Gender Equality Resource Guide

This paper examines the gender inequality and economic development nexus for eight selected African countries.

We propose the idea of gender authenticity and argue that female politicians can strategically highlight their feminine traits and femininist consciousness even in a highly masculine environment. We compare the diplomatic speeches delivered by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, who both served as secretary of state under former President Obama. Based on the framework of gender authenticity, we empirically examine how the remarks of these two top diplomatic officials differ in their topical, linguistic, and conceptual dimensions.

This aim of this paper is to examine the existing gender digital inclusion evaluation guidance and proposes future research recommendations for their evaluation.

In this study, we develop the scale “TOP WOMAN” (Testing the Obstacles to Promotion of WOmen to MANagement) to measure barriers to women's promotion.

The purpose of this study was to explore and compare women’s perceptions of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), empowerment, and success among respondents in eight countries. The research sample consisted of 969 participants (137 from Georgia, 105 from Poland, 130 from Romania, 152 from Slovenia, 102 from Spain, 123 from Taiwan, 120 from Turkey, and 100 from the United States). Qualitative data analysis was used for exploring participants’ perspectives among different cultures. The results showed that there were numerous differences among the respondents regarding their perceptions of Information and Communication Technologies, empowerment, and success. Positive experiences of ICTs were primarily related to simplifying communication and enabling easy access to information and methods for sharing it, while negative experiences were typically associated with privacy issues. The success of using ICTs was similarly related to the ability to increase awareness and simplify communication, both of which are necessary for women to reach specified goals and achieve success in the workplace.

The multilateral decision-making enabled by the United Nations (UN), as the world’s only forum for negotiating agreements between almost all countries, has been both fertile and frustrating for advancing women’s rights. The 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing, held at a post-Cold War high point in international co-operation, generated a significant political settlement on women’s rights, the Beijing Platform for Action. Twenty-five years later, however, that agreement is out of date. Not only has progress in implementing it stalled, but the very notion that advances can be made in women’s rights through multilateral negotiation is in doubt because of the illiberal and anti-feminist agendas of some particularly influential countries. On top of this, the lack of an effective multilateral response to the current COVID-19 global crisis has put in question the continuing relevance of UN processes. Misogyny and homophobia also characterise the rhetoric and goals of some sectors of civil society that target multilateral processes, such as the annual Commission on the Status of Women. The sense of intensified polarisation on gender equality has informed a decision not to hold a fifth UN World Conference on Women, in spite of the fact that gender equality remains an urgent and under-actioned global priority. The 25th anniversary of the Beijing Conference will be marked instead by a collaboration between UN Women, Mexico, and France, with civil society input, to foster a global conversation for urgent action and accountability for gender equality, while avoiding the kind of multilateral review and consensus that fuelled action in the aftermath of 1995. This article asks whether the UN is still ‘fit for purpose’ as an engine driving women’s rights gains. It outlines four ways in which multilateralism and the UN’s unique convening and normative authority can be repurposed, with feminist civil society support, to drive feminist social justice agendas more effectively.
La prise de décisions multilatérale rendue possible par les Nations Unies, le seul forum du monde permettant la négociation d’accords entre presque tous les pays, s’est révélée tant fertile que frustrante au moment de promouvoir les droits de la femme. La quatrième Conférence mondiale sur les femmes, qui s’est tenue en 1995 à Beijing, à un point culminant de la coopération internationale post-guerre froide, a donné lieu à un accord politique significatif sur les droits de la femme, le Programme d’action de Beijing. Vingt-cinq ans plus tard, toutefois, cet accord est obsolète. Non seulement sa mise en œuvre a cessé de progresser, mais l’idée même que l’on peut promouvoir les droits de la femme grâce à la négociation multilatérale est mise en doute en raison des ordres du jour illibéraux et antiféministes de certains pays tout particulièrement influents. La misogynie et l’homophobie caractérisent également la rhétorique et les objectifs de certains secteurs de la société civile qui ciblent les processus multilatéraux, comme la session annuelle de la Commission de la condition de la femme. Le sentiment de polarisation intensifiée autour de l’égalité entre les sexes a éclairé la décision de ne pas organiser une cinquième conférence mondiale des Nations Unies sur la femme, malgré le fait que l’égalité entre les sexes continue de constituer une priorité mondiale urgente et faisant l’objet de mesures insuffisantes. Le 25e anniversaire de la conférence de Beijing sera plutôt marqué par une collaboration entre ONU-femmes, le Mexique et la France, avec la contribution de la société civile, afin d’encourager une conversation mondiale en faveur de l’action urgente et de la reddition de comptes concernant l’égalité entre les sexes, tout en évitant le type d’examen et de consensus qui ont nourri l’action après 1995. Cet article pose la question de savoir si l’ONU est encore « adaptée à son ojectif prévu » comme moteur des progrès en matière de droits de la femme. Il souligne quatre manières dont le multilatéralisme et le pouvoir rassembleur et normatif sans pareil des Nations Unies peuvent être réaffectés, avec le soutien de la société civile féministe, afin d’impulser plus efficacement les ordres du jour féministes pour la justice sociale.
La adopción de decisiones multilaterales, facilitada por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas en su calidad de foro mundial único para la negociación de acuerdos entre casi todos los países, ha sido un mecanismo a la vez fértil y frustrante en la promoción de los derechos de la mujer. La Cuarta Conferencia Mundial sobre la Mujer, celebrada en Beijing en 1995, en el momento culminante de la cooperación internacional posterior a la Guerra Fría, generó un importante acuerdo político en torno a los derechos de la mujer, llamado Plataforma de Acción de Beijing. Veinticinco años más tarde, ese acuerdo se ha vuelto obsoleto. No sólo se estancó el progreso en su aplicación; además, debido al posicionamiento antiliberal y antifeminista de algunos países especialmente influyentes la idea de que puedan lograrse avances en los derechos de la mujer a partir de la negociación multilateral se ha puesto en entredicho. Por otra parte, la misoginia y la homofobia también caracterizan la retórica y los objetivos de algunos sectores de la sociedad civil que buscan debilitar los procesos multilaterales, por ejemplo, la Comisión de la Condición Jurídica y Social de la Mujer celebrada anualmente. A pesar de que la igualdad de género sigue siendo una prioridad urgente y poco atendida a nivel mundial, la sensación percibida de que existe una mayor polarización en materia de igualdad de género llevó a que se decidiera no realizar la quinta conferencia mundial de las Naciones Unidas sobre la mujer. En cambio, se conmemorará el 25° aniversario de la conferencia de Beijing mediante una colaboración entre onu-Mujeres, México y Francia, con aportaciones de la sociedad civil. El propósito de dicha celebración es fomentar una conversación mundial sobre la adopción de medidas urgentes y la rendición de cuentas en materia de igualdad de género, con lo que al mismo tiempo se evita el tipo de revisión y consenso multilateral que incitó la acción después de 1995. El presente artículo plantea la pregunta de si las Naciones Unidas siguen siendo "aptas para tal propósito", como motor que impulsa los avances en materia de derechos de la mujer. En este sentido esboza cuatro formas a través de las cuales el multilateralismo y la autoridad normativa y de convocatoria única de las Naciones Unidas pueden readaptarse, con apoyo de la sociedad civil feminista, para promover con mayor eficacia los objetivos feministas en pos de la justicia social.

