Thematic Factsheet | Gender Equality & Empowerment

Last update:31 January 2023

Gender Equality and Empowerment

The Preamble of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development affirms the need to realize the human rights of all and to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. Realizing gender equality will make a crucial contribution to progress across all goals and targets. The achievement of full human potential and of sustainable development is not possible if one-half of humanity continues to be denied its full human rights and opportunities. Thus, while Goal 5 focuses specifically on gender equality, all the SDGs have a gender dimension and in particular those targeting education (Goal 4), inclusive growth (Goal 8) and global partnerships for sustainable development (Goal 17).

Key challenges to achieving gender equality will require addressing disparities in access to education for girls and boys. Today, two-thirds of adults without basic literacy skills are women i. Although the literacy gender gap is closing, gender disparities prevail in regions like sub-Saharan Africa. Childhood marriages are one cause of education disparities. While rates of childhood marriages are declining, the 2018 SDG Monitoring Report ii notes that today one in five women between 20 and 24 years of age were married or were in an informal union before the age of 18. The report also highlights how violence against women continues to impede women’s fulfilment and enjoyment of life: a global survey found that 20per cent of adolescent girls had been victims of physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner over a 12-month period. Women also face barriers in accessing paid employment, as well as in receiving equal pay once employed. Based on data from about 90 countries, women spend roughly three times as many hours in unpaid domestic and care work as men. Gender inequality in earnings across all sectors is still pervasive in both developed and developing countries. Digital skills are increasingly important on the labour market. A 2017 report iii showed a persistent gender gap in internet access rates in all regions of the world – men are 12 per cent more likely to make use of the internet than women, a figure that rises to 25per cent in Africa.

Key areas:

Access and participation in culture
Capacity-building
Entrepreneurship and job creation
Sustainable cities
Culture frameworks and policies

What UNESCO does

Gender equality is one of UNESCO’s global priorities and gender is mainstreamed throughout the work of UNESCO’s Culture Sector. Gender dynamics are social and cultural constructs. Culture is therefore a powerful lever for achieving more balanced gender dynamics that are respectful of each individual’s rights. UNESCO’s approach to promoting gender equality flows out of its commitment to promote cultural rights and cultural diversity within the international human rights framework. The 2001 UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity states that ‘No one may invoke cultural diversity to infringe upon human rights guaranteed by international law, nor limit their scope’, including the right to gender equality. The promotion of cultural diversity therefore must take into account gender-related aspects.

UNESCO’s work to promote gender equality in the cultural industries is particularly strategic because of the power of cultural expressions to reinforce or to challenge gender stereotypes. There is strong evidence that portrayals of women through cultural or media products influence attitudes and behaviours. A 2016 survey covering nine countries across all continents found that 90per cent of women feel that female role models in film or TV are important, and 61per cent said that such role models have been influential in their lives, with 25per cent of women in Brazil reporting that they had found the courage to leave abusive relationships from such role models iv. On the other hand, more than half the women surveyed felt that there was a lack of strong female role models in film and television. Such research highlights the power of culture as well as the immense need still present to advance gender equality in the cultural industries. Evidence also shows that the portrayal of women improves, both quantitatively and qualitatively, when there are more women in key leadership and content creation roles – such as directors, screenwriters, festival directors, etc.

On the macro-level, UNESCO is advancing gender sensitive and gender transformative policies through its emphasis on the vital need for sex-disaggregated data, in particular outside of Western Europe and North America. This responds directly to SDG Target 17.18, which stresses the need for more highquality data disaggregated by sex, among other criteria. Campaigns for gender equality in the film sector have gained particular traction thanks in part to the availability of data that specifies the disparities in the sector. UNESCO is contributing to this drive for more data in several ways. In 2015, the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) pioneered a global sex-disaggregated cultural employment survey. The monitoring framework of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of cultural Expressions (2005) has integrated indicators tracking gender dimensions at the cultural policy level, including the existence of policies supporting women in the cultural sector and the proportion of male-female key cultural policy leaders – ministers of culture or arts, and heads of national arts or cultural councils. UNESCO’s flagship 2005 Convention Global Monitoring Reports, issued in 2015 and 2018, both collated a wealth of data and studies examining in-depth the status of women in cultural industries, media and cultural policymaking across the world and provided valuable policy recommendations, as did the 2014 publication Gender Equality: Heritage and Creativity (see Policy Guidance below).

UNESCO’s guidance on gender and heritage is particularly pioneering, as few actors outside of academia have engaged with the issue. Both intangible and tangible cultural heritage can be gendered, in terms of what is recognized and transmitted, who has access to the heritage, and so on. Intangible cultural heritage provides an important context for shaping gender roles and transmitting them. At the same time, gender norms also influence the transmission of intangible cultural heritage. Understanding this relationship can open new avenues for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, as well as strengthen steps towards achieving gender equality. UNESCO has found that the contributions of women and groups that are marginalized on the basis of gender, may be devalued or ignored in identifying and documenting intangible cultural heritage. For example, the gender dynamics of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) elements, including the development of gender-responsive approaches towards the transmission of ICH, are not always fully explored in the process of identification, inventorying and safeguarding; and the gender dimension of community consultation and capacity-building may not always be adequately addressed v.

In response to these challenges, the States Parties to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) revised its Operational Directives to encourage States Parties to ensure gender equality in the planning, management and implementation of safeguarding measures and underscored the need to mainstream gender into intangible cultural heritage safeguarding policies and programmes. UNESCO’s global capacity-building programme has worked to address this important topic, undertaking for example a study to explore the relationship between intangible cultural heritage and gender, which revealed how policy initiatives can enhance women’s participation in the decision making process around heritage. For instance, in Peru the Directorate of Intangible Cultural Heritage has taken steps to appoint women anthropologists to register information about specific women’s cultural practices.

