One in Three Women is Illiterate

Sometimes the statement men are better than women leaves me wanting a little more in the flavor of substance. It’s not often. Like all men, the shortcomings of women are something I’ve learned to accept and move on. However, occasionally we men need to re-evaluate. We need more than rational hypothesizing and logical conjecture. We need facts for the why’s and how’s.

I pose this as a formal theory. Men are better than women at everything because something like 30% of women are illiterate.

Sounds shocking doesn’t it? But really, when do women need to read? Numbers don’t count as reading, so illiteracy does not impede women from writing checks or measuring all the progress they’re not making while they’re not working out at the gym.

Before I get too ahead of myself let me quote some statistics. UNICEF and UNESCO say that two out of every three illiterates is a woman. They give the world-wide feminine literacy rate in the sixtieth percentile, while the male literacy rate towers above that number at nearly 90%. I think you’ll agree that that’s plenty of numerical majesty to spare.

Initially, when I saw the figures I thought to myself, maybe that’s why women are so shitty at everything. Just like the kid who is really shitty at baseball and then it turns out he just needed some glasses. Maybe women just need to learn how to read.

Then I realized the writing on the walls of every cluster fuck women are about to step into is only metaphorical writing. They also don’t need to be able to read to shut the hell up every once in a while and listen when something other than Oprah or an appliance that resembles Oprah is dispensing sound life advice.

Perhaps instead of Easy Bake Ovens and Barbie Dolls this Christmas, mothers should be buying their daughters Hooked on Phonics.