The roles of women in the workforce have changed significantly over the past several decades. While there has been considerable progress made by women into leadership positions, this progress has been slow. This article explores factors that may impact the ability of women in information technology (IT) to move into leadership positions. Data collected for the Society of Information Management IT Trend Study for 2015, 2016, and 2017 were analyzed, and corporate characteristics that impact female advancement into leadership positions were explored. Results suggest that there are opportunities for women in IT. The percentage of women in positions of leadership is steadily increasing in a wide range of industries. However, there is an evidence to suggest that industry’s gender composition as well as company size (revenue) may impact the gender of the IT leader. Also, some interesting differences in performance measures based on the leader’s gender are discussed.

It is a well-documented phenomenon that a group's gender composition can impact group performance. Understanding why and how this phenomenon happens is a prominent puzzle in the literature. To shed light on this puzzle, we propose and experimentally test one novel theory: through the salience of gender stereotype, a group's gender composition affects a person's willingness to lead a group, thereby impacting the group's overall performance. By randomly assigning people to groups with varying gender compositions, we find that women in mixed-gender groups are twice as likely as women in single-gender groups to suffer from the gender stereotype effect, by shying away from leadership in areas that are gender-incongruent. Further, we provide evidence that the gender stereotype effect persists even for women in single-gender groups. Importantly, however, we find that public feedback about a capable woman's performance significantly increases her willingness to lead. This result holds even in male-stereotyped environments.

