Gender equality is ‘300 years away,’ U.N. chief warns
Washington PostDec 23, 2022
The Facts
In his General Assembly speech on Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “gender equality is growing more distant,” and at the current track, it’s projected to be “300 years away.”
High rates of maternal mortality, child marriages, threats to reproductive rights, and denying education to girls are some of the reasons why progress toward gender equality is “vanishing before our eyes.”
The Spin
Narrative A
Not only must we fight for gender equality, but we must also strive for true gender equity and justice. Women and girls around the world are victims of abuse, discrimination, and unfair wages, and those issues need to be remedied. Additionally, the root causes of those problems need to be addressed, so we can ensure that women can be on the path toward justice on a global scale.
Narrative B
The effort to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls should start in the UN's own house. Guterres is the ninth person to serve as UN secretary general, a role no woman has held. If the UN remains gender inequitable, its goal to end all forms of discrimination against all women can't be a reality. The UN's ability to help lead the world is undermined as long as gender equity is missing — from bottom to top — and women are not allowed to shatter the glass ceiling.
