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Gender Equality Essay

Everyone should live as they want in society, and there should be no discrimination. Equality in society is achieved when all people, regardless of their caste, gender, colour, profession, and status rank, are considered equal. Another way to describe equality is that everyone gets the same rights and opportunities to develop and progress forward. Here are a few sample essays on ‘Gender Equality’.

Gender Equality Essay

100 Words Essay On Gender Equality

Gender equality is the belief that men and women should be treated and perceived as equals in society, including all areas such as education, employment, and in decision-making positions. It is a fundamental human right and a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world.

Despite significant progress in advancing gender equality, women and girls continue to face barriers and discrimination in many areas of society. This includes the gender pay gap, difficult access to education and employment opportunities, and limited representation in leadership positions. Creating a more equal society benefits everyone, as it leads to greater prosperity and happiness for all. It is important for individuals, communities, and governments to work towards achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls to reach their full potential.

200 Words Essay On Gender Equality

Gender equality is the equal treatment and perception of individuals of all genders in society.

Importance Of Gender Equality

Gender equality is important because it is a fundamental human right and is necessary for a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable society. When everyone, regardless of their gender, is treated fairly and has equal opportunities, it can lead to greater prosperity and happiness for all.

Additionally, gender equality can have a positive impact on economic growth and development. When women and girls are able to fully participate and get proper education and employment opportunities, it can lead to increased productivity and innovation. It can also contribute to more balanced and representative decision-making, which can lead to more effective and fair policies and practices.

Furthermore, gender equality is essential for promoting social justice and fairness. When women and girls are marginalized and discriminated against, it can lead to a range of negative outcomes, including poverty, poor health, and reduced opportunities for personal and professional development. Overall, the promotion of gender equality is important for creating a more equal, fair, and just society for all.

Encouraging Gender Equality

Efforts to promote gender equality must involve the active participation and engagement of both men and women. This includes challenging and changing harmful gender norms and stereotypes, and promoting policies and laws that protect and advance the rights of women and girls.

500 Words Essay On Gender Equality

Everyone in the country has the same fundamental freedom to pursue happiness whichever way they see fit. It's possible if people of various backgrounds (race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic class, gender) are treated with respect and dignity. Gender disparity is the most noticeable kind of prejudice. Gender discrimination persists even in many modern nations and calls for immediate action. When men and women are given the same opportunities, we will achieve gender equality. Furthermore, this essay will outline the many issues women encounter due to gender discrimination.

Prevalence Of Gender Inequality

Gender inequality is prevalent in many sectors and areas of society. Some examples include:

Education: Women and girls may face barriers to accessing education, such as lack of resources, cultural or societal barriers, and discrimination.

Employment: Women and girls may face discrimination in the workplace, including lower pay for the same work as men, lack of promotion opportunities, and limited representation in leadership positions.

Health care: Women and girls may face discrimination and inadequate access to quality health care, particularly in areas related to reproductive and sexual health.

Political representation: Women are often underrepresented in political leadership positions and decision-making processes.

Domestic violence: Women and girls may face higher rates of domestic violence and abuse, and may lack adequate protection and support from the justice system.

Media and advertising: Women and girls are often portrayed in stereotypical and objectifying ways in the media and advertising, which can reinforce harmful gender norms and stereotypes.

Gender inequality is a widespread issue that affects many areas of society, and it is important to work towards promoting gender equality in all sectors.

How India Can Achieve Gender Equality

Achieving gender equality in India will require a multi-faceted approach that involves addressing social norms and stereotypes, strengthening laws and policies, increasing women's representation in leadership positions, promoting women's economic empowerment, and improving access to health care.

Address social norms and stereotypes: It is important to challenge and change harmful gender norms and stereotypes that contribute to gender inequality. This can be done through education campaigns and programs that promote gender equality and challenge traditional gender roles.

Strengthen laws and policies: India can work to strengthen laws and policies that protect and advance the rights of women and girls, such as laws against domestic violence and discrimination, and policies that promote equal pay for equal work and access to education and employment.

Increase women's representation in leadership positions: India can work to increase the representation of women in leadership positions, including in politics, business, and other sectors, to ensure that women have a stronger voice in decision-making processes.

Promote women's economic empowerment: Providing women with access to education, employment, and financial resources can help to empower them and enable them to fully participate in society.

Improve access to health care: Ensuring that women and girls have access to quality health care, including reproductive and sexual health care, is essential for promoting gender equality.

My Experience

I remember one time when I was working as an intern at a small consulting firm. At the end of my internship, I was offered a full-time position. However, when I received the offer letter, I noticed that my male colleagues who were also being offered full-time positions had been offered a higher salary than me, even though we had all performed the same job duties during our internships.

I was frustrated and felt that I was being treated unfairly because of my gender. I decided to bring this issue to the attention of my supervisor, and after some negotiation, I was able to secure a salary that was equal to that of my male colleagues.

This experience taught me the importance of advocating for myself and not accepting inequality, and it also made me more aware of the ways in which gender bias can manifest in the workplace. I believe that it is important for individuals to speak up and take action when they see instances of gender inequality, and for organizations to make a conscious effort to promote gender equality and fairness in all aspects of their operations.

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Essay on Gender Equality

Students are often asked to write an essay on Gender Equality in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Gender Equality

Understanding gender equality.

Gender equality means that all genders have the same rights and opportunities. It’s about respecting everyone, regardless of whether they’re a boy or a girl.

Why is Gender Equality Important?

How can we achieve gender equality.

We can achieve gender equality by treating everyone equally, regardless of their gender. This includes giving everyone the same opportunities in education, work, and life. It’s about fairness and respect.

Also check:

250 Words Essay on Gender Equality

Introduction, the imperative of gender equality.

Gender equality is not just about fairness but also about harnessing the untapped potential of half the world’s population. It’s about acknowledging the fact that men and women, despite their biological differences, are equally capable of contributing to society. The exclusion or marginalization of any gender hinders societal progress.

Challenges to Gender Equality

Despite strides made, gender inequality persists. Discriminatory laws, gender stereotypes, and institutional biases continue to impede gender equality. Women, for instance, often face wage gaps, underrepresentation in leadership positions, and disproportionate burden of unpaid care work.

The Path to Gender Equality

Achieving gender equality requires systemic changes. It starts with education, promoting gender-sensitive curricula to dismantle harmful stereotypes. Legal reforms are also crucial for ensuring equal rights and opportunities. Additionally, institutions must foster an environment that promotes gender diversity and inclusion.

Gender equality is not a women’s issue, but a human issue. It affects us all. The journey towards gender equality is complex and challenging, but it’s a journey worth taking. As we strive for a more equitable world, we must remember that every step, no matter how small, brings us closer to this goal.

500 Words Essay on Gender Equality

Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities, irrespective of gender. It is a critical aspect of a just and democratic society, and its importance cannot be overstated. This essay explores the concept of gender equality, its implications, and the role of society in achieving it.

The Concept of Gender Equality

Implications of gender equality.

Gender equality has far-reaching implications. Economically, it can lead to increased productivity and economic growth. According to the World Economic Forum, reducing the gender gap in employment could result in a GDP increase of up to 16% in some countries. Socially, gender equality can lead to healthier and more educated families, and it can promote peace and reduce violence. Politically, it can lead to more representative and effective governance.

Despite the clear benefits of gender equality, numerous challenges persist. Socio-cultural norms and beliefs often uphold gender inequality, making it difficult to change attitudes and behaviors. Moreover, institutional structures and practices can reinforce gender disparities. For instance, women are often underrepresented in leadership positions, and they are more likely to experience poverty and violence.

The Role of Society in Achieving Gender Equality

In conclusion, gender equality is a fundamental human right and a cornerstone of a just and democratic society. It has vast implications for economic growth, social wellbeing, and political effectiveness. While challenges persist, through education, legal reform, and individual action, we can work towards a more equal and just society. The path to gender equality may be long and fraught with obstacles, but it is a journey that we must undertake for the betterment of our society and future generations.

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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  • Gender Equality Essay

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Introduction to Gender Equality

In a society, everyone has the right to lead his/her life accordingly without any discrimination. When this state is achieved where all individuals are considered to be equal irrespective of their caste, gender, colour, profession, and status, we call it equality. Equality can also be defined as the situation where every individual has the same rights and equal opportunity to grow and prosper. 

Every individual of society dreams for equal rights and access to resources available at their disposal, but there is a lot of discrimination. This discrimination can be due to cultural differences, geographical differences, the colour of the individual, social status and even gender. The most prevalent discrimination is gender inequality. It is not a localised issue and is limited to only certain spheres of life but is prevalent across the globe. Even in progressive societies and top organisations, we can see many examples of gender bias. 

Gender equality can only be achieved when both male and female individuals are treated similarly. But discrimination is a social menace that creates division. We stop being together and stand together to tackle our problems. This social stigma has been creeping into the underbelly of all of society for many centuries. This has also been witnessed in gender-based cases. Gender inequality is the thing of the past as both men and women are creating history in all segments together.