There is room for topical and theoretical expansion in the literature on gender and ICT4D (information and communications technologies for development) to better prepare critiques and policy applications that improve gender equity. A constructivist approach was taken to understand the relationship between gender and technology utilizing insights from science and technology studies. Existing theory on the relationship between gender and technology was conceptualized as three categories: women using ICTs as laborers, women using ICTs for leisure, and ICTs as infrastructure impacting women users. Thirty articles from four journals (Gender, Technology, and Development, Information Technology for Development, Information Technologies & International Development, and Gender and Development) were coded using an iterative-inductive method. The sample encompassed all issues published between July 2016 and December 2016. Findings suggested, in that temporal moment, scholarship on gender and ICT4D conceptualized the gender and technology relationship by illuminating how women use ICTs for: increased communication and spread of information, and increased productivity. Some scholarship focused on justice, gender and ICT4D, or gendered fantasies about ICTs. Missing from that temporal moment was scholarship illuminating: women using ICTs as scientific instruments, ICTs allowing women to participate in outsourced jobs, and ICTs commodifying women.

We argue that individualism promotes gender equality. Individualist values of autonomy and self-determination transcend gender identities and serve to legitimize women’s goals and choices. In contrast, collectivist values may subordinate women’s personal goals to their social obligations, generating greater acceptance of gender inequality. Using individual level data from World Values Surveys, we find that individualism is significantly associated with support for gender equal attitudes regarding employment, income, education, and political leadership. Individualism is also associated with greater levels of female employment and educational attainment, and lower levels of fertility. These results are robust to controlling for income, education, religion, historical plough use, gendered language, and country-time fixed effects. Our within country analysis allows us to isolate the impact of individualism from other confounding effects. Using historical rainfall variation as an instrument for individualism, we find that the exogenous portion of individualism reduces support for patriarchal attitudes and fertility, and it increases female employment and educational attainment. These effects are economically large. We address concerns over instrumental validity by controlling for a variety of factors, including historical plough use, religious affiliation, religiosity, social trust, average rainfall levels, distance from the equator, cool-water conditions, agricultural suitability, historical political and economic development, and the presence of large animals. This paper contributes to a mounting body of evidence suggesting a key role for highly persistent cultural norms and values in determining gender inequality, the gender division of labor, and economic and social outcomes for women.

Internet addiction (IA) is prevalent and associated with negative measures of health functioning, with males appearing more vulnerable than females. However, little is known about gender-related differences in the effect sizes of IA globally. This multinational meta-analysis addresses this gap in knowledge by providing estimates of effect sizes of gender-related differences in IA tendencies across jurisdictions and how they relate to global national indexes including gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, internet penetration, gender-related gaps in economies, internet penetration, alcohol consumption, smoking prevalence, life satisfaction and suicide rates. One-hundred-and-one studies consisting of 115 independent samples involving 204,352 participants from 34 countries/regions were identified. The average effect size of gender-related differences in IA in a random-effects model was small at g = 0.145. The highest gender-related effect sizes were in Asia with g = 0.208, and the lowest were in the North America with g = −0.049, Africa with g = 0.092 and Europe with g = 0.114. Meta-regression revealed that smaller effect sizes were observed in nations with greater GDP per capita and higher internet penetration. As operationalized, both the internet availability and social norms hypotheses were supported by effect sizes being positively related to gender-related differences in economic measures, internet penetration, smoking prevalence and alcohol consumption. The Psychological Well-being hypothesis was largely not supported, since the effect sizes were unrelated to gender-related differences in life satisfaction and negatively related to gender-related differences in suicide rates. Findings suggest economic factors, internet availability, social norms and some addiction-related health factors may relate importantly to gender-related differences in IA tendencies across countries.

Abstract: We focus on how interpersonal characteristics should influence leader support for gender equity in organizations. Recognizing gender disparities in organizations and the “labyrinth” that women face when they advance in their careers (cf. Eagly & Carli, 2007), we develop a model for how interpersonal characteristics of leaders, both men and women, influence power construal and thus their use of empowerment, mentoring, and performance feedback, ultimately affecting career opportunities for women in organizations. The model proposes that leaders who are high on communal goal orientation, a prosocial characteristic, are more likely to construe power through a responsibility lens and behave in ways that ultimately support gender equity in organizations. In contrast, leaders with an exchange goal orientation are more likely to construe power through a freedom lens and behave in ways that are self-serving. Prestige motivation will increase the extent to which leaders, especially those who are communally oriented, share power. Dominance motivation will increase the extent to which leaders, especially those who are exchange oriented, act in self-interest and retain power, ultimately imposing barriers to women's career advancement. Organizations can potentially increase leader power sharing by encouraging and reinforcing leaders' prosocial characteristics of communal orientation and prestige motivation. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Abstract: The study of gender differences in academic achievement has been one of the core topics in education, especially because it may uncover possible gaps and inequalities in certain domains. Whereas these differences have largely been examined in traditional domains, such as mathematics, reading, and science, the existing body of empirical studies in the domain of ICT literacy is considerably smaller, yet abounds in diverse findings. One of the persistent findings however is that boys consider their ICT literacy to be higher than that of girls. This meta-analysis tests whether the same pattern holds for students’ actual performance on ICT literacy tasks, as measured by performance-based assessments. In total, 46 effect sizes were extracted from 23 empirical studies using a random-effects model. Overall, the gender differences in ICT literacy were significant, positive, and favored girls (g = + 0.12, 95 % CI = [0.08, 0.16]). This effect varied between studies, and moderation analyses indicated that the grade level students were taught at moderated its magnitude—effect sizes were larger in primary school as compared to secondary school. In conclusion, our findings contrast those obtained from previous meta-analyses that were based on self-reported ICT literacy and suggest that the ICT gender gap may not be as severe as it had been claimed to be.

