Soukaina Hadeg (86157)
Yasmine Talha (85515)
Gender Equality: A Cross-Cutting Issue
Definition, Indexes, and Components of Gender Equality
Defining the concept of gender equality is definitely an easier feat than that of other crosscutting issues impeding development. Gender equality refers to the equal rights
responsibilities and opportunities of women and men and girls and boys. Gender equality
implies that the interests, needs and priorities of both women and men are t aken into
consideration, recognizing the diversity of different groups of women and men. (UN
Women). A distinction should be made however between gender equality and gender
equity. The latter, according to the International Labour Office, refers to fairness of
treatment for women and men, according to their respective needs. This may include equal
treatment or treatment that is different but which is considered equivalent in terms of rights,
benefits, obligations and opportunities (Mencarini, 2014). Thus, gender equity can be
considered a step in the direction leading to gender equality since it recognizes that
women’s rights are not up to par with those of men due to historical disadvantages and
seeks to implement a set of measures to compensate for this setback. Gender equality is an
important issue today since, other than being a fundamental human right, it has become a
precondition for, and indicator of, sustainable people-centered development. (UN Women).
Gender has been proven to be a social construct. Consequently, the roles women and men
are expected to fulfill in society are not biologically but rather socially determined.
(Ö rtenblad, Marling, & Vasiljevic, 2017). The issue that arises is that, throughout history,
a hierarchy has been established regarding men and women’s roles in society where the
former is revered and admired while the latter is ridiculed and belittled. This has
contributed to the instillment of discriminatory social practices against which women have
been leading a long fight. Gender equality was not an important issue on the agenda of
states or even that of international organizations. Considered “low-politics”, women’s
issues were dismissed for a long time at the expense of “high-politics” such as security and
peace, deemed far more important and pressing issues (Kerr & Wiseman, 2018). The
international organization that first tackled gender equality as an international issue was
the UN. CEDAW was adopted in 1979, it represents an international bill of rights for
women. (Ö rtenblad, Marling, & Vasiljevic, 2017). Presently, gender equality is a core
objective of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Gender equality is its own
development goal, SDG 5, and is reflected in 45 targets and 54 gender-specific indicators
of the SDGs. (UNDP).
Gender inequality is measured by indices such as the UNDP's Gender-related Development
Index (GDI) ranking the countries from group 1 being the closest to gender parity to group
5 being the furthest from it. The figure below illustrates how the GDI is calculated and its
link to the HDI. Globally, no country in the world is on track to achieve gender equality by
2030. (Ford, 2019).
Source: United Nations Development Program (2015)
The components of gender equality as defined by Rolleri provide the requirements to achieve
gender equality. Equal participation is the first component, it entails that men and women value
and accept shared decision making, shared roles in personal relationships, household,
community, and political arenas, and shared and free expression of ideas, opinions, and needs.
(Rolleri, 2013). The second component is equitable access and use of resources, this implies
that men and women are aware of the resources available to them and have the knowledge they
need to use them. Men and women must have the time and mobility to obtain those resources.
(Rolleri, 2013). The third and final component is safety or freedom from violence, this means
that men and women are able to go about daily life without the presence or threat of physical,
sexual, or emotional violence, discrimination, harassment, domination, or coercion. (Rolleri,
2013). If these three elements are achieved, then by definition, gender equality becomes are a
reality.
Dimensions of Gender Equality
Gender equality is relevant in every aspect of life. Therefore, this issue takes on various
dimensions among which are education, poverty, employment, health, and politics.
Gender equality in education entails that a woman has access to education and can pursue it.
One obvious gender-specific distinction can be seen in the type of educational programs men
and women invest in. Women are overrepresented in care-related and sociocultural programs
and men in technical and economic ones. (Abendroth, 2014). The figures below provide
statistics illustrating the gender disparity that exists when it comes to education.
Source: UNWomen.org and UNESCO.org1
Gender is a factor that influences poverty just like age or ethnic factors. Women have fewer
material assets, social assets (the income, goods and services to which people have access
through their social relationships) and cultural assets (the formal education and cultural
knowledge that enable people perform in the human environment). (Godoy & Montaño, 2004).
This disadvantages them greatly and increases their chance of being poor.
Source: World Bank’s policy research working paper 8360 on Gender Differences in
Poverty and Household Composition through the Lifecycle 2018
Gender disparity extends to employment as well, women are less likely to be employed. If they
end up employed, women face many obstacles. Women get paid less than their male
counterpart both in controlled and uncontrolled gender pay as the figure down below shows.
Women are also more likely to do unpaid work when it comes to their households or family
businesses or take up part-time jobs because of family obligations.
