The weight of words

Here's a paradox. . . a picture is worth a thousand words, but words are sometimes not worth that much. . . so what's the real exchange rate for words? 

Case in point . . . Here's a picture with a story about gender here, one that is told on the board in our office as well as in every classroom I set foot in. Our school at last count is 58% boys.  Girls are sometimes kept home to help in the household, or because their school fees are seen as a less worthwhile use of quite limited limited household resources.  I learned when sorting out school handbooks/report cards that the girls who had to repeat a grade were far less likely to return the next year than boys were.   This is the reality. 

Here is another picture, of a shirt I see a man in the village wearing often.  One of the many development slogan t-shirts floating around.  It says (and apologies for the bad picture), "Gender mainstreaming is not a request.  It is a requirement."  I'm still not exactly sure what that means, and am pretty sure that almost no one around here really understands it either, which is to say nothing of those others who can't read English all that well.