from-home options is associated with about a 1% increase in a mother’s employment relative to that of other women. This effect is particularly pronounced in traditionally less family-friendly fields, such as finance. No analogous effect of remote-work arrangements was found for men.

Second, while work-from-home arrangements are increasing in traditional workplaces, the growth in nontraditional work, such as freelancing, gig work or self-employment, is providing another foundational avenue for working moms. Today, almost 60 million Americans engage in these forms of work, which often offer greater autonomy and flexibility than traditional employment arrangements do.

Indeed, a recent study shows that self-employment rates are higher for women who have young children and that self-employed female workers seem to have more flexibility in their work location, hours and schedule than women in traditional employment. Mothers with young children at home use self-employment opportunities to spend an additional two hours per day with their children. The study concludes that overall, these independent and self-employed work opportunities give mothers “more control over their work environment allowing them to better manage their household while working.”

At the same time, IRS tax data also indicate that female “independent contractors” are more likely to have children than are female “employees.” And a 2023 survey highlights the growing share of women switching from traditional full-time employment to independent work opportunities, mainly because they prefer to work from home and want more flexibility in their schedules.

Some women seem to be working on gig platforms such as UberEats and DoorDash, while others are setting up online shops with Etsy (year after year, more than 85% of Etsy shop owners are women) or engaging in professional, technical or creative services through online platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork. One study found that when the transportation sector is omitted entirely, women make up a greater share of income earners than men on digital platforms (which includes leasing, selling and nontransportation services in addition to the omitted “transportation services” category). Among all four categories, the largest fraction of female digital earners is in selling.

In today’s economy, both the rise in flexible arrangements offered through traditional employment and the rise of remote jobs through nontraditional work arrangements are likely contributing to the new highs we are seeing with the women’s labor force participation rate. According to a Brookings Institution study, since February 2023, the labor force participation rate for prime-age women—those between the ages of 25 and 54—has exceeded its all-time high. What’s more, the percentage of women in the workforce with young children is significantly higher than it has ever been.

To fully reap the advantages of the greater availability of independent work arrangements, however, our labor policies will have to address some structural challenges. Many decades ago, our tax policies and labor regulations were written in a way to tie fringe benefits—such as health insurance, retirement benefits and parental leave—to a standard employment arrangement and to discourage the flow of these benefits to independent and self-employed work. These policies are now creating an uncomfortable challenge for mothers, who must often choose between an inflexible employment job that comes with fringe benefits or a flexible, independent job that comes without benefits.

To address these challenges, state and federal policymakers have made attempts to reclassify independent work opportunities into traditional employment jobs, such as California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) in 2019 and the recent Department of Labor independent contractor rule. But since independent work provides flexibility and extends opportunities to women who may be unable to take on traditional employment, these policies can disproportionately hinder women’s job prospects. Not only that, but California’s AB5 was associated with a decline in self-employment and overall employment for affected occupations, without an accompanying increase in traditional W-2 employment.

But this does not have to be the case. To better meet the needs of working moms, policymakers can implement reforms to enable flexible or portable benefits, which tie fringe benefits to an individual worker rather than to one particular employer. Policymakers are already starting to pay attention to these ideas, and small but crucial portable-benefits pilot programs are emerging in states such as Utah and Pennsylvania.

This Mother’s Day, let’s envision a labor market that will encourage even greater growth in flexible work arrangements to better support women in the workplace.

Meanwhile…

What I’m listening to on Audible: I’ve always been an “I need to read the physical book” kind of person, but since the birth of my second child, I’ve discovered Audible is a great way to “read” while going on walks with the new baby. I’m listening to three different books, jumping among them depending on what I’m in the mood for. First, I’m enjoying Simone Davies’ “The Montessori Toddler,” which explains a parenting style that emphasizes hands-on learning, simplicity of activities and toys, and how to tap into children’s inner curiosity and (importantly) how to garner their cooperation for everyday things.

I’m also rereading one of my favorite books, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” which is Viktor Frankl’s account of his life as a prisoner in a concentration camp. Frankl tells the story of how he found meaning and gratitude—the keys to his survival in the camp—even in the darkest moments of his life.

