Often these situations are worsened by extreme poverty and linked to deeply rooted traditional value systems, especially in rural societies. Men's over-emphasis on masculinity is linked to situations of extreme social and economic dependence. All over the world women's lives are changing. They are living longer, having fewer children and increasingly have a paid job, although very many of them are still living in poverty. Theses changes have been as rapid as an avalanche that changes the shape of the mountain, yet the cultural codes surrounding women's lives are only just beginning to change.
Culture is, indeed, our best software for saving humankind from enslavement and violence.
We must therefore readjust cultural codes so as to reflect the changing lives of women and, particularly, the change in their life-stages. The crafts industry is one in which women play a predominant role in the countries of north and south. Some of them are talented artists who continue to use traditional knowledge, transmitted from mother to daughter, to meet household needs and bring in a modest personal revenue. But owing to a lack of training in the management of small businesses and marketing, too few women reach this stage. Collection Women plus.