Gender Equality builds a Nation

In this century, women and men enjoy the same privileges. The perception is changing slowly but steadily. People are now becoming more aware of their rights and what they can do in a free society. It has been found that when women and men hold the same position and participate equally, society progresses exclusively and creates a landmark. When a community reaches gender equality, everyone enjoys the same privileges and gets similar scopes in education, health, occupation, and political aspect. Even in the family, when both male and female members are treated in the same way, it is the best place to grow, learn, and add great value.

A nation needs to value every gender equally to progress at the right place. A society attains better development in all aspects when both genders are entitled to similar opportunities. Equal rights in decision making, health, politics, infrastructure, profession, etc will surely advance our society to a new level. The social stigma of women staying inside the house has changed. Nowadays, girls are equally competing with boys in school. They are also creating landmark development in their respective profession. Women are now seeking economic independence before they get married. It gives them the confidence to stand against oppression and make better decisions for themselves.

The age-old social structure dictated that women need to stay inside the home taking care of all when men go out to earn bread and butter. This has been practised for ages when the world outside was not safe. Now that the time has changed and we have successfully made our environment quite safer, women can step forward, get educated, pursue their passion, bring economic balance in their families, and share the weight of a family with men. This, in a cumulative way, will also make a country’s economy progress faster and better.

Methods to measure Gender Equality

Gender equality can be measured and a country’s growth can be traced by using the following methods.

Gender Development Index (GDI) is a gender-based calculation done similar to the Human Development Index. 

Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) is a detailed calculation method of the percentage of female members in decision-making roles. 

Gender Equity Index (GEI) considers economic participation, education, and empowerment.

Global Gender Gap Index assesses the level of gender inequality present on the basis of four criteria: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment, health and survival .

According to the Gender Gap Index (GGI), India ranks 140 among 156 participating countries. This denotes that the performance of India has fallen from the previous years, denoting negative growth in terms of closing the gender gap. In the current environment where equality and equal opportunities are considered supreme, this makes India be at a significant disadvantage.

Roadblocks to Gender Equality  

Indian society is still wrecked by such stigmas that dictate that women are meant to manage the home and stay indoors. This is being done for ages, leading to neglect of women in areas like education, health, wealth, and socio-economic fields. 

In addition to that, the dowry system is further crippling society. This ill practice had led to numerous female feticides. It has created a notion that girls are a burden on a family, which is one of the primary reasons a girl child cannot continue her education. Even if they excel in education and become independent, most of them are forced to quit their job as their income is considered a backup source, which is not fair. New-age women are not only independent, but they are confident too. The only thing they demand from society is support, which we should provide them.  

Along with dowry, there is one more burning issue that has a profound impact on women's growth. It is prevalent in all kinds of society and is known as violence. Violence against women is present in one or another form in public and private spaces. Sometimes, violence is accompanied by other burning issues such as exploitation, harassment, and trafficking, making the world unsafe for women. We must take steps to stop this and ensure a safe and healthy place for women.  

Poverty is also one of the major roadblocks towards gender equality. It has led to other malpractices such as child marriage, sale of children, trafficking and child labour, to name a few. Providing equal job opportunities and upliftment of people below the poverty line can help bring some checks onto this.

Initiative Towards Gender Equality

Any kind of discrimination acts as a roadblock in any nation’s growth, and a nation can only prosper when all its citizens have equal rights. Most of the developed countries has comparatively less gender discrimination and provide equal opportunity to both genders. Even the Indian government is taking multiple initiatives to cut down gender discrimination. 

They have initiated a social campaign called “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana” to encourage the education of girl children. Besides this, the government runs multiple other schemes, such as the Women Helpline Scheme, UJJAWALA, National Mission for Empowerment of Women, etc., to generate awareness among the people. Moreover, as responsible citizens, it is our responsibility to spread knowledge on gender discrimination to create a beautiful world for wome n [1] [2] .

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FAQs on Gender Equality Essay

1. What Makes Women Unequal to Men?

The social stigmas and beliefs that have been running deeply in the veins of all families make women unequal to men. Women are considered to be a burden by many families and are not provided with the same rights men enjoy in society. We are ill-informed regarding women’s rights and tend to continue age-old practices. This is made worse with social menaces such as the dowry system, child labor, child marriage, etc. Women can gather knowledge, get educated, and compete with men. This is sometimes quite threatening to the false patriarchal society.

2. How can We Promote Gender Equality?

Education is the prime measure to be taken to make society free from such menaces. When we teach our new generation regarding the best social practices and gender equal rights, we can eradicate such menaces aptly. Our society is ill-informed regarding gender equality and rights. Many policies have been designed and implemented by the government. As our country holds the second position in terms of population, it is hard to tackle these gender-based problems. It can only be erased from the deepest point by using education as the prime weapon.

3. Why should Women be Equal to Men?

Women might not be similar to men in terms of physical strength and physiological traits. Both are differently built biologically but they have the same brain and organs to function. Women these days are creating milestones that are changing society. They have traveled to space, running companies, creating history, and making everyone proud. Women are showing their capabilities in every phase and hence, they should be equal to men in all aspects.

4. Mention a few initiatives started by the Indian Government to enable gender equality.

The Indian government has initiated a social campaign called “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana” to encourage girls’ education. Besides this, the government runs multiple other schemes, such as the  Women Helpline Scheme, UJJAWALA, National Mission for Empowerment of Women, etc., to generate awareness among the people.

Gender Equality Essay

500+ words gender equality essay.

Every citizen has the right to live their life according to their wish without any discrimination. It can be achieved when all individuals are considered equal irrespective of caste, religion, language, colour, profession, status and sex. The most prominent discrimination that we observe is gender inequality. Even in many developed countries, we see several examples of gender bias, which need to be urgently addressed. Gender equality can only be achieved when both males and females are treated equally. With the help of this essay on Gender Equality, students will know what gender equality is and how it can be achieved in society. This essay will also provide an overview of the different types of problems women face due to gender discrimination.

Gender Equality

Gender equality refers to equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities for both women and men. It implies that the interests, needs and priorities of both women and men are taken into consideration, recognizing the diversity of different groups of women and men. Worldwide, women’s fundamental rights continue to be violated, and they face discrimination in access to education, work, social protection, inheritance, economic assets, productive resources, and participation in decision-making and society. Women spend two to ten times more time on unpaid work than men, which is one of the main obstacles to economic and political empowerment.

Persistent differences and disparities between men and women have negative implications for society as a whole. Women represent half the resources and half the potential in any society. This potential remains unrealized when women are constrained by inequality and discrimination. Many gender disparities emerge in early childhood and intensify in adolescence. Girls are deprived of access to health care or proper nutrition, leading to a higher mortality rate. As they move into the age of adolescence, gender disparities widen. Child marriage affects girls far more than boys. Globally, nearly 15 million girls under age 18 are married every year. It’s difficult for them to access education. Girls still face barriers to entry into primary and secondary school. The lack of education provided limits access to skills and jobs in good organisations and at reputed posts.

How to Achieve Gender Equality in India?

Women’s and girls’ education is a vital component that helps in gender equality. By obtaining proper education, the door to many new opportunities will open up for women. They get skilled and can easily find employment. Employment will empower them and give them financial independence, alternative sources of social identity, and exposure to power structures independent of kin networks. It will give them the independence to make decisions of their own choice. The path of gender equality can be further reduced at work by reducing the gender pay, earnings and pension gaps.

Another crucial step towards gender equality is eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls in public and private spheres. Apart from it, it is essential to eliminate all harmful practices by society, such as early and forced marriage, the dowry system, etc. We should try to make our environment and surroundings more safe and healthy for women and girls.

Women should try to come into power through leadership roles in all sectors. This will increase the presence of women in different fields and motivate other women and girls. Power in the hands of women will ensure their full and effective participation at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life. Women’s equal rights to economic resources also promote gender rquality. They get access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance, and natural resources through this right.

India ranks 112 in the Global Gender Gap index among 153 countries. Due to this, the Government has also taken various steps to promote Gender Equality. They launch various women empowerment schemes such as Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme, One Stop Centre Scheme, Women Helpline Scheme, UJJAWALA, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, National Mission for Empowerment of Women etc.

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Frequently Asked Questions on Gender Equality Essay

What are the main indexes to measure gender inequality.

According to the World Health Organization, the Gender Inequality Index indicates disparities in three main aspects as given below: 1. Reproductive health: The health dimension is measured by the maternal mortality ratio and the adolescent fertility rate.

2. Empowerment: The empowerment dimension is measured by the share of parliamentary seats held by each gender, and by secondary and higher education attainment levels.

3. Labour market: The labour dimension is measured by women’s participation in the workforce.

How can we improve gender equality?

1. Educate girls: The government should take steps to ensure that girls get equal opportunities in the education system. This can be done by giving scholarships, sensitising parents, ensuring amenities like toilets, etc.

2. Allow women to have equal economic rights: Women should be given equal pay for equal work in the employment sector.

3. Avoid violence and sexual harassment against women: Laws should be enacted and strictly enforced to prevent violence and sexual harassment against women

4. Spread awareness about child marriage: Social evils like child marriage can be eradicated from society by raising awareness about their ill effects on the social, physical and emotional well-being of girls.

