Despite challenges, crusade for gender equality continues

THE observance of Women’s Month this March puts in sharp focus the need to acknowledge gender equality as more than just a catalyst for improving the lives and enhancing the rights of women. In the 1960s, the feminist movement swept across the United States, inciting women to break out of their traditional roles, assert their right to reproductive choices and fight sexual discrimination in the workplace.

The male-dominated corporate establishment closed ranks against the growing tide of women’s liberation. But the writing was on the wall, and it was just a matter of time before the walls of gender-based bias began to crumble.

The feminist movement has since morphed into a crusade for women empowerment. The challenges facing women during the 1960s were basically the same ones confronting women today but on a much bigger scale.

Despite notable gains in gender equality, more women than men around the world struggle with economic, political and social burdens.

Based on figures compiled by UN Women, the United Nations agency dedicated to gender equality and women empowerment, the outlook for the world’s female population does not look promising at all. One in every 10 women is living in extreme poverty. If the trend is not reversed, by 2030, 342.4 million women and girls will still be living on less than $2.15 a day.

Women are less likely than men to have access to financial institutions or have a bank account.

Men still make up the majority of the labor force, and women with children have a smaller chance of landing jobs.

In the agricultural sector, women are relegated to seasonal, informal, part-time and low-wage work with limited access to social protection, UN Women said. Women farmers are edged out by their male counterparts when it comes to land ownership.

The gender gap extends to entrepreneurship, with women facing more barriers than men do in starting businesses.

Women also “shoulder a disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work,” according to UN Women. The inequality is particularly glaring among “low-income, migrant and racialized groups, who “perform more than three-quarters of unpaid care and domestic work.” The list goes on.

Interestingly, the Philippines has managed to go against the global trend. In the latest Global Gender Gap Index report (GGGR) of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the country improved to 16th place in 2023 from 19th the previous year in gender equality among 146 countries.

In measuring gender equality, the WEF takes into account economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.