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