1
These figures were made by the authors of this document. They are based on data presented by UN Women
and UNESCO on their website on gender equality and education.
Source: payscale.com2
Gender equality in relation to health reveals the inequal opportunities men and women are
presented with in healthcare. Women face many issues chief among them are maternal,
neonatal and child mortality in addition to female genital mutilation. They are also more likely
to suffer from mental illnesses as a result of violence. Reproductive health-care services are
not always accessible to women and girls resulting in unsafe abortions. The following statistics
available on the World Health Organization’s website paint the unfortunate reality of gender
disparity in healthcare.
295 000 Women
died of maternal
causes in 2017
7 million Women
are admitted to
hospitals every
year
in
developing
countries, as a
result of unsafe
abortion
200 million Girls
and women alive
today
have
undergone femal
e
genital
mutilation
810 Women die
every day from
preventable
causes related to
pregnancy
and
childbirt
Source: WHO.int
2
PayScale, as stated in their twitter biography, helps employers & employees have datainformed conversations around pay, leading to equity, engagement and employee retention. It
produces a gender pay gap report yearly.
Gender equality in politics means that women have the right to vote and that no discriminatory
laws prevent them from occupying positions of power in the political sphere. It is suggested
that imposing gender quotas in politics will enhance gender equality. Research, however,
shows that national gender quota laws do not always increase women’s political representation.
(Abendroth, 2014). The UN Women provides alarming numbers on women’s participation in
the political sphere on their website.
24.3% of all
national
parliamentarians
were women as of
February 2019
11 Women are
12 Women are
27 States where
serving as Head
of State as of June
2019
serving as Head
of Government as
of June 2019
women are less
than 10% of
parliamentarians
in single or lower
houses, as of
February 2019
Source: UNWomen.org
NGOs’ Envelopment in Gender Equality
Traditionally, NGOs have been at the forefront of advocating new laws and projects, and
encouraging governments to implement them. At the local, national and international levels,
NGOs are the "voice of the people". They take on the roles of propaganda, education, and
training, and actively monitor the achieved or unachieved goals. In the past two decades, NGOs
have actively advocated that women should be fully recognized for their tremendous
contributions to the family, society and development. Since the International Women’s Year
Conference held in Mexico City in 1975, UN NGOs have been the most steadfast advocates
for the implementation of the results of the UN World Conference on Women (Haslegrave).
NGOs undertake three roles in tackling the issue of gender equality: implementors, partners
and catalysts.
NGOs fulfill their role as implementors by providing goods and services that contribute to the
achievement of gender equality such as hospitals that deal with women’s health or schools that
grant girls equal access to education, and therefore guarantee equal opportunities in the future.
As for their role as partners, NGOs have been cooperating with governments, donors as well
as the private sector with the aim of making more efficient use of scarce resources, increasing
institutional sustainability, and improving beneficiary participation . And lastly, NGOs take the
role of catalysts, which can be considered to be the most important role mentioned so far ,
because in order to achieve gender equality, it is crucial to convince the key stakeholders and
actors with the importance of the cause by advocating for it. Furthermore, NGOs act as catalysts
by being involved in raising awareness and trainings. They are well placed to provide relevant
information on the subject and assist relevant actors in bringing about the changes which will
have to be put in place to ensure a gender equality.
While attempting to achieve their goals, NGOs face many challenges which are considered
obstacles in the face of gender equality. One of the most common challenge is resistance that
can come from either individuals who do not have interest in achieving gender equality, or
from institutions, which in this case becomes a systematic, on-going, sustained pattern of nonengagement with the issue of gender equality and a pronounced lack of support for the cause.
NGOs are also likely to face a massive lack of understanding of the issue, or the need and
importance of gender equality This can lead to lack of engagement and involvement of key
actors, minimizing the importance of the work and considering gender equality a ‘woman’s
issue’ (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2020). The next challenge is the lack of
resources, both human and financial due to the fact that gender equality is not taken as seriously
as other causes, therefore less people are willing to volunteer and less donors are willing to
donate. And lastly, NGOs have limited to no access to relevant data related to gender equality.
This is considered a challenge because relevant statistics are a tool to detect where problems
exist, therefore indicating where solutions must be directed specifically.
Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)
AWID is an international non-governmental organization working to achieve gender equality
and women’s human rights across the word. The vision of AWID is “a world where feminist
realities flourish, where resources and power are shared in ways that enable everyone, and
future generations, to thrive and realize their full potential with dignity, love and respect, and
where Earth nurtures life in all its diversity” (Human Rights Careers, 2020).
