Gender Bias……Still?

The Moment of Lift, by Melinda Gates from 2019 makes a strong case for women’s rights by writing a lot about the laws (mainly authored by men) and gender biases that do not favor women which still prevail.  Similar to Half The Sky by Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof published in 2010 - many of the same issues persist on a global level. Prostitution, lack of access to education, unequal pay for equal work, and even domestic violence are the more common ones.  However, Moment of Lift does a great job addressing the root issues and reminds women that they must get involved whether it be studying courses like computer science which has changed our world and will continue to do so, or getting involved politically at the grassroots level and addressing gender bias head-on. The World Bank writes “No society can develop sustainably without transforming and amplifying the distribution of opportunities, resources, and choices for men and women so that they have equal power to shape their own lives and contribute to their families, communities, and countries”. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/gender/overview Here are just a few of the issues that do not support women according to data from the World Bank:

104 countries have laws that put certain jobs off-limits for women.

17 countries have laws that limit when and how women can travel outside the home.

29 countries restrict the hours women can work. 

39 countries have laws that keep daughters from inheriting the same proportion of assets as sons.  

113 countries have NO laws that ensure equal pay for equal work by men and women. 

7 countries do not guarantee paid maternity leave - the USA being one of those seven. 

Many companies do offer a paid family medical and maternity/parental leave policy for their employees. With that, if your company has such a policy in place for families, parental and/or maternity, please type the name of your company below and state if it is for medical health situations, parental and/or maternity benefits.