INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY, 2022 # BREAK THE BIAS
When my daughter was in grade school, she announced that she wanted to be married to the president of the United States. When I asked her why she didn’t want to be the president, she said that she didn’t know girls could be. I promptly informed her otherwise and she just as quickly decided becoming president would be her new goal. That idea didn’t last long, but at least I had an opportunity to set her straight. That was 30 years ago and yet we still haven’t seen a female president and remarkably, the bias is still in. According to a UN study conducted in 2020, around 39% of people in the US, think men make better leaders. And, globally, half of the world’s men and women think that too.
When stats show that closing the gender gap would boost global GDP, it’s interesting to note that globally, close to 50% of men said they had more right to a job than women. And women, on average, spend more than twice as many hours as men doing unpaid work. You know, cooking, cleaning, and childcare. It’s no wonder, it’s harder for women to catch up with men in terms of power, independence and financial resources.
That same UN study found that there are no countries in the world with gender equality and astonishingly almost a third of respondents thought it was acceptable for men to hit their partners. That’s difficult and uncomfortable to know.
In our family, we were four sisters growing up in the 60’s. We didn’t experience gender bias on a daily basis. There were no brothers to compare stereotypical roles. But each of us experienced subtle biased situations even within the family as we grew older, situations that didn’t sit right or make sense to us. Some of these “family rules” were part cultural, but mostly having to do with our gender. And this, in spite of the fact that our mother sought out a college degree and worked outside the home in a professional career while raising her family.
The 2030 Agenda of the UN charter is to have gender equality and the empowerment of all women. Can we really get there in eight more years? I’m counting on it because I want to see my granddaughters grow up in that world.