Lastly, I’m reading John List’s “The Voltage Effect,” which provides a framework and guidelines for thinking through how some ideas—whether in the realm of business or policy—can take off and grow. The book also warns about potential “voltage drops” that can lead a theoretically good idea to fall apart. John List has a unique perspective as a prominent academic economist who also has extensive experiences in business: He’s the former chief economist for both Uber and Lyft and now holds that position at Walmart.

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Gambian women are facing a pivotal moment in their fight against female genital mutilation as lawmakers debate repealing the practice’s ban. Overturning the 2015 legislation would undo years of advocacy work by local activists and undermine international agreements Gambia has signed protecting women’s rights.

While some argue FGM is culturally or religiously mandated, in reality it stems from patriarchal norms seeking to control female sexuality. No religion actually requires the procedure. Significant health risks make subjecting children to it a violation of basic human rights.

Fatou and Sarata’s stories illustrate the personal toll all too common among Gambian women. Both endured tremendous physical suffering during circumcision as children and later due to FGM’s lifelong impacts. The procedure’s effects followed them into adulthood, compromising their marriages, sexuality and childbearing experiences.

Sarata now raises her daughters alone after also losing her supportive husband. Their resilience in advocating against repeating this cycle of pain, despite facing adversity, exemplifies the strength of Gambia’s movement.

International bodies like Amnesty International and UNICEF warn repealing the ban would regress protections and damage Gambia’s reputation. Legalizing a harmful practice violates the country’s constitution and international treaties. Enforcing the current law and following through on prosecutions is critical to deter future violations.

While some religious figures argue FGM reflects cultural or Islamic tradition, most locals oppose it according to surveys. Any true tradition should uphold human dignity and wellbeing rather than cause demonstrable harm. Reformers seek culturally-sensitive community empowerment over top-down crackdowns to shift social norms.

To maintain progress, Gambia must address root drivers through comprehensive women’s empowerment programs. This includes culturally-aware education, economic opportunities, and strengthening women’s voices in society and politics. Banning FGM established an important legal foundation, but upholding it requires combining enforcement with addressing underlying inequalities.

Overall, Gambian women and their allies are fighting to safeguard hard-won gains and shape the country’s future. How parliamenthandles this crucial debate will demonstrate its commitment to human rights principles and the health, wellbeing and empowerment of half the population. The world watches this legislative battle closely as a litmus test of democracy and justice in Gambia.

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This is Andro, a village 26km (16 miles) southeast of Imphal, the capital of India’s northeastern state of Manipur. The hut Hemarani, 30, has just emerged from is the official clubhouse of Andro’s girls football club – AMMA FC – and she is one of the trainers.

This practice session in January is the last one for the girls before an official rest period, which lasts until April. Almost all 30 of the club’s players – aged five to 18 – have turned up. Many in the team have been preparing for their school leaving examinations, and this training session offers one last merry diversion from their books.

Quickly, the girls pair up and pick up the pace through rounds of kicks, passes, headers and speed drills. The daily, two-hour practice sessions always end with a game, Hemarani says. “The point is to play everyday.”

She gives some of the girls a few pointers about technique, divides up the teams and then lets the senior players like Chingakham Anjali Devi and Phanjoubam Ameba Devi, both of whom are currently players on Imphal’s U-17 team, take over. Twelve of AMMA FC’s present and former players currently play nationally, five internationally.

The pleasant thump of the ball against boots, calls of “pass,” “open, open” and laughter echo across the field. The younger girls shout out to their favourite players and clap from the sidelines. Hemarani lets the game extend a little over the 90-minute mark and then blows the whistle.

On a normal day, the girls take their time stretching and packing up after the game, chatting about school, movies, boys. But nothing about Manipur is normal these days. Still panting from the game, the girls leave in groups, and Hemarani instructs them to head straight home.

The team bus [Courtesy of Meena Longjam]

Against a dark background

Just hours before, in a makeshift shack not far from the AMMA FC grounds, a group of women had similarly packed up and headed home. Young and old, they had been sitting awake through the night, warmed by blankets, shawls and a fire, keeping watch over the village. For months now, they have been taking turns guarding the 10,000-strong community in Andro from potential attacks through the night.

Violence broke out in Manipur in May between the majority Hindu Meiteis and the mostly Christian Kuki-Zo people. It was triggered by plans to recognise the Meiteis as a Scheduled Tribe – a type of affirmative action that uses quotas to grant minorities  government jobs and college admissions.