How to help children understand this issue?

Awareness programmes and campaigns can be organised to sensitise society about the negative effects of gender inequality. After all, no society can progress by ignoring the rights of half of its population, which is made up of women. Governments should ensure that boys and girls are treated equally in schools. Students must be taught how to mutually respect each other.

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Equal Rights for Women: The Ongoing Struggle for Gender Equality

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gender equality is a human right essay

Gender Equality and Human Rights

15 Pages Posted: 5 Jun 2018

Vibhuti Amar Patel

Advanced Centre for Women's Studies, School of Development Studies*; Advanced Centre for Women's Studies, School of Development Studies*

Date Written: May 21, 2014

Gender equality between women and men refers to the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities for women and men and girls and boys. Equality does not mean that women and men will become the same but that women’s and men’s rights, responsibilities and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male or female. Gender equality implies that the interests, needs and priorities of both women and men are taken into consideration recognizing the diversity of different groups of women and men. Gender equity that provides a level playing field for men & women so that they have a fair chance to realize equal outcomes are a precondition for ensuring gender equality and human rights. The ultimate goal in gender equality is to ensure that women and men have equitable access to, and benefit from society’s resources, opportunities and rewards. And, as part of this, women need to have equal participation in defining what is valued and how this can be achieved. Equity is a means. Equality is the result. Gender equity denotes an element of interpretation of social justice, usually based on tradition, custom, religion or culture, which is most often to the detriment to women. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, also known as the Women’s Bill of Rights, declares that countries should: • Act to eliminate violations of women’s rights, whether by private persons, groups or organizations, • Endeavour to modify social and cultural patterns of conduct that stereotype either gender or put women in an inferior position, • Ensure that women have equal rights in education and equal access to information, • Eliminate discrimination against women in their access to health care, • End discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations.

Keywords: Women’s Rights, Human Rights, Equity, Affirmative Action, CEDAW, Equal Participation, Social Protection

JEL Classification: Z18

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Vibhuti Amar Patel (Contact Author)

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Naoroji Campus Deonar Farm Road Mumbai, MA Maharashtra 400058 India +919321040048 (Phone) +912225525060 (Fax)

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GENDER EQUALITY AS A HUMAN RIGHT essay

Gender Equality as a Human Right 3

In the recent times, gender equality is among the hottest issuesbeing discussed in the global arena. In most developed and developingcountries, women have been seen at the forefront fighting for theirrights, which includes political scenes. Gender equality is also atthe centre of human rights as well as the values of the UnitedNations (UN), an international body that focuses on various issuesaffecting the world (Fredman and Goldblatt 2015). In 1945, the UNcharter espoused “equal rights of women and men” as a basicprinciple. It also safeguards and promotes human rights for women,which it sees as an obligation of all countries.

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Nevertheless, in the midst of all debates, the issue on whethergender equality is a human right as been at the front position.Similar to men, women have a right to living with dignity as well asliberty without apprehension. Advocates for gender equality haveargued that it is a prerequisite for enhancing development as well asmitigating poverty (Fredman and Goldblatt 2015). When women areempowered, they work towards promoting the health, not only of theirfamilies, but for the communities at large. In addition, they alsoenhance the outlook of the future generations. In general, they helpto address the globe’s most urgent issues.

However, it is worth noting that in spite of its fulfilling promise,gender equality as a human right is not wholly addressed. Numerouswomen the globe over still experience various kinds ofdiscrimination. For instance, gender based violence that affectsapproximately 30 per cent of women across the world (UNHRC 2016).Some countries have policies and regulations which bars women fromhaving equal access to property, especially land. In others, cultureand religion render women susceptible to domestic violence,trafficking, besides being socially and economically discriminated.Other than gender, such factors as disability, age, socio andeconomic standing as well as ethnicity render women vulnerable. Insome cultures, for instance, women duties are at home, to take careof their families. However, the changing times, human rightsdefenders, expert bodies and treaties are playing a major role inbreaking such traditions, and advocating for more women in leadershiproles, security as well as peace ambassadors.

In order to guarantee women human rights in an effective way, it isvital to comprehend the power relations and socio-economic structureswhich define a range of factors including politics, regulations,family and social dynamics as well as community dynamics as a whole(Fredman and Goldblatt 2015). The bottom line is breakingdetrimental gender stereotypes and understanding women are just likemen.

Nearly all human rights treaties bardiscrimination on the basis of sex. Some of them include theInternational Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rightsand the International Covenant on Civil andPolitical Rights (UNHRC 2016). Some countries such as Canada, whichis the global leader in promoting and protecting gender equality isdedicated to the observation that the aforementioned is a humanrights concern and critical towads the realization of sustainabledevelopment, peace, and social justice (Global Affairs Canada 2016).The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) recognizes for equalparticipation of women in decision making in order to attain suchobjectives.

Reference List

Fredman .S and Goldblatt B., 2015, Gender equality and humanrights . Discussion paper, . Accessed through www.unwomen.org[http://www.unwomen.org/~/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2015/goldblatt-fin.pdf]

Global Affairs Canada, 2016, Canada’s commitment to genderequality and the advancement of women’s rights internationally .Accessed throughinternational.gc.cah[ttp://www.international.gc.ca/rights-droits/women-femmes/equality-egalite.aspx?lang=eng]

United Nations Human Rights office of the High Commission 2016, Women’s Human Rights and Gender Equality . Accessed through:ohchr.org/ website[http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/WRGS/Pages/WRGSIndex.aspx]

gender equality is a human right essay

Looking for evidence-based solutions to advance gender equity? There’s a GAP for that

The Gender Action Portal, based at the Women and Public Policy Program, aggregates and translates research on gender. In its first 10 years it has become an invaluable tool for policymakers, researchers, and more.

Behavioral economics consultant Raafi Alidina MPP 2016 was recently working with a client looking to increase the percentage of women in leadership at their company. They were open to a variety of approaches to accomplish the goal; they just wanted something with data to back it up.  

What about gender-based quotas, they asked Alidina. Do quotas work? 

To answer this question, he turned to the Gender Action Portal (GAP). The research aggregator and translation tool is a product of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School. It features summaries of over 300 studies related to gender—including, as Alidina found, several studies on gender quotas. 

He used two studies to inform his recommendation to the client—one, from India, showed success after gender-based quotas, while a second, from Norway, cautioned that “quota hires” weren’t taken seriously. Given the differing results, Alidina recommended a hybrid model based on findings from both studies, with quotas in some areas and targets in others. 

“The Gender Action Portal gave me a way to start that conversation based on evidence,” Alidina said. “It’s my first go-to with anything around gender.” 

He is not alone in this. GAP is regularly used to inform the work of researchers, policymakers, and journalists, as well as DEI practitioners like Alidina. It has been cited hundreds of times since launching in 2014, including in a study on gender-based violence in Mexico , in the book Invisible Women by author Caroline Criado-Perez, and in an op-ed by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton . 

Just as it reached its 10th year, GAP also hit another milestone: More than 1 million unique users have now visited the portal.

Iris Bohnet headshot.

“As the audience continues to grow and the knowledge base of GAP studies expands as well, WAPPP is able to equip an increasing number of people and organizations with the insights they need to make change.”

Iris bohnet.

For GAP’s principal investigator, Iris Bohnet, the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government and co-director of the Women and Public Policy Program, reaching 1 million users was “a powerful moment.”

“It has been gratifying to see the number of new users increase, year over year, since we launched the portal,” Bohnet said. “The thinking behind GAP was that it would be a tool to inform data-driven policy, practices, and procedures related to gender equity, and make the best available evidence accessible around the globe. I am delighted that so many people and organizations are benefitting from GAP.”

When Bohnet and her colleagues at WAPPP launched the Gender Action Portal, they envisioned a tool to connect policymakers, organizational leaders, and change-makers across sectors to rigorous research on gender equity, said WAPPP Director of Research and Programs Anisha Asundi.

“We wanted to take things a step further from identifying gender gaps and focus on what works to close these gaps,” said Asundi, who has worked on the portal since its inception. “Then people could use GAP to test and evaluate what might work in their own contexts.”

With support from donors including Abigail Disney, Pivotal Ventures, Lara Warner, and the Harvard Kennedy School Women’s Leadership Board, the Women and Public Policy Program was able to make this vision a reality.

As the team built out the research available through GAP, it kept a relatively narrow focus—research summarized had to examine how to close gender gaps and, whenever possible, it was experimental. 

“The reason for the emphasis on experiments, often in the field, is that this research methodology is the gold standard for impact assessment,” Bohnet said. “With experimental research, you can see what works, what doesn’t, and what might have the potential to effect change.”

GAP started out with just a handful of studies, including by future Nobel Laureates Claudia Goldin and Esther Duflo, as well as Bohnet and WAPPP co-director Hannah Riley Bowles, the Roy E. Larsen Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management. From its inception, GAP’s workflow always included multiple rounds of revisions for each summary and a final review by the research paper’s original authors to ensure accuracy. 

Ten years later, Asundi said she is still grateful to the first researchers who trusted them to represent their work on GAP. In its early days the tool was, fittingly, an experiment in and of itself. 

