As Chris Cuomo and Alyson Camerota questioned Carly Fiorina about her electability, I couldn’t help but wonder, while we think we're progressive when it comes empowering women, why aren't we progressing?What invisible forces account for the incongruity that sixty-three of 142 nations studied by the World Economic Forum have a female head of government or state at some point in the 50 years up to 2014, except the USA?
Genetic anthropology demonstrates that human populations have been on the move for the past 200,000 years. We have been migrating from continents and immigrating to countries ever since African Eve -- the first "fearless woman" walked out of Africa. As the first known female genetic ancestor of every person alive today, she proved we all share a common ancestor and therefore, all of us are related. I like to think she had a vision for herself, and for humanity and that in her quest for life, liberty and happiness, she saw the big picture.
Awni Abu Hadba came to the United States to improve his English-language skills. He stayed, he says, "to take his chance at the American dream." Following in the footsteps of an older brother, Abu Hadba, now 59, arrived in America in 1971 from his native Palestine after graduating from Birzeit University in Ramallah.
If America advocates women's empowerment, why is it so hard to achieve?
The message from both government institutions and private enterprise to women publicly encourages them. You can do it. Then Facebook CEO, Sheryl Sandberg famously told women, to lean in from her eponymous book. In a Presidential Proclamation, President Barack Obama said, “Across the globe, there are girls who will one day lead nations, if only we afford them the chance to choose their own destinies.” While the word “women” was mentioned 82 times in a 2013 State of the Union Address -- more than any other -- the overall reaction to the speech on Twitter was negative.
In a world where things are not always what they seem, I rely on my training as an applied anthropology practitioner during my expat career coaching sessions (and a sixth sense for cultural insights) to help me connect some very unlikely dots about what makes the other guy tick.
Trump represents more than the dark side of American ideology. He's a festering wound that dates back to the Civil War. And the South never got over losing it.