As part of its overall approach, UNESCO has developed training materials on gender and intangible cultural heritage, and on a gender-responsive approach to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. These materials sensitize participants to the gender dimensions of intangible cultural heritage and build competencies to develop gender-responsive safeguarding measures, including for inventorying and the elaboration of safeguarding plans. In addition, specific guidance materials have been developed on how to integrate intangible cultural heritage in policy development for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage with illustrations of relevant experience from different countries.

The lack of sex-disaggregated data remains a challenge for policy making in the field of intangible cultural heritage. In response to this challenge, the Overall results framework for monitoring the implementation of the 2003 Convention promotes ‘broad and inclusive involvement in intangible cultural heritage safeguarding and management’, and encourages States Parties to report on their approaches to inclusivity, such as through the provision of disaggregated data. vi This information will be regularly generated and shared through the Convention’s periodic reporting mechanism.

UNESCO has navigated the delicate balance between the individual rights of girls and women; and the needs of communities, whose identity may include aspects that challenge the principles of gender equality. Through adopting clear provisions in the Operational Guidelines of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO helps to ensure gender-balanced participation at all levels of implementation. Some UNESCO World Heritage sites have also provided specific support to women within the local community: the Tsingy Nature Reserve in Madagascar for instance offers vocational education and training in sustainable cultural tourism for women, with support from UNESCO and the Fondation CHANEL. Since 2017, UNESCO has supported efforts to safeguard and revitalize the female chants of Taroudant, located in the western High Atlas mountains in Morocco, ensuring the continued participation of women in the cultural life of the community.

On the micro-level, UNESCO helps women artists and entrepreneurs access opportunities to actively contribute to cultural life. UNESCO’s International Fund for Cultural Diversity (IFCD) has provided funding to several projects focused on increasing the participation of women in cultural production and promoting women’s empowerment through the use of enabling technology in the digital creative industries (SDG Target 5.b). UNESCO has also initiated debates on gender equality in various cultural fora such as the 2019 FESPACO Pan-African Film Festival and the International Women’s Hip-hop Festival in Senegal. These debates both build on and feed into research for UNESCO publications, which provide crucial policy guidance.

Examples

The Swedish Example: Gender Equality in Film

In the 2000s, the Swedish government tasked the Swedish Film Institute to achieve greater gender equality, following the systematic gathering of statistics on women in film in the 1990s. The goal of 40:60 women-men ratio in funding was set initially, and in 2013 this was increased to 50:50. Full gender parity was achieved in 2016. An assessment showed that the quality of women-funded films was high with several receiving critical acclaim. In 2013, four cinemas and TV channels also incorporated the Bechdel test into their ratings with support from the Swedish Film Institute. This test assesses the fair representation of women in film. Notably, films need to feature at least two women talking about something other than a man. Now more than 30 cinemas and some DVD distributors use the rating, and the proportion of films passing the test has more than doubled.

UNESCO’s IFCD Supports Women in Culture

Between 2010 and 2018, 35% of projects funded by the International Fund for Cultural Diversity (IFCD) aimed at strengthening cultural industries and cultural policies in developing countries led by women. In 2018, the Fund provided US$ 360,000 to women cultural entrepreneurs in the digital creative industries.

Policy Guidance

Insufficient documentation of gender disparities and sex-disaggregated analysis in the area of culture is a barrier to recognizing and addressing gender issues effectively. Information is critical for understanding the challenges, addressing them, and evaluating the measures taken. Beyond employment and training in cultural fields, a wide array of indicators can be disaggregated by sex, shedding light on different dimensions such as access to culture, users of public spaces for culture, and infringements of artistic freedom. UNESCO’s thematic indicators on culture and the 2030 Agenda can provide further guidance.

Some measures that can be taken, at both national and local level, include:

Audits of cultural policies and culture-related laws to determine the extent to which they affirm the importance of gender equality
Audits of financial, institutional and other public resources for culture to gauge the extent to which they promote equal opportunities for all
Evaluation of gate-keeping functions and processes within the government and in national cultural institutions to assess whether and how they foster or impede gender equality
Research on the presence and status of men and women, including those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT), in various cultural occupations and industries, and as users of cultural spaces. For cities this can include examining the presence of barriers impeding access for women to public cultural spaces, such as safety concerns
Review of promising initiatives aiming to promote gender equality in the cultural sphere
Multi-stakeholder consultations and public hearings on what needs to be done to move towards gender equality in the cultural sector

i UNESCO Institute for Statistics

ii United Nations. 2018. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2018.

iii Broadbank Commision for Sustainable Development. 2017. Working Group on Education: Digital skills for life and work.

iv Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media and the JWT Company. 2016. The survey covered Brazil, China, India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Russia, Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S.

v For further information, see UNESCO Living Heritage Entity, Capacity-building Materials, Units 48-49.

vi UNESCO. 2018. The Overall Results Framework for the 2003 Convention (Resolution 7.GA.9).

vii European Parliamentary Research Service. 2019. Briefing: The Place of Women in European Film Productions.

viii New York Film Academy.

ix UNESCO. 2018. Re|Shaping Cultural Policies, Study covering seven European countries.

x UNESCO. 2018. Re|Shaping Cultural Policies, Eight-country international study. xi Forbes. 2017. Reported by New York Film Academy