Part of the reason the experiment became such a success was because GAP filled a need. For people like Alidina, who was an HKS student at the time, GAP became a go-to resource because of its value as an accessible, easy-to-use aggregator of research on gender. There had previously been nothing like it.

“I’d had the experience before of seeing that there’s a lot of gender research out there, but it’s not always easy to find, and it can be time-consuming to look through,” he explained. 

When he graduated from the Kennedy School and joined the diversity-focused organizational consulting firm Included, Alidina kept right on using GAP.

Organizations like Included, recruitment software company Applied, DEI-certification analytics firm Edge Empower, gender consultancy Aequales, and educational art non-profit genEquality—all co-founded by HKS alums—are frequent GAP users. They operate in different areas but are all able to make use of research insights translated by GAP. For Applied, findings summarized on GAP might inform a new version of software that eliminates an element of hiring bias; while Included might share GAP summaries with a client ahead of an equity workshop—much less daunting pre-reading than journal articles.

In Alidina’s experience, the portal is the perfect bridge between academia and practice.

“Academic research can be very inaccessible,” he said. “The length and style of writing, for one; but the biggest barrier is, as a practitioner, I can’t read a research paper published in an academic journal even if I want to because my company doesn’t have journal access.”

Policymakers and advisors find GAP useful for similar reasons—they have neither the time nor the financial resources to search for and read through dense academic publications. For example, staff at U.N. Women, the United Nation’s entity dedicated to gender equality, might not have been able to easily find and cite a 2012 study on the significance of women’s leadership for young girls, but they found what they needed on GAP and were able to share their source.

DEI consultancies and policymaking groups like U.N. Women are the kind of user WAPPP expected, Asundi said, but some of the ways GAP has evolved over the years were less predictable. 

“The audience has definitely grown,” she said. “Our first audience was policymakers, but we’ve also become a tool for making research more accessible to the general public.”

GAP has been used to advance gender equity in a variety of contexts—from the National Science Foundation looking to help educators teach inclusive and accurate science , to Kosovo’s national government and USAID developing a climate action plan with women in decision-making groups.

GAP citations have also shown up on the CVs of academics whose research is summarized on the portal, Asundi said. “Their priority is typically publishing in peer-reviewed journals, so they’ve been thankful that GAP can extend the reach of their research.”

She added that the portal has also become a popular source for journalists. Last year alone, GAP was cited in a breadth of news stories in coverage across the globe. 

When India passed a law last September on parliamentary gender quotas, for instance,  Vox journalists  analyzing the law's potential impact used two GAP studies to give readers evidence-based context for the issue. Several months later, Hunstville, Alabama, reporter Sarah Zupko was covering an event on the gender pay gap at a local college , and turned to GAP to find credible information on an issue she said is frequently misunderstood.

Iris Bohnet speaks in front of a projection of the Gender Action Portal logo

“Solid research is the foundation of high-quality journalism,” Zupko said, “and the Gender Action Portal makes world-class research available to journalists and their readership.”

Making GAP open to all is “empowering,” she added. “It empowers journalists and readers to verify data, to understand research in its original context, and to continue their own exploration of crucial topics.”

Asundi said she continues to be pleasantly surprised by the places that GAP citations show up, but the portal has made an impact in other ways, as well.

Over the years, GAP has become such an established research aggregation and translation tool that it has inspired similar tools—including the Race, Research, and Policy Portal ( RRAPP ), which is also based at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Miriam Aschkenasy, program director for the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project that developed RRAPP, said the portal was conceived to be “like GAP, but focused on research and policy in the antiracism space.”

When Aschkenasy’s team received grant funding to launch RRAPP in 2020, “I had a roadmap,” she said. Asundi shared many policies and procedures with Aschkenasy that helped set them up for success. Four years later, RRAPP features 127 articles and has more than 57,000 pageviews. 

“Working with Anisha to launch RRAPP was a perfect example of collaboration,” Aschkenasy said. “It made both these programs better and has helped us all better uplift very important, marginalized voices.”

GAP has focused more on intersectionality in recent years, making a public commitment to this in 2021 . This changed the way some work was presented and meant intentionally including more studies on the intersection of gender and race, gender and caste, gender and sexual orientation, and other dimensions of inequity. 

From an ambitious experiment with a handful of research summaries, the Gender Action Portal has expanded to include 319 studies and counting, from 823 researchers in 47 countries.

“Seeing the way that our audience has grown over the last decade and the amount of people this has impacted has been really amazing,” Asundi said.

Bohnet agrees, adding that one of the most meaningful things about GAP’s continued growth is that its users are not passive—they’re not an audience in the traditional sense.

“Users are not just reading the content available to them on GAP; they’re sharing it and applying it,” Bohnet said. “It is intended to spur data-informed action. As the audience continues to grow and the knowledge base of GAP studies expands as well, WAPPP is able to equip an increasing number of people and organizations with the insights they need to make change.

“In the next 10 years, with the next million users, we’re excited to see all the ways this knowledge is applied.” 

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XY Athletes in Women’s Olympic Boxing: The Paris 2024 Controversy Explained

The historical, political, and medical context of the Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting cases.

Doriane Lambelet Coleman

With the return of the Olympics, it’s time for another predictable global uproar about XY athletes competing in the female category. This is now a century-old problem in elite sport that we’ve somehow not yet managed to solve in a uniform way. The Paris 2024 iteration of this debate is arguably the most explosive ever due to a confluence of at least three factors:

  • This time around, the athletes are boxers not runners, which means they’re going to be punching their competitors. Physical safety and gender norms, not just competitive fairness, are front-and-centre in people’s minds. 
  • After the debates about Lia Thomas and Caster Semenya (which I discussed  in an essay for  Quillette  in 2019), the public knows a lot more—though still not enough—about the two categories of XY athletes who might be included in female competition: transwomen like Thomas and people like Semenya with disorders or differences of sex development (DSD). DSD are also sometimes called intersex conditions or sex variations by those who prefer non-medical terms.
  • The domestic culture wars around sex and gender have since heated up significantly to become a global battle, with LGBTQI-rights organisations and their allies in the international human-rights community arguing that sex isn’t real or doesn’t matter—either at all or as much as gender identity. Authoritarian regimes led by the Kremlin, meanwhile, describe gender diversity as a harbinger of the end of Western civilisation.

Social media has amplified all of this to the point that the story of the moment, about a boxer from Algeria and another from Taiwan, is top of the news worldwide. Provocative visuals—ubiquitous in boxing—elicit highly emotional responses from some, while others sell their misleading or uninformed political wares (“There’s no evidence these fighters are not cis women!”).

In what follows, I offer a primer on the underlying facts so that readers can follow the story as it unfolds and understand its historical, medical, and political context.

gender equality is a human right essay

Who are the boxers at the heart of the current storm?

Imane Khelif is a 25-year-old welterweight from Algeria. Lin Yu-ting is a 28-year-old featherweight from Taiwan. Both have medalled at previous world championships in the female category, and both are participating in their second Olympic Games having already competed in Tokyo.

Why is their eligibility for the female category in question?

The International Boxing Association (IBA)  issued a statement  on 31 July explaining that a “recognized” test had established that Khelif and Lin do not meet the eligibility standards for female competition. The IBA says this was not a testosterone test, which means it’s referring to a genetic test. 

Here’s the relevant detail:

On 24 March 2023, IBA disqualified athletes Lin Yu-ting and Imane Khelif from the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships New Delhi 2023. This disqualification was a result of their failure to meet the eligibility criteria for participating in the women’s competition, as set and laid out in the IBA Regulations. This decision, made after a meticulous review, was extremely important and necessary to uphold the level of fairness and utmost integrity of the competition. Point to note, the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential. This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors. The decision made by IBA on 24 March 2023 was subsequently ratified by the IBA Board of Directors on 25 March 2023. The official record of this decision can be accessed on the IBA website here . The disqualification was based on two tests conducted on both athletes as follows: • Test performed during the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in Istanbul 2022. • Test performed during the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in New Delhi 2023. For clarification Lin Yu-ting did not appeal the IBA’s decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), thus rendering the decision legally binding. Imane Khelif initially appealed the decision to CAS but withdrew the appeal during the process, also making the IBA decision legally binding.

Officials from the IBA have separately added that both fighters have XY chromosomes and high testosterone (“high T”) levels.

“High T” is one of the ways that testosterone levels outside of the female range tend to be described when one is speaking about an athlete in the female category. As you can see from Figure 1, immediately below, male and female T levels diverge at about the age of thirteen. Both Figure 1 and Figure 2 below make clear there’s no overlap in male and female T levels after early adolescence. Doping and being male are two ways that an adult athlete might have “high T.” 

gender equality is a human right essay

It’s important to note that the IBA’s statements about Khelif and Lin are doubted by the IOC and others because the IBA has a reputation for being less than reliable, and because the IOC says it hasn’t seen the results of the tests that were the basis for the IBA’s decision to declare them ineligible. Alan Abrahamson reports , however, that the IBA sent them Khelif’s results back in June 2023.

Are Khelif and Lin transgender?

