“Is it possible that there cannot be peace between nations until there is peace between men and women?” asked Valerie M. Hudson in her lecture to an eager crowd of faculty and students on Sept. 29.

Hudson is a professor and the George H.W. Bush Chair at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. She initiated “The Woman Stats Project,” a constantly growing database on the status of women in 175 countries. She was invited to UNC Wilmington to speak about her newest collaborative book, “Sex and World Peace,” for the Women and Global Conflict series conducted by the Women’s Studies and Resource Center.

“Sex and World Peace” is a close examination of the influence of gender equality on the prosperity and well being of a nation. It presents intriguing trends between a country’s gender equality and its likelihood of war, reduced health, struggling economy, food production and governance. Hudson writes that a country with a narrow gender gap is less likely to go to war or be ravaged by HIV/AIDS. It is more likely to have a prosperous economy and reduced corruption in governance, she suggests.  

The book also carefully challenges the assumption that gender-based violence is not a global issue.

“More lives are lost through violence against women…than were lost during all the wars and civil strife of the twentieth century,” Hudson states.

Soft spoken and thoughtful, the mother of eight children and former professor at Brigham Young University, Hudson breaks through stereotypes as a prominent scholar in her field. Her dense lecture was grounded in statistics and research, as she asked questions to encourage the audience to come to their own conclusions about her findings.

For example, she explained that the worldwide sex ratio has changed overtime to 101.4 men per every 100 women, yet statistically the average is expected to be 98 men per 100 women. We can no longer say that women represent half of the population, Hudson said, since females are lost due to sex-selective abortion, honor killings, sexual violence, and trafficking.

“I was surprised to learn about the importance of gender equality, especially the fact that women produce 50 percent of food worldwide, but own only 1 percent of land,” said Kyle Donaldson, an honors student initially dragged to the event by his friends. “Farming was something I always associated with men.”

The audience was asked to think about the implications of the information presented—what are the consequences of a changing sex ratio? Hudson’s own answers focused on the significance of women’s empowerment in society.

“If you make the mothers voiceless, you hurt the children,” she said.

After presenting the major themes of “Sex and World Peace,” Hudson conducted a Q&A session, which brought up questions about how religious beliefs should be considered in the strive for equality and why there was a lack of male representation in the audience.

“The future was in my classroom,” Hudson said in response to a question about educating youth on the importance of gender equality.

She stressed that the only way change can occur is by educating youth, who will be future decision makers with the power to continue battling gender inequality. Men, she said, must also be essential players in the movement, as they currently hold the majority of leadership positions worldwide and have historically made key decisions resulting in victories for the women’s movement.

Hudson’s enlightening lecture left the audience with a myriad of surprising questions and statistics to consider. Through her thesis and groundbreaking work, she has certainly cracked open a possible door to a world of flourishing, peaceful nations through the fight for gender equality.