Women’s Education and World Peace: A Feminist Dream Comes True; Comment on “The Pill Is Mightier Than the Sword”

Document Type : Commentary

Authors

1 School of Social Work, University of Texas, Arlington, TX, USA

2 Department of Medical Sociology and Social Work, Chung-Shan Medical University, Taichung City, Taiwan

Abstract

This commentary on Potts et al provides a critical view on their thesis that increasing the level of education among women is likely to reduce terrorism. Presence of a strong family planning program enables women to control family size resulting in women’s public participation more likely and facilitating the emergence of small birth cohorts who are less likely to become unemployed. In spite of the several theoretical insights their paper offers, they have not adequately described the multiple social and economic linkages that may exist between fertility rates and lowering frequency of wars, terrorism, etc.

Highlights

 

 

Watch the Video Summary here

 

Keywords

Main Subjects


 

 

  1. Potts M, Mahmood A, Graves AA. The pill is mightier than the sword. Int J Health Policy Manag. 2015;4(8):507-510. doi:10.15171/ijhpm.2015.109
  2. Mesquida CG, Wiener NI. Male age composition and severity of conflicts. Polit Life Sci. 1999;18(2):181-189.
  3. Mead M. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. New York: Morrow; 1963.
  4. Goldstein JS. War and Gender. Springer; 2004.
  5. Balan S, Mahalingam R. Are we losing the war on missing girls? Lancet Glob Health. 2014;2(1):e22.
  6. Mitra A. Son preference in India: implications for gender development. J Econ Issues. 2014;48(4).
  7. Muecke MA. Make money not babies: changing status markers of northern Thai women. Asian Surv. 1984;24(4):459-470. doi:10.1525/as.1984.24.4.01p0155r
  8. Menon N, van der Meulen Rodgers Y. War and women’s work evidence from the conflict in Nepal. J Conflict Resolut. 2015;59(1):51-73. doi:10.1177/0022002713498699