The happiest thing I read all day came to me via GlobalVoices — a story about exam results in Bangladesh.
Girls outperformed boys this year. The pass rate of female students: 79.19 percent, just over the 78.23 percent rate for boys.
Hasan Ferdous, who was once a journalist in Bangladesh and now works for the United Nations, pointed out that it's more than just the numbers that make this so extraordinary.
"It is known to us what difficulties a girl has to face in Bangladesh. A girl child is stil unwanted to some families. If there is a boy in the family all attention and privileges are provided to him. They get the best meal and the girls are given the leftover. If the family cannot afford to send children to the school, the girls are the first ones to sacrifice. .. still there are the pressure of the society, religion, eve teasers [sexual harassers]. And the parents conveniently decide that it is too risky to send the girls to school. After overcoming all these obstacles when they top the boys in education, then we have to say “three cheers”.
Read it. You'll think the same thing. Three cheers times infinity.