Name: Emmy Silvester
Community/State: Geraldton , Western Australia
School: Nagle Catholic College
Age/Grade: 15 Years, Year 10
“Life is a roadtrip with twists and turns. How can we support one another to navigate the road to gender equality?”
Road to Gender Equality
Today’s western society is a complicated and diverse civilisation, with great aspirations of encouraging the individual to succeed. Although, through all of the progress that has taken place over the past centuries; involving racial and cultural rights, the issue of gender equality still remains present. We must ask, how can we move towards a better future, when half of the population is held back due to stereotypes and generational bias?
What is gender equality? The term itself has been tarnished by those who don’t understand it. Gender equality is not built on hatred towards specific groups or their position in society, but instead it is built on the equality of all. It is founded on the belief that when all people are given the same equivalent rights and opportunities, then we can work together to pursue a community of growth, and respect.
One example is that some believe that the issue is just with the gender pay gap, however we are reluctant to recognise, the underlying issues holding women, back every day. In our society, women are constantly pitted against one another, just as much as men are pitted against women. Our future paths can not be orientated on the end result of coming first or becoming number one. Competition outside of the sporting arena allows for progress, but only when there is genuine support for the ‘opposition’. Once we are able to embed this concept into the interactions between both women and men, we will finally start the movement down the road towards gender equality.
We must take a long, hard look, and ask ourselves why can’t we allow others to succeed? Why can’t we work together to evolve, what is a human movement?
A movement is started by one motion. It is started by one individual, man or woman who is willing to stand up for others, on what can be a difficult path. This journey can not be a movement if travelled alone, “Gender equality is a human right, not a women’s fight” – Frieda Pinto. I believe that both women and men, young and old must work as one in order to achieve this essential goal. Genders are not two opposing sides but instead two parts of our whole community, two equal participants of our workforce, two committed partners to this movement.