Throughout the world, women struggle to attain legal and financial security. There are many reasons for this. In many countries, women do not have the legal right to own property, control money, or be recognized as people outside of their relationship to their husbands, fathers, or sons. In fact, less than half of the women in the world have access to formal financial institutions.
This severely hampers a woman’s ability to determine her own life, contribute to the global economy, or otherwise participate in systems that tend to dramatically affect her well being.
Bitcoin, and the technology behind the decentralized currency, has the potential to offer new paths to women’s empowerment throughout the world. The immediate concern is that bitcoin and related technology is hugely populated by men, which may make it difficult for those inroads to develop. Still, some women are already working to make that happen, in the United States and around the world.
Gives Women Control Of Their Own Assets
Without access to formal financial institutions, women can only gather assets by retaining cash. If they are in situations where they are tightly controlled, this may be impossible. Held cash also does not increase in value. In some areas, cash also fluctuates wildly as governments are destabilized and reformed.
Women are already lower wage earners due to the work they are allowed to do, being unpaid laborers in the home, and not being able to start businesses in many situations. Due to the decentralized and digital nature of cryptocurrencies, women may have an easier time accumulating and accessing bitcoin and other coins so that they can better their – and their children’s – situations in the world.
Ability to Create Contracts
In many countries, women are unable to create contracts. This affects their ability to start and maintain businesses, but it also affects things as mundane as owning a car or a home. While women work land at roughly the same amount as men, only twenty percent of women own land, putting them at a significant disadvantage to their male counterparts. If you don’t own the land, you may not be able to decide how it is used or maintained, and some women live in areas where if they leave the land they are on, it can be claimed by other families.
That said, for some women, owning property and creating contracts has the potential to be dangerous, given the men who might have controlling interests in their lives. The nature of blockchain technology is that every previous transaction is visible in a blockchain. Technology like Monero, however, changes that. Monero works by encrypting previous transactions in the blockchain. This technology is likely to be crucial as the identity and signature transactions of blockchain become more common.
Personal IDs for Women and Girls
Women may struggle to obtain legal IDs in their home countries, depending on the legal status of women according to the government. Another potential application of bitcoin technology is giving women access to official identification that doesn’t rely on their husband, father, or son’s permission to obtain, and which cannot be physically removed or hidden due to its digital nature.
This can give women more freedom to do things like drive, travel, and live without needing to submit to the control of the men in their lives.
Empowering women around the world isn’t just good for women; the entire world economy benefits when women are able to contribute more fully. When women are able to continue their schooling, they are often better able to control their lives. They are less likely to bear children in conditions of extreme poverty, which lowers child mortality rates. They are also more likely to spend money on commodities and other items that benefit children and families; men in general spend money on luxury items when their income increases. As such, giving women financial independence tends to strengthen communities in many important ways.
According to the United Nations research, each additional year of education that women gain access to contributes to their economic power, decreases child mortality, and supports community growth. Bitcoin and blockchain technology supports the efforts of women and their allies to grow their economic power over the long term.
Having the ability to collect resources, create digital IDs, and sign contracts and create ownership of land and businesses, can help women find their success in the world at large. If women were able to join the workforce at equivalent levels to their male counterparts, the global economy is estimated to increase by 17 trillion USD.
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