The land of the hill tribes of Manipur – the Kukis, Nagas, Mizos – is protected by constitutional provisions. But similar special status for the Meiteis, who make up 60 percent of the state’s population and dominate its politics, could open up the hills too for this majority community, which is currently predominantly in the plains. Violence has raged ever since.

Among the women in the shack, tightly bound in her phanek skirt and shawl, is 65-year-old Laibi Phanjoubam, who talks about how the women pass the time. “We talk about our day, about our plans for the next day, about chores and children,” she says. “But mostly we talk about what is happening in the state, the nearby villages. It lessens our worries a bit.”

Small and shy, Laibi was the first woman from Andro to graduate from college. For the past three decades, she has been running AMMA FC, which was recognised by the All Manipur Football Association in 1999. Her club’s story was recently brought to the screen in filmmaker Meena Longjam’s documentary Andro Dreams.

The hourlong film premiered at the International Film Festival of India. It follows the club’s ups and downs, the grit of its young players, the pressure they face to get married, have children and the experiences of life in a place far removed from India’s bustling urban landscapes, where spirits and shamans still hold sway.

Laibi Phanjoubam founded the women’s cooperative AMMA in the 1990s. Her girls football team, AMMA FC, was recognised by the All Manipur Football Association in 1999 [Courtesy of Meena Longjam]

Laibi is the film’s indisputable star. We see her quietly going about her day, farming, cooking, drinking tea, cultivating silkworms and accompanying the players to their matches.

“After finishing my studies, I got involved with various kinds of social work before starting the football club,” she says in the film.

“At one time, friends and family started asking me to get married,” she adds, laughing. “‘But will I have the freedom to go about my life if I were married?’ I asked in return.” She remains steadfastly single.

AMMA FC only trains girls from Andro. “Some girls come on their own. Others are brought by their parents,” Hemarani says. “Training happens daily, even when we are not preparing for matches. Typically, we start at 5:30 in the morning.”

Players trained by AMMA FC (part of the Andro Mahila Morcha Association, or AMMA, the local women’s enterprise that Laibi founded in the 1990s) bring home big and small wins regularly.

In December, goalkeeper Sharubam Anika Devi was invited to attend a training camp in the western coastal state of Goa. In January, she joined India’s U-19 squad in Dhaka, Bangladesh, for the South Asian Football Federation’s U-19 championship.

In late January, Thingbaibam Shakhenbi Devi brought home a gold trophy playing for Manipur’s U-18 women’s football team at the 2023 Khelo India Youth Games in Chennai. This month, former AMMA player Phanjoubam Nirmala Devi is representing the Tamil Nadu-based Sethu FC in the Indian Women’s League.

Other former players, such as Salam Rinaroy Devi and Bina Devi, are also well regarded members of India’s women’s football circuit.

Many of the girls on the team attend the local TAM Mission High School in Andro and the nearby Azad Higher Secondary School in Yairipok. Besides school work and football, they have duties at home – cooking, cleaning, farming. Andro is an agrarian village inhabited by the Lois, a Dalit community on the lower rungs of the Meitei hierarchy.

Traditionally, their primary source of income has been brewing rice beer. Almost all families in the village still make and trade in homemade alcohol. This is what Andro has been known for – until its girls decided to carve out a new identity for the village.

A meeting of the AMMA committee to organise a chit fund for the football club [Courtesy of Meena Longjam]

‘All we needed was a ball’

In August, just as Longjam’s film was declared best documentary at the Jagran Film Festival in Mumbai, Manipur was teetering on the brink of civil war.

By September, clashes between the Meiteis and Kukis had killed more than 150 people and displaced nearly 60,000. By January, those numbers had swelled to 200 and 70,000.

Hundreds of houses, places of worship and vehicles have been vandalized. Civil society activists blame Manipur’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for the violence. They accuse it of deliberately fanning the already tense relationship between the Meiteis and Kukis for political gain. The BJP, which also heads the national government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, rejects these allegations – even in the face of criticism from some of its own local legislators.

As a multiethnic society, Manipur has seen its share of clashes between communities.

The uncomfortable inclusion of the area in independent India left Manipur steeped in one of the country’s oldest secessionist movements.

One of its outcomes, the Naga-Kuki wars of the 1990s, led to widespread displacement and the loss of hundreds of lives and villages. Armed rebel groups gained strength. Soon their tyranny – marked by illegal taxation, extortion and the drug trade – became a part of the daily lives of Manipuris. As did the ferocity of the government forces’ response.

