how to achive gender equality
Answers
1. Talk to women and girls
A fundamental reason we have not yet achieved gender equality in every realm is that women and girls’ voices are too often excluded from global and national decision-making. When programmes and policies are designed without women’s needs central to their foundation, we’re setting ourselves up to fail. If grassroots women had been adequately consulted in designing the MDGs, decision-makers would have been able to anticipate that girls would still be held responsible for many home chores, caring for younger siblings and fetching water, and have known that a major obstacle for girls’ education is that girls are at risk of physical and sexual assaults when they have to walk long distances to school.
2. Let girls use mobile phones
The majority of girls in India don’t have access to using basic technology such as phones and computers because of infrastructure related challenges and economic reasons. Increasingly we see bans on girls using mobile phones. The dialogue on girls’ access to Stem [science, technology, engineering and maths education and women’s role in technology has not even started to be acknowledged. Can girls and women access equal resources, opportunities and rights without access to technology..?
3. Make education gender sensitive
There has been much progress in increasing access to education, but progress has been slow in improving the gender sensitivity of the education system, including ensuring textbooks promote positive stereotypes. This is critically important for girls to come out of schools as citizens who can shape a more equal society. In some countries, there is a tendency to assume that things are fine as long as there are equal number of girls in schools.
4. Empower mothers
In Afghanistan, there have been great moves to increase number of girls going through formal education through providing schools for girls in every district. We have learned that through empowering women on the community level you will also enhance girls education. When mothers are educated and empowered to make choices in their lives, they enable their daughters to go to school.
The unpaid work women and girls do provide the foundation for the global economy. This fact needs to be highlighted more in the media, with the private sector and in communities. More research and data for messaging on this point could be useful in promoting the key role and contributions women and girls make to the economy and the need for proper recognition and compensation. We also need a concerted campaign for equal pay for equal work worldwide.
5. Stop the violence
Gender inequality allows for violence against women to continue unabated. The UN has found that globally, one in three women will experience violence in her lifetime, with most violence against women perpetrated by a current or former intimate partner. The World Health Organisation, London School of Health and Tropical Medicine, and the World Bank Group have done a lot to consolidate and expand on what we know about the prevalence of violence against women, and effective prevention and response strategies., but there is still a lot we do not know.
6. Beware the backlash
One of the realities that we need to remember and address is that, when women “trespass” in spaces that were previously completely male-dominated there is often a penalty. In education and in the workplace that backlash often takes the form of sexual harassment, humiliation, violence. Looking at a local level or specific situation we can see how that slows the pace of women’s entry to that sector or opportunity.
Hope this helps..