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We can't afford not to educate girls and give women the power and the access that they need.

Population growth is straining the Earth's resources to the breaking point, and educating girls is the single most important factor in stabilizing that. That, plus helping women gain political and economic power and safeguarding their reproductive rights.

When girls are educated, you get effects that cascade throughout society.

There is a reason you keep hearing about the power of educating girls in the developing world. It's a reason so simple that you will probably view it with suspicion, as I once did. It's this: educating girls works. Really works.

Everything has to do with education: If you educate the girls, you educate the family, the community, and society, in general.

If we create a generation of men who aren't getting an education, that's bad for women.

Our educational system is appallingly poor right now. Yet, somehow we're turning out some of the most intellectual and powerful sophisticated minds in the world. I think that's because we still have the opportunity here.

One of the things we have to remember about the poorest countries in the world is that parents, extremely poor parents, are making the choice of whether to send their girls to school. And they are struggling with lack of water, lack of firewood, and lack of care for their youngest children. And those burdens fall on the girls.

Why are fanatics so terrified of girls' education? Because there's no force more powerful to transform a society. The greatest threat to extremism isn't drones firing missiles, but girls reading books.