Gender Equality – A Moonshot?

International Women’s Day was celebrated with “her-story” highlighted on March 8^th with 2024’s theme of #InspireInclusion. The moonshot theme each year is a call to set right the global issues that impact women. In 1908 in New York City 15,000 women marched to petition for shorter working hours, equal pay, and the right to vote.

While becoming an official day of international commemoration in 1977 (initially recognized by the United Nations in 1975), a much earlier global movement had emerged in 1910 when German feminist Clara Zetkin called for an international event during the Second Conference of Working Women held in Copenhagen. The 100 women in attendance from 17 countries unanimously supported Zetkin’s proposal.

During World War I women protested the war which churned on from 1914-1918. In 1917 a significant women’s protest in Russia (held on the Julian calendar date of February 23^rd — March 8^th in Europe’s Gregorian calendar) was an influence in Russia dropping out of the war and gave International Women’s Day their special date. Stalwart Russian women organized their protest for “bread and peace.”

This year protests were wide-ranging. In Thailand protestors highlighted the need for longer maternity leave with members of Thai labor unions wearing purple pregnancy dresses. German protestors focused on women’s need for better working conditions. In London’s Parliament Square protestors sought to bring attention to girls’ right to education in Afghanistan. Groups of protestors in downtown Seoul, Korea, called for freedom for Palestinian women while supporters for families of missing and kidnapped Israeli women staged a protest in Cape Town at the South African parliament.

Despite the reforms afforded to women today, the harsh realities of inequality still exist. In America women earned 83 cents for every dollar that men earned in 2022 (84 cents in 2024), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Internationally, women’s average disposable income rates 31% lower than for men. Gender equality cannot exist when there is such widespread income inequality.

According to UNICEF statistics, world-wide since 1995 the proportion of young women married as children has declined from 1 in 4 to 1 in 5. Equality is a pokey process. Globally, nearly 1 billion girls and women lack the job skills they need for the fast-changing job market; 1 in 4 girls (ages 15-19) are not receiving an education or job training as compared to 1 in 10 boys in this age range.

The UNICEF initiative, Skills4Girls Portfolio, hopes to reach 11.5 million adolescent girls with job skill-building by 2025. For example, in Jordan only half of all young women are either employed or engaged in educational training programs. Through mobile Innovation Labs, Skills4Girls provides girls with training in coding and 21^st century business skills.     

It seems unbelievable when we can send technology to reach the moon that we still lack “bread and peace” for our planet’s earthlings.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

271. Where do you see gender inequality in education?

272. How might you engage in the effort to uplift girls’ skillsets?