Question: Using readings and videos, answer the question-what do you believe is the future of gender equality?
In your answer address each of the priorities of the Biden administration’s National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality listed below. Although this is a U.S. document, you may also use examples from other countries.
-Improving economic security. “As we recover from the pandemic, we have the opportunity to build an economy that works for women and their families.” (National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, 2021).
-Preventing and responding to gender-based violence. “Gender-based violence is endemic in homes, schools, workplaces, the military, communities, and online—and far too often a hallmark of conflict and humanitarian crises. It exacts tremendous costs on the safety, health and economic security of survivors and their families” (National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality).
-Increasing access to health care. “Health care is a right, not a privilege. All people deserve access to high-quality, affordable health care, regardless of their zip code, income, ethnicity, race, or any other factor“ (National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality).
-Advancing democracy, rights and full participation. “Supporting women’s and girls’ full participation in social, economic, civic, and political life—and ensuring they are represented at the tables where decisions are made—is essential to progress in every other area and a precondition to advancing strong and sustainable democracies. Promote the leadership of women and girls in addressing the challenge of climate change and seek to close gender gaps in STEM fields so that women and girls can shape the workforce of the future” (National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality).
Also, in your answer comment on intersectionality (the impact of intersecting factors such as race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, economic status, religious affiliation, etc.) and the role of men.
Your answer should be a minimum of 350 words.
The attached files and the video links are REQUIRED for this assignment please utilize them.
Fact Sheet: National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality
October 22, 2021 • Statements and Releases
The Biden-Harris Administration issues first-ever national gender strategy to advance the full participation of all people – including women and girls – in the United States and around the world.
[Click here to read the Gender Strategy Report] President Biden and Vice President Harris believe that advancing gender equity and equality is fundamental to every individual’s economic security, safety, health, and ability to exercise their most basic rights. It is also essential to economic growth and development, democracy and political stability, and the security of nations across the globe. Ensuring that all people, regardless of gender, have the opportunity to realize their full potential is, therefore, both a moral and strategic imperative. Yet no country in the world has achieved gender equality—and we are at an inflection point. The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled a health crisis, an economic crisis, and a caregiving crisis that have magnified the challenges that women and girls, especially women and girls of color, have long faced. It has also exacerbated a “shadow pandemic” of gender-based violence in the United States and around the world. These overlapping crises have underscored that, for far too long, the status quo has left too many behind. This moment demands that we build back better. It requires that we acknowledge and address longstanding gender discrimination and the systemic barriers to full participation that have held back women and girls. And it requires that we bring the talent and potential of all people to bear to face the challenges of our time. That’s why the Biden-Harris Administration established the White House Gender Policy Council, charged with leading the development of the first-ever National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, which sets forth an aspirational vision and a comprehensive agenda to advance gender equity and equality in domestic and foreign policy—and demonstrates that families, communities, and nations around the world stand to benefit.
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The strategy identifies ten interconnected priorities: 1) economic security; 2) gender-based violence; 3) health; 4) education; 5) justice and immigration; 6) human rights and equality under the law; 7) security and humanitarian relief; 8) climate change; 9) science and technology; and 10) democracy, participation, and leadership. These priorities are inherently linked and must be tackled in concert. The strategy also adopts an intersectional approach that considers the barriers and challenges faced by those who experience intersecting and compounding forms of discrimination and bias related to gender, race, and other factors, including sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, disability, age, and socioeconomic status. This includes addressing discrimination and bias faced by Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American people, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, and other people of color. Strategic priorities include: Improving economic security. As we recover from the pandemic, we have the opportunity to build an economy that works for women and their families. To build back better, we will:
· Ensure that people have equal access to good jobs, including by addressing persistent gender discrimination and systemic barriers to full workforce participation.
· Invest in care infrastructure and care workers to help rebuild the economy and lower costs for working families.
· Dismantle the barriers to equal opportunity in education that undermine the ability to compete on a level playing field, recognizing that education affects future economy security.
