Monday, 8 March marks International Women’s Day (IWD), and this year’s theme, #ChooseToChallenge, is a global call to action in the name of gender equality. “A challenged world is an alert world,” says IWD organisers, “and from challenge comes change. So let’s all choose to challenge… hand up high to show you’re in.”

According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020, it will take a staggering 99.5 years to instil gender parity across education, health, politics and all forms of economic participation. So, in 2021, how can you help create this gender equal world when the ingrained complexity of patriarchy still affects hundreds of millions of women worldwide?

To assist you with this challenge, IWD has a number of MISSIONS including:

• Celebrate tech women and innovation
• Applaud equality for women in sport
• Educate women on health choice decisions
• Build inclusive workplaces so women thrive
• Increase visibility of women creatives
• Forge women’s empowerment worldwide.

Each Mission offers a range of resources and ideas for individuals and organisations to address gender inequality across education, health, politics, art and the workplace. Offering ways to break down barriers women face every day, the IWD Missions also create important platforms for women to express their ideas, and tell their stories.

UN Women

For UN Women, this year’s IWD theme and challenge is Women in Leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world. Celebrating the incredible efforts to create more gender equal societies by women and girls around the world, Women in Leadership also highlights the important role of women in leadership during the global pandemic.  

Women leaders are making a difference, every day

Around the world, women in leadership are orchestrating effective and inclusive COVID-19 responses, from high-level decision-making through to frontline service delivery. “Women bring different experiences, perspectives and skills to the table,” writes UN Women Australia, “and make invaluable contributions to decisions, policies and laws that work better for all.”

And yet:  

• Women are significantly under-represented in governments, occupying only one-quarter of parliamentary seats worldwide. Australia fares slightly better, but still falls short of the 50/50 goal: 31.13% of Australian MPs are women.   
• In Australian companies, only 18.3% of CEOs are women, and 14.6% are board chairs.
• Just one of the 25 CEOs appointed to lead ASX 200 organisations in the past year has been female.
• Also telling is the fact that while women comprise around 47% of Australia’s workforce, their take home weekly wage is on average, $242.90 less than men (full-time ordinary earnings), making the national gender pay gap 13.4% – a disparity that has remained constant for the past 20 years.

“Advancing women in leadership is central to creating more profitable and productive economies, flourishing businesses and a healthier and more peaceful planet,” continues UN Women Australia. “There is a growing understanding and expectation that leadership in all facets of economic, political and social life must reflect communities; organisations miss out if 50% of the talent pool – women in all their diversity – is not around decision-making tables.”  

Female-led countries and COVID-19 responses

According to Supriya Garikipati, Developmental Economist from Liverpool University, “…women leaders reacted more quickly and decisively in the face of potential fatalities” during the global pandemic in 2020. Garikipati goes on to say that, “[i]n almost all cases, they locked down earlier than male leaders in similar circumstances. While this may have longer-term economic implications, it has certainly helped these countries to save lives, as evidenced by the significantly lower number of deaths in these countries.”

Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs)

In 2020, we outlined the WEPs, which were established by the UN Women and the UN Global Compact Office. A tool to help guide organisations on how to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace and community, we believe it is timely to revisit these highly recommended principles and actions that organisations can take to demonstrate their commitment to gender equality:

Principle 1 – Establish high-level corporate leadership for gender equality

Support for this principle could be demonstrated by establishing organisational goals and targets. Consideration could also be given to including goals and targets in performance plans for managers of an organisation.

Principle 2 – Treat all women and men fairly at work – respect and support human rights and non-discrimination

Actions could include offering flexible working arrangements and leave. Reviewing policies and practices to ensure they are inclusive could also foster an inclusive workplace culture.

Principle 3 – Ensure the health, safety and well-being of all women and men workers

A zero-tolerance policy against all forms of violence and harassment at work could be used to demonstrate support for this principle. Further, organisations could also acknowledge the right for all staff to have time off for medical care and counselling for themselves and their dependents.

Principle 4 – Promote education, training and professional development for women

Organisations could demonstrate support for this principle by ensuring equal access to and participation in internal education and training programmes. Training offerings about sexual harassment and unconscious bias could also be considered.

Principle 5 – Implement enterprise development, supply chain and marketing practices that empower women

In support of this principle, organisations could leverage their procurement activities to ensure that their suppliers adopt policies and practices that support equality and are consistent with the WEPs.

Principle 6 – Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy

The promotion and recognition of women’s leadership and contribution by ensuring their active participation in consultation processes, is a suggested action for support of this principle.

Principle 7 – Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality

This principle could be supported by organisations benchmarking their achievements by collecting, analysing and using gender statistics to measure and report improvements over time.

At CourtHeath we are heartened that International Women’s Day has evolved to become more than just a day. We are a proud and public supporter of the WEPs since 2018 and a participant in the UN Global Compact.

* * *

For more information about IWD 2021, visit International Woman’s Day 2021 theme.

* * *

A participant in the UN Global Compact, CourtHeath seeks to raise awareness about the Sustainable Development Goals and the principles of the Global Compact with business and government organisations in Victoria.

* * *

Image used under license from Shutterstock

* * *

By Wendy Cavenett, Dr. Julia Cornwell McKean and Pauline Bernard

[category courtheath's blog]

IWD2021, gender equality, ChooseToChallenge