The world is celebrating International Women’s Day today. It is a day dedicated to the celebration of women’s social, economic and political achievements worldwide. In the United States, this official day of observance is rooted in women’s efforts to campaign for rights to work, vote and hold public office, culminating on March 8, 1908, when 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter work hours, better pay, voting rights, and an end to sweatshop conditions and child labor. It is a day to celebrate justice and to listen to women’s voices.

So today many of us are taking time to listen to the voices of women of faith - looking to the women in the Bible, church history, and those who helped shape our faith. Some of us are blogging in a synchroblog and others are preaching about biblical women in churches. -blogger/writer, Julie Clawson

I messed up on setting my alarm today (dang time change!) and so instead of a luxurious hour to ponder and blog for International Women's Day, I have a mere 10 minutes.

The devil was brilliant when he inspired misogyny. Convince a people group that women are less than in some way or capacity and you have effectively cut that tribe's power base in half. At least by half. Oh yeah, make sure the gender you are neutering are the primary caregivers in the home and of children so they will ensure that the next generation continues the tradition of gender inequality.

I attended Girl Effect at my friend's job site a few months ago. Girl Effect is a Nike Foundation sponsored work that seeks to create opportunities for adolescent girls around the world, particularly developing nations.

Girl Affect cites statistics such as 70% of the world's 130 million uneducated youth are Girls; 25-50% of girls in developing countries become mothers before they are 18; pregnancy is the leading cause of death for teenaged girls around the world.

One of the secret weapons to alleviating poverty and ignorance in nations the world over is the forgotten, overlooked Adolescent Girl. If she is given an education, if she is allowed to remain unmarried and not become a young mother, then her ability to learn a marketable skill to earn income will have a domino affect on her family and likely her village. At the photo show I attended one set of

photographs highlighted a village whose quality of life was increased when a small group of teenaged girls became entrepreneurial. Their creative business savvy, once turned loose, resulted in the entire village moving up the index of poverty. They were all under the age of 18.

Teenaged girls. Who knew that the fate of the world could lie in the hands of one of the most invisible members of most nations. Oh, wait a sec, I think that happened before. Her name was Mary.