Preventing and responding to gender-based violence. Gender-based violence is endemic in homes, schools, workplaces, the military, communities, and online—and far too often a hallmark of conflict and humanitarian crises. It exacts tremendous costs on the safety, health and economic security of survivors and their families. To prevent and response to gender-based violence, we will:
· Work to eliminate gender-based violence wherever it occurs by developing and strengthening national and global laws and policies, investing in comprehensive services for survivors, and increasing prevention efforts.
· Address sexual violence in conflict settings; the elevated risk of violence facing women human rights defenders, activists, and politicians; human trafficking both at home and abroad; and the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people.
· Promote the safety and fair treatment of all people in the justice and immigration systems.
Increasing access to health care. Health care is a right—not a privilege. All people deserve access to high-quality, affordable health care, regardless of their zip code, income, ethnicity, race, or any other factor. To protect, improve, and expand access to health care, we will:
· Build on the historic work of the Affordable Care Act and continue to expand and improve health care globally.
· Defend the constitutional right to safe and legal abortion in the United States, established in Roe v. Wade, and promote access to sexual and reproductive health and rights both at home and abroad.
· Address the pernicious effects of health inequity, including by addressing the maternal mortality crisis in the United States, which has a disproportionate impact on Black and Native American women, and by reducing maternal mortality and morbidity abroad.
Advancing democracy, rights and full participation. Supporting women’s and girls’ full participation in social, economic, civic, and political life—and ensuring they are represented at the tables where decisions are made—is essential to progress in every other area and a precondition to advancing strong and sustainable democracies. To advance democracy, rights, and full participation, we will:
· Work to advance gender equity and equality in the law and ensure that rights on paper are fully implemented in practice.
· Work towards gender parity and diversity in leadership roles, including in peace processes, national security and defense, global health and humanitarian efforts, and in the private sector.
· Promote the leadership of women and girls in addressing the challenge of climate change and seek to close gender gaps in STEM fields so that women and girls can shape the workforce of the future.
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Realizing this bold vision is a government-wide responsibility that cuts across the work of the Biden-Harris Administration in both domestic and foreign affairs. Implementing this strategy will require the leadership of every White House office and executive agency. This strategy is not just words on paper; it is a roadmap to deliver results for the American people and our partners around the world. And it builds on the work the Biden-Harris Administration has already done to advance gender equity and equality at home and abroad. Through the American Rescue Plan, we have provided immediate relief to women and families, fully vaccinating over two-thirds of eligible Americans, reopening schools, providing direct payments to individuals, investing in domestic violence and sexual assault prevention and services, and helping child care providers keep their doors open. The American Rescue Plan also expanded the Child Tax Credit, distributing monthly payments to tens of millions of American families covering over 60 million children. Building on the American Rescue Plan, the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal and Build Back Better Agenda are once-in-a-generation investments to support America’s working families to rebuild the economy and support women and families. Among its many transformative investments, the budget framework calls for: cutting taxes for middle class families with children, investing in the care economy and the care workforce, and lowering health care costs. To advance economic security for women and girls globally, we have established a Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund, which supports efforts to address the impact that COVID-19, climate change, conflict, and crisis have on the economic security of women and their families. And we have restored America’s leadership on the rights of women and girls on the world stage. We have also taken action to prevent and respond to gender-based violence, including through the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment in the Military and by directing the Department of Education to review Title IX regulations, guidance, and policies to ensure students receive an education free from sexual violence. We continue working with Congress on meaningful legislative action, including through championing the landmark Violence Against Women Act, which passed the House in March with bipartisan support, and signing into law the Amendments to the Victims of Crime Act. And we have committed to updating and strengthening our strategy to combat gender-based violence around the world. To advance women’s health around the world, the Biden-Harris Administration has revoked the Global Gag Rule and reinstated funding to the UNFPA. In the United States, the Administration has called for historic investments to respond to the maternal mortality crisis. The President also launched a whole-of-government effort to respond to the recent Texas law which blatantly violates women’s constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion under Roe v. Wade.