Laibi and Hemarani with the team bus in 2021 [Courtesy of Meena Longjam]

Back in the 1990s, Laibi says, she hoped that football could be a healthy distraction from all of this for the girls of Andro. She never played the game herself but knew bringing youngsters onto the field would not prove tough in this sports-obsessed state.

“There were already many clubs for boys,” she says. “We thought a club for girls would give them confidence.” Starting a football club was economical, she adds. “All we needed was a ball.”

Aside from playing the beautiful game, she meant for the club to also teach the girls discipline and keep them in school, “away from drugs and the armed rebellion”.

The state had already been declared a “disturbed area” a decade before when the Indian government imposed the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). This law grants soldiers immunity for their actions – even if civilians are killed.

In 2000, 28-year-old Manipuri activist Irom Chanu Sharmila began a 16-year-long hunger strike demanding the repeal of the AFSPA.

Then in 2004, 32-year-old Thangjam Manorama was dragged out of her home, raped, tortured and killed, allegedly by soldiers of the Assam Rifles, a paramilitary force responsible for maintaining law and order in the northeast of India. She was suspected of being a “militant”, they said later, but no official complaint had been filed against her. Because of the AFSPA, no soldier was ever charged or prosecuted, and the Assam Rifles have never accepted responsibility.

Manorama’s bullet-riddled body, found 2km (1.2 miles) from a police station, proved a boiling point. A dozen women stripped naked outside the Imphal army camp to protest. They held a banner that read, “Indian Army Rape Us.” Images of their protest shocked the nation and made headlines globally.

Protesters in 2017 in Manipur demand the repeal of the AFSPA, which grants Indian armed forces immunity from prosecution even if they kill civilians [File: Reuters]

In part, it is the deep-rooted distrust of the state that has compelled women like Laibi to now stand guard over their villages across Manipur every night despite the presence of security forces. But what could a group of unarmed women do if they did have to fend off armed mobs?

“No one is going to attack a group of women in Manipur,” Laibi says. “Here, when a group of women stands in your way, you stop and listen. That is the tradition.”

Despite her assurances, sexual violence has emerged as a recurrent weapon of conflict in this region. In July, a video of two naked Kuki women being groped and paraded by a mob went viral, even with the internet largely blocked due to a statewide shutdown implemented since May.

Outrage over the assault forced Modi to break his silence and make his first public comments about the situation in Manipur, 79 days after the most recent violence broke out.

“The video showing atrocity against women in Manipur is most shameful,” he said. “I’m pained and angered about the incident, and I assure people of the country that the guilty will not be spared and subjected to severest punishment.” But the video was the only aspect of the eight months of violence that Modi has publicly addressed.

After the release of a video showing a mob parading two women naked and assaulting them, Kuki protesters demonstrate in New Delhi on July, 22, 2023 [File: Altaf Qadri/AP]

In August, a no-confidence motion was tabled against his government by an alliance of opposition parties. They demanded Modi address the bloodshed in Manipur and remove the state government. In a two-hour speech, Modi dismissed the move as an attempt to “defame India”.

The internet restrictions left Andro cut off and without news of what was happening in the rest of the state. But it also got the AMMA FC players off their phones, much to Laibi’s relief.

Life did not return to normal even after communications were restored in December, though. “There is fear all around, and everyone is constantly vigilant,” Laibi says.

Still, being located in Imphal East away from the hotspots in the west where much of the violence has unfolded, Andro is safer than many other places in Manipur at the moment, she adds.

While anxiety about the situation has kept several players away from the field, training at AMMA FC never stopped. “The rest of the country isn’t going to take a pause because of what is happening in Manipur,” Hemarani says. “Our players still aspire to participate in the national level competitions, and those are still on.”

This year, AMMA FC beat Eastern Sporting Union (ESU), one of the oldest women’s football clubs in Manipur, to win the seven-a-side U-17 Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao tournament, a grassroots football initiative established by the Indian government. AMMA’s Phanjoubam Nirmala Devi was named best player, and Chingakham Geeta Devi was rewarded as best goalkeeper.