Many tactics are used by AWID to advance their work, such as, influencing, advocating, and
campaigning through advancing their agendas while working with policy makers, funders and
activists in regional and global spaces. They also rely on bridge building and connecting their
members to facilitate the exchange resources, ideas, and action across relevant issues.
Solidarity is also one of AWID’s tactics to support collective initiatives that promote gender
equality . And lastly, one of the most recent and progressive strategies is arts and creative
expression, which helps with putting the cause of gender equality in the center of attention,
therefore granting it more visibility on the international scene.
Gender Equality in Morocco
The most reliable element with which we can measure the levels of gender equality in any
country are indexes, and in the case of Morocco, we are faced with three main indexes that
highlight the gap between genders in the country: The gender inequality index (GII), the global
gap gender index (GGI) and the gender development index (GDI).
As of 2017, Morocco ranked 119 out of 160 countries in the GII with a score of 0.454 (Source:
UNDP), and as far as the GGI is concerned, Morocco ranked 143 out of 153 countries, placing
it at the bottom of the list (Source: World Economic Forum). When it comes to the GDI
Morocco ranked 121 out of 166 countries, as of 2019, placing it in the 5th group furthest from
achieving gender equality ( Source: World Economic Forum).
Inequalities between genders manifest themselves in four key areas: Education, Healthcare,
Economic participation and Politics.
Source : World Economic forum
Global gender gap report 2020
Education is a big steppingstone for equalizing boys and girls at a young age by giving them
both a fair start. Statistics show 78% of girls between the ages 12–14 are not in formal schooling
in the country's rural areas. As for economic participation, there are limited job opportunities
for girls because of the lack of education and the country's mind set is held back when it comes
to hiring women. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 66% of men are
working but only 25% of women are working in the formal economy. If as many women were
working as men income per capita could be almost 50% higher than it is now (Anta Ndoye &
Vincent Dadam, 2017).
In terms of politics, women gained both the right to vote and the right to stand in an election
on the same date in May 1963. Unfortunately, most women still struggle to gain access to
political leadership positions today. As of 2018, only 81 out of 395 parliamentary members
were held by women (Thelwell, 2020). There are also Inequalities in access to healthcare are
mainly due to the simple reason that women have different and more specific needs in terms
of health. They are the only category affected by maternal deaths with a rate that decreased
from 132 deaths per 100000 live birth between 2004 and 2009, to 112 deaths per 100,000 live
births in 2017 (Islamic Development Bank, 2019).
The involvement of NGOS in Morocco
Due to the significantly poor performance of state actors in addressing the issue of gender
inequalities in Morocco, the role of NGOs has taken greater importance.
Over the last two decades, the number of NGOs dealing with gender equality has doubled,
representing both the channeling of energies and passions into directly addressing and trying
to solve single issues about which women care profoundly, as well as the recognition of the
limitations of government programs in addressing social problems (Ennaji, 2016).
In Morocco, many women’s NGOs have been charged with a lack of professionalism and a
lack of accountability, for their staff is not always well trained in accounting, finance, fundraising, and computing skills. Despite problems related to a lack of training, information, and
expertise in collective management and initiatives, as well as weak communications (both
internally and externally) and a heavy reliance on international donor agencies for financing,
Moroccan NGOs strive hard to empower women through mobilizing different actors in civil
society, decentralization, and the development of their members’ skills. Women’s NGOs are
usually characterized by pragmatism and clear objectives, namely improving women’s
socioeconomic conditions, integrating them in development and ensuring their participation in
public life. They adopt strategies and actions that enable them to achieve sustainability through
the empowerment of women with the support of the state (Ennaji & Sadiqi, 2016).
In order to delve into the depths of NGOs’ work, we will look at a local NGO called « l’Union
Féministe Libre » (UFL), that has made it their mission to achieve gender equality since their
creation on the 21st of March 2016. Their vision consists of creating a future in which all
women will be considered as equal to men in all aspects of civil, political social and cultural
life. They also strive to make women self-reliant and therefore recognized and respected in
their own communities.
UFL relies on three main activities to achieve their goals, starting by providing legal and
psychological assistance to any survivor of violence based on gender or sexuality.
They also organize every Saturday an event whose goal is to raise awareness of gender-based
and sexual violence, as well as women’s personal development assistance. Between lectures,
screening / debate, group therapies, reading sessions, self-defense classes and different types
of workshops, UFL seeks to empower women, and transmit its values through different means
to reach all aspects of society. And lastly, UFL undertakes their role as advocates because
improvement can only be achieved through changing laws and diligent advocacy work.
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