Anne Hathaway, UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, at the opening session of the SDG Action Zone entitled “The Big Picture”.
When it comes to gender equality, we’re at a global crossroads with evidence that this is both the most promising and most terrifying moment in recent memory.
On the one hand, the generation equality forum in Paris led to more than 1 000 commitments to action and 40 billion dollars pledged to empower women and girls across sectors and across generations.
On the other, the Taliban and Afghanistan are showing us violent extreme misogyny writ large. Underlining just how quickly progress towards gender equality can be reversed.
On the one hand, we are seeing examples of people rallying to get through the COVID-19 pandemic on international news and in our own homes.
On the other, as we locked down and locked ourselves in to protect our family’s health, across the world, women lost their jobs and income to take on child care and homeschooling and traditional gendered household roles rapidly became preeminent.
Even before the pandemic hit globally women were doing three times as much unpaid care work as men. Women became the shock absorbers for the crisis with 59% reporting spending even more time on unpaid domestic work since the pandemic began. This has enduring consequences both for their ability to re-engage in their previous lives and their ability to earn a living.
This must change!
The world has now begun to recognize caregiving work as essential in the crisis. Good! Now back that recognition with policies and actions to properly support and reward that work. Putting care at the center of a sustainable and just economy one, that can support everyone to flourish. And then we have the prospect of solid sustainable change.
We know that public investments in social infrastructure like caregiving services could create 40 to 60 percent more jobs than the same investments in useful physical constructions like bridges. These kinds of public investments are integral to rebooting and achieving sustainable economic growth as expanding quality care services creates jobs and increases support for unpaid caregivers. Those affordable quality care services are critical to support women’s entry or re-entry into the labor force as well as to foster the well-being of children and older people.
The world is now facing the choice between doubling down on the mistakes of the past or seizing the opportunity to do things differently. We have a generational opportunity and an imperative to use the recovery to shape a better, more gender equal and sustainable world. One that may finally be immune to the reversal of progress. Our actions and decisions now are what determine that future.
I know that today we’re going to hear from the thought leaders, business leaders and policy makers who can help take us there. We’re counting on you.
Thank you!
