Gender equality determines whether societies can develop or not and in what direction this development will take place. Gender equality is an issue that has been going on for years and needs to be overcome. Issues such as not ensuring gender equality in both social and business life, women receiving less salary than men, being exposed to mobbing, equality of opportunity, educational opportunities and violence are still a huge problem. It is an obstacle in their private life as well as their business life. As a child, classifying toys by gender and attributing gender to business lines is an obstacle for women to work in many sectors. In fact, the subject that needs to be overcome starts right here: Gender roles.

What is the Concept of Gender?

Gender includes social and cultural norms imposed and expected by society and associated with masculinity and femininity. These norms consist of roles assigned to men and women, which are reflections of both social and business life.

Gender includes the roles and responsibilities of women and men determined in the tradition, customs and religion of the society they live in. Biological, historical, and social processes are also in an effective position in shaping these roles. There are many factors such as hormonal differences and the people expecting men and women to behave suitably with their roles. We can easily see from the past to the present that especially the roles are determined on men and women. The advertisements you see in front of the television while sitting at home are the best examples of this. Although mass media reflects reality, it actually offers us what we want to see. It is the fictionalized form of reality.

Gender Roles and Advertisements

It is based on the act of activating and convincing certain emotions in the audience. Therefore, social norms are very effective. Well-groomed, beautiful female images are constantly reflected. Because the ideal woman is like that. She does housework, takes care of children, is beautiful and well-groomed.

Since cars are associated with power and speed, the main characters of ads are always seen as men. Women, on the other hand, try to get rid of stubborn oils in order to make their dishes shiny and a detergent brand comes to their rescue.

We always come across 2 types of women in commercials:

1-1- Women who do housework and are happy to be given a vacuum cleaner on their birthday or Mother’s Day.

2- Women who use make-up to reach the ideal beauty in society, who try to lose weight, who have stunning hair, the perception of beauty of women…

Nowadays, especially with the shift of focus from mass media to internet ads, we have started to see that these perceptions are being broken down and stereotyped norms are being broken, but this is still very insufficient today. Although the roles have started to change, what we watch is still the same. We continue to be exposed to certain patterns not only in commercials but also in TV series and movies.

 

Gender Equality in the World

Income inequality is seen everywhere in the world. There are statements that women receive less salary than men, that they will not be a good manager, but they will be a good mother. While women do the same job as men and receive less salary, the concept of motherhood is an obstacle even in recruitment processes. Do you think about getting married? Do you want to have children? Some of the women whose answer is yes are not even hired. Another version of this situation can be associated with the issue of military service for men, but it cannot be measured on the same scale. Because one of the biggest obstacles for women is having children in their business lives. While the right to parental leave is given to mothers, it is not given to fathers and it is ensured that the man continues his career. While taking care of children and dealing with household chores is seen as the only duty of the mother, the perception that a man should go to work and bring bread to his house is still functional today. In addition to the fact that women continue to work even when they return home from work, even professions are attributed to gender. While women are associated with professions as teachers and secretaries, it suits men better to be a pilot, doctor and engineer.

To draw attention to gender equality, the World Economic Forum (WEF) recently published its 2020 Gender Equality Report.

In this list where countries are ranked by gender equality, we see Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden in the beginning of the list and Turkey at the end of the list. Turkey ranks as 130 in the ranking that had 149 countries last year and has 153 countries this year.

While preparing the gender equality list, criteria such as women’s participation in the economy, equal opportunities, educational opportunities, health and political empowerment of women were considered. In the report, 1 point means full equality in the gender equality index.

You can access the data for Turkey here.

While Western Europe is the region with highest gender equality with the average of 76.7, Middle East and North Africa region which also includes Turkey takes the last place in gender equality with and average of 60.5 percent.

257 years need to pass for equal pay!

Half of the men and women in the world believe that men will be better politicians or leaders. More than 40 percent share the view that men are better managers in business life and that men deserve a job more than women.

The World Economic Forum stated that gender discrimination has decreased by 3.6 percent since 2006. However, the forum pointed out that there was only 0.03 percent progress in 2018, and this was “extremely little”.

As PEAKUP, we welcome successful female executives in our Equal Opportunity series, which we initiated to be an inspiration and example, and support women in every aspect. You can watch our video series where we talk about the difficulties they face in their business lives, the processes in their professional life and their suggestions.

For years, women have been struggling to make their voices heard to have equal rights. That is why I would like to end the article with a nice movie that tells how women clawed their way up to the right to vote.