Like Caster Semenya, there’s no indication that either Khelif or Lin identifies as transgender. This makes sense given that they were apparently assigned female at birth—meaning that this is what was written on their birth certificates—and because being transgender is generally a matter of self-identification.

It is understandable that people are confused, however, because the word transgender is also sometimes used to mean a male who identifies as female. Khelif and Lin both identify as female based on their identity documents and their sex of rearing.

In any event, in sport at least, it seems their cases are being treated by everyone concerned as DSD cases.

What are DSD and why does elite sport care about them?

There are many different disorders or differences of sex development (DSD).

Depending on which you’re talking about, they can affect only males, only females, or both. As shown in Figure 2, immediately below, the only DSD of concern to sport affect genetic males who are also androgen sensitive—either fully, e.g. in the case of athletes with 5 alpha reductase deficiency (5-ARD), or substantially, e.g. in the case of athletes with partial androgen insensitivity (PAIS).

This makes policy sense. The point of the female category is to ensure that females only compete against each other and not against those with male biological advantage, and androgens are the primary driver of sex differences in athletic performance. As rough and insensitive as sex testing has been historically, the basic goal has remained constant.

upload in progress, 0

Athletes with 5-ARD and PAIS have an XY chromosomal complement; they have testes; their testes produce testosterone well outside of the normal female range; their androgen receptors read and process their “high T”; and as a result, their bodies masculinise through childhood and puberty in the ways that matter for sport. Thereafter, their circulating T levels continue to have their usual performance-enhancing effects.

In other words—as shown in Figure 3 below, which compares athletes with 5-ARD to transwomen and sex-typical males and females—their variations from the male norm (such as underdeveloped external genitalia) are irrelevant to athletic performance. When they enter female competition, they carry male advantage.

gender equality is a human right essay

Do Khelif and Lin have DSD that should make them ineligible for the female category?

As I write, there are currently three running versions of the answer to this question.

The first is the one from the—reputedly unreliable IBA—that Khelif and Lin do have DSD that should make them ineligible. That is, the IBA or its representatives have said they’re genetic males with male advantage. The latter generally means their T is bioavailable—they’re not androgen insensitive—and they’ve otherwise masculinised in the ways that matter in the arena. 

The second is the one that’s trending on social media and in some press commentary saying—without evidence—that Khelif and Lin are entirely female, XX chromosomes, ovaries, and all. Some concede the point that the athletes’ phenotypes are masculine, but they say that lots of women—a status they tend to read broadly to include transwomen—have masculine phenotypes and so this is just a matter of accepting that premise.

The third seems to be the IOC’s present position if we carefully parse its highly coded pronouncements—that Khelif and Lin may well have XY DSD with male advantage, but because they were identified at birth as female and continue to identify as such,  they’re women .

The IOC has spent a lot of time over the last few days lamenting the attacks on Khelif and Lin. We should all be lamenting them—they’re truly awful. Still, this volatile situation is almost entirely of the IOC’s own making. It’s sending impossibly mixed messages that were to be expected given its complicated relationship to sex and gender in sport.

CORRECTION In today’s IOC – Paris 2024 press briefing, IOC President Bach said: “But I repeat, here, this is not a DSD case, this is about a woman taking part in a women’s competition, and I think I have explained this many times.” What was intended was: “But I repeat, here,… — IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) August 3, 2024
  • In June, the IOC issued a language guide that disallows the use of sex-based language to describe athletes at the Games and that requires the treatment of gender diverse XY athletes who identify as women to be unequivocal: they are women.
  • This language guide follows from the positions the IOC took in 2021 that gender diverse XY athletes should not be considered to have male advantage in the arena simply because they’re male, and that male T levels shouldn’t be disqualifying—despite their scientifically well-understood role as the primary driver of the performance gap between the best males and the best females. 

The idea was to make the controversy about XY athletes like Caster Semenya and Lia Thomas in the female category disappear by disappearing the relevant biology and the language we use to talk about it.

The IOC wasn’t going to get away with this, of course, once the IBA called it out on its inclusion of Khelif and Lin in the female category. But it had tied its own hands in advance, and because of this—in my opinion—much of what has come out of its spokesperson’s mouth is a combination of “inside baseball” and sleights of hand.

Still, an excellent piece on 2 August by Alex Oller of Inside the Games tells us that knowledgeable reporters who are going with one of the two XY DSD versions of the answer to the question likely aren’t wrong. I recommend you read Oller’s reporting in full (and Inside the Games in general), but in sum:

Formally, the IOC is going with the gender that’s listed in Khelif and Lin’s passports, which undoubtedly say that their legal gender is female. You can think of this as the IOC’s current sex test—it’s using legal gender as a proxy for sex and/or eligibility for the female category.

The IOC has also said it has not seen anything to indicate that what’s in Khelif and Lin’s passports isn’t consistent with their sex. The IBA’s statements say otherwise, of course, but the IOC says it can’t trust the IBA’s statements on this because of the “arbitrary” procedure that yielded them.

At the same time, on the substance, the IOC has acknowledged that after Khelif’s first win on Thursday, it scrubbed from its own website the notation that at least Khelif—if not also Lin—has high T. To explain this, it said in part that T levels don’t matter, that lots of females also have high T. This is intentionally misleading. 

Female athletes with high T—including those with polycystic ovaries—have T levels towards the top of the female range, not outside of the female range or inside the male range. Their sex is not in doubt. As I explained above, “high T” in an athlete who seeks to compete in the female category is code in international sports for either doping with exogenous androgens or being biologically male with bioavailable endogenous androgens. There’s no indication that either Khelif or Lin is doping.

As an aside, the reason many federations and the IOC itself for years used T as a proxy for sex is that it’s an excellent one: neither ovaries nor adrenal glands produce T in the male range, only testes do. If you’re looking for biological sex rather than legal gender, it’s certainly more accurate than a passport.

The IOC has also said that it has given up sex testing because there’s no way to get it right practically and in a nondiscriminatory fashion and because scientifically there’s consensus Khelif and Lin are women.

It is impossible to reconcile the IOC’s statements here, even if you’re an insider. Either they had experts look at the files on the athletes or they didn’t. If they didn’t, there can’t be scientific consensus about anything.

By contrast, the rest is internally consistent. For political reasons in general, not with respect to Khelif and Lin in particular, the IOC doesn’t want to test athletes for sex because, in its view, it’s “impractical”—meaning expensive in the multiple ways it cares about—and “discriminatory” against XY athletes who identify as women.

Why were Khelif and Lin able to compete for years before being barred last year?

Khelif and Lin have been competing internationally in the sport of boxing for several years. They were only barred from global competition in 2023.

Prior to 2022, the International Boxing Association didn’t evaluate biological sex or male advantage with a chromosome or testosterone test. Instead, as the IOC is doing now, it relied on the athletes’ passports as a proxy for sex and/or eligibility for the female category. If an athlete was entered into international competition by their domestic federation in the female category and their identity document said they were female, the IBA accepted that as proof of their eligibility.

According to the IOC, the IBA “suddenly” and “arbitrarily” changed its approach in 2023. The IBA says it started conducting at least some biological tests after the Tokyo Games—at its world championships in 2022—but that it only began excluding ineligible athletes beginning in 2023.

Why is the IOC not the IBA in charge of whether Khelif and Lin compete in Paris?

The Olympic Charter normally leaves it to the international federations to set the eligibility standard for their sports. But as a result of governance failures and corruption scandals, the IOC hasn’t recognised the IBA’s authority to regulate the sport at the Olympic Games since 2019. Instead, competition in Tokyo and Paris has been run by an  ad hoc  group appointed by the IOC for this purpose. This group rejected the IBA’s biologically-based determination of Khelif and Lin’s sex in favour of the old passport test, which the IOC describes as “the rule in place in 2016.” As noted above, this happens to be consistent with the IOC’s own policy preferences.

How do Olympic Movement politics play into their story?

Olympic Movement politics are a huge factor in this story in at least two ways, both of which I’ve mentioned already.

The first of these is the IOC’s fight with the IBA. The IBA happens to be aligned with the Kremlin, which is separately hostile to the IOC for its stances on doping and the war in Ukraine.

The second is the IOC’s policy choice to align itself with trans-rights advocates and against advocates for a sex-based female category. Here, the IOC is not just at odds with the IBA but also with some of the Olympic Movement’s most important federations like World Athletics and World Aquatics. Unlike the IOC, these federations are determined to prioritise fairness and the preservation of the female category for female athletes.

gender equality is a human right essay

Where do we go from here?

The Khelif and Lin cases demonstrate that everyone loses out when the eligibility rules are not firmly set in a way that’s consistent with the goals of the competition category. The firestorm this issue regularly and predictably causes, and the consequent damage to the organisations and athletes involved, should catalyse change. Continuing to push the matter away—as the IBA and other federations, including most prominently FIFA, have done over the years—only means that further ugly controversies will arise in the future.

I will close by reiterating the three basic points that I and other experts in girls’ and women’s sport have been making for a long time.

