Definition of statistics: the science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures”. Evan Esar

Celebrating international women’s day, a local newspaper illustrates women’s current position and controversies by showing some statistics.

Controversies by showing some statistics, including “70 per cent of the world's poor are women”. Without mentioning the fact that life expectancy for men is much lower than for women almost everywhere, and that the elderly are more often poor than young adults, one is left to wonder if women are more often poor (partly) because they live longer… and if that’s the case, who’s worse off? This kind of juggling with numbers, raises the question if statistics are more often used to misguide and confuse, or to create a realistic picture.