
Henrietta H. Fore, new UNICEF Executive Director briefs the press, Palais des Nations in January 2018. Photo by Violaine Martin/UN Geneva/Flickr. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Some rights reserved.
There are so many stories coming out these days on Gender Equality that I may need to simply post a compendium of extracts and URLs.
Let’s give that a try here.
The problem with populist gender equality-by-numbers
Nora Jusufi, Open Democracy Net, 4 February 2018
httpss://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/nora-jusufi/problem-with-populist-gender-equality-by-numbers
It’s important to have more women in public and political debates. But having a seat at the table isn’t the same thing as being heard.
In November 2017, I attended the Council of Europe’s World Forum for Democracy, in Strasbourg, France, as a youth delegate. At the event, I started to count the number of women and men represented among the 123 speakers, moderators, and rapporteurs.
Unsurprisingly, I counted more men (almost 60%) than women (40%). But are these figures all-telling? …
In many of the conference’s main sessions, the ratio of male to female speakers was more like 2:1. Only in a ‘knowledge cafe’, on the “female face of the far right,” did women speakers dramatically outnumber men, 14 to one.
Many of the women who spoke at the event spoke about women, gender equality, and women’s rights. This is important, but I want to see women discussing a variety of topics. Are women only competent to discuss women? No.
Gender equality a human issue: Sonam Kapoor
The Pioneer, 02 February 2018
https://www.dailypioneer.com/potpourri/gender-equality-a-human-issue-sonam-kapoor.html
Actress Sonam Kapoor says gender equality is a human issue.
Sonam on Friday retweeted a post by the Senate of Canada. It pointed out how Canada’s Senate has stood for making the country’s national anthem gender-neutral by deleting the word “sons” and changing it for “us”.
Applauding this, the “Neerja” actress tweeted: “Gender Equality is a human issue and we’re entitled to have equal rights. Glad to see Canada taking the lead on this.”
Driving Gender Equality: Women Training To Drive BRTS, AMTS Buses
TNN, Feb 4, 2018
httpss://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/driving-gender-equality/articleshow/62772983.cms
AHMEDABAD: As Shabana Shaikh, 20, puts on her blue uniform and manoeuvres the school van through busy city roads, several surprised male drivers turn around to see whether a woman was actually driving a commercial vehicle!
“Such glances come with the job. Earlier, I used to get a bit conscious but now I take it in my stride,” said Shabana, a Danilimda resident.
A class 10 pass, she is the eldest of three sisters. She says that her family appreciates the job that brings in the money to support the household. She has to drive on some of the busiest roads of the city as she ferries schoolchildren from Maninagar to Bodakdev and back.
Shaikh is among around 20 women drivers who work with a private fleet operator providing vehicles and the workforce to run BRTS and AMTS services. The operator also runs vans for some city-based schools.
Five of these 20 women are already driving school vans. They are also getting trained with another group of 15 to drive public transport buses by the end of this year or early next year.
Gender equality at work is a matter of respect, not just money
Gaby Hinsliff, Guardian, Feb. 2, 2018
httpss://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/02/gender-equality-work-respect-money
Half a century after Dagenham, sexism still shapes salaries. But demanding high earners ‘justify their wage’ is a red herring
Fifty years ago this spring, the sewing machinists at Ford’s Dagenham plant famously downed tools and in doing so changed history. But contrary to popular belief, the strike that nudged Barbara Castle into creating the Equal Pay Act didn’t start over equal pay. It was originally a demand for recognition, for the women who stitched Ford’s car seats to be acknowledged for what they really were. A regrading exercise had classified the men on the factory floor as skilled workers entitled to higher rates, but lumped the women in with janitors as unskilled labour. It was the casual dismissal of what they did that rankled.
Eventually, the women returned to work for 92% of the men’s pay but it took another 16 years, and a second strike, to get what they wanted: recognition that they were just as skilled as the men, that their work should be taken seriously. It was never just about the money.
Carrie Gracie is paid an awful lot more than any machinist will ever earn, and some will struggle to empathise with the BBC’s former China editor as a result. But if you listened carefully this week, you could hear the echoes rolling down the years as she told parliament about what happened after she realised she was earning 50% less than two male counterparts. Her bosses not only lied to her and briefed against her, she claimed, but when pushed to justify their decision piled “insult on injury” by belittling her work. Humiliatingly, she was told she’d been paid less because she was “in development”, despite having been with the BBC for decades.

The BBC is failing to live up to its own editorial mission to report the truth, its former China editor Carrie Gracie told the British parliament’s media committee.
RTÉ has a long way to go on gender equality
Yvonne Galligan, Feb. 2, 2018
httpss://www.irishtimes.com/
opinion/rt%C3%A9-has-a-long
-way-to-go-on-gender-equality
-1.3376806
Mulvey report failed to provide a proper review of gaps between male and female staff
When Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was asked why he appointed the first gender-equal cabinet in his country’s history, he replied: “Because it’s 2015.” The same reasoning can apply to closing the gender pay gap.
The matter has come to the fore now because women will no longer tolerate their work being valued less highly than that of men. The BBC’s long-time China editor Carrie Gracie quit her post in January in protest at being paid less than male foreign editors. Along with sexual harassment, equal pay is a defining issue for women and gender equality in the workplace.