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International Women’s Day is on Friday 8 March 2019
Balance for better this
International Women’s Day means including all genders
National Council of Women of New Zealand President
and Gender Equal NZ spokesperson, Vanisa Dhiru, says that if we are aiming to
‘balance for better’ this International Women’s Day we need to include all
genders.
“This means as well as women who were assigned
female at birth, we also need to include all genders – of all ethnicities – to
create true gender balance” says Vanisa.
“The theme for International Women’s Day 2019 is ‘balance
for better’ – and this means we need a better gender balance in income
equality, in leadership, in safety and health, in education and all areas of
life. This would look like a gender-balanced boardroom, a gender-balanced
government, gender-balanced media coverage, a gender-balance of employees, more
gender-balance in wealth and gender-balanced sports coverage.”
We don’t currently have gender balance. For
example, our brand new Gender Dashboard shows that women and men work the same
number of hours each day – but women only get paid for 35% of their work, while
men get paid for 63% of theirs. Pacifica women earn just 72 cents for every
dollar that Pākehā men earn.
“It’s not just in income that we see that gender
inequality” says Vanisa. “The World Economic Forum’s 2018 Global Gender Gap
Report shows that true gender equality could be over 170 years away. This is
absolutely unacceptable and it’s worse for some groups of women than others,
because of racism, transphobia and other forms of discrimination”.
“Results from our recent award winning Gender
Attitudes Survey show that most New Zealanders (79%) agree that gender equality
is a fundamental right for all of us. But
the results also show a pocket of New Zealanders that hold old-fashioned views
about gender stereotypes and roles.”
- 19% of New Zealanders think it is seen as
more important for men to be in a position of power - 20% of New Zealanders think it is seen as
more important for women to be physically attractive
“These ideas about what makes a “real man” or a
“real woman” are limiting for all of us” says Vanisa. “They don’t allow most
people to express all of who we are. The
reality is that most people have both characteristics that are seen as more
masculine and characteristics that are seen as more feminine, and that’s just
fine.”
“If we could break down these rigid expectations
around gender, we’d create more room for everyone. Getting rid of the norms
that cause gendered violence, pay inequality, the devaluing of caregiving work
and parenting and inequalities in leadership roles – just to name a few
outcomes – would change our world for the better, and help to achieve a gender
balance in critical areas.”