The plight of women
by Justin D. Long
One of the areas that we who work on the frontiers of mission must contend with is the role of women in the cultures we seek to evangelize. In some areas, women are at the very forefront of mission efforts; in others, they are cut off from evangelistic influences by tremendous barriers raised between the sexes.
Women number 49.7% of the world's population. 590 million are of child-bearing age, and while 40% use contraceptives, the average woman will give birth to 3 children. 142 million children are born each year, 15% of them illegitimate. 3 million children are given away each year (adoption), but 65 million will be aborted (38% of those abortions being illegal). 244 million are presently widowers.
Women form 35% of its paid labor force, head up 33% of all households, make up 95% of all nurses, perform 62% of all work hours, and yet receive just 10% of the world's income and own 1% of the world's property. 850 million are married; 620 million cohabit (e.g. live together outside of marriage); 30 million are lebsians. Their unpaid labor is worth $4 trillion per annum. By the year 2000, women will number 1.5 billion (25.1%)--in other words, they are increasing their share of the world's population. Right now, women ages 15-49 total some 1.3 billion people, or 24.9% of our world.
2 million (0.076%, or about 7 out of 10,000) are raped each year. 20 million are prostitutes. 200 million are battered (23% of all married women), and that number grows by 15 million each year (meaning, since that source was 1990, that today the number is more like 305 million). Women make up 70% of the poor, 66% of illiterates, 80% of refugees, 75% of the sick. 84 million have been genitally-mutilated.
Of course, as many of us know, the role of women in the church is a big issue. Right now, there are some 50,000 women clergy (5% of all clergy), and 1.5 million female Christian workers. That doesn't include over 1 million nuns and sisters in the Roman Catholic church.
Although we don't have an exact statistic, it's definite that more women are unevangelized than men. The reason is clear: if more women are illiterate, poor, sick, and sequestered away from the general ebb and flow of social interaction, then they are also out of touch with evangelistic influences.
Every ministry ought to be considering how they can tailor a special "track" of their evangelism toward reaching the women in their target area and culture.
Suggestions
- Make a special effort to research and understand the women in your targeted culture, with an especial emphasis on identifying ministry options that will reach them with the Gospel.
- Recruit more women as missionaries and assign them to the specific task of reaching women.
- Promote more women into missionary leadership and assign them to the specific task of developing strategies and coordinating efforts to reach women.
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Give more public attention to the plight of women and what can be done
to help them. I am not speaking here of the whole abortion issue, but
rather to the whole of the many things that hurt women worldwide.
