The global gender gap is still a chasm

Happy International Women’s Day! Just a quick reminder: we’re not doing enough globally to close the gap between men and women.

• According to the World Economic Forum, there’s a 77 percent gap globally in parity between men and women on political empowerment, and a 42 percent gap in economic participation and opportunity.

• UNICEF says girls between the ages of 5-9 and 10-14 spend 30 per cent and 50 per cent more of their time, respectively, on household chores than boys of the same age.

• In the United States, the gender pay gap has remained stubbornly persistent in the past 15 years, with women still earning only 82 percent of what men earn according to the Pew Research Center. It has decreased on average by less than 0.4 cents annually since 1960.

Part of the problem on that last note? When we see women in leadership positions, we tend to think the problem has been solved.

Men—especially white men, like me—need to start wielding our positions of privilege like an axe to break down some of these barriers. That’s the only way we’ll start making more than incremental progress.