Gender Equality by 2030: A Long Way to Go
By :
The world has made unprecedented advances, but no country
has achieved gender equality. The emerging global consensus is that despite
some progress, real change has been agonizingly slow for the majority of women
and girls in the world. Today, not a single country can claim to have achieved
gender equality. Multiple obstacles remain unchanged in law and in culture.
Women and girls continue to be undervalued; they work more and earn less and
have fewer choices; and experience multiple forms of violence at home and in
public spaces. Furthermore, there is a significant threat of rollback of
hard-won feminist gains.
The full and equal participation of women in all areas of
society is a fundamental human right. Yet around the world, women and
girls are considerably underrepresented - from politics and entertainment to
the workplace.
Here, we are trying to present you some scenarios that take
a closer look at this gender-imbalanced landscape over time and reveal the slow
pace of progress.
Politics
The political representation of women in the world has
doubled in the last 25 years. However, this represents only one woman in
four people in parliaments, leaving more than three-quarters of seats held by
men.
Women are still considerably underrepresented in the highest
political positions. In October 2019, there were only 10 women Heads of
State and 13 women Heads of Government in 22 countries. In 1995, there
were four Heads of State and eight Prime Ministers in 12 countries.
Work
In June 2019, the Fortune 500 list reached a milestone and
recorded the highest number of female CEOs. While each new woman is a
victory, the sum total paints a worrying picture: of the 500 people in CEO
positions who lead the highest-earning companies, less than 7 per cent are
women.
If the labor force as a whole is analyzed, the gender gap in
labor market participation among adults of full employment age (25 to 54 years)
has stagnated in the last 20 years. The better education women receive has
done little to change occupational segregation, which is deeply entrenched in
developed and developing countries. Women continue to perform a
disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work. In developing
countries, this includes arduous tasks such as collecting water, the
responsibility of which falls on women and girls that live in 80 per cent of
households without access to water.
Culture and science
The Nobel Prize, which is awarded annually in recognition of
intellectual and academic achievement, has been awarded to more than 900 people
over the course of its history, from 1901 to 2019. Only 53 of those winners
have been women: 19 in the categories of physics, chemistry and physiology or
medicine. Marie Curie became the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize
in 1903, when she and her husband were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics
together. Eight years later, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
alone, making her the only woman in history to win this Prize
twice. Although women have been part of different scientific discoveries
throughout history, only 30 per cent of those who research in the world and 35
per cent of students in science, technology, are women.
Journalism
Progress is practically halted when one considers equality
between men and women in the media arena. According to a study on the
characterization, participation and representation of women in the media, which
spanned 20 years and 114 countries, only 24 per cent of the people who are
heard, read or seen in the written press, television or radio are
women. There is also a glass ceiling for female journalists in articles
and reports in the written press and on television: as of 2015, only 37 per
cent of stories were authored by women, and this figure has not changed in 10
years. Despite the promise of democratization of digital media, the low
representation of women in traditional media is also reflected in digital
media: women are only 26 per cent of people who write news and journalistic
tweets on the Internet. Only 4 per cent of traditional and digital
newspaper articles openly challenge gender stereotypes. Among other
factors, stereotypes and the considerable under-representation of women in the
media play a crucial role in the formation of harmful attitudes, disrespect and
violence against women.
Women in entertainment
Like other media, film and television have a significant
influence on cultural perceptions and attitudes towards gender, and are
essential in changing the narrative of the gender equality
agenda. However, an analysis of famous films in 11 countries
revealed, for example, that 31 per cent of the characters with lines of
dialogue were women and that only 23 per cent of the films had a female
protagonist, a figure that is very similar to the percentage of female
filmmakers (21 per cent).
The serious underrepresentation of women in the film
industry is also flagrant in the most critically acclaimed film awards: in the
92-year history of the Oscars, only five women have been nominated in the Best
Director category; of the five, only one won the award (Kathryn
Bigelow). Jane Campion, for her part, remains the only female film
director to win the most important and prestigious award at the Cannes Film
Festival, the Palme d'or, in its 72-year history. The only other women to
receive this award (jointly) were actresses Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa
Seydoux, along with the film's director, Abdellatif Kechiche. If a picture
is worth a thousand words, the message is worth a million.
Women in sport
Sport can inspire change and break gender stereotypes, and
that's what women have been doing for decades: showing that they are just as
capable, resilient and strong as men, not only physically but also
strategically as leaders. Today, women are much more visible than ever in sport.
For comparison, only 22 women (2.2 per cent) out of a total of 997 athletes
competed in the modern-era Olympic Games for the first time in 1900. Despite
progress, women are still excluded from certain sports in some parts of the
world and are paid much less than men in salaries and monetary awards
globally. UN Women is working to balance the situation of women and girls,
for example through partnerships with the International Olympic Committee and
with Marta Vieira da Silva, Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women and all-time top
scorer at the FIFA Women's World Cup.
Culinary arts
Although women are assigned stereotypical roles in the home
kitchen, the most prestigious positions in the restaurant industry are
relatively foreign to female chefs. As detailed in the documentary- A Fine
Line, women often have to overcome situations of active discrimination and
circumvent a culture that not only glorifies masculinity, but also tacitly
condones harassment. Women face very big challenges when entering the
restaurant business: long, unpredictable and inflexible working hours,
unfriendly family and care policies, and low wages.
Rooted in patriarchal norms and traditions, the consequences
are far-reaching and negatively impact the personal, economic and future
well-being of women and girls, their families and the community at large. There
is a sharp need to actively change the scenario in order to achieve gender
equality by 2030.
