One hundred at best, 257 at worst — estimates of the number of years it will take the world to achieve gender equality make for grim reading.
The gender pay gap, the dearth of women in positions of leadership, the pervasiveness of sexist ideas and the expectation that women should bear the majority of child care responsibilities are all obstacles to progress.
As policymakers worldwide explore ways to improve gender parity, POLITICO looks at six of the boldest ideas and how they have fared.
Use-it-or-lose-it paternity leave
Women in Europe were routinely fired for getting pregnant no more than a few decades ago, and those who were married were sometimes barred from employment. Securing paid maternity leave was a major success of the women’s liberation movement in the 20th century.
What it hasn’t achieved is preventing women from being saddled with the majority of child care duties and facing discrimination at work as a result — this is where use-it-or-lose it paternity leave makes a difference.
“Sweden had parental benefits, not maternity ones, from the beginning.” — Ann Numhauser-Henning
Sweden is predictably ahead of the curve. Parental leave was introduced for both genders from the outset in 1975, said Jenny Julén Votinius, law professor at the University of Lund and Sweden’s representative to the European Equality Law Network. The government has also funded “massive information campaigns” to promote paternity leave.
“In the ’70s we had a picture on billboards of a very famous weightlifter holding a small child,” she said.
The state now grants 480 days (16 months) of leave to be shared by both parents, with 90 days reserved for the father on a use-it-or-lose it basis. Fathers already take a quarter of parental leave in Sweden as a result.
“Sweden had parental benefits, not maternity ones, from the beginning,” said Ann Numhauser-Henning, another law professor at Lund. Other countries, meanwhile, are rapidly arriving at the consensus that generous family-based policies are a cornerstone in the effort to promote gender parity.
Grade: ★★★★★
Gender pay gap fines
An enduring symptom of global gender inequality, the pay gap is a problem that just won’t go away. It resurfaces with a flurry of headlines every year as companies and governments around Europe publish their pay stats.
While paying men and women differently is illegal in most countries, the onus tends to be on the employee to prove they are underpaid — which involves a long and costly legal process.
Iceland has taken a more proactive approach to stamping out the problem by making it illegal for employers to sustain a gender pay gap; anyone employing more than 25 people that hasn’t been certified as paying equal wages for equal work faces daily fines. It’s a policy that has helped make Iceland the top country for overall gender parity globally for 11 years running.
An enduring symptom of global gender inequality, the pay gap is a problem that just won’t go away | Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
Grade: ★★★★
Gender quotas in boardrooms and parliaments
The dearth of women occupying senior positions in government, the media, law and the private sector is often cited as a major cause of enduring gender inequality.
Quotas are one way of tackling the issue, but they tend to divide opinion. Norway was the first country to introduce them for company boardrooms in 2003, ordering firms to ensure that women made up at least 40 percent of board members.
The policy has had mixed results. Norway had the third most gender-equal boardrooms in 2020 after France and Iceland, with women making up 42 percent of their members. Nonetheless, the majority of Norwegian company executives are still men. Just 15 of 213 publicly limited companies in the country were run by women in 2018, sparking a national debate about the failure to get women promoted to the top posts.
Magda Zenon, a gender equality campaigner in Cyprus, says that quotas are essential to achieving gender parity.
Quotas have also been introduced to achieve gender parity in politics. In 2003, Rwanda passed a law stipulating that women must hold at least 30 percent of roles in its political system; they now make up 62 percent of the Rwandan national legislature (taking the push for gender equality to the nation’s highest office remains unlikely, as it would require Paul Kagame, who has been president of the country since 2000, to step down).
Magda Zenon, a gender equality campaigner in Cyprus, says that quotas are essential to achieving gender parity. “Women need a hand up temporarily if we are to change the way people think,” she said. “The system is built to exclude them.”
Grade: ★★★★
Social assistance for domestic abusers
When it comes to gender-based violence and domestic abuse, there is a growing consensus that interventions should focus on perpetrators.
Drive, a program being rolled out in parts of the U.K., focuses on the most harmful and prolific perpetrators of domestic abuse. Case managers meet with abusers to help them address problems in their lives — mental health issues, lack of employment or housing — while ensuring they face the full consequences if they remain violent.
A pilot, which engaged 506 prolific abusers, found that the program reduced violence by 86 percent and sexual abuse by 88 percent.
When it comes to gender-based violence and domestic abuse, there is a growing consensus that interventions should focus on perpetrators | Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
Marianne Hester, a professor of gender, violence and international policy at the University of Bristol who evaluated the scheme, said focusing on abusers is important because “in the past, they’ve been the group nobody was able to do much with.”
Thinking about intervention at an earlier stage is important too, she added. “If only we’d been able to do something a long time ago with these individuals, we wouldn’t have got to the stage of them being very high-harm and high-risk.”
The program’s early success with high-risk perpetrators, however, means that it could make a major difference in reducing gender-based violence if extended further.
Grade: ★★★★
Bans on sexist advertisements
Sexist stereotypes are constantly reinforced in popular culture throughout films and music, and advertisements are designed to play on people’s prejudices and perceptions.
The U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority decided to ban advertisements that are deemed to reinforce harmful sexist stereotypes in 2019. Since then, ads from Volkswagen and Philadelphia portraying women as slightly hopeless compared to their dynamic and competent male counterparts have been axed.
While some have decried the move as an imposition from the “morality police,” others praise its boldness in fighting the proliferation of sexist ideas.
This year, an ad from fashion retailer Pretty Little Thing was banned for being overly sexualized and depicting women as sex objects.
While some have decried the move as an imposition from the “morality police,” others praise its boldness in fighting the proliferation of sexist ideas. Magdalena Zawisza, an advertising psychologist at Anglia Ruskin University, has written that the measure is a “move in the right direction” and could even be extended.
Its record so far suggests that the ASA’s no-nonsense approach is compelling companies to create more socially responsible ads.
Grade: ★★★
Segregated train carriages
Countries including Mexico, Japan, India and Brazil have repeatedly introduced women-only carriages in an attempt to guarantee their safety on public transport.
The idea has gained some traction in Europe. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn raised the prospect of introducing segregated train carriages in the U.K. during the party leadership contest in 2015 (only to reject the idea later on). Chris Williamson, who was a Labour MP in 2017, also floated the idea.
A women and children train carriage in Thailand | Taylor Weidman/Getty Images
The proposal has largely been met with derision among gender equality experts and campaigners, who say there is little evidence of its effectiveness in reducing violence and harassment.
Laura Bates, founder of campaign group Everyday Sexism, said the idea is “gravely insulting.”
“It suggests that there is action women can and should be taking to avoid being assaulted,” she wrote for the Independent in 2017. “This risks playing straight into victim-blaming beliefs that embolden perpetrators and prevent survivors from feeling able to report.”
Grade: ★