Late last month, a guest on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show told him: “Wherever we go...there is always something” stopping women from following their dreams. The guest? Not a firebrand feminist, but the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde. Her comments came as the IMF released a new report detailing the positive effect women’s economic empowerment has on our world: in short, when women are able to participate in the economy as equal members of the labor force, life improves for everyone. This may not be shocking new information—at least for those of us interested in the topic—but the report presents much-needed evidence to support its findings.
Claire DeSoi
Senior Program Assistant for Gender, Women and Democracy
Washington, DC
Claire DeSoi is a senior program assistant for Gender, Women and Democracy at the National Democratic Institute's. She has a master’s degree in sustainable development policy from the SIT Graduate Institute, where she concentrated her studies on gender policy implementation.