A collection of extracts on what’s being said – and done – about gender equality in our world.
Taking a Fair-Trade Approach to Gender Equality at Work
As a growing number of governments and employers look to tackle inequality in the workplace, Chris Grieve of the EDGE Certification Foundation says companies need to cut to the core of what’s behind their gender bias.
Jumana Farouky, Jihii Jolly, News Deeply, April 20, 2018
The issue of gender equality in the workplace is becoming more of a priority for governments and corporations around the world. In recent months, we’ve seen countries like Iceland and the UAE make moves to ensure women are paid the same as men, while British companies were obliged to report and publish their pay gaps.
But inequality and gender prejudice are age-old problems, and progress has been painfully slow. The latest Fortune 500 featured a record 32 women CEOs – but that’s still only 6.4 percent of the entire list.
As executive director of the EDGE Certification Foundation, part of Chris Grieve’s job is to help companies hold themselves accountable for the gender gap in their ranks, and figure out the best way to close it. Launched at the World Economic Forum in 2011, EDGE – which stands for Economic Dividends for Gender Equality – is to workplace culture what fair trade is to food. It offers companies a way to measure their progress towards a global standard for fairness, and rewards them with recognition when they reach it.
EDGE looks at factors such as a company’s gender balance, the size of its pay gap, and the policies it has in place to ensure women employees have the same opportunities as men.
“What we’re aiming for is equal opportunity to bust stereotypes about who’s allowed to be a caregiver, and who’s allowed to be a breadwinner in this world,” Grieve says.
Women’s Advancement Deeply spoke with Grieve about workplace bias, the power of the private sector to influence policy and the need to think beyond pay equity.
Women’s Advancement Deeply: What does EDGE certification mean for a company?
Chris Grieve: EDGE Certified Foundation is the creator and overseer of the EDGE Certification System, and there is our sister organization called EDGE Strategy. We have a shared mission and vision around creating equal opportunities for women and men. Particularly in the workplace, but also in all walks of life, be it social, economical, political. Our mission is to use the EDGE Certification System as an organizational-level system to help organizations measure and understand their gender equality status, and then work towards closing any gender gaps that might be revealed.
It focuses on using data and information that are within the company, and using a system that can independently verify and certify their own assessment of where they’re at.
The outcome for an organization would be that they end up making a visible commitment to and progress on – and then, ultimately, achievement of – a strong gender balance at all levels. They would be managing pay equity in their organizations, they would have a solid framework of effective gender equality policies and practices, and an inclusive culture that would be reflected in terms of employees’ protections and experience.
(Read more….)
Credit: WeFight
Roundtable on gender and trafficking in persons held in advance of G7 Security Ministers’ Meeting
Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, Cision, Apr 20, 2018
OTTAWA, April 20, 2018 /CNW/ – Women and girls account for the vast majority of victims of trafficking in persons. The Government of Canada is committed to countering this terrible crime, which occurs in every region of the world, exploiting human vulnerability that may be created by poverty, racism, conflict and lack of social support networks.
On April 19, 2018, the Honourable Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, held a roundtable with experts from academia, non-governmental and Indigenous organizations on gender and trafficking in persons. These discussions focused on how gender considerations can be better integrated into efforts to counter human trafficking. They also provided insights on what actions Canada can take to boost gender-based analysis in international dialogues, starting with the G7 Security Ministers Meeting (April 23-24) in Toronto, Ontario.
Information exchanged during this roundtable will also help inform upcoming discussions on ways to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment at the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec on June 8-9.
(Read more…)
European Parliament Calls for Gender Equality in Trade Deals
Ritika Sureka, University Observer, April 18, 2018
https://www.universityobserver.ie/news/european-parliament-calls-for-gender-equality-in-trade-deals/
Gender equality in trade agreements was discussed thoroughly in the plenary session at the European Parliament in March. MEPs voted, with 512 votes in favour and 107 against, to support the resolution that would consider including gender equality in trade agreements.
While the European Commission named gender equality as one of its founding values and established the strategic engagement for gender equality 2016-2019 as a framework for the Commission’s future work towards achieving gender equality, progress has been gradual in incorporating it in all its policymaking. There has however, been some advancement in the agenda, with the EU building a platform in November 2017 to boost women’s employment in the transport industry, and now with its initiative to involve gender equality in its trade deals.
Today, only 20% of EU trade agreements mention women’s rights. Malin Björk, co-rapporteur ofthejournal.ioe, the draft resolution, alongside Eleonora Forenza, said during the session that “trade policies are not neutral on gender equality.”
According to Björk and Forenza, free-trade agreements would have different impacts on women in sectors such as agriculture or textiles, which are areas in which the livelihood of women is relatively insecure. If the services sector were to be liberalised, new agreements could have a further negative effect on women, such as limiting their access to healthcare. Hence, the rapporteurs believe that the need for the gender equality chapter in trade deals is evident.