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To inform our ongoing and future efforts to advance gender equity and equality at home and abroad, the strategy calls for continued accountability, consultation, and engagement as we work towards our collective vision for gender equity and equality at home and abroad. Its implementation will guide strategic planning and budgeting, policy and program development, measurement and data, and management and training. We look forward to partnering with Congress, local, state, Tribal, and territorial governments, civil society, the private sector, foreign governments, and multilateral institutions to drive progress towards the objectives outlined in this strategy. In doing so, we will advance economic growth, health and safety, and the security of our nation and the world.
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International Journal of Care and Caring • vol 2 • no 3 • 425–31 • © Policy Press 2018
Print ISSN 2397-8821 • Online ISSN 2397-883X • https://doi.org/10.1332/239788218X15351945466012
debates and issues SPECIAL ISSUE • The care ethics moment: International innovations
Engaging men as fathers and caregivers: an entry point to advancing women’s
empowerment and rights
Joni van de Sand, [email protected] Laxman Belbase
Sinéad Nolan MenEngage Global Alliance, UK
Engaging men and boys to do unpaid care work is key to achieving gender justice. This article argues that caregiving programmes with men can be effective and serve as an entry point to engage men as allies for feminist agendas. There is a need to increase the uptake and scale-up of such initiatives, while ensuring quality, local contextualisation and ownership, and full accountability to women and girls. Furthermore, such programmes must be connected with efforts to advance women’s economic empowerment and rights, challenge social norms around caregiving, transform institutions, and be combined with progressive national policies to recognise, reduce and redistribute unpaid care work.
key words masculinities • engaging men and boys • unpaid care • gender equality
To cite this article: van de Sand, J., Belbase, L. and Nolan, S. (2018) ‘Engaging men as fathers and caregivers: an entry point to advancing women’s empowerment and right’, International Journal
of Care and Caring, 2(3): 425–31, DOI: 10.1332/239788218X15351945466012
Introduction
“My attitudes toward my daughter and son have changed. Because our society is still very patriarchal, violent and sexist towards women and girls, [my peers] make fun of me for supporting my wife at home, taking care of our children and engaging in household chores. But I don’t care as I know this is the right thing to do and it will ultimately bring happiness, peace and prosperity to the family.” (Mr Ram Kumar, father from a rural village in Kapilvastu, Nepal, and participant in the ‘Positive Fatherhood for Child Care and Gender Equality’ project, Save the Children Nepal)
“He doesn’t drink and make noise anymore. He has become a good example for our neighbourhood. We encourage our sons and husbands to be like him, engaging and supporting their wife and daughters with household works, and taking care of their children and mother. He is mostly at home
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doing household work, supporting his wife, supporting children with their homework and is less aggressive with his family members. We don’t see him strolling around the village anymore. He is very different now from the way he was before, and from most of the other men.” (Ms Dashiya Tharu, Ram Kumar’s neighbour)
Ram Kumar’s transformation is one example, among many, of the promising changes that have started to emerge among men who are part of fatherhood and caring programmes. In recent years, initiatives that seek to engage men as active, gender- sensitive, non-violent fathers and caregivers have been developed in diverse contexts around the world. Such programmes are an important means of encouraging men to take on their fair share of caring and domestic work, and engaging them as allies for gender equality. However, efforts to engage individual men in caring must be embedded in national strategies to recognise, reduce and redistribute unpaid care work (as well as paid care work), and combined with a range of progressive policies that support women’s economic empowerment, rights and gender justice.
Unpaid care has only gained visibility in international policy in recent years, despite the fact that the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the outcome of the 1995 World Conference on Women, called for the recognition and redistribution of unpaid care. The value of unpaid household and care work is increasingly being recognised, not just for children and family members, but also for the long-term health of societies and economies. As men’s involvement in caring gains international attention, the work of the MenEngage Alliance in promoting gender equality by engaging men and boys and transforming masculinities is becoming increasingly relevant.
As numerous programmes to engage men in fatherhood and caring emerge, a number of critical ethical considerations become important:
• How do we connect programmes that engage individual men with efforts to challenge stereotypical social norms around caring, and transform systems and institutions towards the recognition, reduction and redistribution of unpaid care work?