First, the female category in elite sport has no  raison d’être  apart from the biological sex differences that lead to sex differences in performance and the gap between the top male and female athletes. The suggestion that we could choose to rationalise the category differently—for instance, on the basis of self-declared gender identity—or that we could make increasingly numerous exceptions in the interests of inclusion (as the IOC seems to have done to allow Khelif and Lin to compete in Paris) has no legs outside of certain progressive enclaves.

Second, any eligibility standard—like the IOC’s framework—that denies or disregards sex-linked biology is necessarily category-defeating.

Finally, federations that are committed to the female category and to one-for-one equality for their female athletes must step up and do two things. They must craft evidence-based rules and then stick to them consistently. And they must seriously embrace other opportunities to welcome gender diversity within their sports.

This article has been updated to include a reference and link to Alan Abrahamson’s report.

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Gender equality at risk: UN officials highlight danger of pulling peacekeepers out

A wide view of the UN Security Council chamber during the meeting on women and peace and security.

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Senior UN officials on Wednesday warned of the consequences for protection of women and their rights in conflict zones, amid recent decisions to close or shrink peacekeeping and special political missions.

Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women , which champions gender equality worldwide, told ambassadors in the Security Council that cuts are being made by some governments despite an uptick in conflict and insecurity. 

“ It is counter-intuitive that, in the face of unprecedented levels of conflict and violence, the number of deployed peacekeeping personnel has dropped by almost half from 121,000 in 2016 to approximately 71,000 in 2024.”

She highlighted growing misogyny and violence against women and girls, adding that wars are being fought with clear disregard for their lives, rights, welfare or autonomy.

Rushed transitions amid volatility

Also briefing, Martha Pobee, Assistant Secretary-General for Africa at the department of peacebuilding affairs, warned of the implications of rushing through a transition process in a tense political climate, persisting security threats, protection concerns and unprepared national stakeholders.  

“ Unless transitions are well-structured, adequately resourced and gender-responsive, women and girls will be at risk of setbacks,” she said.

These could include losing access to essential services, being excluded from decision-making and becoming vulnerable to further violence.

Alarm goes off in Haiti

UN Women’s Ms. Bahous cited the case of Haiti, where calls were made protect gender equality gains shortly after the departure of the UN peacekeeping mission, MINUSTAH . Alarms were sounded over increased kidnappings, rape and other violence against women and girls by criminal groups.

Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, briefs the Security Council meeting on women and peace and security.

“ That was April of 2019. Ten months later the peacekeepers had left ...four and a half years ago,” she said.

“Almost 5,000 cases of rape were reported to case managers and service providers in Haiti in 2023, with homicides, kidnappings, and sexual violence rising every year with no sign of slowing down,” she added.

Gains rolled back in Mali

Ms. Pobee noted the situation in Mali, where the UN peacekeeping MINUSMA closed in December 2023 at the insistence of transitional military authorities.

Prior to its accelerated departure, the country had witnessed “transformative” progress that enhanced women’s political participation.  

“The drawdown of MINUSMA has however negatively impacted peacebuilding programmes focusing on women and girls and sustaining the gains made in the political sphere,” Ms. Pobee.

Fears for DR Congo, Sudan  

She also voiced concerns over the recent departures of missions from key hotspots in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that have led to security vacuums and greater vulnerability for women and girls.

Martha Pobee, Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, briefs the Security Council meeting on women and peace and security.

The drawdowns have diminished the UN’s capacity to support national partners in addressing conflict-related sexual violence altogether in areas including investigation, reporting and assistance to survivors.

Other challenges relate to limited funding, and the ability to implement existing national action plans relating to women, peace and security.

Close the gaps

Ms. Bahous urged key steps to help address the gaps left by the accelerated drawdown of UN missions.

The Security Council should ensure that transitions protect gender equality and women's participation through routine decisions and interactions with host governments and organizations, she said.

Alongside that, there should be regular engagement with women from civil society to chart the impact on the ground, while also facilitating oversight by the Informal Expert Group on Women and Peace and Security .  

It should also prioritize financing for women's peace and security work, collaborate with financial institutions and ensure sufficient resources are allocated when missions are being wound down.  

“ We fear a future of increasing atrocities against women, their ever-greater marginalization from decision-making and ultimately a failure of the international community ,” she said,

“That prospect should be, and I am confident is, unacceptable for all of us.”

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gender equality is a human right essay

Gender Based Violence

The Philippines ranks 7 th  and remains the highest-ranked country in Asia and the Pacific in terms of Gender Equality, according to the 2016 World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap Index. Yet despite its considerable progress towards achieving gender equality and having in place legislation to address women’s human rights and discrimination, there are still significant challenges, including tackling violence against women and children.

In the Philippines, UNFPA supports national, regional government agencies, local government units and NGOs in preventing and responding to violence against women and children in both development and humanitarian settings.

Strengthening policies and actions on violence

In 2015, UNFPA helped develop the capacities of 17 regional offices of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to address gender-based violence in emergencies as part of disaster preparedness efforts. This is fully in line with existing national laws such as the Magna Carta of Women, which provides for women having the “right to protection and security in times of disasters, calamities and other crisis situations especially in all phases of relief, recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction efforts.”

UNFPA works with DSWD and the National Association for Social Work Education, Inc. (NASWEI) to mainstream gender and integrate gender-based violence prevention and response and gender responsive case management in the Bachelor of Science in Social Work curriculum. A total of 80 Social Work Educators and practitioners all over the country were trained on gender responsive case management to date.

Strengthening health sector responses to violence

A visit to a health service provider might be a woman or a child’s only chance to receive support, care and to escape a situation of abuse and violence. UNFPA supports the Department of Health (DOH) and Child Protection Network Foundation in establishing Women and Children Protection Units in DOH-retained and local government-supported hospitals.

We also supported the Multi-Disciplinary Team Training that capacitated 333 service providers, including doctors, social workers and police officers on managing violence against women and children cases at the local level.

UNFPA also helped integrate gender-based violence into the Residency Programs of Obstetrics, Pediatrics, and Family Medicine, training 109 pediatricians to date on the new residency curriculum.

In addition, the Office of the United States Foreign Disaster Assistance – U.S. Agency for International Development (OFDA-USAID) funded UNFPA Philippines’ project on strengthening government and civil society capacities on gender based violence prevention and response.  Through the project, a total of 723 Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council members and inter-agency protection mechanism members were trained on the Comprehensive Intervention Against Gender-based Violence, 386 trained on gender-based violence prevention and response, and, 90 NGO members trained on psychosocial interventions.

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Project 2025: A blueprint for the oppression of LGBTQ+ Americans

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Far-right activists have put together a series of directives for the next conservative president. Here's what it would mean to the LGBTQ+ community.

If you’re looking for yet another reason that Donald Trump shouldn’t be elected president again, we have two words for you: Project 2025.

You’ve probably been hearing these words, but you may be sketchy on what they mean. We’re here to fill you in on the details thanks to a report by Accountable.US .

What is Project 2025?

Basically, Project 2025 is a blueprint of what far-right activists want from the next conservative president — and Trump is the conservative who’s running. It includes plans to fire as many as 50,000 career federal employees and replace them with people who have unquestionable loyalty to the president; restrict access to contraception; possibly implement a national abortion ban; cut federal health care programs; and much more, designed to make the U.S. an authoritarian nation. And LGBTQ + people are directly in its crosshairs.

“Project 2025 couldn’t make its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda any more clear. With far-right extremists at the helm, the project is a power grab by conservatives attempting to turn back the clock on hard-fought progress and fundamental rights,” Accountable.US President Caroline Ciccone said in a statement to The Advocate. “Project 2025 doesn’t just pose an existential threat to our democracy but seriously threatens the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ communities across the country.”

Who created it?

Project 2025 is spearheaded by the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation , with Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, as the project’s director. Several other Trump associates are involved, such as Stephen Miller , was a senior adviser to Trump during his presidency; and Roger Severino , a notoriously anti-LGBTQ+ official in Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services ; and Kiron Skinner, who was director of the Office of Policy and Planning in the Trump administration until she was fired for abusive and unprofessional behavior, including homophobic remarks.

How will it affect LGBTQ+ Americans?

Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” is a document taking up 900 pages, but Accountable.US has put together a succinct summary of what Project 2025 would mean to LGBTQ+ Americans, and The Advocate has a first look. Here are the key points.

The project urges the next conservative president to basically ignore the 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County , in which the court found that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in banning sex discrimination in the workplace, also bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. President Joe Biden, in contrast, had directed all federal agencies to implement the provisions of Bostock not just in the workplace but in health care, education, and other aspects of life.

It calls for barring transgender people from the military and to stop what it considers the “toxic normalization of transgenderism” across the government and American society. It seeks to abolish the president’s Gender Policy Council, “which it views as promoting abortion and the ‘new woke gender ideology,’” Accountable.US notes.

The next Health and Human Services secretary, Project 2025 recommends, should reverse what it calls a focus on “‘LGBTQ+ equity,’ subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage, replacing such policies with those encouraging marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood, and nuclear families.”

“The Project 2025 playbook laments the fact that family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are ‘fraught with agenda items focusing on “LGBTQ+ equity,”’ making it clear that they intend to roll those agenda items back,” Accountable.US explains.

