Breaking through Stereotypes the Path towards Gender Equality
and i want you to join me in choosing to
challenge
gender stereotypes and bias
but before we do that i’m going to put
all of you into a time machine
and we’re going to very quickly for
about 40 seconds travel back
into the 1950s to rural kansas a farming
community
in the middle of america and i want you
to pay
particular attention to an adorable
little girl
you know who i’m talking about i hope
you’ll be able to see and i hope this
[Music]
works
now that little girl is my mother
chris and i know what you’re thinking
it’s women’s day shaumbi wants all of us
to know how much he loves his mother
and well i do love her very much and she
will be watching this
i’m sure later that’s not the point in
fact
i’m not bringing flowers up onto the
stage nothing wrong with flowers
but my point is actually the opposite of
being sentimental on women’s day
rather it’s speaking about
a very simple but i think powerful
lesson
from my mother’s upbringing she grew up
on this farm iconic kansas farm
in the 1950s she was
the youngest the third born of three
sisters
in the family to my grandparents
grace and albion avery
so on the avery farm
actually they had first two girls my
aunts
joni and cherry but you know of course
in the 50s especially in a farm you need
a boy
right you got to have a boy on a farm
for things to work
and third time’s a charm so my
grandparents
thought let’s try again only this time
the third time was a charming little
girl my mother
chris so on the avery farm
there was no time for
luxury such as gender stereotypes
boys roles girls roles
it was just a heck of a lot of work
to be done and three girls to do it
that was it so from a very early age
my mother and her sisters they learned
how to get dirty they learned how to get
strong
they learned how to do every single job
on that farm whether it was
driving tractors driving big trucks
sowing harvesting
using big machete knives to cut down
weeds the size of small trees
picking up really really really heavy
bales of hay and throwing them to the
hungry cows
i wanted to have a bale of hay as a prop
but i couldn’t find one
they had to do everything and maybe
maybe because all three girls were
equal participants in the economy of the
farm
equal members of the family equally
valued
my grandparents always invested in them
and my grandparents not only encouraged
each of those girls
to go to college to go to university
they expected it
and sure enough all three girls did
which i can tell you was quite rare in
the 1950s in rural kansas
now when my mother left home
left the farm to go out into that scary
world
and i and i i just i love this her gift
her present from my grandparents
was a really big fancy toolbox
that is what was going to get her
through life
so i think the lesson again
very simple but powerful that
gender stereotypes these roles boys
girls
this is just a social contract
that construct rather that
when you want it to disappear it will
disappear you just have to make it
happen
now i’d like to speak a little bit about
gender equality
what is it what is it not
at least in my view in sort of simple
terms
first of all what is it i mean of course
fundamentally at the core it’s about
rights
it’s about universal inalienable rights
that every girl and boy is
born with by virtue of being human
human rights civil rights political
economic social rights this is very
clear
and i want to talk about a little bit
more another side of gender equality
it’s about
prosperity it’s about the path
to the best possible life for all of us
now i’m a an economist by my education
not by profession
i figured the world doesn’t really need
another economist
so i took a different direction but i
still like to
call back on on that training to explain
things especially
emotional social issues i like to help
explain them through
the unemotional facts of numbers
so i’d like to just bring one concept to
your attention
probably many of you recognize what this
is
this is a simple aggregate production
function
a cobb douglas production function for
those of you
in the know it’s very basic
probably you can’t even see it from the
back but you know
why the output this is the result
of our endeavor if it’s the macro
economy then that’s going to be gdp
if it’s a firm producing widgets then
that’s the number of widgets that you’re
making if it’s a government producing
policy
that’s the quality of the policy that
you’re making
now the y of course is a result of the
inputs
the factor inputs so you’ve got a k
there this is for capital
again it can be investment machines
infrastructure
the l is labor the human capital
now i’d like for you to imagine a very
simple concept
basic concept and this is marginal
product
so if you have too much of one of those
inputs
if you’re out of balance if you have too
much
labor investment let’s say then the
marginal product the value of each unit
