Sign the petition to advocate for girls education.

The Taliban’s attack on 14 year-old Malala Yousafzai created a grotesque counterpoint to The International Day of the Girl Child, celebrated on October 11. She was shot in the head by the Taliban while taking the bus to school. Simply for speaking up and seeking an education for herself. And as the world watches and hopes for Malala’s recovery, the future of girls has never seemed more precarious, or more important.

According to CARE, 25,000 girls, meaning female human beings under the age of 18, are forced into an arranged marriage EVERY DAY in the so-called “developing world.” Many of these thousands of forced marriages involve girls as young as age 7 or 8.

CARE and other human rights organizations declared International Day of the Girl Child as a Day of Action to End Child Marriage. Because there is no such thing as child-marriage – it’s an oxymoron. Marriage in any modern sense is consensual, so what happens to 1 in 3 girls worldwide is child-rape by another name. Also keep this in mind: girls who complete a secondary school education, according to CARE, are 6 times less likely to become child-”brides.”

We may comfort ourselves with the notion that this sort of thing doesn’t happen in America. Well, let’s not get too comfortable: Malala’s message needs to be heard everywhere, including here.

Even if you are able to push this aside with “it can’t happen to my daughter” reasoning, consider some of the other stats discussed by Ms. Bahr, involving our Western obsession with body-image and our hyper-sexualizing of girls:

• 54% of rapes inflicted upon women – or girls – in the U.S. occur before their 18th birthdays
• The U.S. teen pregnancy-rate is the highest in the developed world
• The average rate of entry into prostitution in the U.S. is between 12 and 14 years old

Deeply institutionalized gender inequality permeates every aspect of society, at every level, just about everywhere. To break its grip, girls must be empowered, women must be educated and respected, and civilized people everywhere, men as well as women, must stand together to protect them.

Because it simply is not enough to be horrified, take action now by signing the petition for Malala and use your voice to advocate for girls’ right to education. Once 1 million signatures are collected UN education envoy, Gordon Brown, will deliver the call in person to the President of Pakistan, and the Pakistani media. Do it now!

Want to do more? Read the call to action from Tina Brown and Angelina Jolie to help ensure the girls of Pakistan and Afghanistan have access to education. Together, we can become a part of something bigger than us all.

That’s a major take-away from my recent participation in the Clinton Global Initiative. Thought-leaders and organizational icons, from Cherie Blair to President Bill Clinton himself, returned to a shared theme: that women who begin small businesses may not think big enough. The fact that women entrepreneurs tend to get hung up in the hands-on details limits their success in taking their small business beyond the dreaded “cottage industry” scale into the big leagues.

Is this a girl thing? In some cases, yes, I think it is. Whether it’s estrogen, culture, or a blend of both, women entrepreneurs may get stuck in a caregiver role. This is hardly surprising. Worldwide, we see that women in business, especially a tiny business in a struggling economy, especially in the developing world, tend of emphasize the nurturing and care for others. They usually put the money toward the education of their children and other immediate needs. They are not speculators, and they tend to want to put the money into concrete assets where it will yield immediate ROI. This practicality, which we recognize as primarily being as asset, may also be a limitation.

Are men more selfish? Again, a loaded question. Based upon men’s treatment of microloans, the answer seems to be yes. For instance, women repay their microloans more faithfully than their male counterparts—because women are always worrying about other people, including their creditors. This means that they are putting less energy into the next big venture.

But here’s the downside: while globally women are initiating new businesses at twice the rate of their guy counterparts, women often aren’t able to take it to the next level. Their small businesses tend to stay small. Why?

Speaking for myself, the reason that Dermalogica was able to take flight is because I let go. It wasn’t easy. There are days when, even 25 years later, it still isn’t easy—I get hung up in the nits and grits of the day-to-day business.

But let me tell you, sisters (and brothers): letting go is the only way to go big. It doesn’t mean that you no longer care. It does require, however, that you hire really excellent people to run the ship while you’re up in the crow’s nest above the galley, spying for new lands to conquer.

Here’s a really specific point, too, from Bill Clinton himself. When he was interviewed by Jon Stewart just before CGI, President Clinton talked about the need for new businesses to build ecological and environmental safeguards and policies into their strategies “from the git-go”, as he likes to say. His visionary approach is more economical, and more effective than trying to fix things later down the line.

If you’re a woman entrepreneur, your challenge has to go beyond solving today’s problems if you want to make your business grow, thrive and bloom. This means being able to not only imagine, but also map out and plan a finite business strategy beyond paying next month’s rent—thinking big as well as dreaming big.

One billion women violated is an atrocity.

One billion women dancing is a revolution.

On February 14, 2013, one billion women will rise to help end violence against women. V-Day, a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, is the force behind One Billion Rising. In conjunction with their 15th anniversary, V-Day explains that the concept for this campaign is simple.

The One Billion Rising campaign stems from the statistic that one in three women experience violence in the form of rape or beatings in their lifetime, leaving over 1 billion women impacted by violence on this planet.

V-Day invites ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to this violence.

With this campaign, V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, and our solidarity across borders.

Visit http://onebillionrising.org/ to find out more information about V-Day and the One Billion Rising campaign. Below watch the emotional yet inspiring video for One Billion Rising.

Will you rise to the occasion?

Dermalogica Founder & Chief Visionary Jane Wurwand made a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative 2010 Annual Meeting.* In partnership with kiva.org, joinFITE set an initial goal to help create Financial Independence Through Entrepreneurship for 25,000 women entrepreneurs in just 2 years.

Last week, Jane attended the Clinton Global Initiative 2012 Annual Meeting to give her progress report. She was thrilled to say that joinFITE not only hit, but surpassed its goal to help 25,000 women entrepreneurs start or grow a business — and get on the path towards financial independence!

To every individual who made a loan, followed joinFITE on Facebook, or retweeted a joinFITE message – THANK YOU! You helped trigger a Ripple Effect of change for women and communities worldwide! And, tweets like these from Ailish and Ash, the self-proclaimed “every-day kids aged 9 and 15” remind us that there’s still more we can do!

What’s next for joinFITE? Get a sneak peek from our Commitment Progress Update, announced at the Clinton Global Initiative 2012.

*joinFITE is not a project with/sponsored/endorsed/awarded by the Clinton Global Initiative/President Clinton

We continue to see the Ripple Effect of joinFITE’s worldwide participation of Nelson Mandela Day 2012!

In South Africa, Dearmalogica tribe members stopped traffic to share the joinFITE message with each and every person they could connectwith. Shirts, signs and flyers invited people to get involved in joinFITE by texting their wishes for a world that empowered more women. Each wish generated a joinFITE loan contribution to a woman entrepreneur. The result — 3756 wishes and loans for women entrepreneurs worldwide!

Dermalogica South Africa’s inspiring video, featuring South African celebrities sharing their own wishes for women, including Tumisho Masha (Actor, The Wild), Josette Eales (Actress, The Wild), Marc Lewis (Radio Presenter), Nicole Fling (Former Miss South Africa and Supersport Presenter), Gert Johan Coetzee (Fashion Designer), Gregg Hammond (Model and “The BAR ONE MAN” Contestant).