Achieving Gender Equality Requires Placing Adolescents at the Center
There is a prevailing myth that girls alone are disadvantaged by unequal gender norms. The data suggest otherwise. Specifically, the evidence is that both boys and girls are disadvantaged, some in similar and some in unique ways. The Global Early Adolescent Study pilot data suggest that boys experience as much disadvantage as girls (e.g., fear of being physically hurt, neglected, a victim of sexual or physical violence). So too, public health data indicate that in many countries of the world, adolescent boys are more likely to smoke, drink, and suffer both unintentional and intentional injury and death in the second decade of life than their female counterparts. Conversely, one quarter of adolescent girls worldwide are married by age 18 years, two million births annually are to girls aged younger than 15 years, and girls' secondary school education still lags behind boys (56%–63%). Social and vocational opportunities are frequently more constrained for girls than their male counterparts.