Gender equality and Sustainable future for women and girls.
By Adeola Alabi Adeleke
Another international women’s day 2022 is here again. In Nigeria, the president’s wife, governors’ wives and activists gathered to listen to some well-known women give lectures, recognise the achievements of women in different spheres of influence and, socialise with the who is who among them and enjoy their well-made dinner.
Women’s rights convention was held in 1848, called the Seneca Falls Convention or the human rights convention. It fought for the social, civil, and religious rights of women. At this convention, participants demanded acknowledgement of and respect for women’s rights in all spheres of life. In 1908, 15,000 women went on strike in New York because of low pay and terrible conditions in their factories.
In 1909, the Socialist Party of America organised National Women’s Day. In 1910, a conference was held in Copenhagen, Denmark, about equality and women’s right to vote. This idea grew and became International Women’s Day (IWD) for the first time in 1911. This led to the UN Charter of June 26th, 1945, and on February 12th 1946, women took the first stand to encourage women’s equality within the UN. Eleanor Roosevelt, a United States delegate, read an open letter addressed to ‘the women of the world’, encouraging women to participate more actively in politics and that participation in the UN should grow. Global awareness of women’s issues became the focus of the commission’s consideration, and the United Nations declared March 8 of every year as the International Women’s Day in 1975.
International women’s day, in the words of the onetime First lady of America, is women’s rights are human rights. However, gender inequality has remained a global pandemic. Gender equality implies that women and men should equally benefit from resources, services, and societal changes. Gender equality means an equal visibility, empowerment, and participation of both sexes in all spheres of public and private life. Gender equality is the opposite of gender inequality and aims to promote women’s full participation. Gender equality is an opportunity for all. Gender equality is ‘the ability of men and women to live equally fulfilling lives, recognising that they have different needs and priorities, face various constraints, have different aspirations and contribute to development in different ways. Gender equality does not mean the sameness of women and men. It simply means that women and men must have equal rights, prospects, and opportunities in all areas of the economy and society if sustainable economic and social development is achieved. Equality does not mean that women and men will become the same, but that women’s and men’s rights, responsibilities, and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male or female.
This year’s Women’s Day celebration theme is Gender Equality for a Sustainable Tomorrow. This means, therefore, that, without gender equality today, a sustainable future, and an equal future remains out of reach. Sustainable tomorrow in all spheres of life requires gender equality. It requires sustainable tomorrow in society’s economic, social, and political spheres. Women empowerment is an antidote to achieving gender equality. Therefore, for a sustainable tomorrow, Nigerian women are calling for gender equality. Equality is not in sameness, but gender equality in the fields of the same opportunities.
For a sustainable tomorrow to be achieved, women need to be equally empowered as their male counterparts. This is because women and girls are more likely to suffer hunger, limited health care services, discrimination on all sides of the spectrum, and vulnerable to natural disasters, wars and instability due to climate change.
To achieve sustainable tomorrow, women and girls need to overcome social barriers and norms. Perceptions and stereotypes about gender roles through promoting new social standards need to change. Both genders should universally condemn violence against women and girls. Those in authority should pass gender-related legislation in Nigeria to achieve a certain level of gender equality.
Political participation and lack of access to information, technology and finance are among the underlying reasons that need to be addressed to make women less vulnerable to climate change impacts. The United Nations, in their statistics, shows that women and children suffer the most in the effect of natural disasters in the world. The impact of climate change shows that more women and girls die of natural disasters and the effects of climate.
To achieve a sustainable future for women and girls in Nigeria, the government should encourage better political participation and better access to information and technology, consequently making women less vulnerable to climate change impacts. That is why there is an urgent need to overturn restrictive barriers and norms. We need to increase women’s decision-making ability, reduce their work burdens, increase their access to resources and support their political interests.
The former Tanzania President Julius Nyerere rightly stated at the fourth women’s conference that by virtue of their sex, women suffered from inequality that had nothing to do with the contribution to family welfare. If we want our country to make full and quick progress now, our women must live on full equality with their fellow citizens, who are men.
Women in Nigeria are yet to celebrate and recognise the achievements of women in the economy, politics, agriculture and break in the gender bias. In the national government, there are few women at the helms of affairs in the country of almost fifty per cent women. Out of 109 members in the Senate, there are seven women senators. Among the 469 members of the House of Representatives, 19 are women. Women hold 20 per cent of executive positions in corporate Nigeria, but 33 per cent in the workforce. Few laws protect women in Nigeria. However, there are recommended laws that the Senate has rejected to pass into law. Women’s voices must be heard in Nigeria in political representation and decision making. Women’s voices in Nigeria need to be heard in policies and programmes that promote gender equality and build a more sustainable future for all.
Almost fifty years after the first Women United Nations conference, when March 8 was declared International Women’s Day to achieve sustainable tomorrow, women in Nigeria call on the government to prioritise the impact of climate change and climate-related hazards as stated in SDG13. Also, women in Nigeria call on the government to ensure that SDG 5 achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls to be accorded better attention. The United Nations realises that climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity and threatening the health of women gender inequality . Women in Nigeria look forward to gender equality for a sustainable tomorrow.
Adeleke, a retired nurse and educator, has a PhD in History and International Studies and passionate about gender issues.