The match was decided by a tense penalty shootout, Hemarani says. “ESU always presents a strong front, and we had almost given up when we didn’t score.” It was AMMA’s star players, Chingakham Bimolbala, Phanjoubam Nirmala, Khanumayam Anita and Khanumayam Nirmala, who finally secured the win by not missing a single penalty shot. AMMA won 4-3 in the penalties.

Laibi with a football trophy won by AMMA FC in August [Courtesy of Meena Longjam]

Weaving to support girls football

Usually, the girls stay together at the AMMA FC clubhouse during tournaments. Built on an abandoned graveyard of the Kharam tribe, one of the oldest ethnic tribal groups in Manipur, it is a stone’s throw from Laibi’s house.

None of the players can afford the costs associated with commitment to a sport, so the club provides everything – jerseys, shoes, training equipment. “If we ask them to pay, they will drop out,” Laibi says. Wins like the Beti Bachao championship keep the players’ spirits up, she says, giving them the confidence to appear for competitions and take part in matches against more competitive clubs and players with far better resources.

For a while, AMMA FC received support from Tata Trusts, an Indian social welfare and philanthropic organisation. Now, unlike some other football clubs in Manipur, it does not receive funding from the state or independent donors at all. “AMMA is a hyperlocal enterprise run by village women in their 60s,” Longjam explains. “They are organised and resourceful but not savvy enough to negotiate government grants or sponsors.”

So the club runs on the money the Mahila committee raises from selling handloom woven textiles that members make – scarves, stoles, phaneks, blankets. Laibi sells them from a small shop attached to her house. She also dispatches woven wares to be sold in other parts of Manipur. Occasionally, AMMA organises “chit funds” – a money pooling system – to raise funds for the football club.

Textiles that will be sold to support the girls football club [Meena Longjam]

Besides football, AMMA also trains the girls in “soft skills”, including using computers. As a result, Laibi says proudly, several former players have gone on to land government jobs. Among those who have continued to play, some have joined professional football clubs in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Such milestones will, however, become harder to achieve the longer the unrest goes on in Manipur. The violence will restrict the players’ mobility and limit how much they can travel to tournaments. Then there is the very real risk to the players’ personal safety and the effect of the turbulence on their mental wellbeing.

It is in light of this that the All India Football Federation has been delaying the resumption of national-level club football in Manipur, which has long been one of India’s sporting powerhouses.

Last year, 43 athletes from the state represented India at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. The Indian women’s football team has always been reliant on the state. Some of the biggest names in women’s football in the country have emerged from Manipur. Even the U-17 team at the recently concluded World Cup had seven players from Manipur while the current national team has four, including captain Ashalata Devi.

Laibi at her loom [Courtesy of Meena Longjam]

Laibi’s favourite players – the legendary Oinam Bembem Devi, captain of the Indian women’s team for 21 years, and Bala Devi, India’s first female football player to be signed by an international club – also emerged from small clubs in Manipur.

One day, she hopes, AMMA FC’s players will also attain the same level of success. The bio on AMMA FC’s seldom-used Facebook page announces its ambitious plans to “take India to the FIFA World Cup 2027”.

Of all players, however, Laibi draws special inspiration from Lionel Messi. “Messi maintains his peace,” she says. This is her only pointer to the players in her club: “Play peacefully. Be respectful.”

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More Black women than Hispanic or White women in the U.S. say they have plans to start a business. The data also reveal that female business owners are more satisfied with their standard of living than non-business owners with the same income level.

Black, Hispanic Women Most Likely to Express Desire to Start a Business

The Center’s survey, conducted Oct. 25 to Nov. 9, 2023, via a probability-based web panel, suggests there may be untapped potential for entrepreneurship among women who do not yet own a business.

Nationally, 44% of women would like to start a business if they had the resources, compared with 51% of men. Entrepreneurial desire is especially strong among Black (57%) and Hispanic (55%) women, who are much more likely than White women (38%) to express an interest in opening their own business.

Meanwhile, 27% of Black women under 60 say they are planning to start their own business in the next 12 months, a rate that is more than five times greater than for White women (5%) and about double the rate of Hispanic women (14%).

While there are many reasons why plans to start a business do not come to fruition, these reported goals suggest that entrepreneurship is an important aspiration for millions of women nationwide and may be particularly salient for Black women.

Financial and Nonfinancial Resources Are Barriers to Women’s Entrepreneurship

While just 13% of men under 60 say they lack the financial and/or nonfinancial resources to start a business, a third of women in this age group (33%) say the same.

