Womens Month - Equity & Equality

Let’s start at the beginning.

In no country are women equal. ?There – I said it!

In fact, the World Economic Forum projects it will take?170 years to reach gender equality globally, and 158 years in North America. That means it will take five more generations for us to see gender equality - or your great, great, great, great, grandchildren.

International Womens Day falls annually on March 8th with a different Theme & Pose each year.

IWD 2023 will be #EmbraceEquity

embrace - verb -??m?bre?s - to willingly and enthusiastically accept, adopt, and espouse?

equity – noun - ??kw?ti – the quality of being fair

The thing is though, that ‘Embrace Equity’ is actually NOT the official theme for IWD 2023, rather the official UN Women’s theme is ““DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”

If you google “International Women’s Day” and you’ll come across a very official-looking IWD website, that claims to determine each year’s theme. (This website is owned by Aurora Ventures (Europe) Limited.??Google Aurora and you will find its partners, as well as a number of case studies and work it does around the women’s equality space – this includes “delivering the International Women’s Day platform” – and producing the annual IWD campaign them and managing IWD merchandise.)

There are lots of articles this March asking us to not participate in the Hashtag and they are somewhat correct, we don’t need to hug ourselves just because of a hashtag.

We need to do so much more than that.

The UN challenges that a “gender-responsive approach to innovation, technology and digital education can increase the awareness of women and girls regarding their rights and civic engagement.”

And I believe that on the path to gender equality, we need Gender Equity. So while the official UN theme is not Embrace Equity, I still believe that it’s worthwhile.

Why? Well, anything that asks us to consider how to create more opportunities and awareness for gender equity can only be a positive thing.?

The term “equity” refers to?fairness and justice?and is distinguished from equality: Whereas equality means providing the same to all, equity means recognizing that we do not all start from the same place, and we should acknowledge and address imbalances.

Treating people, a certain way dependent on their gender, but not necessarily equally – e.g. – women generally needs things to deal with menstruation- something men do not need. Gender Equality, strictly speaking would mean either providing men with sanitary products as well, or not providing them for women.

Gender Equity allows us to adjust treatment based on individual needs while still giving everyone the same treatment overall.

While gender equality is simply focused on providing men and women the same equal opportunities ( access to education e.g.), Gender Equity will work to correct historical wrongs that have left women behind.

Equity, in its simplest terms, means meeting communities where they are and allocating resources and opportunities as needed to create equal outcomes for all community members.

Equity means affording each person with the opportunity support they need — which will be different depending on their lived experiences. Gender Equity is present in how we manage, how we hire and how we lead in the workplace. We can all play a part in helping build a more equitable world.

“When I see people living their life the way they want to live them, I think that’s the ultimate… When people have this freedom of choice.”

GROWING UP

• Based on their external environment, children learn very quickly (from as young as 9 months old in some cases) that boys and girls are different
• They have their own colours. Their own toys.
• These differences based purely on whether they are a boy or girl become unquestioned rationale for many ideas about what boys, girls, men and women can and cannot do. For example, most societies expect females to behave in a more affable?and emotional way while males are expected to be strong, independent and stoic.?
• Did you know that as early as six, girls can start making choices based on these perceptions??Unlike 5-year-old girls, 6-year-old girls tend to associate boys with genius, and avoid games for kids who are “really, really smart.”

AT HOME

• How many women were brought up in homes that typically taught that women are responsible for cooking, cleaning, washing clothes and other household chores?
• Despite the fact that women outnumber men in the?paid workforce in many countries, women still do more of the domestic work and childcare — almost?twice as much?as their male partners.?

MEDICAL EQUITY

“There’s?a?pain?gap,?but?there’s?also?a?credibility?gap.?

Women?are?not?believed?about?their?bodies?—?period.”

?Anushay Hossain, author of "The Pain Gap,"

Many studies have found a gender health gap where many women receive poorer healthcare than men.

• Research shows?men in chronic pain tend to be regarded as “stoic” while women are more likely to be considered “emotional” and “hysterical” and many of us have been accused of “fabricating the pain.”
• A University of Rhode Island researcher, K L Calderone found that?women are half as likely to receive painkillers after surgery.
• In 2016, researchers at University College London found that?women with dementia receive worse medical treatment than men with the condition
• ?Less is known about conditions that only affect women, including common gynaecological conditions that can have severe impacts on health and wellbeing. For example, on average it takes 7 to 8 years for women to receive a diagnosis of?endometriosis, (March is also Endometriosis Awareness Month) with 40% of women needing 10 or more GP appointments before being referred to a specialist.
• Many healthcare professionals have had very little training and education about perimenopause?and?menopause.
• These gaps may stem, in part, from the fact that women have historically been excluded from medical research. This exclusion has meant that researchers do not have the opportunity to identify and study sex differences in diseases. This creates assumptions that similar medical treatments will work for both sexes. In fact it wasn’t until 2016 that the National Institutes of Health (NIH)?required sex to be considered?as a biological variable in most studies it funded. Yes 2016!!!!

Gender equity is not only a matter of justice and rights, it is crucial for producing the best research and providing the best care to patients. If the fields of science, medicine, and global health are to hope to work towards improving human lives, they must be representative of the societies they serve. The fight for gender equity is everyone’s responsibility, and this means that feminism, too, is for everybody—for men and women, researchers, clinicians, funders, institutional leaders, and, yes, even for medical journals.

— The Lancet

EQUITY AT WORK

Gender Equity in the workplace is more than just the Pay Gap (although now that I mention it - on average,?women, are paid about 20 per cent less than men, globally. Yes, yes - individual characteristics such as education, working time,?skills and experience can explain part of the gender pay gap but not all of it!)

Women are three times more likely to be asked to make hot drinks at work and twice as likely to be asked to do menial tasks. Many women say they do the extra tasks for fear of appearing 'difficult'.

Gender Equity is also where men, women and all gender identities forging the career path they want and being afforded the same opportunities, including promotions, leadership roles, projects and more, without their gender being a deciding factor in workplace decisions.

One way to promote gender equity is to celebrate?strong women?in all aspects of life. Womens History Month will celebrate Women who share our stories afterall, and history bears a long list of intelligent and powerful women who have broken barriers and changed the future for women everywhere.?

No matter what change you wish to see in the world, you’ll find a strong woman trailblazing toward a better world.?

Let’s applaud it when we see it!

And to heck with it, official theme or not - I am EMBRACING EQUITY and all of its potentials!