In lieu of the vintage stuff this week, I've been looking at this extremely interesting magazine.

@CCriadoPerez deals with this topic in her brilliant book 'Invisible Women'. Lack of medical research into the different responses between female and male bodies is putting women's lives at risk.

Research into treatments still concentrates on male responses.

Sex-specific risks - they really matter if we're going to fight disease.

Women's bodies are different from men's, and it could be critical.

But still researchers routinely ignore half the population.

Never mind lack of research into female-specific health problems.

There's a piece on female infanticide with shocking statistics.

It's clear how, worldwide, just being born a girl is dangerous in itself.

Girls sometimes seen as superfluous.

A culture forms itself around the idea that women are valueless, then punishes them for it.

I'll stop there and add some more on Thursday. I'm sorry some of that was so brutal. As ever, if you feel it's too much, just ask and I'll take it down.

Here's another batch from Scientific American, this time looking at global inequality in some basic areas of human life.

Girls pushed out of higher education in many countries.

And girls across the world often don't have access to even basic education while their male peers do. Issues like lack of sanitary protection stop some girls attending school.

Not to mention child marriage.

Women living under the threat of male violence in the home.

Look at the figures for Angola.

Women need to know they can have a safe abortion if they need one.

At the same time, about 1in 5 women globally cannot get the contraception they need.

In the Yemen, it's getting on for *half* the women.

Let's look at the percentage of unpaid work women do compared with their male counterparts.

How about women's representation in parliament, globally?

And women's pay: not equal *anywhere*.

And by pay, we also mean pensions. In this country, women's pensions are vastly less than men's.

These inequalities happen to women because they are born women.

It's not something they can opt out of. It's the reality of their lives.

I will finish this thread on Sunday.

More on this thread about just a few of the inequalities that affect across the globe.

So many artificial barriers are put in the way of women trying to make progress, and it must hurt wider society, not just the women themselves!

Everyone benefits when women are treated fairly.

Meanwhile, barrier after barrier is put in place of female-run businesses.

Incidentally, if you're interested in helping practically here, Kiva and other micro-credit agencies are worth looking at.

Two elements that contribute to the wage gap between men and women.

And another.

And alongside this struggle to get fair treatment for paid employment:

I'm having such problems getting Twitter to load, I'll pause it there and finish the thread on Thursday.

I'll finish this Scientific American thread now.

Political representation of women across the world.

Whereas:

I heard Edwina Currie on the radio a few days ago reminding us that Margaret Thatcher had *no women at all* in her cabinet. I don't know if that was just for the 1979 cabinet or throughout her time in office.

It's a pitiful figure when you consider women are half the population.

A look at the world of academia now, which according to this study of STEM subjects is rife with sexual bullying.

Then there's this really interesting article on the concept of "brilliance" in academia and how it deters many women and BAME candidates from particular fields.

It's a long, dense and fascinating article, but this point struck me: that we start putting some children off academic subjects early in childhood.

By AGE 6 girls have decided their sex is not as smart as boys. Their confidence in themselves has already been eroded.

What happens between the ages of 5 and 6 for girls?? And can we prevent it?

I've heard this from young children myself. Who is telling them this harmful nonsense?

It's a really important question.

So scripts learned at 6 still persist by undergraduate age.

And other myths persist among many undergraduates.

Are sexual stereotypes still preventing women from entering particular fields of study? (I think we know the answer to this.)

I'll finish with a really beautifully-phrased and hopeful paragraph at the end of a sad essay about girls across the world missing out on education.

Imagine if girls were held in the same esteem as boys, and had the same chances.

"1.32 billion suns in our daughters."

What would that do for society, for our planet?

"How will we help them rise?"

*doffs cap to all the authors quoted in the thread*