"The whole podium kissing on the cheek thing I think is just a little bit weird, and it just brings this element of sexualisation of the ceremony into it that I don't think is necessary."

There is little evidence to suggest that parents pay attention to their child’s gender when funding their education. Over the last few decades, the prevalence of single-child households in China has made parents less likely to favor boys over girls when it comes to their children’s studies. Indeed, the majority of Chinese students in the U.K. are enrolled in postgraduate courses, a trend that signals their parents’ willingness to invest in higher education. But does parents’ readiness to send their daughters abroad also herald growing domestic support for gender equality?

Steele believes that the acquisition of two 18th-century paintings by American millionaire Henry Huntington started turning the tide in favor of pink being a girls' color. "The Blue Boy" depicted a boy dressed in blue, and "Pinkie" portrayed a girl in pink attire. Huntington's purchase was widely publicized in the American press, Steele said. People started thinking that for hundreds of years, blue had been for boys and pink had been for girls. But this wasn't true, she said. "If you look back, little boys in the 18th century wore blue and pink, and grown-up men wore blue and pink, and ladies and little girls wore blue and pink," Steele said.

According to the latest PISA report, only one in 20 girls considers working in a scientific or technological field in the future, compared with one in five boys. It is not because they do not like science or because they do not do as well at it, not by any means. The problem, as Álvarez Caro insists, is that they are not given a chance to try it.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are on opposite sides in many ways — in their divergent branches of Islam, the wars in Syria and Yemen, Lebanese politics and relations with the United States, for example. They have clashed over oil production, religious pilgrimages and who is a terrorist. But both countries are responding to domestic and international pressure over women’s rights.

When you look at the types of mental health problems young women face, the more common disorders such as depression and anxiety are, as you might expect, widespread. But what is perhaps especially shocking is the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder, which one in seven young women experience. Far from this being a condition solely affecting veterans returning from wars, young women are being traumatised by sexual and physical violence and abuse on the streets, in our schools and in their homes.

"So at one point she interviewed Susan B. Anthony, and Susan B. Anthony declared that she stands in salute every time she sees a bicycle. She said that bicycles did more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. And I thought, 'Why is this feminist icon talking about a piece of athletic equipment?' "

"In Morocco, 79 percent of boys in urban areas attend school compared to 26 percent of girls in rural areas. In some areas, up to 83 percent of women are married before the age of 18. "Girls weren't getting a chance at a future," she says. "Girls are extremely vulnerable to a cycle where they drop out of school, marry early, and become a young mother." In 2013, Montague and her husband, Chris Redecke, set up Project Soar with the hopes of breaking that cycle by keeping girls in school and providing them with options for their futures. Sports were a core component of the program. "My philosophy with my own two kids was that if they did sports they'd be fearless," says Montague."

The Radium Girls actually believed they were getting healthier by working with the new wonder drug -- the most expensive substance in the world at the time, costing the equivalent of $2.2 million per gram in today's money. Adding to the allure of the job, the girls were listed as 'artists' in their town directories. Since it was all so attractive, they even encouraged their sisters and friends to join them.

When we teach boys that there are “boy’s toys” and “girl’s toys,” and that they ought to complain if they get the wrong one, we teach them gender-based entitlement. When we teach girls that it’s okay to play with toys designed for boys and to dress in clothes designed for boys, but we teach boys that it’s wrong for them to wear dresses or play with “girl’s toys,” we erase girls from social relevance. Ultimately, it becomes easier for companies to just make what boys and men are willing to use, because girls and women will be willing to use them, too.

Pupils educated at all-boys’ schools are also “significantly more likely” than their peers at mixed-sex schools to express “strongly negative attitudes” towards learning about sexism, according to a survey of over 1,500 secondary school students. The research, commissioned by the National Education Union (NEU) and the women’s equality pressure group UK Feminista, found that over a third (37 per cent) of girls at mixed-sex schools have been sexually harassed while at school.

They talk about how poor dad is going to go broke with so many girls in the house, because all girls love to shop. And, of course, girls are naturally going to emasculate, manipulate, and henpeck the father of the family — just being around so many girls is going to sap the manliness right out of him. Essentially, this version of "poor dad" purports that every obnoxious stereotype about women and girls is true.