CONTENTS

What is gender equality?

Gender Inequality - Why & How to Change It.

1a. Inequality at home:
1b. Moving towards equality at home:

2a. Inequality in Schools:

2b. Moving towards equality in Schools:

3a. Inequality in the media:

3b. Moving towards equality in media:

4a. Inequality at work:

4b. Moving towards equality at work:
What is gender equality?

Gender equality is achieved when women and men enjoy the same rights and
opportunities across all sectors of society, including economic participation and
decision-making, and when the different behaviours, aspirations and needs of
women and men are equally valued and favoured.

The overall objective of gender equality is a society in which women and men enjoy
the same opportunities, rights and obligations in all spheres of life.

Gender Inequality - Why & How to Change It.

However, reality is different. There is gender INEQUALITY. Gender inequality is still a

huge issue today, where males are considered superior to females.

1a. Inequality at home:

Women shoulder the time-intensive and routine tasks such as cooking,

laundry and dishes. Theyre also more likely to do the least enjoyable tasks
like scrubbing the toilets versus fixing the light bulbs at home.

Women consistently spend more time in housework and, as a result, less

time in employment. Womens reduced attachment to the labour market
means families have less family income. Women are also more vulnerable to
poverty if partnerships dissolve due to issues like domestic violence.
1b. Moving towards equality at home:

Bringing men into the cleaning process is essential. This means expecting
men to be equal housework sharers and not helpers.

Stop penalising women for dirty homes. This requires a cultural shift in
expectations of good womanhood to reduce the cultural pressure of
domestic perfection.
2a. Inequality in Schools:

There are various barriers to girls education throughout the world, ranging
from supply-side constraints to negative social norms. Some include strong
cultural norms favouring boys education when a family has limited
resources; negative classroom environments, where girls may face violence,
exploitation or corporal punishment. Additionally, schools often lack
sufficient numbers of female teachers.

Increasingly, adolescent girls also face economic and social demands that
further disrupt their education, spanning from household obligations and
child labour to child marriage, gender-based violence and female genital
cutting/mutilation. In countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, formal or
written threats to close girls schools or end classes for girls have fuelled
gender motivated attacks on schools.
2b. Moving towards equality in Schools:

Providing girls with an education helps break the cycle of poverty: educated
women are less likely to marry early and against their will; less likely to die in
childbirth; more likely to have healthy babies; and are more likely to send
their children to school. When all children have access to a quality education
rooted in human rights and gender equality, it creates a ripple effect of
opportunity that influences generations to come.

Send the daughters to schools. Encourage them to participate and compete

in learning activities.
3a. Inequality in the media:

In everything from advertising, television programming, newspaper and

magazines, to comic books, popular music, film and video games, women and
girls are more likely to be shown: in the home, performing domestic chores
such as laundry or cooking; as sex objects who exist primarily to service men;
as victims who can't protect themselves and are the natural recipients of
beatings, harassment, sexual assault and murder.

The more television children watch, the more likely they are to hold sexist
notions about traditional male and female roles and the more likely the boys
are to demonstrate aggressive behaviour. In advertising, for instance, girls
are shown as being endlessly preoccupied by their appearance, and
fascinated primarily by dolls and jewellery, while boys are encouraged to play
sports and become engrossed by war play and technology.
3b. Moving towards equality in media:

Parents and teachers can have a much greater impact on a child's

development than the media to which the child is exposed. Real life
modelling of alternative ways of being male or female, or of resolving
conflict; time spent engaging children in imaginative play, and in activities
which teach pro (as opposed to anti) social values, ultimately have the most
lasting influence.

Media and communication are invaluable tools in raising awareness of and

challenging gendered power structures. Participatory media allows for
diverse voices, including those of women, to engage with channels of media
communication to make their priorities and issues heard. Participatory media
includes community media, blogs, wikis, tagging, music photos videos
sharing, podcasts, participatory video projects, etc.
4a. Inequality at work:

Women are considered mostly in low-paid industries and in insecure work

and continue to be underrepresented in leadership roles in the private and
public sectors.

Many women are sexually harassed in the workplace. The harasser is most
likely to be a co-worker and the most common forms of sexual harassment
include sexually suggestive comments/jokes, intrusive questions about
private life or appearance and inappropriate staring or leering.

Many women experience discrimination in the workplace at some point

during pregnancy, parental leave or on return to work. Some women indicate
that they were made redundant, restructured, dismissed, or that their
contract was not renewed because of their pregnancy, when they requested
or took parental leave, or when they returned to work.

Photo: Same work More pay for men and less pay for women.
4b. Moving towards equality at work:

Managers/Bosses should be educated in both the obvious and the subtle

discrimination that takes place in business. They should learn how to identify
discrimination when it takes place among their staff, how to deal with the
situation and how to prevent it from happening in the future.

Proper policy should be established to ensure that men and women are
compensated equally for performing the same work. Beyond equal pay for
equal work, the policy should also ensure that both genders are treated
equally in recruitment, training, hiring and promotion.