#GAReads | Women’s lives, behind the data
“Women’s lives, behind the data”:
The story of women is often told through numbers.
Reports and studies tell us how much less women make than men, how much more unusual it is for girls to go to school than it is for boys or how much less likely women are to hold elected office or run companies than men.
Those analyses are important, but they can sometimes obscure the deeper truths and facts on the ground of women’s lived experience.
We know 62 million girls are not in school. Why is that the case, and how can we do better? We are told one in five women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. How accurate are those numbers, and what can they really tell us about safety? We have heard women outlive men, often by a decade or more. What does life look like after a partner dies?
Here are some of the stories behind those numbers.