The Long Road to Achieving Gender Parity
blurb:isstoday:19062008gender
19 June 2008: The Long Road to Achieving Gender Parity
At the recently concluded World Economic Forum on Africa, that was held in Cape Town from 4 to 6 June, a variety of issues dominated the discussions. Of specific interest was the debate devoted to gender parity in Africa. This saw the formation of a group comprising of top female and male leaders from business, government, media, academia and civil society with the aim of collaborating on ways for companies, organizations and countries to eradicate gender inequality and better engage women in the economy.
(Picture: Courtesy World Economic Forum)
As stated by Saadia Zahidi, head of the World Economic Forum’s gender parity and women leaders programme, “Women account for a sizeable portion of Africa’s economies and could contribute considerably more if there were greater gender equality. The Africa gender parity group believes both women and men need to work together to close the gender gap, and thus better leverage women’s talent to increase productivity and prosperity in all of society”.
The group called for a comprehensive overview of the policies and programmes that have been effective in narrowing gender gaps in the region’s best performing countries and a transfer of these best practices to low performing countries.
On the assumption that we adopt a bottom up approach, the premise would be that the policies and programmes originate at the local community and organizational levels and then transcend to the national level through best practice advocacy by these same organizations. If this were the case, then the following ways of bridging gender gaps at an organizational level are proposed.
Firstly eliminate gender stereotyping. This is a psychological process that results from societal norms about the roles of men and women. The main drivers for social construction of gender differences are the cultural and politically defined roles and responsibilities to which men and women are socialized to conform. The four types of gender roles and responsibilities are productive roles, reproductive roles, community management roles and community politics roles. Women are seen to be more involved in the first two and men in the latter.
It is also imperative to enhance diversity. A diverse workforce helps staff to have an appreciation of the diverse cultures by acknowledging that there are differences in race, religion and gender and also provides a good balance without a specific category of people being dominant. It is this dominance that makes people feel that those who are not like them are different.
The aim would also be to influence culture and structure of service systems in the areas of human resource policies. This includes instituting flexi-time for women with family responsibilities; recruitment procedures; recommendation for promotions; induction; coaching and mentorship. Under mentorship, organizations should consciously build, create and develop opportunities for women in a bid to balance the gender inequalities in senior management positions.
The mentorship process should be geared towards placing women in strategic positions of leadership. It is also imperative to influence women’s behaviors, attitudes and career paths: help change women’s perceptions that work against them instead of for them. This is needed together with influencing men’s behavior and attitudes. Help men change from their negative perceptions and have an appreciation of women as equal contributors in the work place.
Improving gender balance would also mean creating knowledge awareness and promoting information on existing global and national laws on gender. It is equally important to provide education, capacity building and training. Education/sensitizing opens up the people’s minds and eliminates ignorance.
Instituting gender mainstreaming in the organization by setting organizational strategies from the planning stage that are specifically fashioned to address gender issues is also needed. This could be through practicing affirmative action: provide opportunities for women, marginalized groups, minorities, etc to ensure equal employment opportunities for all. This will entail ensuring that issues of representation are factored at all organizational levels in order to achieve gender balance.
Another important issue involves engendering budgets. Budgets should be created with the aim of providing women-friendly budgets to help address the gaps between promises of women’s empowerment and the reality of the budget by the substantial increase in allocation to women specific schemes.
Ensuring equal pay for equal jobs is certainly also of great importance. There should be no discrimination on pay based on gender, race, ethnicity, age, etc. People should be paid based on the functions they perform and the value placed on those positions and not on the identity of those occupying these positions.
Offering equally attractive perks to both men and women should furthermore be instituted: Organizations should offer perks that are specifically attractive to women as they rise up the ranks. Generally, the majority of the ones in existence are male focused.
Laterally, at the community level the following should be in place to enhance the contributions of women towards economic development: the existence of a facilitative environment that incorporates concerns of equal access to education and credit facilities; recognition for work undertaken by women which is still termed as domestic or household work and is not factored as economic contribution; changes in laws that inhibit women’s contributions; more entrepreneurial opportunities for women and finally governments’ conscious interventions at promoting gender parity.
In conclusion, organizations can draw from the above proposals and formulate policies as well as develop programmes that would serve as guidelines for narrowing gender gaps.
An organization’s bottom line is either to optimize profit and/or achieve its mission, goals and objectives. Women and men have to learn to work together and appreciate each other’s contributions, capabilities and achievements so that they meet the objectives of their respective organizations and jointly participate in the building and development of their community, country, continent and the wider global society.
Doris Murimi, ISS Deputy Director