However, there has been some opposition to the resolution. Joachin Starbatty, MEP from the European Conservatives and Reformist Group, said, “If we start putting forward clauses such as the one you are proposing then we will be laughed at… we cannot impose our vision of gender on the world. It’s colonialist behaviour.”
(Read more….)
Womenomics: 7 steps to make gender equality the new normal
Victor Duggan, thejournal.ie, April 22, 2018
YOU CAN’T BE ‘a little bit pregnant’, as the saying goes, but you can be ‘a little bit equal’.
2018 could be another big year. The fallout from several high profile cases of sexual harassment, and worse, has awakened anger at the persistent failure of society to root out abuse and violence against women.
According to the UN, for example, about 1-in-12 Irish women have been the victim of sexual violence in the last 12 months, more than half of these by someone other than an intimate partner.
Meanwhile, a successful campaign to repeal the Eighth would extend fuller reproductive rights to women for the first time on the island of Ireland. Mná na h’Éireann are calling time on being treated as second class citizens.
A lot done, more to do
Yet another part of our Constitution, Article 41.2, continues to recognise the importance of a woman’s ‘life within the home’. It shouldn’t really come as much surprise then that, despite significant progress, women have yet to achieve full equality in the worlds of school, work or business.
So, let’s look in more detail at these 3 E’s: education, employment and entrepreneurship.
Education
First, the good news. Girls get better grades (except in maths), on average, and are now more likely to graduate with a third level degree.
So, it’s certainly not talent or application holding women back when they enter the workforce.
Women are still significantly under-represented in STEM (science, technology and mathematics) studies, however, and over-represented in health and education, with little change in recent years.
Employment
In every country, there are less women in work, working less hours, and getting paid less for every hour they do work. And yes, globally the gap has been closing, albeit at a snail’s pace.
For shame, however, Ireland is one of the countries where the gender pay gap is actually getting wider. Between 2010 and 2015, the gap jumped from 12.8% to 14.4% (for the median, or ‘woman in the middle of the distribution’), higher than it was even in 2005.
Women in Ireland are less likely than men to be in the workforce, but there are differences depending on education level and, particularly, whether the woman has a child or not. The gender employment gap is three times higher for women with low education levels than for those with higher education.
Strikingly, this gender employment gap is nearly a quarter for women with at least one child, but almost disappears for women with no children.
Late last year, the Royal Irish Academy published a report, entitled Fixing the leaky pipeline and retaining our talent, noting that women are more likely than men to drop out of STEM careers altogether, while those that remained face barriers to promotion. While half of academic lecturers are female, this share falls to less than one in five at full professor level. There is a similar pattern in junior versus senior management positions in the private sector.
Entrepreneurship
Men in Ireland are three times more likely to be self-employed than women.
Meanwhile, men who are self-employed are nearly three times more likely to themselves employ staff and earn, on average, nearly 30% more than are their female counterparts.
This entrepreneurship gender gap appears to be very gradually narrowing, and is lower among younger cohorts, but some countries have achieved far greater progress than Ireland in this regard.
Womenomics can benefit all
Less women workers, lower women’s wages and fewer female business leaders is not just bad for women. It holds back economic growth, meaning lower living standards for all.
Leakage from the STEM fields as happens at present means Ireland’s human capital is not being used to the full in cutting edge sectors, undermining our capacity to innovate and to operate at the technology frontier.
Gender equality should be the norm regardless, but it can clearly improve men’s lives too. So, we need more win-win public policies to flip the switch – what similar efforts in Japan have been termed ‘womenomics’.
What can we do to start making gender equality the new normal? Here’s seven steps for a start:
(Read more….)
Set targets for men working part-time to help promote women, gender equality body says
ABC News (Australia), 14 Apr 2018
The director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency has urged employers to set targets for men working part-time.
Libby Lyons told the ABC’s National Wrap program “it’s not difficult” to create a working environment where men can take more responsibility for caring for families at home.
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency found that women are three times more likely to work part time than men.
The latest ABS figures show women constitute 68.6 per cent of all part-time employees and 36.8 per cent of all full-time employees.
“We all need to support men to work flexibly. We need to encourage men to work flexibly,” Ms Lyons said.
The head of the statutory agency also said the normalisation of flexible work environments would help the “promotion of women”.
“The value that we place on the work that women traditionally do needs to be challenged,” she said.
“We need to challenge our thinking, we need to challenge the way that we have worked traditionally and the value that we have placed on the jobs that women have traditionally done.”
Federal Women’s Minister Kelly O’Dwyer raised the issue during a speech earlier this year, warning it “needs to change”.
“There’s a pretty strong culture in this country that says that women are the ones that need the flexibility, not men, and I simply challenge that,” Ms O’Dwyer said.
The director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency has urged employers to set targets for men working part-time.
Libby Lyons told the ABC’s National Wrap program “it’s not difficult” to create a working environment where men can take more responsibility for caring for families at home.
