Skip to main content

New attitudes, not just new laws, needed for gender equality, says rights group

Deeply-rooted norms and expectations often have a negative impact on women and girls (Source: Thinkstock)
Even countries keen to advance women’s rights, like Germany and Switzerland, are unlikely to achieve true gender equality by the 2030 target agreed by world leaders as women are held back by harmful attitudes, charity Plan International said on Monday.
Deeply-rooted norms and expectations often have a negative impact on women and girls – attitudes that are likely to persist despite anti-discrimination laws.
“No country will come even close to true gender equality unless they broaden their focus beyond laws, policies and equal access to services and employment to also tackle harmful gender norms,” Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen, chief executive of Plan International, said in a statement.
“Countries like Germany, Switzerland and the US are in the vanguard for gender equality thanks to their excellent anti-discrimination laws and policies and high female labour-force participation… But focusing on these areas is not enough.”
The assumption that men have more right to a job than women often leads to gender gaps in employment rates. For example, a fifth of German men still believe that when jobs are scarce, they have more right to a job than women, said Plan.
There is also a widely-held belief that domestic and care work are the responsibility of women. In Belgium, for instance, 81 percent of women do the cooking or household chores every day, compared to a third of men, according to a 2017 index.
Even in the most gender equal countries, the belief that a husband or partner is justified in beating his wife or partner under certain circumstances is worryingly pervasive, said Plan, which campaigns for child rights and equality for girls.
In Australia, 57 percent of women have faced physical and/or sexual violence, UN Women found in 2011 research.
The charity urged business and political leaders attending the annual World Economic Forum in Davos this week to adopt a zero-tolerance approach to harassment and gender-based violence.
It called on leaders to reject advertising that uses harmful gender stereotypes and create safe and family-friendly working environments.
The Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty and fight inequality agreed in 2015 included a target to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030. shalini rajvanshi




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meryl Streep wants to trademark her own name

Meryl Streep has won three Oscars, three Emmys and six Golden Globes during her 40-year long career on stage, screen and television. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP, File) Meryl Streep, the most celebrated actress of her generation, has filed an application to trademark her name. The application was filed with US Patent and Trademark Office on January 22, records show. It requests that the name Meryl Streep be trademarked for “entertainment services,” movie appearances, speaking engagements and autographs. Streep, 68, last week extended her record to 21 Academy Award nominations, this time for her role in “The Post.” She has won three Oscars, three Emmys and six Golden Globes during her 40-year long career on stage, screen and television. It is not clear why Streep would file a trademark application at this stage in her career and her attorney and publicist did not return a request for comment on Monday. Many celebrities trademark their names or catch phrases to pro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beijing’s struggle against pollution will be tough, take time: Mayor

Beijing’s battle against air pollution will take time and be very tough to win despite recent improvements, the acting mayor of China’s capital said on Wednesday. The city has been fighting to clean its notoriously smoggy air through steps such as pushing households and factories to switch away from coal to cleaner fuels like natural gas. “Further improvement in air quality (will be) extremely difficult,” acting mayor of Beijing, Chen Jining, said in a statement released during the city’s congress meeting. The central government’s intense focus on air quality means many local officials’ careers are linked to the success of efforts to tackle smog, making it unusual to speak candidly about the challenges of meeting tough targets. Beijing has chalked up a short-term success by cutting the annual average level of breathable particulate matter (PM 2.5) to 58 micrograms per cubic metre in 2017, beating a target set by the State Council in 2012. However, the city is still some way f...
Post a Comment
Read more

Under fire, Steve Bannon backs off explosive comments about Donald Trump’s son

Bannon, ousted from the White House in August, was quoted in “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” by journalist Michael Wolff, as saying a June 2016 meeting with a group of Russians attended by Donald Trump Jr. and his father’s top campaign officials was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.” (Photo: Reuters) President Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon on Sunday backed away from derogatory comments ascribed to him about Trump’s son in a new book that sparked White House outrage and could threaten Bannon’s influence as a would-be conservative power broker. Bannon, ousted from the White House in August, was quoted in “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” by journalist Michael Wolff, as saying a June 2016 meeting with a group of Russians attended by Donald Trump Jr. and his father’s top campaign officials was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.” The president responded by saying Bannon had lost his mind, and the White House suggested the hard-right news site...
Post a Comment
Read more