UNIVERZA V LJUBLJANI

FAKULTETA ZA DRUBENE VEDE

Seminarska naloga iz Angleine 2

HeForShe : UN Women campaign concerning gender equality

Ilina Dimovska, 21130399

Smer in nain tudija: Mednarodni odnosi, 2. letnik, redni tudij

Predavatelj: prof. Maja Makovec

12. marec 2015

Ljubljana

CONTENT:
Introduction
Main part
- UN structures regarding gender equality
- The UN contribution to gender equality
- HeForShe campaign
- IMPACT 10x10x10
- Criticism to the HeForShe campaign
- What can we do?
Conclusion
Glossary
References

Introduction
Gender inequality has been an issue that has been discussed for many years and has been a very
important cause for women to fight for. It all started with the fight for women's rights, where
women wanted and fought for equality with men. Women wanted the right to vote, the right to
work and be paid accordingly, the right to not be discriminated based on gender. Now in the 21st
century not just women are being discriminated. Everyone is affected by discrimination and
inequality. Single fathers have less rights than single mothers. Men who cry and express their
feelings are considered weak and that kind of behaviour is not acceptable in society. Men face as
many stereotypes as women and that is why a joint fight is needed. That is where HeForShe
comes in. HeForShe invites men to join the conversation and make the issue about gender
equality and not just about women's rights.
In my seminar paper I will show the relevance of the United Nations (UN) entities regarding this
issue and the importance of this new programme and how we can act locally and affect change
globally.

Main part
UN structures regarding gender equality
The UN has been one of the most influential and effective organisation in the movement for
gender equality. Because of its unique structure and way of work, the UN is able to produce
binding normative frameworks and influence the states of the world. With the establishment of
many research and activity programmes the UN has played an important role regarding gender
equality. Even though the UN has done a lot of great work promoting and dealing with the issue,
it has failed to provide adequate funding to support the gender work and that is one of the
reasons why gender inequality is still an ongoing issue in the world. In the 2000s the UN has
been critisized for their lack of full commitement in the gender area and for its weaknes in
closing the gap between policy and practice. For many years the UNs limitations have caused
some gender equality advocates to question the value of engaging with the organisation (Roberts
2011, 31).
The UN's gender architecture was included in the 2005 structural reform process and in 2010,
after a long negotiation process, the UN General Assembly approved the formation of UN
Women, that was to replace four UN gender bodies. UN Women replaced the United Nations
Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the International Research and Training Institute for
the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), the Office of the Special Adviser to the SecretaryGeneral on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI), and the Division for the
Advancement of Women (DAW). The creation of UN Women delivered significant
improvements with regard to funding and capacity and it is now the UNs leading agency for
gender equality and womens empowerment (Roberts 2011, 32).
The United Nations contribution to gender equality
As I previously mentioned the UN has been a great contributer to the movement for gender
equality. Firstly the UN bodies have established a normative framework and government
commitents on the issue. The Organisation has established crucial normative standards and
initiatives that have had great impact on this issue. These initiatives include the Convention on

the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) (1979), the Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) and UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on
Women, Peace and Security (2000).
Second the UN has strong collaborative bonds with many civil society organisations and uses
their information to improve the work within its bodies. The UN has been very influental in
helping the global gender equality movement to become a united and formidable force.
Furthermore the UN has developed many programmes and has been a loud advocate for the
improvement of the status of women and girls. Through its research, advocacy, and programmes
the UN has provided both support and leadership for the gender equality movement. Even
though the UN gender equality entites were severely under-funded, they have made significant
contribution on many key issues, such as violence against women, HIV and AIDS, the Millenium
Development Goals, aid effectiveness and many other. They have also produced useful datebases
such as WomanStats and web portals on key gender topics and many global advocacy campaigns
such as Say No - UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign and the newly launched
HeForShe campaign (Roberts 2011, 33).
HeForShe campaign
HeForShe is a solidarity movement for gender equality developed by UN Women to engage men
and boys as advocates and agents of change for the achievement of gender equality and womens
rights. The campaign encourages them to speak out and take action against inequalities faced by
everyone in society. The overall goal of the campaign is to spread awareness and spark action on
the responsibility that men and boys have in eliminating all forms of discrimination against
women and girls. Grounded in the idea that gender equality is an issue that affects all people
socially, economically and politically it seeks to actively involve men and boys in a
movement that was originally conceived as a struggle for women by women. The campaign
was launched in September 2014 at a special event that was held at the Headquarters of the
United Nations in New York. At the launching event, UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma
Watson made a speech and pledged her commitment for the HeForShe campaign.

