Empathy, inclusivity key to achieving gender equality

Despite what Paul Kelly sings – “From little things big things grow” – small changes don’t necessarily lead to the big. Small concessions to women are granted to maintain peace, while big changes are often denied so that men maintain power.

The United Nations says we’re still almost 300 years away from closing the gender gap, but new research by Monash University’s Michaela Guthridge, Dr Melita Giummarra, Dr Tania Penovic and Dr Maggie Kirkman shows men’s and boys’ emotions are holding women and girls back from realising their human rights.

The research has shown men and boys feel hostility, resentment, fear and jealousy when social norms are challenged, and attempts at addressing gender inequality threatens men’s sense of entitlement, and boys expect to be the centre of attention.

Often, they fear being perceived as weak or feminine in front of their peers if they stand up for women’s rights, and they see respect for women as a “zero-sum” game where respecting women means disrespecting men.

These findings call into question how we currently frame campaigns based on respect.

Re-evaluating successes and failures

Resistance and backlash can be reduced, however, by including men and boys in the design and delivery of programs and campaigns. Empathy (rather than feminist anger) is a viable alternative for achieving gender equality.

The research takes stock of our successes and failures in seeking to achieve gender equality for women and girls by analysing 78 interventions from across the globe over the past 30 years.

The researchers found that while most interventions targeted education and awareness-raising, these only had limited effect.

Gender parity in schools doesn’t signal an end to inequality in the community. While education can give women the confidence to advocate for their rights, it doesn’t stop abuse or threats by disapproving family, partners, colleagues, and community.

Other traditional means of creating change, such as street protests, also have limited effect. For example, the 2017 Women’s March in response to Donald Trump’s inauguration only affected those already sympathetic to the cause, and actually caused backlash to others who perceived the demonstration as a threat to their freedom.

Read more: How committed is Australia to advancing the rights set out in CEDAW?

Some interventions even cause harm to women and girls. For example, the “Girl Effect” program by the Nike Foundation resulted in participants being abused and robbed of the money the girls had earned from the program.

Our research shows key factors that are effective and ineffective in promoting gender equality:

Ineffective

1. The overall focus on women ignores what’s really causing inequity – interventions need to engage with all members of society.

2. A lack of change in mindsets and poor enforcement can mean laws aren’t realised, or have little effect at the community level.

3. Education may establish the right to education, but doesn’t necessarily create gender equality.

4. Raising awareness alone doesn’t translate into behaviour change.

5. Economic enablement and transformation don’t automatically lead to social transformation.

6. International non-government organisations aren’t as effective as they could be.

7. Integrating gender into law, policy and practice generally fails to achieve positive outcomes in the short term, sometimes because of the negative attitudes of bureaucrats.

8. Small concessions to women are granted to maintain peace, while big changes are denied so men maintain power.

9. Increased confidence, agency, empowerment, or individual leadership isn’t sufficient to promote gender equality.

10. Protests in Western democracies can create unity among women, but can also have a polarising and backlash effect among men.

11. Men and boys can feel negative emotions when gendered social norms are challenged, leading to worse outcomes for women and girls.

Effective

1. Eliciting positive emotions in interventions garners positive outcomes.

2. Empathy is a viable strategy in the context of multifaceted campaigns.

3. All genders need to participate in resocialisation of gender norms.

4. Dialogue is a key to success.

5. A large number of women must behave differently for new behaviours to be accepted.

6. Experiential learning is a powerful way to embed knowledge about gender equity in a non-threatening and sustainable way.

7. Investment in access to justice must include informal channels of the justice system.

8. Quotas are effective at desegregating genders in political and economic environments.

9. Enabling environments are more effective than individual empowerment.

10. Social transformation can be achieved in households through daily interactions, such as sharing care responsibilities.

11. Laws must be proactive in protecting the rights and opportunities of women and girls, while also identifying opportunities to legally protect their rights based on complaint-based mechanisms.

Little to celebrate

In Australia, we can’t celebrate having only one female prime minister when she was so vilified and denigrated for being a woman while in office. Julia Gillard’s confidence, agency, empowerment and individual leadership wasn’t sufficient to promote the structural changes required to increase gender equality.

When so few women are political, religious and business leaders, so few receive equal pay, and most undertake the lion’s share of care responsibilities, it’s hard to argue that with more than a century of struggle by the feminist movement we’ve made broad progress internationally, except for the right to vote.

We’re all responsible for achieving gender equality, and all of society will benefit from positive emotional experiences that advance women’s human rights. Being empathic and inclusive are powerful ways of creating the change we all need.