#GAReads | The Goal of Gender Parity in the UN: Proving That Women Are Equal to Men
The 63rd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Photo credit: UN Women [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0], via Flickr
“The Goal of Gender Parity in the UN: Proving That Women Are Equal to Men”:
On International Women’s Day, March 8, Guterres reiterated in a speech that the UN, which has been dominated by men since its start in 1945, has gained gender parity “among those who lead our teams around the world.” Six months ago, the UN reached parity in its senior management ranks, which he personally appoints, resulting in 26 women and 16 men at that level and “placing us well ahead of schedule to achieve the goal of parity in all senior leadership by 2021.” (His five-year term ends Dec. 31, 2022.)
Yet gender parity, he emphasized, is about power, symbolized “in the fact that those targeted for sexual harassment are overwhelmingly women.”