The Missing Target: Changing Beliefs and Behaviours to Deliver Gender Equality

"Discriminatory gender norms can be challenged, power imbalances between women and men can be changed, but they must be confronted before young women arrive in the workplace because they start at home, continue at school and pervade every area of our society."

This report from Plan examines the impact of gender inequality, arguing that to bring about real change we must look outside the workplace and beyond laws and policies to focus on how and where discrimination and stereotyping hold women and girls back. Plan describes gender inequality as "a barrier to both social cohesion and economic prosperity. Despite some progress over the years, there has been no real shift in power which - at home, in the workplace and in public life - lies firmly in male hands....Non-discriminatory laws and policies and gender parity in specific sectors are clearly not enough."

As the report shows, gender norms, which are shaped by society's beliefs and perceptions, define what it means to be a girl, boy, woman, or man, and set limits for what is considered appropriate behaviour and actions. These entrenched attitudes interact with policies, laws, and specific sector initiatives, and limit their effectiveness.

In order to emphasise the importance of tackling oppressive gender norms, the report examines the impact of gender inequality across three key sectors deemed vital to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030:

• The digital economy - Digitisation and internet connectivity are driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but women are much less likely to work in the digital sector, and the gender gap in internet use is rising. Closing these gender gaps in digital literacy and the digital economy relies on challenging deeply entrenched ideas of what women can and should do. Technologies are often viewed as male-only domains. In recent years, companies, governments and organisations have launched a number of projects and campaigns to encourage girls and women to take up careers in the digital sector, primarily by challenging harmful gender stereotypes. For instance, Digital Learning Centres, set up by Plan International India in collaboration with Ericsson, use technology to provide quality education, using information and communication technology (ICT), to 15-25-year-old girls and young women within their communities. Encouraging young women to get the right qualifications, tackling harassment, promoting flexible hours, allowing employees to work from home, and scrutinising promotion and recruitment processes for gender bias would all help to create gender equality. This requires personal commitment from senior management and must extend beyond the writing of company policy into the behaviour and atmosphere prevalent in the workplace.
• Food security and agriculture - Plan cites these data: Globally, women produce 50% of the world's food but make up 60% of undernourished people. Individually, women engaged in agriculture face social, cultural, legal, and economic barriers to maximising production; their efficiency as food producers is undermined by gender bias. Even if civil law provides women with land and inheritance rights, local custom can overrule this. In economically poorer countries, women and girls often face "food discrimination" within their homes: only eating what is left after the men have finished, which is often not enough and of poor nutritional quality. This can be countered through dialogue with family members to challenge the status quo and highlight the health needs of women, particularly during pregnancy. Such interventions have brought about positive change - for example, the women, men, and children of the household all eating together, which means a more equal sharing out of food. Funding and running agricultural services and educational outreach work for women farmers could not only increase their efficiency but also raise their status as workers and contributors and increase their self-confidence.
• Education and work - In many countries, girls continue to be excluded from relevant, quality education, and even when they do complete school, they are significantly less likely to find paid work. Globally, a young man is 1.9 times more likely to get a job than a young woman, with the largest gap in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Discrimination also affects the types of jobs women do and how much they are paid. At the same time, it is often assumed that domestic and care work is the responsibility of women alone: women do an average of 75% of the world's total unpaid care work. There are efforts underway: "In Zambia, the Girls' Economic Empowerment Project provided adolescent girls with entrepreneurial skills alongside training on leadership, rights and life skills, and gender awareness sensitisation through dialogue with men, women and boys and through the media. The project saw a rise in young women taking leadership positions in their community, an increased agreement from community members that girls should be included in decisions about household spending, and community-led campaigns on issues such as ending child marriage and keeping girls in school. Girls in project groups developed their own savings and investment mechanisms, and in addition to the financial and employment benefits, the groups have provided a social safety net, learning opportunities, peer counselling and support." Plan calls for a cultural shift at home in terms of domestic responsibilities and at work in terms of family-friendly policies, mentorships, and a better understanding of how gender bias operates. It also means that men and boys must be part of the change.

Within each of these areas, the report shows how harmful attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours hinder progress, and how challenging them can be effective in driving gender equality.

The report concludes with a diagram showing that "[c]ollaboration at all levels is key: private sector, governments and NGOs [non-governmental organisations] must bring their specific skills, knowledge and competencies together and work to tackle harmful gender norms in the workplace, public institutions, communities and private spaces." For example, NGOs can use their influence amongst diverse groups and communities to help stimulate a paradigm shift in gender norms and power relations, changing the conversation from the bottom up.