Gender Equality (politics and business)
From the OECD to the World Economic Forum, gender equality is considered an economic force.
There are more and more reports stating that gender equality is a powerful tool for socio-economic growth, both in developing and industrialized countries. Not only are women and men complementary because of major differences – whether they are cultural or "natural" differences is not the issue here – inequality has never been a recipe for success.
Even if a simple look at most gendered statistics shows the everlasting gap between men and women, gender equality seems to be taken for granted; a lot of the work for gender equality is done in the developing countries, especially with the Development Millennium Goals. While it is essential to do this, improving gender equality in the industrialized countries will also help developing countries, since more women will be included in the discussions regarding peace, climate change and energy, foreign politics and so on. As UNICEF repeats it endlessly, working on gender equality also helps families and societies.
Women cannot represent men. Men cannot represent women. But together, men and women can represent them.
Democracy and citizenship has been invented by Greeks, who thought that only men could represent the whole society while women and slaves were excluded. This view is an anachronism and is based on perceptions, not reality. On the contrary, keeping women excluded from education and the public sphere – both at the decision and at the action levels – has contributed to increase the overpopulated developing societies and reduce the birth rate in industrialized societies. This has a huge impact on aspects such as climate changes and depletion of resources but also on economic growth level, peace, education and general welfare. Such as the common family model is based on a father and a mother where work and care should be equal, more gender-equal societies are also more competitive and innovative. The Nordic countries have understood that reality a long time ago and continue to lead in many sectors, both social and economic.
Lack of gendered statistics hinders socio-economic development.
Changes towards gender equality are very hard to make if no statistics are available to analyze the situation. While it might be tempting for traditional business and governments to rebuke in transmitting such data, costly legal pursuits because of gender discrimination have shown that such an attitude is counter-productive. With an increased competition for business and public organization to attract and retain skilled and dedicated employees, in many countries data can be very useful to find lasting solutions. Gendered data makes is also possible to detect unequal distribution of subsidies, workloads, responsibilities or benefits.
In a world where men rule at the public level, gender equality can be very unsettling.
Gender equality is a very difficult issue to discuss because it is too often perceived as men having to take the blame and women being victims. A lot of people take the issue personally. But, as it is the case for environment, it is the social, economic or cultural structures - and not the individuals in themselves – that must be analyzed in order to find solutions. Reports on the advantages of gender equality for business profitability and governmental efficiency are now many, but gender equality is too often seen as the sole responsibility of women. It is not included in the overall budget analysis of a business, in sustainable development issues or in public investments decisions.
Most of the time, gender equality is absent, disregarded, mixed with diversity or seen as an added-value instead of a core element, gender-equal actions and programs can then be ineffective and/or misleading.
Gender "reflex" needs to be developed, both for men and women. In order to do that, the Swedish 3-R method can be very useful, both for being very simple to explain and understand, but also to question cultural perceptions which affect the social organizations and political systems.
The 3-R method is based on three main elements:
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REPRESENTATION (fr: representation), i.e. gender equality at the decision-making levels. Simply said: Who has access to the agenda? Since women cannot represent men and men cannot represent women, it is important for all structures – private or public - to include both women and men, so that they can both discuss and decide together. Not only is it a question of justice and fairness, but representation will be seen as more legitimate within the society or client's needs and interests by including both genders. In a world where women buy 80 % of all products and have the same voting rights as men, doing so will be beneficial, both for business profitability and re-election.
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RESOURCES (fr: ressources), i.e. equal share of resources, both human and material. Simply said: Do men and women have access to the same tools? For example, government investments in natural resource industries or IT R&D benefit mostly men while investment in women's groups is often used to fight poverty and violence – which is created by an unequal share of common wealth amd power. While it is important to solve these issues, money must be invested also in economic sectors where women’s types of jobs and industries can be found. This means that local economic activities must be considered as important as exports, which, in regards to globalization, will become more and more strategic anyway.
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REALIA (fr: réalité), i.e. the causes explaining the situation. Simply said: Why is it like that? In order to understand obtain gender equality, causes of the discrimination are many and systemic. To be able to see the whole picture, it is important to get out of the box and ask questions like:
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Why are mens’ jobs subsidized but not womens' jobs?
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Why is there no gendered data?
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Why do many women don’t want to enter politics?
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Why are there more men than women in environmental conferences?
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Why do media usually only ask men to comment war issues?
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How can we change this situation? And so on...
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Once the questions are asked, an action plan to solve these issues can be implemented. But as long as the system is not analyzed, gender equality cannot be reached, which has a negative impact on the overall welfare of the society, but also men and women together.
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Bebop et Cie is presently working on a document to explain how gender equality benefits the socio-economic growth at the regional levels, and which include strategy aimed at women, businesses and governments.
Services available:
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Reports on gender equality at the economic levels
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Links between gender equality and sustainable development
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Project building and strategic planning to include gender equality
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Conferences and workshops on
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Gender equality and transport
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Gender equality and sustainable development
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Gender equality and regional development (the example of Québec)
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Gender equality and business issues
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Must-read in gender equality:
Marketing to women, Marti Barletta
www.trendsight.com
Websites:
Publications : click here
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