The long road to Gender Equality

Today, we mark our collective global efforts towards gender equality.

March 8th, is an opportunity for us to pause and reflect on our achievements (big and small) and the work to further improve the lives of women and girls. This year’s theme is about #EmbracingEquity.

That’s about helping everyone to understand that equity has incredible benefits for us all. When we have policies, places and people that embrace equity, we ensure that we’re building a world that’s good for all of us.

That’s about building our political system so that it truly fosters collaboration, inclusion and belonging.

Here at Equal Voice, we have been calling and inviting all our political parties to commit to electing more women since 2001. We’re very proud of our multi-partisan approach, and we’re here to work with everyone to help us get to that goal. But the work is not just about that numeric target of achieving gender balance. We want women to come into politics and stay in politics.  

We’re living through a time today where we're seeing political trust on the decline and women leaders pulling back from their roles. We know that for more women to step in, we’ll need to make our elected houses more inclusive and safe. We’ll be continuing our work to address with our partners across the country the barriers that are keeping women from getting elected and staying in their roles.  

Canada, in spite of our shiny reputation as a national feminist powerhouse, still has not broken through on gender parity in our national Parliament. Not by a longshot. Our pace of change on this issue has been glacial. We have seen our global standings fall to 61st place in the world, as our House of Commons includes only 30% women.

We are in a race against the clock as we battle climate change, crumbling health infrastructure, housing instability, deepening inequality. More than ever, we need women at our decision-making tables. 

Let’s use this month to think about how we can all take small and big steps to embrace equity - and to thank the leaders, especially women and gender diverse leaders for the ways that they serve our communities, our cities, our country.

Happy #IWD.