But these two reports from the Center from American Progress speak to the core issues I will discuss in my next book. How do we tap the great economic potential of women--in the case of these two reports women of color and unmarried women? And how do we move beyond our own economic insecurities to fully use the economic power that we have?

The two reports can by clicking here for the report on unmarried women. And clicking here for the report on women of color.

I've added a few paragraphs of statistics and information here as food for thought.

More when I return the week of Aug. 24.

"New information is emerging about the economic importance of unmarried women and the vital contributions they make to our economy. Almost half (47 percent) of all women in America today are unmarried—divorced, separated, widowed, or never married. Unmarried women now make up nearly a quarter (24 percent) of our total adult population, and they head 3 in 10 households. Unmarried women are raising one-quarter (25 percent) of all American children under 18 years old. Unmarried women are workers and homeowners, our neighbors and community leaders, our family members and friends."

And from the report on women of color:

"Unmarried women of color have even less economic security than their white counterparts. This is a particular concern because women of color are more likely to be unmarried and facing the economic insecurity associated with their marital status. For instance, 68 percent of adult black women are unmarried, as are 47 percent of Hispanic women, compared with 43 percent of white women."

I'll dig into this survey more in a post tomorrow, but let me know what you think by clicking here to read the story.

First off was a Mother Jones article that discussed the Taliban's response to Time magazine's cover story that featured the disfigured face of Bibi Aisha. Her nose and ears were cut off by her husband, who is a member of the Taliban. The Taliban fired back a long response that included a condemnation of the way America treats its women.

Then today on WBUR's Here and Now program on NPR, there was a compelling interview with a young Afghan woman, Parnian Nazary, who grew up under Taliban rule, but still found a way to educate herself even though she was confined to her home for years. Now several years later, she just graduated from Wellesley College.

She was interviewed along with Patty Ward, whose daughter was killed by the Taliban while she was working in Afghanistan. The two women were are inspiring for their devotion to the cause of educating women as the most powerful way of moving countries forward. Ward has set up a program to bring Afghan women to the U.S. to be educated at Wellesley and has hired Nazary to be the program's cultural adviser.

But it was Patty Ward's statement about the power of women--even in a war-ravaged country--that was profound.

She said (and I paraphrase here so please listen to by clicking on the link above) that no matter what happens in Afghanistan, that she believes wholeheartedly in the power of women to find ways to be educated, to move their country forward, and fight for their rights.

That should be a call to action for all women to take action on the importance of educating a woman--whether it's here in America or Afghanistan. We know that that this act--sometimes simple, sometimes hard--is the fastest way to grow a country's economy.

It occurs to me that while all this is nice fodder for the virtual water cooler...where does it really take us as women? I would have preferred a deep analysis on the economic status of women around the world--not another take on why Heidi Montag both horrifies and captivates us.

Or we could have done with a special report about the true power of women in the workforce. But the reality is that beauty sells--both magazines and in society at large. And it occurs to me that this beauty fascination may be part of the repercussions of "civil death," which I wrote about yesterday. We are still bound to the cultural norms of our times just as Eunice Chapman was bound to ours. But where is our Ms. Chapman--the one who fights against those norms to take back her power?

What so captivated me as I listened to this woman's story was my sense of displacement and discouragement. My thoughts kept rollercoasting between "we have come so far" to "we haven't come very far at all." Certainly, we (by we I mean women of a certain socio-economic class in so-called first world countries) live in times where divorce is far more common--but not necessarily easier on us. A range of studies have shown that divorce has a negative impact on a woman's finances (although there are studies that show that there also is a negative impact on men as well.)

Without a doubt, women have gained far more control over their lives, their children, and their bodies in the past 200 years. But I still sense that both here in the U.S. and around the world that women continue to deal with the repercussions from a 19th century cultural and legal norm called "civil death." This term was used in the 19th century to describe what happens to a woman when she marries. When she marries, she becomes civilly dead, or non-existent in society.

I wondered what are the modern ramifications of this cultural and legal norm? How far do we have to go to put "civil death" behind us because I still perceive its hold on us some 200 years later. Despite all we have achieved, women in many countries become the property of their husbands when they wed. Even in countries where women have fought for independence, we continue to live with hangover of this "death." We still struggle to gain financial freedom and independence--whether it's fighting for higher pay or having that tough conversation with our partners about money.

So yes we have come very far from this 19th-century notion of being dead to our society because we were married. But I also realize that our path toward independence has been one that is tougher and far ore philosophically challenging than even I had imagined.

"I believed it was my duty to place motherhood on a higher level than enslavement and accident. I was convinced we must care about people; we must reach out to help them in their despair.
For these beliefs I was denounced, arrested. I was in and out of police courts and higher courts, and indictments hung over my life for several years. But nothing could alter my beliefs. Because I saw these as truths, and I stubbornly stuck to my convictions."

As we celebrate our mothers today, we also should celebrate that we now have the choice of motherhood and control over our bodies. As Sanger says, motherhood should not be about "accidents," but about choice.