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency found that women are three times more likely to work part time than men.
The latest ABS figures show women constitute 68.6 per cent of all part-time employees and 36.8 per cent of all full-time employees.
“We all need to support men to work flexibly. We need to encourage men to work flexibly,” Ms Lyons said.
(Read more….)
Still an uphill climb for gender equality
Cai Ordinario, Business Mirror, April 15, 2018
httpss://businessmirror.com.ph/still-an-uphill-climb-for-gender-equality/
Working Girls, a classic film by renowned filmmaker Ishmael Bernal in 1984, depicts how women are treated in the corporate world.
In the movie, seven women bank employees, in pursuit of their dreams, took different paths in their chosen careers. Together, they told the stories of the perils and pitfalls of being a working woman in the 1980s. One became a mistress, while another had a child out of wedlock, among others.
The movie also showed the role abusive men played in the lives of working women. There are the playboys, philandering types, and even insecure husbands, to name a few. Men’s harassment in the form of whistles and snide remarks thrown at working women were also showed in the film.
The movie had some comedic aspects, but the treatment of women was no laughing matter. The film showed just how high the glass ceiling is for many women, preventing them from maximizing their potential and be truly successful in the work force.
Unspeakable difficulties
The movie is over three decades old, yet, women remain the subject of gender inequality in the workplace. Many women continue to be left out of the work force and those who join face unspeakable difficulties.
“It’s not just a Philippine problem, it’s a global problem,” Marjorie Pajaron of the University of the Philippines School of Economics (UPSE) said. “Culturally, it’s still a patriarchal system, how women are treated. The sexual harassment, etc., are all indicative of not just lack of support from the government, the Constitution, but is deeper [because it is cultural].”
Discouraged workers?
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that women’s labor force participation rate was only 50.1 percent, significantly lower than the men’s rate of 77.3 percent.
Based on 2015 data, there were 16.28 million females in the work force, while there were 25.06 million men. These numbers represented 44.7 percent of the female population and 72.2 percent of the male population, respectively.
This low labor force participation rate is one of the reasons the Philippines scored low in terms of economic participation and opportunity in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Index (GGI).
(Read more….)
A men’s guide to championing gender equality
Men have a vital role in pushing for progress in the workplace. Here’s how they can do it.
Stephen Jones, Business Mirror, April 9, 2018
httpss://businessmirror.com.ph/still-an-uphill-climb-for-gender-equality/
Most men in business – at least those MT meets anyway – want to do more to address gender inbalance. But they don’t always know how.
MT recently teamed up with the Women’s Business Council and the Government Equalities Office to recognise the male Agents of Change 2018 – the men whose work to push for women’s equality in the workplace has stood out the most over the last year.
If they inspired you, there’s now a ‘Men as agents of change’ toolkit to give you some pointers to make a difference in your organisation.
The toolkit contains three ‘asks’ for CEOs in hope of quickening the process, asking leaders to: take personal responsibility for ensuring executive level business leaders are women, sponsor 1-3 women from within their organisation and to be an active and visible change agent by being part of the wider business conversation.
The crucial role of men as the key proponents of change has often been downplayed, but while men continue to hold an unfair grip on positions of power they are the ones who can do the most to rectify that.
Here are just some of the ways that you can make a difference to gender equality in your business.
Change workplace culture: The fact that over 1,500 companies failed to declare their gender pay gap by the April 5 deadline shows that the gender agenda is still not being taken seriously. Of course all organisations work differently, but evidence shows that if those at the top create a culture of diversity, this will filter throughout the company.
Hosting inclusion workshops for staff or programmes to make people think about gender bias can help eradicate the unconscious prejudices that exist within many workplaces. Introducing a scheme of flexible working – which measures people on their output rather than time at the desk – can help staff feel more appreciated and help talented mothers stay in work.
Identify and sponsor promising female talent: No, this does not mean setting up a JustGiving page or running a marathon; this requires no money, just a little bit of your time.
Bosses usually have a powerful address book of contacts that can be used to champion their sponsees for career advancing opportunities. Introduce your sponsee (preferably sponsees) to influential people, projects and opportunities in your network and ensure that their hard work is recognised and rewarded.
Create balanced shortlists: When recruiting for new positions, the toolkit recommends that women should represent 30% of any shortlist, but what’s wrong with 50:50? That’s what EE CEO (and Agent of Change)Marc Allera has ensured by contractually tying all recruitment agencies to provide equally balanced candidate lists.
Introduce an equal parental leave scheme: Don’t confuse this with the Shared Parental Leave policy that the government introduced in 2015, it is different. SPL has been relatively ineffective – having an uptake of just 2% among fathers – and still makes it more financially viable for the mother to take time off.
Companies instead should introduce their own, more equal policies. For example in November 2017, Aviva CEO Mark Wilson unrolled a scheme giving all employees one year of leave, 26 weeks of which is at full basic pay for every child.
(Read more….)