“This year, the international day for women’s rights has a particular tone”
Antonia Luciani reflects on gender inequalities and solutions to explore in order to build a Europe that is fairer to women
On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2021, Secretary General of the Coppieters Foundation Antonia Luciani addresses the ways in which the current pandemic particularly affects women, and the solutions that can be brought to gender inequalities in Europe.
For several years now, the Coppieters Foundation has been developing a new research area on gender issues.
We contribute to the debate on gender equality with publications and events that raise these questions at European and United Nations levels.
This year, the international day for women’s rights has a particular tone due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its secondary effects – such as the economic and financial crisis – that have had particularly important repercussions on women.
Loss of employment, de facto obligation to stay home when schools are closed: existing professional inequalities have aggravated and might even lead to a regression in terms of gender equality. Many women work informal jobs with little legal and social protection, they are therefore hit harder by the economic crisis.
Women have also been more exposed to the virus because more of them work in the health sector: as an example, they constitute a large majority in the field of nursing and at a global scale, they represent 70% of the health personnel. This is without mentioning the confinement, which led to a dramatic increase in cases of domestic violence.
We are now thus facing the need to remedy inequalities that have long existed, but also to build a fairer and more resilient world, in the interest not only of women and girls, but also of boys and men.
Within the Foundation, we make sure our governing institutions respect gender balance and are committed to ensuring an equilibrium between genders within the experts contributing to our events and publications.
Finally, we will very soon publish new research on the role of women in cabinets and executive branches, as well as policy recommendations to ensure a better representation of women in our institutions.
I am convinced that including women at all levels of political, economic and social life is a constant challenge and that it is up to us, collectively, to take it.
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The Coppieters Foundation is financially supported by the European Parliament. The European Parliament is not liable for the content of the conferences, events or opinion pieces published on our website.
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