Gender equality still elusive

Last Friday, I went to an event marking International Women’s Day. I wish I didn’t have to. After all, it is 2018. Why are we still talking about women’s equality? Women should be equal. Gender equity should be in place. There shouldn’t be sex-based discrimination in any form. We shouldn’t still be having this conversation.

And yet, we are because women are not treated equally.

As a white male, maybe I am not the best person to speak about women’s equality but I really don’t understand why sex-based discrimination still exists in this world and, more importantly, Canada. It sometimes seems equality is like the Promised Land – always next year when we will get things right.

Maybe it is time to finally get down to business.

Speaking of business, many of the business students I know are women. Young, intelligent, capable women. They get employed and have very successful careers.

Yet women make up just 21.6 per cent of the Financial Post 500 board members according to the Financial Post’s ranking.

The standard argument for discrimination in the workplace is women are somehow “less capable” than men. Maybe women might not be as physically strong (although more on that later) but I fail to see how someone can argue women aren’t as mentally strong as men.

Certainly, looking at years of data from first year chemistry, there is no statistical bias regarding the top ten students. The number of women in the top ten mirrors the gender distribution of our institution. UNBC is presently 62 per cent female. Way more women are going to UNBC than men and they are doing very well.

They are as smart, as capable, and as able to engage in higher reasoning, mathematics and writing as their male counterparts.

From an education perspective, it is not just UNBC with a higher percentage of women. Women make up 50.4 per cent of the Canadian population but across the country they are 59 per cent of students enrolled in university degree programs. The numbers across the whole of the post-secondary sector are pretty much the same.

More women are going to university, more are getting degrees – 34.3 per cent of the female population aged 25 to 34 compared to only 26.0 per cent of the male population in the same age bracket – and yet we still see a gender bias in management positions at major companies and in the boardrooms across Canada. It gets worse if you look around the world. Women are also under-represented in politics – 26 per cent of the MPs in the 42nd Parliament, 28 per cent of municipal councillors, and 18 per cent of mayors.

Yet there is no way you can tell me a women isn’t every bit as capable of being an effective MP, MLA, mayor or councillor. When it comes to brains – and that is what these jobs rely on – there is no difference. That said, our prime minister did create a gender-balanced cabinet of highly qualified individuals.

Women in all jobs (both parttime and full-time) still only earn 68.4 per cent of the hourly wages enjoyed by men doing comparable work in Canada. Why is that?

For women in full-time positions, the number is slightly better at 73.3 per cent but still 27 per cent less than men. Women also represent about two-thirds of parttime workers.

With respect to being physically strong, we have just had the Winter Olympics. There are some amazing physically strong and capable female Canadian athletes.

Maybe they can’t do a quadruple toe loop or a switch backside triple cork 1620 but neither can 99.9999 per cent of the males in Canada.

Perhaps more to the point, they can do a triple toe loop or a tight inverted 900 tailgrab.

At the Pyeongchang Games, Canadians won 29 medals – 12 by men, 12 by women, and five were from mixed teams including a gold in mixed doubles curling. Try telling Kelsey Serwa or Cassie Sharpe they are less capable than a man.

At the end of the event last Friday, I couldn’t help feeling both uplifted by the very impressive speakers and saddened such an event is still necessary. Why can’t we just accept people as people?

I commented to a friend it was sad that in 2018 such an event was still necessary. Her comment back was “but it is not 2018 everywhere.” Very true words.

Women are treated as second class citizens in many other countries around the world. Malala Yousafzai was shot for daring to believe a girl deserves equal access to an education in her country. But maybe she understands the way forward for all of us: “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.”

Let’s change the world and then maybe we won’t need events such as International Women’s Day.