is low and the value of the other inputs
are high so imagine for a second now
let’s look at that
l human capital let’s imagine that human
capital
is comprised of two fundamental
different forms
women and men
so if you have too many men in that
production function
again an economy a firm
a government then actually
the value the marginal uh product the
value of
each man in that function is low
and the value of each woman is high so
the whole point of gender equality
is striving to get to the balance where
the marginal product
equates this is that space where we get
the maximum
output y and the greatest possible
prosperity
in society now there’s good news in this
story
i see some concerned looks on the men
and boys in the room there’s good news
here
that good news is the closer we get to
gender equality
guess what happens to your marginal
products
guess what happens to your the value of
your contribution
in that production function it goes up
you become more valuable too it’s a
classic win-win
and i think we’ve seen for example in
this global pandemic we’re facing now
covet 19 a very real
uh consequence we’ve seen that some of
the best most effective responses
to covert 19 have come in countries
where women are at the lead
not exclusively but it just shows
that that balance is what we need this
is gender equality
in my view now the united nations of
course
we’ve recognized this for quite quite
some time and so we’ve been supporting
the world in preparing a road map
to the future agenda 2030 the
sustainable development goals
and in fact there is an entire sdg
number five dedicated to gender equality
again
very much on the right side but also
embracing the fact that getting to that
gender equality is probably
the single most powerful multiplier
across all of the other goals
that we have before us
and that’s why we prioritize
gender equality now
i would like to speak uh a little bit
about
the challenges that remain there are so
many
in every country armenia is no exception
women face significant
wage gaps paid much less for the same
work
participation rates are too low in the
economy
in governance we see that
gender-based violence continues to
assault
not only rights but also to be a barrier
to advancement in communities many many
challenges
but i am pleased to say that this year
uh we are launching the generation
equality forum it’s a global gathering
under you and women that will bring
together 80 countries of the world
to share practical experiences how to
break through
these challenges and the armenian
government is taking a leadership
position
specifically in the action coalition for
technology
and innovation for gender equality so i
think we can be
very uh proud of that
and of course this links to the fact
that the tech
sector is actually a shining light here
in armenia
armenia is one of the uh the emerging
stars
uh in the tech world emerging hubs for
technology
so many amazing cool organizations
startups been talked about already today
and another amazing fact is that
women participate in the technology
sector in armenia
at a rate much much higher than the
global average
this is something really to be proud of
unfortunately it’s still only around 30
percent
so it needs to go up but it’s a great
momentum to take hold of
so we in the un we’re doing a number of
things and i really it breaks my heart
we have
so little time i wanted to dive deep in
a number of examples
many many other examples i’m just going
to dive though
for lack of time a little bit more
deeply into one
but first before i do that i want to
have us just a little quick thought
experiment
maybe closure your eyes for a moment
and think of a peacekeeper
i want you to think of a u.n peacekeeper
you know a brave
soldier often some far-flung corner of
the world
probably uniform this sort of thing
putting their life uh on the line
for peace now i want you to think of a
an armenian peacekeeper
you can peek i’ll give you a little bit
of a hint there
again serving in the name of peace in
dangerous places
whether it’s afghanistan whether it’s
kosovo uh with nato whether it’s
with the un and lebanon okay so you’ve
got this person in mind right
okay let’s have a look at a few real
examples of armenian
peacekeepers
is she who you had in mind
raise your hands let me see did you
imagine a woman when you were thinking
of a peacekeeper
anybody one hand at the back she’s with
the un so that’s cheating
any anyone else not too many
what about them these women who you had
in mind
these women doing all of the the heavy
military exercises that you have to do
to be a fit peacekeeper
well probably not from the show of hands
i’m guessing most people didn’t imagine
women and for this very reason this very
fact
the un has an entire security council
resolution 1325
dedicated to the fact that we have a
dearth of women engaged in peace and
security
and in fact evidence is very clear we’ve
we’ve done
a lot of research over 80 different
