Their origin is murky, but historians say the Amazons probably rooted under Queen Hangbè, who reigned alongside her twin brother in the early 1700s and kept an entourage of female bodyguards. By the mid-1800s, Dahomey boasted thousands of female troops as it sought to outmuscle rival kingdoms

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa forced more girls than boys to halt their studies in the ensuing years, from 2014 to 2016, researchers say, dimming economic prospects for a generation of young women. Educators fear the coronavirus pandemic could trigger another wave of dropouts.

A new report from Georgetown University found there are now about 13 million jobs nationwide that require only a high school diploma and pay at least $35,000 annually, a higher wage than most entry-level service roles. Three-quarters of them, however, belong to men.

“The public is divided about whether this is a good thing for women in the long run or a bad thing,” said Kim Parker, director of social trends research at the Pew Research Center. Slightly more than half of the people surveyed overall (51 percent) said the heightened focus on sexual harassment in the workplace has created new challenges for men at work. Men were more likely to hold this belief (55 percent) than women (47 percent).

Between October 2016 and October 2017, women who worked in the country’s stores lost 160,300 jobs, while 106,000 men found new work in the field, the analysis from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found. Economy & Business Alerts Breaking news about economic and business issues. Sign up “We’ve seen many news reports of the decline in retail jobs, but few have noted that the picture in retail is much different for women and men,” researchers at the Washington think tank wrote. Over the past year, they added, “women’s share of all retail trade jobs fell from 50.4 to 49.6 percent.”