Each year, March 8th marks the International Women's Day all over the world to highlight the needs for a stronger gender equality and more protection towards women's basic right of safety, education, work and more.
Under the Sustainable Development Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, you will find a lot of resources to learn about critical issues that affect women everyday and which negatively impact the potential for social and economic development of communities.
On OUTSIDE THE BOX, we have so far shared the voice and words of 16 women which try to change the world their own way, one step at a time. Through them we have discussed periods and hygienic protections, the situation of refugees, the protection of biodiversity, the need to connect to nature and appreciate what we are given, zero-waste and creativity.
Throughout the year we aim at raising the bar even higher and let more find their voice and share inspirational stories.
What about gender equality in Switzerland?
I strongly invite our Swiss reader to read the article of Swiss Info "Swiss gender parity ranking shows slow progress" of December 2018 which nicely summarizes the outcomes of the Global Gender Gap Report 2018 of the World Economic Forum:
"Switzerland’s top 20 finish in the 2018 ranking signaled an end to the declining trend: from 8th in 2015, 11th in 2016, and 21st in 2017"
"Where Switzerland shows the greatest room for improvement is when it comes to economic participation, specifically the ratio of men and women in senior positions such as legislators, senior officials, and managers. Women make up 33.9%, a slight drop from 35.6% in 2017. Estimated earned income for women is $53,362 compared to $76,283 for men."
During an event organized by JCI Central Switzerland last year around the Sustainable Development Goals, SDG 5 - Gender Equality was frequently raised as one that could be improved in the country in terms of daily priorities and activities.
We discussed the challenge to balance work and family life due to the lack of adapted kindergarten infrastructures (e.g. school working hours which do not fit a regular corporate schedule, lack of places and options for full-time working mums, prices of private schools that push for a second salary at home), the silent peer pressure to stay home after birth, or the untold feeling that high-level jobs remain for men mostly (and that women need to justify their value even more, often for a lower salary). We looked at how marketing and advertizing lead our needs and consumption patterns (e.g. pink products that are more expensive than blue ones despite being identical, higher VAT on female hygienic products,...).
What does the International Women's Day mean to you?