Gbowee founded the "sex strike" movement as a way to raise awareness of what was happening to women in Liberia. Women declined to have sex with their partners until the violence ended. But as Gbowee says it wasn't just about sex, it was about the "moral clarity, persistence, and patience" of the women.

As Gbowee writes, it was up to the women of Liberia to take back their power, to find the moral high ground and call for peace through a nonviolent movement that lasted for three years. Instead of remaining victims, these women fought back--in a way that made their partners take notice.

These two issues struck me as yet another " two sides of the same coin" topic--how our views of marriage are shifting and changing around the world as women continue to expand on their economic freedom. I'd like to hear from you about your view of marriage and the social norms that still drive women toward marriage--even as a growing number of women in the U.S. and around the world choose singlehood. Does the rise of singlehood change the way corporations, governments, society think about single women? What will be the impact of raising the marriage age in countries like Yemen--will it result in more women being educated?

Here's a look at two stories--one from the U.S. and one from Yemen--that started me thinking:

The photo is an empty horizon with a lonely road fading into the distance: The words also set the tone for the article: "They didn't set out to be single, and they're still open to meeting a soul mate. They've never been married, but none fit the usual caricatures of the frustrated spinster or the wacky Auntie Mame. Meet the new generation of women who are on their own and loving their happily never after."

What intrigues me about this article is that on the one hand it celebrates women's choice and control over their lives. And yet, it reminds us of how the world views single women. And it finds the need to defend the choice of remaining single by telling us that these women really are normal: they haven't given up on the idea of a soul mate.

The article does offer a number of intriguing statistics that could have an effect on socio-economic trends in the future. For instance, 27 million women over 45 are single; and the percentage of these women who have never been married is increasing. Dominus notes that the U.S. Census update "found that 11 percent of women between the ages of 45 and 54 have never been married, a two percent rise since 2005."

Read the article and let me know what you think. I'll be digging into the article in future posts.

In Yemen, the women protesters are defending their right to marry at an appropriate age. Take a look at this story in the The New York Times about young girls--some just 10 years old--who are demanding divorces from husbands 20 years their senior. There are women, however, who are on the other side of the debate, protesting against proposed changes by the Yemeni legislature.

This is a true story of economics, social and religious norms, and power. Poverty forces many families to marry their daughters off at very young ages. They argue that if they didn't they would be abducted and forced into marriage anyway. But a study conducted by Sana University shapes the message differently. The university, as reported by the Times, found that is also a belief that a very young bride can be shaped into a dutiful wife. Here is more information from the UNHCR. And here is another link to coverage of this issue.

Even as more women in developed countries choose singlehood over marriage, women in Yemen are organizing to support legislation that would make it illegal for girls under the age of 17 to be married.

As young women become the majority of college graduates, we see the need to focus on why young men aren't entering college and graduating at the same rates.

So in the next several posts, I will be focusing on what I call the "Two Sides of the Coin." I would like to hear your thoughts on these issues. Take a minute to think about any dichotemies that you see around you and drop me a note.

Today's post will be a discussion on how some women are gaining financial power even as others are truly powerless as they are bought and sold in an international network of sex trafficking.

You can take a look at the executive summary of the report by clicking here.

Yet even as these reports offer up a positive view of women's increasing financial power, there are startling reports about sex trafficking--the buying and selling of women (and men as well) into the sex trade. The issue of sex trafficking in America came to my attention when I was in Columbus, Ohio to talk to the Women's Fund of Central Ohio.

Even as we were discussing how much economic power women had gained over the years, a woman in the audience questioned me on what I thought of the growing sex trafficking problem in central and southern Ohio--an issue that was being covered extensively by the Columbus Post-Dispatch. For more on their coverage click here.

The newspaper, quoting from the U.S. State Department, estimates that between 15,000 and 18,000 young women are trafficked every year in the U.S.

For my part, I was startled by the statistics. Moreover, I realized that like many I consider sex trafficking something that happens somewhere else in the world--not Columbus, Ohio or Ann Arbor, Mich. The issue has been on my mind since that discussion in September.

So how do we square these two sides of the coin? What do we make of the growth of economic power for women as supported by the Pew research even as we see the continued growth of the sex trafficking trade? What do you make of these issues?

Le me know by commenting here. Let's keep the conversation going.

Check out this article on Harvard Business Review--women control $20 trillion in spending worldwide!

But I need an event, a story, a person, an idea to inspire me. So I'm looking forward to being inspired by two days at the Marketing to Women conference next week at Chicago's Cultural Center. I will be live blogging throughout the conference so catch up with my thoughts on the speakers, ideas, and presentations.

You can also catch me on Twitter. Just click on the feed on this page. You can also search for #m2w to see what all of us are tweeting about.

I also will moderate a panel of top marketers from brands such as Frito-Lay, Shutterfly, and Office Max on the final day, April 30, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. I hope you'll join us as we talk about the freshest ideas in reaching the women's market