Worldwide, women continue to contribute to social, economic, cultural and political achievement. But progress towards gender parity has slowed in many places.
The World Economic Forum predicted in 2014 that it would take until 2095 to achieve global gender parity. Then one year later in 2015, they estimated that a slowdown in the already glacial pace of progress meant the gender gap wouldn’t close entirely until 2133.
The theme for International Women’s Day 2016 is; “Pledge For Parity!”
Everyone – men and women – can pledge to take a concrete step to help achieve gender parity more quickly – whether to help women and girls achieve their ambitions, call for gender-balanced leadership, respect and value difference, develop more inclusive and flexible cultures or root out workplace bias. Each of us can be a leader within our own spheres of influence and commit to take pragmatic action to accelerate gender parity.
Maybe the fundamental demonstrating the ‘non-parity’ is to be found in the founder of Girls Who Code, Reshma Saujani’s TED Talk. Reshma says; “We’re raising our girls to be perfect, and we’re raising our boys to be brave.”
Saujani has taken up the charge to socialize young girls to take risks and learn to program — two skills they need to move society forward. To truly innovate, we cannot leave behind half of our population, she says. “I need each of you to tell every young woman you know to be comfortable with imperfection.”
Alan Straton
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