Name: Hannah Bowden
Community/State: Busselton, Western Australia
School: Georgiana Molloy Anglican
School Age/Grade: 16 Years, Year 11
Bio: Click here
“Life is a roadtrip with twists and turns. How can we support one another to navigate the road to gender equality?”
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference”
– Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
The road to gender equality is both unpaved and uphill, however, as Frost notes, it is these harder paths that will make “all the difference”.
Gender equality is a key focus in the 21st century due to increased awareness of the challenges faced by women. Statistics within the Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2018 Face the Facts: Gender Equality report confer these challenges- including the current weekly pay gap between men and women standing at 15.3% and 50% of women having experienced sexual harassment [2].
There are three components to navigating the road to gender equality; policy creation, policy implementation and individual responsibility. Australia has created and implemented policy- most notably the Sex Discrimination Act (1984) which formalised our commitment to the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. This has led to positive progress such as the Paid Parental Leave Scheme and a 17.9% increase in the number of women on ASX listed company boards. [2]
The third (and often overlooked) component of establishing gender equality is individual responsibility- the actions everyone can take to uphold and protect the rights of women and men alike. We all have rights, detailed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), but many people are unaware of the responsibilities they entail. Creating a voluntary program in Australian schools and workplaces will create awareness, an idea enshrined within Article 26 of the UDHR;
“Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.” [3]
The curriculum of such a program would include individual’s rights, and how to fulfil your responsibilities to respect the rights of others. The lessons could be conducted online, varying in length and target age group accordingly. By informing individuals about human rights and responsibilities the program would enable them to act with respect and understanding in everyday interactions, simultaneously reducing discrimination based on gender, religion, ethnicity, age etc. at an individual level. The flow-on effect of these individual interactions is a more tolerant, respectful society.
By taking this multi-faceted approach – policy creation, policy implementation and individual responsibility – gender equality is a road we can, and must, conquer together.
Bibliography:
[1] Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/convention-elimination-all-forms-discrimination-against-women-cedaw-sex-discrimination-international
[2] Face the Facts: Gender Equality 2018
https://www.humanrights.gov.au/education/face-facts/face-facts-gender-equality-2018
[3] Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html