It further calls for the Department of Justice “to defend the First Amendment right of those who would discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. It also objects to the DOJ notifying states that their bans on abortion and medical services to transgender persons may violate federal law,” Accountable.US reports.

On foreign policy, Project 2025 says a new conservative president should dismantle and U.S. Agency for International Development programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, such as what it dubs “the bullying LGBTQ+ agenda.”

“Project 2025’s anti-LGBTQ+ policy recommendations are sweeping — affecting agencies throughout the federal government and even past Supreme Court rulings,” the Accountable.US summary concludes. “In no uncertain terms, Project 2025 and its allies intend to slash LGBTQ+ equity advancements in favor of what they claim is ‘life and strengthening the family.’”

  • A second Trump term would double down on erasing transgender rights. Here’s how advocates are preparing. ›
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Fatal violence against the transgender and gender-expansive community in 2024.

The Human Rights Campaign is both saddened and infuriated by the deaths of at least twenty-four transgender and gender-expansive people whose lives were tragically and inhumanely taken through violent means, including gun and intimate partner violence, in 2024.

Since 2013, the Human Rights Campaign has tracked incidents of fatal trans violence— the same year the Federal Bureau of Investigation began reporting on hate crimes motivated by anti-trans bias— and provided action items that can help end the violence.

These victims, like all of us, were loving partners, parents, family members, friends and community members. They worked, went to school and attended houses of worship. They were real people who did not deserve to have their lives taken.

As we continue working toward justice and equality for trans and gender-expansive people, we celebrate the lives for those we have lost in 2024:

Tai’Vion Lathan , a 24-year-old Black transgender woman who also went by Tai, was tragically found dead in a neighborhood in East Baltimore, Maryland on Sunday, August 4th.

Tai’s aunt, when speaking with reporters, said “She was just who she was, a very outgoing person, a sweetheart.” Page Boyd, reported to be Tai’s best friend, said “There's so many hearts breaking open out here. How can you wake up every day knowing what you did? It's terrible. Tai didn't deserve to be in no alley."

20-year-old Dylan Gurley , a transgender woman from Little Elm, Texas, was killed in Denton, Texas on July 23, 2024. She was found unconscious with multiple stab wounds by police and was subsequently declared dead at a local hospital less than an hour later.

Monique Brooks ’ sibling Lecia described her as fun-loving and smart. Others remember Monique as an amazing hair stylist. Every year on her birthday, Monique centered causes that people should support, including for LGBTQ+ rights.

On Friday, July 19, 2024, Monique, a 49-year-old Black transgender woman, was found shot in Orlando, Florida near the Florida Mall. She later died after being transported to the hospital, according to Orange County deputies.

Kenji Spurgeon , a 23-year-old Black transgender woman, was described by her family as being a “bright light in our lives” on a GoFundMe page . They go on to say that Kenji was known for having “an infectious smile and quick wit” and had an “extraordinary ability to uplift everyone around with laughter, a joke, a song, or a dance. Kenji inspired us all to seek joy and be cheerleaders for one another.”

Tragically, Kenji was shot and killed in the early morning hours of July 1, 2024 in Seattle, Washington.

Shannon Boswell , a 30-year-old Black transgender woman, is remembered as “one of a kind” and a “sweet soul” according to her obituary . Shannon was killed on July 2, 2024, in Atlanta. Her life was honored on July 13th, with a service filled with loved ones and friends sharing fond memories of Shannon. Shannon was someone who “loved people” and enjoyed hobbies of “watching movies and living life to the fullest.” A friend described Shannon as their “best friend” and “dear friend” who was always there when you needed her.

Pauly Likens , a 14-year-old transgender girl, was “a bright and loving individual, cherished by all who knew them,” according to a GoFundMe page . In Pauly’s obituary , it is said that she “lit up every room she entered, always making people smile and passing around her contagious laughter.” She loved music, Fortnite and Roblox.

Pauly was found dead in Sharon, Pennsylvania on June 25, 2024. She was last seen on June 23 at the Budd Street Public Park in Morristown, NJ. Two days later, on June 25, Pauly was reported missing. That same day, Pauly’s dismembered body was found in the Shenango River Lake, a reservoir in western Pennsylvania, as confirmed by the Mercer County Coroner’s Office and Pennsylvania State Police.

Liara Tsai , a 35-year-old white transgender woman, was found dead in a vehicle after the car crashed in Iowa on Saturday June 22nd; evidence from the scene confirms she was killed prior to the car crash. Liara, who was described by friends and loved ones as an activist and an artist, had moved to Minneapolis just 6 weeks prior to her death, in order to better pursue her career as a DJ, in a city with a large trans community.

Jazlynn Johnson , an 18-year-old transgender teenager, was killed on May 6, 2024, in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to police reports , The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department found Johnson inside a vehicle on the morning of May 6 near Maryland Parkway in Las Vegas. Jazlynn was pronounced dead at the scene. Soon after, the Clarke County coroner’s office ruled her death a homicide.

Yella (Robert) Clark Jr. , a 45-year-old Black transgender person, who was serving a life sentence at Angola prison in Louisiana, was killed in a fight with several other inmates on April 2, 2024. With Yella, misreporting and misgendering in initial reports led to delays in HRC’s own reporting. Most articles referred to them with their birth name and sex assigned at birth, though evidence suggests Clark may have used both Yella and Robert (their birth name) in prison. They identified as transgender, had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and had begun taking female hormones to physically transition while incarcerated.

Michelle Henry , a 25-year-old Black transgender woman, lived in San Francisco, where she had been a lifelong active member of the LGBTQ+ community, including attending the SF LGBT Center youth program. She was referred to as a “ ray of light” by the center’s Executive Director Rebecca Rolfe, who further described Michelle as " kind, deeply caring, courageous, and fearless ."

Sadly, on May 15, 2024, she was stabbed and killed at a private residence. While her alleged killer has been detained, the SF Police Department put out a statement this is an "open and active investigation," and has requested anyone with information call the SFPD Tip Line (1-415-575-4444) or Text a Tip to TIP411 and begin the text message with SFPD.

Brandon "Tayy Dior" Thomas , a 17-year-old Black transgender girl in Mobile, Alabama, was beloved by her friends and family. Speaking with HRC, her grandmother described Tayy as someone who “always had a huge smile on her face showing her dimples,” and that she loved doing her hair and “would help anyone.” She was further described as “shy but so fearless” with “natural leadership ability.” Tragically, she was shot and killed on May 7, 2024; her alleged killer, who has been arrested, was her romantic partner.

Reyna Hernandez , a 54-year-old Latina transgender woman, was born in Mexico, and moved to the United States when she was 19. She owned Reyna’s Hair Salon in Renton, the fulfillment of a childhood dream . She was described by friends and family as a “ happy, loving person,” and a “dreamer” who was “hard-working and kind.” Reyna was shot and killed in Renton, Washington on February 26, 2024.

Kita Bee was described as “her authentic self through and through” by her friend of almost two decades, Kris Wade, executive director of The Justice Project , who also said that Kita was “very well loved in the streets," meaning the LGBTQ+ community. Kita, a 46-year-old transgender Black woman, was killed in a hit-and-run incident in Kansas City, Missouri, on May 3, 2024.

Starr Brown , a Black trans woman, was show and killed in Memphis, Tennessee on April 19, 2024. Across social media posts, the love her community felt for her was clear, with loved ones describing her as someone who was “TRULY loved,” “always had uplifting words,” “one of the sweetest,” and a “beautiful soul.” A balloon release was held in her honor at the site of her passing on Friday April 26th, and a memorial service was held on May 4th.

Sasha Williams , a 36-year-old multiracial transgender woman, was described as a “selfless artist” who had a “heart of gold”, and as someone who had earned their GED despite struggling with her mental health, according to media reports. In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal , Williams’s aunt Tina Thornton said that she dreamed of being a performer in Las Vegas. Sasha was stabbed and killed in Las Vegas, Nevada. Though her death occurred on January 26, 2024, HRC learned of her passing in late March.

Andrea Doria Dos Passos was killed outside of the Miami City Ballet in Miami, Florida on April 23 , 2024. She was experiencing homelessness at the time of her death, and had been dealing with housing insecurity for some time, as reported by her family. On April 25, a vigil for Andrea was held in Miami Beach’s Old City Hall , organized by Pridelines, a local LGBTQ+ community center with which Andrea was connected. Andrea’s mom, who was in attendance, expressed gratitude for the community and life Andrea had been able to build before her death, noting “I feel a bit lighter knowing that she had this group of people who loved her and accepted her."

According to their obituary, River Nevaeh Goddard "had an amazing, outgoing personality. She was very creative and artistic, she loved to write her own music. Her cuddly nature was only matched by her quick wit, and goofiness.” River, who used she/they pronouns, also went by Phoenixx and their birth name Neveah. On April 5, 2024, Stow, Massachusetts police responded to a call for a wellness check. Police were able to make their way inside the home after two hours and found River had been killed by stabbing.

Tee "Lagend Billions" Arnold , a 36-year-old Black transgender man, was shot and killed in Hallandale Beach, Florida on April 3, 2024. Tee was known among friends and family for his love of travel, his nieces and nephews, and for "always offering words of encouragement" to loved ones in need.

