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1E. GENDER EQUALITY MYTH BUSTING
Gender mainstreaming in cities is becoming more common, but a few misconceptions remain. Let s look at some classic myths and their realities.
That s the national
government s job.
Cities play an important role in the implementation of national, regional and global agendas on gender equality through the services and spaces closest to the daily lives of residents. Incorporating gender mainstreaming into municipal structures and processes is an effective tool for combating inequality at a local level and feeding good practices and good ideas back up to the regional and national levels. Cities ability to shape the daily lives of the women and men who live in them equally gives them the power to drive change in gender equality and beyond.
Gender is all about women.
All genders experience stereotypes, norms and gender blind policies which reduce their opportunities to participate in society fully
and equally, from biased views about which gender should take parental leave to which
types of professions different genders excel at. Unfortunately, women still experience the majority of gender-based inequality, so policies for gender
equality mainly focus on reducing exclusion, discrimination and unfair treatment by lifting women
up. Nevertheless, as you will see in this report, gender equality means offering all genders equal opportunities to participate in society, and more
frequently this also means policies targeting men.
Gender Equality? Do we still
need to work on that?
Despite leaps and bounds in gender equality in the past few decades, a quick glance at statistics shows that there is still much to be done. The EIGE Gender Equality Index
2021 showed only marginal improvements in gender equality markers for the EU as a whole compared to the 2019 index, and a number of EU countries scores actually dropped in this
timeframe. These numbers, as well as increases in inequality and gender-based violence as
a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, show that actually the opposite is true: we need to work
on gender equality more than ever!
We can do that after
Gender equality is often considered as an afterthought, or something the city can work on once it has solved the real problems like air pollution or poverty. The fact is that the real problems are deeply connected to gender inequality, because women and men experience urban life differently and disproportionately. Factoring in gender from the outset has proven to make projects more efficient and successful because they include all members of society and target groups most in need. In contrast, omitting gender from the equation runs the risk of unintentionally increasing gender inequality.
