The theme for International Women’s Day this year is “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”. This theme has been chosen to recognize and appreciate the contributions of numerous women leaders around the globe who have overcome the odds and succeeded in varied fields like economics, politics, technology, and science, to build a better and more sustainable future.
Is gender equality important for sustainable development?
While the 21st century has seen a significant increase in the number of women taking up employment in various fields, many cultures still view women as the primary, and sometimes exclusive, care givers at home. This perception places many unique challenges to women in terms of managing multiple responsibilities at work and home, limiting their ability to focus on and achieve their professional and personal goals. In many rural areas and poorer communities, women and girls are devoid of education, have limited access to financial and technological resources and are restricted from rising to positions of prominence at large.
However, women can play a very impactful role in many industries as they understand the intricacies of resource management through their various roles in households and society. Therefore, gender equality is crucial to ensuring a balanced approach to the economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainable development. Due to the biases prevalent in society, only half of the talent pool is exposed to opportunities of productive work and many of the women who could be agents of change go unrecognized. Statistics shows that gender equality and ensuring education to girls can bring in economic development and sustainable growth in the long run.
It is time to #Break the bias
Sustainable development relies on providing equal opportunities to everyone. In a society, where we are affected by many unconscious biases based on gender, culture, language, and region among so many others, we can’t expect strides of change overnight, however creating awareness of existing biases would be the first step to make the change. It is time to Break the Bias.
A recent study by McKinsey shows that women account for 54% of overall job losses due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which clearly outlines how social and environmental issues adversely impact certain genders. It is time to bring in a gender-responsive approach to address the vulnerabilities that each group is facing. Having a better understanding of the diverse and gender-specific interests and needs would help and it is imperative to have strong representation from this group in planning and decision making on response actions as well.
What can we do?
Action should be taken at all levels – individuals, families, workplaces, communities, governments, and international organizations. Basic principles of Gender equality could start at home, where there is no segregation of household chores based on roles. Education could play a greater role in changing perceptions and combating stereotypes in the younger generation. Societies should ensure that everyone is free to exercise their basic rights such as education, health, and their choice of career irrespective of gender.
Workplaces could promote gender equality by creating an open-minded atmosphere, offering flexibility at work to promote work-life balance, increasing diversity in hiring and recognizing their employees based on merit. They could empower women leaders to make decisions and support them on technological innovations which can solve some of the social and environmental challenges. Technology is the superpower of this century and will be a driving force in determining the future we build for ourselves. It is crucial to have women play a key role in developing new technologies so they are becoming the change agents of tomorrow by creating user friendly, effective, empathetic, and sustainable solutions to the challenges we face.
As a woman in technology, and the mother of a daughter, I am passionate about breaking the biases and achieving gender equality. I earnestly wish that the next generation walks into a world free of biases, that presents equal opportunities for everyone. It might take us a while to make big strides and achieve appreciable change, but it’s time that organizations start focusing on increasing awareness about unconscious biases and changing perceptions so that we foster a more equitable, inclusive, and energized culture where each person is primed to maximize their true potential.
is a Director of Engineering at Happiest Minds with the Hardware & Embedded group. She has over two decades of hands-on experience in adding measurable value to clients through Hardware and Embedded Systems design.
Divya’s expertise is in delivering embedded and digital transformation solutions to customers across domains such as networking, storage, telecom, computing and Industrial IoT.
She holds a master’s degree in Embedded Systems from BITS, Pilani.