África Parrilla García a 25-year-old transgender woman also referred to sometimes as Emma Garcia, was shot and killed in the Santurce area of San Juan, Puerto Rico on February 2, 2024. Details about Africa's life have been slow to emerge, as she was initially misgendered and deadnamed in news reports and police records. However, friends have begun to speak out about Africa's life and death, noting she was loved, and like "a sister" to them.

Meraxes Medina , a 24-year-old Latina transgender woman, was called a “sister” by her friend Alisha Veneno on a GoFoundMe page, saying Meraxes “was more than just my friend.” According to her own Instagram account and a blog post by Pgh Lesbian Correspondents , Meraxes was a makeup artist who also worked at Universal Studios Hollywood, enjoyed shopping and watching the Jurassic Park movie series, and admired Shakira and Karol G.

Alex Taylor Franco , a 21-year-old transgender man, was shot and killed in Taylorsville, Utah on March 17, 2024. At a vigil held in his honor, Alex’s loved ones described him as “ an athletic, cheerful man with a big heart, ” who was “so much more than just Alex .”

Diamond Brigman was a Black 26-year-old trans woman. She was described by her friend as “larger than life.” She was killed during a drive-by shooting while standing on a street in Houston. Her death, and those of other trans people in Texas, underscore the need for significant and immediate legislative changes.

Righteous TK “Chevy” Hill , a 35-year-old Black transman known to his friends and family as TK and Chevy, pushed for Black LGBTQ+ inclusion throughout his community. Chevy opened ‘Evollusion,’ a full-service hair salon dedicated to serving the LGBTQIA+ community in Atlanta, to help Black queer people feel comfortable in a traditional Black barbershop setting.

Chevy was tragically shot and killed in East Point, Georgia on February 28, 2024, in the front yard of his home.

Kitty Monroe , who also went by their birth name Marcos Lugo, was a 43-year-old Latine transgender person who was known for painting, singing, and having a great sense of humor. In April 2023, Kitty spoke about her experiences as a transgender person in a powerful interview for the YouTube channel Tales from the Streets. Tragically, Kitty was killed in Phoenix, Arizona on January 1, 2024.

HRC has been tracking reports of fatal anti-transgender violence for the past several years. Previous reports can be found here: 2023 , 2022 , 2021 , 2020 , 2019 and 2018 .

While every case is unique, far too often, we see the same themes and trends emerge in the fatal trans violence cases we report. Young trans women of color -- particularly Black trans women, continue to be disproportionately affected. Victims are often killed by partners, family members, and acquaintances, and guns are used in the majority of deaths. Additionally, misgendering and deadnaming remain far too common in media and law enforcement’s reporting of these cases.

Some of these cases involve clear anti-trans bias. In others, the victim’s trans or gender-expansive status may have made them more susceptible to violence by forcing them into unemployment, poverty, homelessness and/or survival sex work.

In all cases, it remains clear that the intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia conspire to place the trans community at risk of fatal violence.

Brief Guide to Reporting on Transgender Individuals

In the pursuit of greater accuracy and respect for transgender and gender-expansive people in both life and death, HRC offers guidelines for journalists and others who report on these communities.

Additional Concerning Deaths of Transgender and Gender-Expansive Individuals

In doing this work, some cases surface for which there is insufficient information available to determine inclusion in our formal fatal violence recording. HRC monitors developments to these cases closely and frequently calls for further investigation into the causes and circumstances surrounding their deaths.

Dismantling a Culture of Violence

This report demonstrates how anti-transgender stigma, denial of opportunity and increased risk factors compound to create a culture of violence — and provides clear ways each of us can directly make an impact to make our society a safer place for trans and gender-expansive people.

Related Resources

Transgender

Understanding the Transgender Community

Transgender, Health & Aging, Workplace

Debunking the Myths: Transgender Health and Well-Being

Hrc’s brief guide to reporting on transgender individuals, love conquers hate., let's win this..

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Human Rights Careers

What Does Gender Equality Mean?

The world’s gender ratio is around 50:50, but you don’t need to be an expert to know that women are marginalized. Studies show that it will take a century to close the global pay gap . Despite decades of progress, gender equality remains distant. What does gender equality truly mean? And how do we get there?

Gender equality: a definition

Gender equality means that all genders are free to pursue whatever career, lifestyle choice, and abilities they want without discrimination. Their rights, opportunities, and access to society are not different based on their gender. Gender equality does not necessarily mean that everyone is treated exactly the same. Their different needs and dreams are valued equally. Gender equity is often discussed at the same time as gender equality for this reason. Since society has favored men for so long, men have many advantages. Equity fills in the gaps so everyone else can “catch up” to men. It addresses discrimination and imbalances in society so that equality can become a reality.

Benefits of gender equality

Achieving gender equality will have a significant positive impact on the world. Here are just a few of the benefits:

#1 Better business

Studies show that gender diversity improves an organization ’s innovation and productivity. When women are given equal education (and as a result, equal job opportunities) compared to men, the businesses they join thrive.

#2 Better economy

When women can participate in the economy in the same way as men, the economy does better. Closing the gender pay gap plays a significant role in this. Studies show that if OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries matched Sweden in their female employment rates, the GDP would increase by $6 trillion.

#3 Reduced poverty

Girls and women make up the world’s poorest populations. Because they aren’t given equal education, job opportunities , and income, cycles of poverty repeat themselves. By giving women the same opportunities as men, it would raise up entire families from poverty and reduce the world’s poverty rate.

#4 Better health

Because of barriers like income and lack of education, access to good healthcare is often challenging for women. Even without those obstacles, women are often not taken seriously. There’s also less research on conditions that mostly affect women. If gender equality became realized in healthcare, women would get better care, leading to improvements in a society’s overall health. Studies also show that gender equality has a link to the improvement of children’s health. Women with equal education and income can care for their children better.

What does gender equality look like?

What would gender equality mean in practice? How would the world be different? Here are just a few of the outcomes:

More girls would be educated

A lack of education is one of the most significant results of gender inequality . If girls’ education was given the same priority as boys’, more girls would be in school. This would set them up for better job opportunities and income in the future.

More women would be in the workplace (and workplace leadership)

Currently, women are not as represented as men in the workplace, especially in leadership . If barriers to their success were removed, they would be better represented.

Families would be stronger

Men are negatively affected by gender inequality. This is especially clear when it comes to paid family leave. Because women are considered the primary caregivers for children, men are often unable to get time off. This is also true when it comes to caring for older family members. If both men and women were able to take time off for family without discrimination based on gender, it would strengthen families.

More women would participate in politics

Most political systems are still biased in favor of men. If gender equality was realized, the world would see a lot more women engaged in the political process. This includes political leadership.

How can we make gender equality a reality?

The world is a long way from achieving gender equality. What needs to happen for it to become real? There are three essential actions:

The first step toward any progress is awareness. If a society isn’t able to acknowledge gender inequality, changes will be nearly impossible. To make gender equality a reality, people need to be aware of the current state of affairs and the benefits of change.

Many believe that the most significant obstacle to gender equality is unequal access to education. Without the same education as boys, girls are limited in their income and job prospects. This has a domino effect in every area of their lives. To tackle gender inequality at the start, education for girls and women needs to be a top priority.

Legislative support

There are many laws and systems in place that fuel gender inequality. To break those systems down, laws that discriminate need to be repealed and new laws put in place. These laws hold organizations and institutions accountable. Governments, legislators, and activists all play a part in this process.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

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    5 Powerful Essays Advocating for Gender Equality Gender equality - which becomes reality when all genders are treated fairly and allowed equal opportunities - is a complicated human rights issue for every country in the world. Recent statistics are sobering. According to the World Economic Forum, it will take 108 years to achieve gender parity. The biggest gaps are found in political ...

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  9. What does gender equality look like today?

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  13. PDF GENDER EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

    contribute to or detract from the right to equality. The substantive equality approach, in its four-dimensional form, provides an evaluative tool with which to assess policy in relation to the right to gender equality. The paper suggests that there is a growing consensus at the international level on an understanding of sub-stantive equality ...

  14. Gender equality

    Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing different behaviors, aspirations, and needs equally, regardless of gender.

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    But, why should gender equality matter to me? quality is a fundamental human right. Advancing gender equal-ity is critical to all areas of a healthy society, from reducing poverty to pro-moting the he

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  17. 5 Women's Rights Essays You Can Read For Free

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  18. Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment: Feminist Mobilization for the

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    Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, which champions gender equality worldwide, told ambassadors in the Security Council that cuts are being made by some governments despite an uptick in conflict and insecurity. "It is counter-intuitive that, in the face of unprecedented levels of conflict and violence, the number of deployed peacekeeping personnel has dropped by almost half from ...

  25. 7 Reasons Why Gender Equality Is Good For Everyone

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  30. What Does Gender Equality Mean?

    Gender equality: a definition. Gender equality means that all genders are free to pursue whatever career, lifestyle choice, and abilities they want without discrimination. Their rights, opportunities, and access to society are not different based on their gender. Gender equality does not necessarily mean that everyone is treated exactly the same.