peace agreements in the world
that where you have women engaged in
negotiating the peace
at the peace table when you have women
engaged in
keeping the peace that the results are
significantly
better peace agreements are longer
lasting
they’re deeper they’re more
transformational
so for this reason here in armenia the
un has been working with the government
to implement
national action plan for 1325
and in particular unfpa has been working
with the ministry of defense for four
years
to help integrate women into the
peacekeeping
forces and those women have served
and to this day serve in places like
afghanistan kosovo
and lebanon i’ve had the opportunity
personally to speak with many of the
women
and i have to tell you it’s so amazing i
asked them how did you end up here we
heard about
all of these social these gender
stereotypes
how did you end up here and
to to a woman the answer is more or less
the same
they wanted to be patriotic they wanted
to be able to give to their country
in a way that hadn’t been available
before
and they were compelled by the peace
mission
and not a single one of them had any
role model
every single woman was the very first in
her family
to join the armed forces
and to engage in peacekeeping work
of any sort one in fact mary
has said that she hopes that she can be
an example
to other women in fact specifically in
her words
she hopes they can look at her and say
let’s
throw away these ideas these concepts
that a woman should just strive to be a
really good cook
a really good mother a really
good wife
sure women can be those things if they
want absolutely
but they can also be whatever they want
to do no matter how difficult
the challenge may seem this was the
point
now final thought
all of this these social constructs
these these biases they start very early
and in fact we know that
gender stereotypes are really being
formed between the ages of
five and seven so it happens early on
and it gets cemented in the classroom
there’s a really powerful social
experiment
that i love and there’s a fantastic
video on on youtube
in a very powerful way communicate how
school children
are already being indoctrinated and how
they react
when they’re given the opportunity so
a classroom in the uk a few years ago
the teacher asks the kids let’s imagine
some occupations what do you want to be
when you grow up right
and so she chose those occupations that
we most associate with being
modern day heroes
let’s talk about firefighters let’s talk
about
surgeons let’s talk about jet fighter
pilots
and she asked all of the children to
draw pictures
what do they look like to you a little
bit as i was asking you to imagine
peacekeeper the kids draw the pictures
they’re all very excited 66 different
pictures are drawn
almost exclusively men
then the teacher says kids who would
like to actually meet
real life surgeon firefighter
and jet fighter pilot of course the kids
are excited
and i would like to just share with you
that moment of truth
and the power of this moment when the
children meet
the heroes okay now who would like to
meet these people for real
my name’s tamzin and i’m a surgeon in
the nhs my name is lauren and i’m a
pilot in the royal air force my name is
lucy i’m a firefighter in the london
fire brigade
now i encourage you to go look at the
full clip inspiredthefutures.org
it’s really fantastic but i want to just
focus here
on those faces look at those faces
look at the boy he is
confused he never imagined when they
were drawing these pictures
that they could be talking about women
he’s very confused but more importantly
so i want to focus on the positive look
at the girl
look at her face she is transformed
she is amazed because she also didn’t
imagine
they could be talking about women and
you see at this very moment
a whole new future has just opened
for her maybe she’ll become a surgeon
a firefighter a jet fighter pilot maybe
not
that’s not the point the point is from
this moment she knows it’s possible
and that’s why it’s so important to
break through
stereotypes and bias my final thought
to share with you i’ve been asked
in the last couple of days
why are you speaking about gender
equality and women’s empowerment and
such i mean you’re a guy
shouldn’t a woman be speaking about that
and the point is yes of course and
that’s why we’ve had
fantastic amazing women speaking about
it today
not that i can say anything better it’s
not that i should say anything in place
of
but the point is that i need to say it
too
we all every man every boy in this room
needs to say it too because it requires
strong women
breaking through barriers but it also
requires
strong men helping to bring those
barriers down
this is the thought i want to leave
everybody with and again to know that at
the end
go back to that production function and
recognize that we will all be better off
so join me in choosing to challenge
let’s make those stereotypes disappear
should i call it soon