Equality Can not and Will not Wait
Happy International Women’s Day!
But before we throw up the confetti and pop-out out the champaign, let’s pause to reflect for a moment where we are in terms of gender equality.
In 2019 the World Economic Forum issued it’s Global Gender Gap Report for 2020. Progress was noted since the last report issued in 2016. However, there is a 31.4% average gender gap that remains to be closed globally.
The biggest gender gap remains in the realm of Political Empowerment, with only 24.7% of the global gap closed. Over the past 50 years, 85 out of 153 countries covered by the WEF Report have NEVER had a female head of state. That’s 55% of countries that in the last 50 years have not had a female head of state.
The Economic, Participation and Opportunity gap has been closed by 57.8%. Women’s participation in the labour market has actually decreased and financial disparities are larger. Globally, only 55% of adult women are in the labour market compared to 78% of men. And there is a 40% wage gap (the ratio of a women’s wage compared to a man in a similar position) and a 50% income gap (the ratio of the total wage and non-wage income of women to men).
The silver lining is that Educational Attainment and Health and Survival Gaps have narrowed, to 96,1% and 95.7% respectfully. However, 10% of girls aged 15–24 are still illiterate on a global level, with that number being greater in developing economies.
What all of this means is that, even though, on average on a global level, women are as educated and healthy and alive as men — they still don’t have access to the same levels of political or economic power.
The disparity is such, the the WEF predicts that the overall gender gap will close in 99.5 years, on average, across the 107 countries covered by the report.
It will take 54 years in Western Europe, 59 years in Latin America, 71.5 in South Asia, 95 years in SubSaharan Africa, 107 years in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 140 years in the Middle East and North Africa, 151 years in North America and 163 years in East Asia and the Pacific.
The impetus for International Women’s Day started in 1908, 113 years ago, when thousands of women garment workers in New York City went on strike and marched through the city to protest against poor working conditions, low wages (which were of course much lower than men) and sexual harassment.
Many will say that in the period since then, much progress has been achieved.
And they would be true.
But when compered to the technological progress experienced in the last 113 — including inventing airplanes, cars, jet airplanes, supersonic airplanes, radio, television, nuclear energy, a manned trip to the Moon, satellite voyages to the ends of of our solar system, the internet, the personalised computer, the cell phone, AI and several unmanned trip to Mars, to name only a handful, not even mentioning all the medical and scientific advancements — the pace of gender equality pales in comparison.
113 years ago women fought against wage disparities, sexual harassment and basic rights — and are still doing so today.
Despite our achievements, we’re still fighting the same battles our grandmothers did.
So no, today is not a day of celebration.
Today is a day of reckoning and of demanding.
A hundred years to full parity is unacceptable for 50% of the global population.
50% of the population that births, nurtures, cares, feeds, cooks and cleans for the ENTIRE human population.
Gender rights, aside from climate change, is THE most important and pressing issue of our time.
And just like climate change it cannot and will not wait.
Take every action you can, in whatever capacity you can, to ensure that gender equality issues are at the forefront of everything and that our voices are heard and that they are heard loud and clear.
And make it clear, that 100 years of waiting is NOT an option.
The granddaughters of our granddaughters deserve no less.
