The Importance of Gender Equality for Sustainable Future

Gender equality is the presence of equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities for women and men and girls and boys. Gender Equality is necessary for sustainable development, because it allows both genders to have equal opportunities, and it stimulates economic growth.

Gender inequality is considered a violation to human rights, it’s unethical and antisocial. Women are less than one-third of the world's researchers, they represent more than 66% of the world’s 750 million adults that are currently illiterate, and it’s been proven that a woman journalist is more prone to suffer from assault, menace, and verbal or digital attack.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) states; “Our message is clear: women and men must enjoy equal opportunities, choices, capabilities, power and knowledge as equal citizens. Equipping girls and boys, women and men with the knowledge, values, attitudes, and skills to tackle gender disparities is a precondition to building a sustainable future for all”.

The right of universal suffrage (right to vote) is considered extremely important, it assures equity, this allows for a democratic government, in which everyone is included in the voting process, thankfully in Mexico everyone is allowed to vote and it’s rigged by a “federal republic composed of thirty-two federal entities: thirty-one states and Mexico City and has a Presidential system of government”.

Mexico has strict rules against discrimination on hiring, there are huge fines against this, although many people don’t know about these rules, so in many businesses of Mexico, gender discrimination in hiring happens without any repercussions, as well the wage gap of Mexico is 16.67 as in 2015, this shows that Mexico, is on the right path towards reducing gender inequality, but has a long path to go.

Short-long term physical, sexual and reproductive, and mental health problems are associated to intimate partner violence, there is a huge amount of females that suffer from this, the data provided by the United Nations (UN) shows that in Mexico as in 2016 19.97% suffered from violence by an intimate partner in the last 12 months.

Violence against woman from other persons other than an intimate partner is a major problem as well, this is even more worrying that the violence that woman suffer from their partners since this violence is mostly from people that these woman have never met, and makes females mentally unstable since they have to be worrying every other minute from an attack, in Mexico this is a major problem, because from January 2019 to May 2019 there has been 1,199 femicides according to the Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública (SESNSP), comparing it to 2018 760 femicides, this data in displaying that there has been no improvement, sadly it’s been a decline from the medium last year.

Forced marriages are unethical, and shouldn’t happen in anywhere in the world, they private females freedom, it’s slavery at some point, because these females are forced to obey their partner, and upon disloyalty, they are almost always killed, it promotes violence from intimate partners, and all other kinds of violence. Thankfully this practice is not present in Mexico, it doesn’t even have any antecedents of the presence of this practice.

The sexist thought of seeing as a good thing that woman stay home taking care of it, and the children is immensely wrong, females are the vast majority of the world’s unpaid domestic care work, they are responsible for 75 percent of all unpaid care and domestic work, a woman should be free to do whatever they want not tied to taking care of a household. Mexico is placed at the top of the list in this subject, the average time spent on unpaid domestic and care work in Mexico is 9.4 daily hours.

Having a woman in political power is considered really important since this empowers more females to seek high education, good works, and independence, a woman in power have the same ability as man have, sadly there is a small percentage of woman in political power UN WOMAN states that; “only 24.3 percent of all national parliamentarians were women as of February 2019, As of June 2019, 11 women are serving as Head of State and 12 are serving as Head of Government, Globally, there are 27 States in which women account for less than 10 percent of parliamentarians in single or lower houses, as of February 2019, including 3 chambers with no women at all”.

Mexico has never had a female president, regardless new laws have promoted to have the same number of females elected for political positions as males, “Mexico has a 48.2% congressional seats held by a woman as in 2018, while the world average is 23.8%”. Data shows that females are almost never in high tier jobs, although this is increasing at a slow pace, in 2019, 29% of senior management roles are held by women, the highest number ever on record, 87% of global businesses have at least one woman in a senior management role in 2019, 43% of human resources directors are women compared to 17% of sales directors and 16% of chief information officers.

Mexico’s data is looking promising towards more equality in the working environment; “In 2017, 44.1% of women were in the labor force, compared to 79.0% of men, in the same year, women’s share of the total labor force was 36.5%, More than half the population is engaged in the informal economy, with women (58.8%) more likely than men (50.1%) to hold an informal job (WOT). It’s important to grant the same opportunities of studying to both genders as the increase of woman’s and girls’ attainment on the educational sector has been directly linked to 50 percent of economic growth over the past 50 years on the OECD countries.

Teen pregnancy is a major problem that we are still facing as in 2019, getting rid of unwanted teen pregnancy is crucial, because it can lead to premature birth in the child, anemia, high blood pressure, higher rate in infant mortality, greater risk of cephalopelvic disproportion.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), sixteen million girls between 15 and 19 years old, and approximately 1 million of girls under 15, give birth every year, “the fertility rate of Mexico is 77 childbirths from every thousand adolescents ranging from 15-19 years old when the worldwide fertility rate is at 46 childbirths from every thousand adolescents ranging from 15-19 years old, this shows that Mexico has 59% percent higher rate than the worldwide rate, this is extremely worrying.”

The fertility rates in adolescents are still very high, they affect principally the population that live in vulnerable conditions and show inequalities in and between countries. Adolescent pregnancy in teenage years can have a deep effect in the health of girls through the course of their lives. It doesn’t only obstruct them psychologically, but it is linked to inefficient results in their health, with a grater risk of maternal death. The children born when the mother is in their adolescent years are in greater risk and can fall into poverty as well.

There are negative effects on teenage pregnancy, such as health problems, lower permanence in school, low income and future low income, less access to recreative opportunities, social, and less quality specialized job opportunities, less development. Adding to this, having intercourse without protection (condom) can lead an increases chances of getting sexual transmitted diseases.

To combat this issue the Mexican Government is developing a national strategy so called “Estrategia Nacional para la Prevención del Embarazo en Adolescentes” (ENEPA), which was made possible thanks to the collaborative work of 16 federal governmental dependencies, as well of the participation of the civil society organization, of international organisms and expert people in the academic fields, in this subject.

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