Improving access to financial and nonfinancial resources could make a real difference in providing entrepreneurship opportunities for women — a key consideration when women-owned businesses still make up only 22% of employer businesses in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent Annual Business Survey (ABS).

Female Business Owners Report Higher Satisfaction With Standard of Living

The power of women taking ownership of their own economic opportunity is reflected in how they feel about their standard of living — what they can buy and do — when they own their own business. Even among women with similar levels of annual household income, those who report owning a business are more likely to report being satisfied with their standard of living.

The boost from business ownership may be particularly important for those with lower income levels. Among 18- to 59-year-old women in households earning less than $60,000 per year, 58% of those who own their own business are satisfied with their standard of living, compared with 35% of those who do not own their own business.

Implications

These findings corroborate that financial and nonfinancial resources remain a barrier to entrepreneurship for women and that women are more likely than men to report facing these obstacles. Removing these barriers is crucial to giving women an opportunity to create their own economic opportunities and improve their financial wellbeing.

Black and Hispanic women are particularly inclined toward entrepreneurship: Majorities report that they would be interested in starting a business if they had the resources, and they are more likely than White women to report plans to do so. Expanding opportunities for entrepreneurship can improve economic equity — across Black communities and local economies, as well as the national wealth gap.

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The report, titled “Women in Work Index,” has been released annually by the global firm since 2011. It focuses on five indicators: gender wage gap, female labor force participation rate, gender gap in labor force participation rate, female unemployment rate, and female employment rate in full-time positions. This year’s report is based on statistical data from 2022 and surveys 33 out of 38 OECD members, excluding Colombia, Costa Rica, Latvia, Lithuania, and Turkey.

In the overall assessment of the five indicators, Korea ranked 32nd out of the 33 surveyed countries, with only Mexico behind it. Korea’s position, 32nd, remained unchanged from the previous year, indicating a lack of significant comparative improvements in the realm of women’s working conditions in the country.

“Chile (31st place), Korea and Mexico ranked at the bottom of the index. All three countries displayed low female participation rates in 2022, at 58 percent, 62 percent and 50 percent, respectively. This compared to an average female participation rate of 72 percent across the OECD,” the report said.

In particular, Korea’s gender wage gap, among the five indicators, turned out to be the worst among the 33 surveyed countries.

In 2022, Korea’s gender wage gap, defined as the median hourly wage difference between men and women, stood at 31.2 percent. This means that if the average wage for male workers is one million won ($756), the average wage for female workers is 688,000 won. This figure is nearly twice as high as Mexico’s gender wage gap, which ranked 33rd in the overall assessment.

Between 2011 and 2022, the average gender wage gap across the OECD countries decreased only by 3 percentage points. In 2022, the average gender wage gap increased by 0.3 percentage point to 13.5 percent, compared to the previous year. This suggests that, despite an overall increase in women’s economic activity over the past decade, women are still more vulnerable in terms of earnings in the labor market, particularly in high-paying jobs. The report forecasts that at the current pace, it may take over half a century to reduce the gender wage gap across all countries.

“The fact that both Korea’s Women in Work Index and its birth rate are among the lowest in the OECD countries shows a correlation between the two indices. As women’s increased economic participation can be a key solution to the country’s declining labor force due to low birth rates and aging population, companies should strive to foster an inclusive organizational culture that encourages the advancement and promotion of women,” Yoon Hoon-soo, CEO at Samil PwC, said.

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The organization stated in a message on its social media platform X, on Sunday, February 18th, that these aids were distributed with the support of the CBPF institution.

Previously, the World Food Programme, a United Nations agency, had stated that they distributed specific malnutrition supplies to over 4 million women and children in Afghanistan.

This comes as the rates of malnutrition among women and children in Afghanistan have increased, becoming a serious concern.

Both the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have consistently warned about the high levels of malnutrition in Afghanistan.

According to OCHA’s report, approximately 15.5 million people are facing acute food insecurity, with 2.7 million of them in emergencies.

The committee emphasizes that in the coming year, climate change, economic pressures, increased impunity, and reduced international support will accelerate humanitarian crises worldwide.

This comes as human rights organizations have consistently emphasized the need to address poverty and hunger among women and children in Afghanistan.

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