• How do we increase the uptake and scale-up of such initiatives, while ensuring quality, local contextualisation and ownership?
• How do we ensure that these programmes engaging men are accountable and meaningfully contribute to women’s economic empowerment, women’s rights and gender justice?
The MenEngage Alliance
The MenEngage Alliance is an international network of civil society organisations that implement, research and advocate for gender-transformative approaches to engaging men and boys towards women’s rights and gender justice. The Alliance currently has over 700 member organisations across 70 countries worldwide and is organised in country- and regional-level networks. In partnership with women’s rights and gender justice activists and organisations, the Alliance seeks to add value to existing initiatives by exploring how transforming patriarchal masculinities and engaging men and boys can contribute
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to the joint objectives set by feminist and social justice movements. The work brings a men-and-masculinities lens to initiatives that seek to reduce gender-based violence and discrimination, advance sexual and reproductive health and rights for all, redistribute unpaid care work, and transform militarised masculinities in order to achieve peace and security.
MenEngage Alliance members use a wide range of strategies to engage men and boys, including direct programming, community mobilisation, public awareness campaigns and policy advocacy. At the global level, the Alliance seeks to strengthen the capacity of civil society organisations and activists to implement gender-transformative approaches to engage men and boys. The Alliance supports network building by creating online and in- person spaces to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and promising practices. The Alliance also engages in policy advocacy, at national levels as well as at the United Nations, with governments and service providers to promote progressive policies that include a men- and-masculinities perspective in order to advance women’s rights and gender equality. Another core role of the Alliance at the global level is strengthening accountable practices in the field of engaging men and boys in order to ensure that this work supports and adds value to the efforts of women’s rights and other social justice organisations.
The gendered ‘burden’ of caring
There is no country in the world where women’s rights are fully realised and where gender equality has been achieved. Inequalities between and among women, men and people of diverse gender identities are manifested in many ways, not least in the division of labour, both unpaid and paid. Feminist economists and social policy scholars have produced rigorous evidence for decades confirming that, across the world, burdensome aspects of care work fall disproportionately on women and girls. This comes as no surprise. However, the scale of that inequality is staggering – throughout the world, women and girls continue to spend two to 10 times more time than men and boys on unpaid care work, including domestic work, water and firewood collection, and caring for children and those who are ill or old (Donald and Moussié, 2016; Heilman et al, 2016). Even in countries like Sweden and The Netherlands, known for being relatively gender-equal, women still do 20% to 60% more unpaid care work than men (World Bank, 2015). In the US, national data show that women with children under the age of six spend just over an hour a day on hands-on care, while men do only about 50% of that amount (World Bank, 2015).
This unequal division of care work acts as one of the primary barriers to women’s economic empowerment (and empowerment in general) and relates to several key women’s rights violations worldwide. Women make up 40% of the global formal workforce yet, on average, earn 24% less than men (Levtov et al, 2015). At the current rate of progress, the International Labour Office (ILO, 2011) estimates that it will take another 75 years before women and men achieve equal pay for equal work – and that is probably an optimistic calculation. Even when women have paid employment, they still perform most of the domestic tasks, including household maintenance and childcare, leading to a ‘double-burden’ on women; it is an unequal distribution of unpaid care that limits women’s and girls’ time for other pursuits, such as education,
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career development or political participation, relegating them to low-income and insecure employment (Ferrant et al, 2014). In addition, existing social norms and expectations often force women to take on stereotypical positions related to care work, such as domestic workers, teachers, nurses and so on – positions that are crucial to society yet generally undervalued and underpaid. As populations around the world grow and age, the care labour market will only increase in importance. It is imperative, therefore, that societies begin to adapt to these new circumstances. Care work needs to be better recognised: it is necessary for all societies to function, has tremendous value and is a source of fulfilment to many. The inequalities in who pays for and provides care require urgent realignment in a manner that will bolster women’s rights, generate jobs and make societies more just and equal.