At that event, UN Women made a call to mobilize the first 100,000 men in the campaign, a goal
successfully reached in just three days. United States President Barack Obama, actor Matt
Damon, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon are among some of the high-profile male
champions featured on the site. The HeForShe map which uses a geo-locator to record global
engagement in the campaign was also activated at the launching event. The map counts the
number of men and boys around the world who have taken the HeForShe pledge, as UN Women
works towards its goal of engaging 1 billion men and boys by July 2015.
The HeForShe campaign concept is to include men and boys in the global movement both as
advocates and as stakeholders, who need to change to make gender equality a reality for all. This
is not about women or men; it is about creating a shared vision of human progress for all about
creating solidarity movement between men and women for the achievement of gender equality
(UN Women, 2014).
IMPACT 10X10X10
To accelerate progress towards the invisioned goal, the IMPACT 10x10x10 pilot has been
initiated to ensure that HeForShe influences lasting change within three key sectors during the
campaigns implementation phase: government, private sector and youth. Concluding in
September 2015, IMPACT 10x10x10 fosters the catalytic engagement of a group of 10 standardsetting Heads of State, CEOs and university Presidents. Individually, each of the groups will
identify the most appropriate approaches for addressing gender inequality in their sector, and will
pilot-test the effectiveness of these interventions for scalability. The work of our IMPACT
10x10x10 leaders will be highlighted and extended as already-viable projects to others within
each sector over the course of the campaign. (UN Women, 2014a).
Criticism to the HeForShe campaign
Since the launch of the campaign, many people believe that even though the campaign states that
it fights for gender equality, it still favours womens rights above human rights in general. Some
noticed the contradiction of a campaign for gender equality, which take only action against
inequalities faced by women and girls, ignoring problems affecting men and boys. I believe that

in order to make a successful campaign that will have lasting impact in the world; we have to
exclude any kind of division between people. We have to address the issue as gender equality
and not just womens rights. Furthermore, by excluding this kind of divisions, men will be more
encouraged to join the fight and the work towards improvement will begin.
What can we do?
This international solidarity movement requires full participation of all of society and in
particular youth. The movement supports students who use the HeForShe implementation plan to
mobilise fellow students and faculty members at their universities/colleges. The HeForShe
implementation plan has 5 steps. The first step is the creation of the HeForShe student club,
second is the development of an university implementation plan (what plans the clubs have in
order to mobilise and educate fellow students), third is the organisation of a launching event, that
will head start the campaign work, forth organisation of local events and activities and fifth is
monitoring and evaluation of the progress of the campaign. (UN Women, 2014).
I firmly support this campaign because I believe that it is a different approach that has not been
tried before. I have always been a big supporter of equality, equal chances and opportunnities
and also about giving everyone the ability to be whatever they want to be. I believe that the
women's rights movement has to be replaced with the gender equality movement with all that it
stands for. We have to acknowledge the discrimination of men in many areas of life and the
discrimination of women in many areas of life. We have to be persistant in including everyone in
the discussion of equality and we have to realise that even though we are biologically different
we are all human beings and therefore equal.
The HeForShe campaign has started as a movement to include men to stand up for women, but it
has to be more than that. It has to be also about women standing up for men and realising that no
one should be privileged and no one should be discriminated. The HeForShe campaign has had
mass support from many established people who joined the battle for gender equality. Many
people across the world have pledged their support and that makes me believe that people are
ready to fix this issue and move forward.

Conclusion
In conclusion I believe that this kind of campaigns and projects are very important and they can
bring change and improvement. I also believe that every campaign has to be carefully planned
and organised and that the involvement of people from different walks of life needs to be a
priority. Everybody had to have a chance to voice their own opinion and to have a platform to do
so. The HeForShe campaign is a great step forward and a great way to make UN Women more
approachable to the world. However in order to achieve gender equality, women have to
acknowledge that discrimination happen to everyone and that it shouldnt be just HeForShe, but
also SheForHe. Because that is the only way that we can all be completely equal and not
discriminated based on gender.

Glossary:
Structural reform reform, change of the structure (of an organisation)
Deliver improvement to bring improvement (to improve a situation)
With regard to funding in the matter of funding (a programme)
Mark a turning point to completely change the situation (to improve a situation)
Assign a moral obligation to attribute a moral responsibility to something/somebody
Leading force something or somebody that has powerful influence on what happens
Facilitate the establishment assisting (simplifying) the foundation of something
Under-funded programmes programmes that dont have enough resources
Gender equality architecture the architecture of entities in the international organisations
dealing with gender equality
Sufficient funding adequate funding (of projects, programmes)
Gender mainstreaming a public policy concept of assessing the different implications for
women and men of any planned policy action, including legislation and programmes, in all areas
and levels.
Operational capacity the maximum functioning potential of somebody/something
Tangible results real, substantial outcomes
Enduring inequality issues continuous, persisting inequality issues
Fragmentation - the process or state of breaking or being broken into fragments

References:
Roberts, Fleur. 2011. Understanding the need for UN Women: Notes for New Zealand
civil society. Womens Studies Journal 25(1): 3146.
UN Women. 2014. HeForShe.UN Solidarity Movement for Gender Equality Action Kit.
Dostopno

prek:

http://az668017.vo.msecnd.net/sitestorage/dist/content/uploads/2014/08

/HeForShe_ActionKit_English.pdf (11. marec 2015).

UN Women. 2014a. HeForShe.UN Solidarity Movement for Gender Equality IMPACT
10x10x10 University Framework. Dostopno prek: http://www.heforshe.org/strategy (11. marec
2015).