The Umoja Village in northern Kenya is a village of just women that actually sustains itself quite well. The men they left behind, which they accused of raping and beating them, tried to set up rival village across the way. However, in this case the woman's village has flourished, as they've taken advantage of the global economy, marketing their traditional beading skills around the globe. The village receives new members all the time, whereas the male village has become a place where their ex husbands get drunk and threaten to kill them.

The Witch Villages in Ghana's Volta Region also have towns of mostly women and children that work together and thrive. Most of these women were thrown out of their original villages for practicing Vodun (Voodoo) and sent away with their kids. When most arrive they are devastated, however, after a few months, they settle in and it's created societies that are almost completely without theft or hunger. Something very rare for the African continent.

Further, if you look at development in Sub-Saharan Africa you will see that micro-loans are given exclusively to women in 99% of the cases. And this isn't because banking companies hate men. But it's because loan companies realized that men tended to spend the loans on booze and clubbing, without paying it back. Meanwhile loans to women are often recouped as the women tended to plant bananas or create self-sustainable businesses out of them.

In Kenya's Maasai, the men hang out in fields with cattle (who don't do a whole lot of moving on the Mara) talking or playing on their cellphones all day while women do the brunt of food collecting, fixing homes, and taking care of procuring most goods. In fact, most women in that region agree that the men contribute so little, it would be easier if there wasn't another mouth to feed when they eventually amble home.

In Mukono, Uganda women were offered the opportunity to get micro-loans and the men in their villages laughed at them and said they would never build a successful business and drive their families into debt. This was about 3 years ago and to date, 100% of loans have been repaid on time, and the women are now purchasing new houses in the region, filling it with furniture, and paying for their children to attend school, and receiving proper medical care for the first time in their lives. It's actually astounding how many of these women thought 'being in pain' all the time was normal, with many suffering chronic UTI's and kidney trouble. Now, finally relaxed and in good health, many have expanded their businesses into the capital, Kampala.

One of my jobs in investigating finance and community projects in Africa. And I'm not saying that African women are better because it's 'feminist' or 'woman's lib'. Women here have shit hard lives that most Western women could not even begin to comprehend.

That said, it's been pretty thoroughly recognized, from finance companies to governmental and NGO policies, that men tend to get in the way, and cause far more conflicts on this continent. And when women are left to rule, things tend to stabilize out with a focus on education and community development. It's not my opinion, it's universally recognized trends developed by corporations and fiscal enterprises that don't want to put stock in a bad return (in this case, the bad return is men).

While this program might say something in particular about Western women, if we're talking about social issues with men and women from a more global standpoint, actually there's a lot more to it that's worth considering.