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