5 surprising roadblocks for girls and women

July 24, 2023
By Sirena Cordova
July 24, 2023
~6 min read

When you think about roadblocks for girls and women, do you think about things like taxes, electricity or resumes? 

These barriers might seem innocuous, but in unexpected ways, they’re hindering progress toward equality.  

Here, we explore five surprising things that can limit opportunities for girls and women: 

1. Roads  

What do you do when the only bridge that gets you to school is destroyed? 

This is the question 14-year-old Li Na and her friends had to answer when Typhoon Molave hit Vietnam in 2020. On her way back from school — which had closed due to the storm — Li Na watched as the bridge she used to cross the river in her village got swept away by the raging water. Without the bridge, getting to school meant walking an extra 6 miles along dangerous roads every day. And as a girl, that long journey can also mean greater exposure to gender-based violence. 

Children stand on one side of a destroyed bridge after a typhoon in Vietnam swept it away.
The main bridge in Li Na’s village in Vietnam was destroyed in the typhoon, severing the connection to school and the only medical center nearby.

“Back then, it only took us 15 minutes,” Li Na says. “Now it’s over an hour. Many from my class have dropped out since it takes too long and it’s too dangerous to walk on foot.” 

The loss of the bridge had a huge impact on expectant mother 23-year-old Y Luy, too. Without the bridge to get to the hospital, her health — and the health of her future baby — were put at risk.  

“I was able to easily go to the medical center before, but now I have to go a different way,” she says.   

The landslides damaged many other roads in the area, so villagers like Y Luy were left pushing their bikes through the mud to get to the medical center on the other side of the river.  

And, Li Na, Y Luy and their village aren’t the only ones to face this infrastructure challenge. 

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, rural communities around the world struggled to receive treatment because making the journey to health care centers required hiking through the wilderness.  

A woman and her young child stand along rolling hills of the Andes mountain region in Ecuador.
Remote villages in regions like the Andes mountains cut girls and families off from much-needed resources.

Remote villages without paved roads and bridges are often the hardest to reach, and the isolation from educational, medical and even financial institutions cut girls and young women off from the resources they want and need to improve their lives. 

2. Mental health  

A CDC report in 2023 found that 57% of teenage girls in the U.S. reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless in 2021 — double the rate of boys, and the highest level reported over the past decade. Nearly 25% of girls reported making a suicide plan. And we know that, worldwide, adolescent girls and women are, on average, more likely to suffer from mood disorders like depression and anxiety than boys and young men. 

[Read: “We’re almost never fine”: Young people on girls’ mental health]

And for girls living in deeply unequal cultures, managing mental health is particularly sinister and challenging. Many don’t ask for help out of fear that they won’t be taken seriously, while others simply can’t access the care they need. 

In the Philippines, 16-year-old Tisay couldn’t ask for support when her parents separated despite growing mental health problems. In her country, there’s a lot of stigma around mental illnesses, especially for girls and women.  

“I was always trying to hold back tears,” Tisay says. “I never spoke about it because I was scared of being judged.” 

But then Tisay had an anxiety attack so severe that her mother had to take her to a medical clinic. Once her doctor told her what was happening, she could finally get the help she needed. Now, Tisay says that she wants to help change the attitude in her culture so that everyone can feel safe speaking out about mental health problems.  

Tisay and her friends sit together to talk about their mental health.
After opening up about her anxiety, Tisay (right) formed new and supportive friendships with other girls struggling with their mental health.

Learning Specialist for Plan’s RAISE Above project, Phil De Leon, says adolescence is an extremely common life stage where girls like Tisay experience mental health issues.  

“It’s one of the most challenging life stages,” he says. “But it’s also the most exciting and self-revealing, as we discover our passions, our inner strengths and who we are.” 

3. Electricity  

Today, nearly 800 million people live without access to reliable electricity. Most live in rural areas, and in the lowest-income countries, more than half of the population lacks access. 

And for girls, no electricity means less public safety from harassment or assault.  

Without electricity in girls’ neighborhoods, roadside features we may take for granted like streetlights aren’t there to keep girls safe if they have to go out when it’s dark.  

In 12-year-old Duong’s village in Vietnam, she couldn’t leave her house if it was too dark because there were no lights along the roads, and it was frightening to be alone. This kept her from going to her friends’ houses or community events — she couldn’t freely exist in public. 

Along with other young people in the village, Duong decided to bring this issue up during a community meeting with Plan and ask for more lighting. Everyone else agreed. 

Plan worked with the community to install the new lights, and once everything was complete, Duong could finally feel safe. 

Three young people walk along a newly lit pathway in their village.
Duong and her friends can now walk through their village safely even when it’s dark because of the new lighting features.

“Me, my sister, my friends and all the villagers could not wait for that special moment when each house turned on their lights, lighting up our village paths,” Duong says. “Children are no longer scared of coming home late after school or an art performance.”  

[Read: Meet the girls engineering a more sustainable future ]

4. Taxes  

Seriously — taxes are upholding gender inequality in some countries around the world, even if it’s unintentional.  

A study in 2019 found that tax policies in Guatemala, Honduras and the Dominican Republic implicitly contribute to financial inequality between men and women. 

For example, there are no deductions or credits for family care, which inherently devalues domestic work, something girls and women in Latin America are expected to be (and usually are) responsible for.  

A woman in Guatemala sits in her home, weaving yarn.
Many women in towns and villages self-employ through working on farms, street-vending and weaving goods for their communities, but it leaves them with less money — especially after tax season.

If women do have jobs outside of the home, it’s usually self-employment in unregistered or informal environments like street-vending that pay far below a living wage. In Guatemala, self-employed workers pay an effective tax rate that is higher than what business owners or formal salaried employees pay. Since the proportion of women who are considered self-employed is greater than men, women are bearing an unfair burden. 

5. Resumes 

Have you ever walked into a business to apply for a job opening without a resume? If so, chances are it didn’t go very well.  

For young people around the world, especially girls and young women, it isn’t just about whether they have the right skills for a job, but also if they can summarize those skills and present themselves well enough on paper. And since millions of girls and young women haven’t received a formal education, this isn’t easy to do.  

Even in high-income countries, there’s still considerable bias against female job applicants, regardless of their actual qualifications. 

If they’re able to finish secondary school, many girls work on family farms or in other informal settings to pay for their education and support their family. By the time they graduate and are ready to find a better job, they don’t have formal experience to write down — which means they’ll face rejection again and again looking for fairer wages and safer working conditions, keeping them from the financial stability they’re aiming for. 

[Read: Four trailblazers proving there’s no such thing as “man’s work”]

These five roadblocks can present girls and women with even greater challenges than they are born into. But when communities prioritize equality, things can change. Even just one better road to school can mean more time spent in the classroom for girls. And when we invest in opportunities for girls, we invest in the future for all of us.