On International Women’s Day, here’s why it’s still tough to be a woman

Women around the world are celebrating International Women’s Day, a time to reflect on and honor the power of estrogen.

But the day also gives pause to those hurdles that make it difficult for mothers, sisters, aunts, wives, girlfriends and all females to be, well, women in the year 2016.

Where to begin?

Women in Morocco can be forced to marry their rapists.

In Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive or open bank accounts without their husbands’ permission.

The only country in the world where women cannot vote? Vatican City.

And in Iran, according to Vox, a politician recently called for three things to be kept out of parliament: donkeys, monkeys and women.

Here are a few other things that make women’s lives difficult, sometimes dangerous, around the world.

Women won’t really be “equal” to men until 2133

The World Economic Forum predicted in 2014 that it would take until 2095 to achieve global gender parity.

Then one year later in 2015, it downgraded its forecast: the gender gap won’t close entirely until 2133.

That’s 117 years from now.

Women and girls get their genitals cut

Female genital cutting, which international human rights advocates call genital mutilation, continues around the world.

At least 200 million people alive today have undergone the procedure in 30 countries, according to a recent UNICEF report.

Half of all the girls and women who have been cut live in Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia, and 44 million are girls 14 and younger, according to the agency’s data.

About 80 percent of the cases involve the excision of the clitoris and the labia minora. In a rarer, more extreme practice, all external genitalia is removed and the vaginal opening stitched up.

Women get twice as many threats of death and sexual violence than men online

A new Australian study finds that harassment of women online is at risk of becoming the norm — and women under 30 are particularly vulnerable.

What’s harassment? Trolling, cyberbulling, sexual harassment, even threats of rape and death.

In the study of 1,053 Australian women last month, one in seven — one in four women under 30 — had been threatened with physical violence online.

Seventy percent of women said online harassment is a serious problem in 2016, and 60 percent said that it was getting worse.

One study of tweets posted between June 2014 and December 2015 showed that the most offensive ones were aimed at women, using words like hag, bimbo, slut, the b-word and worse.

New Orleans had the highest percentage of derogatory comments against women.

So we’ll just leave MMA champ Ronda Rousey’s message right here.

Women in Indonesia have to ride motorbikes side-saddle

Officials in the Aceh province of Indonesia deemed it improper for women to straddle motorcycles, like men. So now women must ride side-saddle, with their legs hanging to one side.

The ban is part of strict sharia law, enforced to “protect women from an undesirable condition.”

Men rule the U.S. Congress

Good news: More women than ever — 108 — served last year in the 114th Congress. Rep. Mia Love from Utah became the first black Republican woman to serve in Congress. Sen. Joni Ernst became the first woman elected to Congress from Iowa.

Bad news: Women still only made up 20 percent of Congress, even though female voters made up 51 percent of the electorate that voted for them.

Women get paid less than men for the same work

Any way the numbers are sliced or placed on a graph or explained away by critics, American men out-earn American women.

The U.S. Census Bureau says that the median woman in the United States makes 79 cents for every dollar paid to the median man.

It’s worse for women of color. Black women earn 60 cents and Hispanic women make 55 cents to every dollar paid to a white man.

Even children see the unfairness of that.

Doctors treat women differently from men

A 2013 study in the journal Global Heart found that the medical community doesn’t treat women as thoroughly or aggressively as men when it comes to heart disease, even though both groups are at risk.

Women don’t get the same screening, preventive treatment, or life-saving medications or procedures, the study found.

And yet, women under 50 years old who have a heart attack related to heart disease are twice as likely as men to die. And 42 percent of women over 65 who have a heart attack will die within a year, compared with 24 percent of men.

Young boys often have better lives than young girls around the globe

Significant gaps in education, health and protection between adolescent boys and girls around the world keep girls locked in poverty, illiteracy and dangerous situations, according to UNICEF.

In Africa and South Asia, boys remain 1.55 times more likely to complete secondary education than girls, according to the World Bank. And even when girls do get to school, they often face chaotic situations.

In Nigeria, for instance, most of the 300 girls kidnapped by the extremist militia Boko Haram in 2014 are still missing.

And in some parts of the world girls under 18 are more likely to be married and to begin having sex at a young age.

Sometimes, that gender disparity can be life-threatening.

For instance, the gap between what boys and girls know about the risks of HIV and AIDS resulted in girls being two out of the three young people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa in 2009.

According to UNICEF, young women in sub-Saharan Africa are two to four times more likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS than young men.

Women shamed in Texas

In 2013 a pastor in Texas told his female congregation members to stop wearing weaves in his church because they presented “a false image of themselves and are associated with women who have low self-esteem.”

“I lead a church where our members are struggling financially. I mean really struggling,” said the Rev. A.J. Aamir.

“Yet, a 26 year old mother in my church has a $300 weave on her head. NO. I will not be quiet about this.”

This story was originally published March 8, 2016 at 3:48 PM with the headline "On International Women’s Day, here’s why it’s still tough to be a woman."