Giving Compass' Take:

• Christina Kwauk shares four shifts discussed by Julia Gillard and Adrianna Pita that are needed globally to achieve gender equality. 

• Are you prepared to make moves in any of these issue areas? What partners could you engage to increase your impact? 

• Learn about funding gender equality. 

1. We need more evidence of what works to advance women leaders—how, where, and why.

The outcomes of the 2018 midterm elections in the U.S. demonstrate how vital girls’ and women’s leadership programs and initiatives, like those led by Emily’s List, VoteRunLead, Rise Up, and WEDO, are to removing barriers, creating role models, and catapulting girls and women into leadership positions. But equally important are institutions like the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, launched by Julia just last year, which disseminates knowledge for action on the best practices in women’s leadership development.

2. We need better policies, comprehensive services, and mindset change to reduce barriers for women in the home, the workplace, and en route to positions of leadership.

The opening of a new daycare center for U.S. House of Representative staff with children added more news to celebrate last week. But such signs of progress must not release pressure on policymakers and decisionmakers from addressing the host of workplace inequities that perpetuate discriminatory gender norms, including lack of family leave (encompassing maternity, paternity, and elder care), unequal pay for equal work, or gaps in labor laws that leave women vulnerable to sexual harassment.

3. We need to direct attention and resources toward building a pipeline of women leaders, starting with girls.

Studies have shown that formal education is an important enabling factor for women’s and girls’ leadership.

4. We need to make girls’ and women’s leadership an issue for both women and men, girls and boys.

It’s easy to pin gender equality as a girls’ or women’s issue. But as long as this is the case, we can expect the global gender gap in political empowerment (as well as in health, education, and economic empowerment) to close in another 100 years, at best. It’s obvious that we don’t have time to wait this long, nor does our planet.

Read the full article about gender equality by Christina Kwauk at Brookings.