We address complexities on gender role theory and trait analyses of leadership to explain how sex and gender interrelate to produce asymmetric effects on different leadership outcomes (i.e., positive attitudes vs. evaluations). In three studies across different set-ups, gender traits demonstrated incremental validity over sex on employees' positive attitudes (e.g., satisfaction, loyalty). For evaluations (e.g., perceived effectiveness), gender traits had generally weaker effects and in some cases predicted effectiveness more for stereotypical leaders, in line with role-congruency predictions. Penalties for counter-stereotypical behavior were weaker for female than male actual leaders, pointing to mitigated effects of role congruity prescriptions on female leaders´ evaluations. Remarkably, agency did not correlate more strongly than communion with any leadership effect. These findings underscore the relevance of (female and male) leaders' communion to improve followers' positive attitudes -but not evaluations- and call for an updated perspective about the complex influences of gender on leadership beyond the oversimplified female advantage approach.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) investments come with expectations of increased productivity, but results from ICT impact studies are mixed. We look at workforce characteristics and female participation in the workforce and management and ICTs as contexts to investigate their impact on capacity utilization. This was accomplished by using the Technology, Organization, and Environment framework and regression analysis. The results illustrate the importance of a stable and skilled workforce, capable of leveraging the existing infrastructure. In addition, the pursuit of international certifications, formal employee training, female participation, and other factors affect capacity utilization. From the research findings, we identified eight research hypotheses for future investigations.

ABSTRACT: We explore gender differences in technology use among Mayan-speakers in a rural community in southern Yucatan (Mexico), finding that women had poorer skills and less access to technology than men. Following a diagnosis, information and communication technology (ICT) skills training aimed at closing the digital divide was provided to 68 men and women, with post-test results indicating that while women improved their ICT skills, they continued to score lower than men. Focus group interviews with 24 women identified the main factors perceived to influence their access to and use of technology. Observations and further interviews with 10 of the focus group participants further explored issues related to women’s access to and use of technology. Quantitative data were analyzed using inferential statistics and qualitative data were analyzed using a thematic approach. Recommendations for improving the ICT skills of both men and women are discussed in the context of the Mexican National Development Plan 2013–2018 and the Mexican National Digital Strategy 2013 and are compared with the guidelines of the Yucatan State Development Plan 2012–2018.

ABSTRAC : In August 2018, the president of the World Bank noted that “‘Human capital’—the potential of individuals—is going to be the most important long-term investment any country can make for its people's future prosperity and quality of life”. Nevertheless, leaders and practitioners in academic science and medicine continue to be unaware of and poorly educated about the nature, extent, and impact of barriers to full participation of women and minorities in science and medicine around the world. This lack of awareness and education results in failures to fully mobilise the human capital of half the population and limits global technological and medical advancements. The chronic lack of recruitment, promotion, and retention of women in science and medicine is due to systemic, structural, organisational, institutional, cultural, and societal barriers to equity and inclusion. These barriers must be identified and removed through increased awareness of the challenges combined with evidence-based, data-driven approaches leading to measurable targets and outcomes. In this Review, we discuss these issues and highlight actions that could achieve gender equality in science and medicine. We survey approaches and insights that have helped to identify and remove systemic bias and barriers in science and medicine, and propose tools that will help organisational change toward gender equality. We describe tools that include formal legislation and mandated quotas at national or large-scale levels (eg, gender parity), techniques that increase fairness (eg, gender equity) through facilitated organisational cultural change at institutional levels, and professional development of core competencies at individual levels. This Review is not intended to be an extensive analysis of all the literature currently available on achieving gender equality in academic medicine and science, but rather, a reflection on finding multifactorial solutions.