10+1 reasons why we believe in Gender Equality
Being a member of #DareToChallenge team has really helped me not only because I learned more about virus social issues but also because I practiced myself along with my team how to steer social innovation.
Starting from the beginning when we still worked individually, our first assignment was to find an issue that we deeply care about and ask ourselves 5 times why we care about it; we also were supposed to do the same thing with someone else who is also passionate about the same issue.
If you did not know yet, this is the method of “5 whys” which basically aims to find the deeper meaning of what you do/say/believe — you name it.
I, of course, had to choose gender equality and women empowerment. I am saying of course because if you know me you know that I cannot stand any form of inequality and as a woman who grew up in an environment of patriarchy, I had to start with it. This, by the way, is a sixth reason why I stand for this issue and it really seems as if the more you ask yourself the deeper answers you will get.
As a person who is highly interested in that subject it turned out that my five reasons cover the subjects of women’s everyday lives, workforce, political representation, health, and violence. More specifically, women experience various forms of degradation from an incredibly young age — from their families telling them “you are a girl, you are not supposed to do this” to being sexual assaulted in a legal way; and the list goes on and on.
For the shake of diversity, I chose Konstantinos a 24-year-old student to ask him 5 times why does he care about gender equality and women empowerment. I found his answers genuine as a man who has not done a major research on that subject, but really is rooting for it. His answers concern social, biological, and emotional reasons, such as the ineffectiveness of patriarchal model as well as that we can only reach the maximum common good if we give everyone the maximum possible opportunities.
While I am writing this, the words of Malala Yousafzai come to my mind
“We cannot all succeed when half of us is held back.”
Lastly, I chose UN Women as an example of an organization that works for gender equality and their work is a great example of how we can make social innovation happen. UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women.
More specifically, they work towards youth & gender equality, economic empowerment as well as ending violence against women. Their work is an incredible example of how and why we should all strive for this.
I do believe that a day will come when all people have access to the same number of opportunities, far away from any form of degradation, regardless of their sex.
Eleni for Project W Team
Elena Alid, Χριστίνα Βασιλάκη, Crystal, Ioulia Ntoka, Basiliki Tomazou
Professor
Betty Tsakarestou