Engaging men in fatherhood and caregiving
Achieving gender equality will mean that men and boys take on 50% of the world’s paid and unpaid care work. This will require that boys and men, from early childhood, are socialised in ways that seek to transform the gendered division of care work specifically, and the gendered division of labour in general. In order to advance women’s economic empowerment and gender justice, it is essential to examine and challenge the stereotypical notions of masculinities that are currently inhibiting men’s care work, and to engage men and boys to take up their share of caring and domestic work.
Equal sharing of responsibilities is the right thing to do – it supports women’s human rights and gender justice. Research has shown that positive male parental involvement leads to improved maternal and child health, as well as stronger and more equitable partner relations, and increases the likelihood that sons will grow up to be more gender-equitable and involved fathers, and that daughters will be empowered (Ferrant et al, 2014). In addition, male engagement in caring has benefits for men themselves, and research from the State of the World’s Fathers reports shows that men who are more active in caring roles are healthier, happier and less violent (Levtov et al, 2015).
The MenEngage Alliance and the transformation of gender norms
The MenEngage Alliance’s member organisations implement programmes to engage individual men in caring, such as fatherhood-preparation courses that focus on men’s roles in the lives of children and attitudes towards caring, addressing fathers’ reported feelings of being unprepared for caring; and helping them see the benefits of greater participation. The Alliance and its members also work to transform social norms around caring more broadly and increase recognition of the value of unpaid care, as well as the participation of women in paid work. Through public campaigns and community engagement, the Alliance works to challenge people’s deeply entrenched attitudes, behaviours and stereotypes around masculinity and caring. It also aims to transform the understanding of boys’ and men’s roles in caring, including in professional care work, which is often perceived as low value ‘women’s work’.
Much of the work on fatherhood and caring by Alliance members is done through the MenCare campaign (see: www.men-care.org), active in more than 45 countries, which promotes men’s involvement as equitable, non-violent fathers and carers. The
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MenEngage Alliance and its members, in particular, through the ‘MenEngage Men and Fatherhood Working Group’, provided foundational support to develop and initiate the MenCare campaign. Through innovative programming, public awareness campaigns and policy advocacy, MenCare engages men at all levels – individuals, communities, institutions and policymakers. Since its inception in 2011, the campaign has reached millions of people with positive messaging that challenges stereotypical expectations around masculinity and caring. MenCare publishes the ‘State of the World’s Fathers’ reports (see: https://sowf.men-care.org/), which provide a global view of the state of men’s contributions to parenting and caring (with issues in 2015 and 2017, and forthcoming in 2019). MenCare is co-ordinated by Promundo and Sonke Gender Justice, both members of the Alliance, in collaboration with a steering committee that includes Save the Children Sweden, Oxfam GB, Plan Sweden and the MenEngage Alliance.
For the MenEngage Alliance, accountability to women’s rights and other social justice movements and feminist principles is key in everything it does, including its work on engaging men in unpaid care. Feminist activists have been working on these issues for decades, and in order to ensure accountability to them, it is imperative that programmes and initiatives to engage men in caring are informed by feminist and rights-based approaches. The Alliance works to promote such accountable practices among its members and partners, and to ensure that programmes are implemented in ways that further strengthen the feminist agenda. The Alliance acknowledges that fatherhood is a crucial entry point to reach men but argues that it should not stop there. Rather, programmes supporting men to become more engaged fathers and partners can serve as a starting point to explore more difficult conversations about masculinities and men’s roles in gender inequality, including about challenging topics such as gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health and rights. The Alliance supports, and stands in solidarity with, women’s rights activists’ call for maternity leave, where there is a lack of proper parental leave for women, and to mobilise members to support this call. It also aims to mobilise men and boys in changing attitudes that reinforce the gendered division of labour, and to reduce the disproportionate share of care work, by taking responsibility for caring for the mother or partner and child (including pregnancy, prenatal and post-natal care). By engaging men in fatherhood programmes, the Alliance seeks to mobilise them as allies in the struggle for women’s rights and gender justice for all.
In order to cha