The European Union Addresses Gender Inequality
Gender is arguably a socially constructed concept and in more modern times gender covers a much wider bracket than simply male and female. So what does this mean for laws and legislations in the EU? The European Union’s Parliament aim to address issues like this during 2018 and has given them top priority along with things like food security, women’s’ rights and crisis aid.
The Fight For Gender Equality
To be able to measure and analyse development in ultimately achieving equal gender rights for all is no easy feit. One of the best framework’s we have is that of the United Nation’s. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals issues a universal standard of targets that must be upheld by all communities, companies and countries alike. As well as this, national and trans-national governments and organisations including the EU have put their focus in the area of gender equality and aim to come together to make the situation better. The aim is to develop our society as a whole and to create and refine new and already implemented policies and legislation around gender issues. These organisations will asses and constantly check up on the gender equality across nations with features such as the Gender Equality Index. With such a strong backing the future looks bright.
The Gender Equality Index gives us a measure to compare any member states over a specific period of time. And also in multiple areas of focus, which are relevant at the current moment in time, to the European Union’s policy making and legislation writing. One of the main benefits to using the Gender Equality Index is that you have the option to monitor one single measure over time, then compare this to the overall progress between different states and countries. Thankfully this means that no one item is prioritized and we can look at all factors holistically as well as individually as experts agree that all of these factors are integrated and interdependent to each other.
Is This Just A European Issue Or A World Issue?
The truth of the matter is that gender inequality is a worldwide issue. Thankfully in the EU it seems that we have a very dedicated team going forward in addressing the problem. We can hope to see real change being implemented by 2018. As it currently stands, Sweden has the highest progress score of 74.2 and Romania is at the end of the leaderboard scoring only 33.7. As you can see the difference between these two places alone is substantial and reason enough for change. To keep up to date on the issues in the article it is always good to refer back to institutes and organizations such as the EU Institute for Gender Equality, where they provide you with real time graphs and pictograms dictating the progress or backwards nature of gender equality across Europe.
