Monica Ellena, Parent at Kyiv International School.
First came the question. “Mum, why wouldn’t boys let me play football with them?” she asked pushing back her tears. Then, “I wish I was born a boy!”
The social norm that says that everyone is equal, but girls are less equal than boys, hit hard my oldest daughter when she was seven. As she asked a group of boys she knew if he could join their game, she was told, “Girls don’t play football.” Similarly, my younger daughter found herself defending a schoolmate against a group of little boys who mocked her because she was wearing Spider Man’s stockings. The reason? Apparently superheroes are not for five-year-old girls.
Gender equality has climbed the political and social agenda. Today, we parents are more likely to tell our daughters that they can be whatever they dream to be – an astronaut, a mother, a president, a singer. And yes, a football player too.
But there is a whole world out there of obstacles they will face simply because they are girls. Inevitably, I worry— as a parent as well as a citizen. Young boys mocking girls for what they like – be it football or superheroes – become employers who pay less female employees, managers who invite only men to conferences, husbands who assume that kids and chores are solely their wives’ responsibility or, worse, who feel entitled to beat them.
We hope that, as “third culture kids” – children who grow up in cultures different to those of their parents – our children will adopt a broader perspective on the world. But for all the diversity in their lives, gender inequality appears a constant. The main variable is the extent. One good measure is the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2017. Georgia, where my older daughter lived from the age of three months, and my younger daughter was born, is in 94th position. Italy, my own country, does little better, coming in at 82nd position. Ukraine, where we have lived since August, is in 61st position, while the UK, where my husband grew up, is 15th place. Some places are better than others, but all leave much to be desired.
What can we do about it? We try to bring up our girls to believe that the sky is the limit; that they can achieve whatever they want to. But that is only half of the problem. Girls’ self-belief is conditioned by the expectations that society – and male society in particular – thrusts upon them.
It takes two to tango. In that sense, Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, was right to say that “It is crucial to raise strong girls, as it is crucial to feminist boys.” Part of the problem is our tendency to define what it means to be male and female in terms of each other. When we praise boys for being strong, we are implicitly suggesting that girls are weak – or weaker, at least. Changing what it means to be female entails some change in what it means to be male too.
That’s not what a lot of men have signed up for. My husband is very supportive of our daughters, and hates the sexism that they confront almost as much as I do. But when the conversation turns to our own domestic arrangements, things become a little trickier…
That’s where initiatives like UN Women’s HeForShe campaign is so important, as it asks men to take a stand. Ultimately, that means asking them to examine their own attitudes and behaviour. It requires a profound change in mind-set, a challenge of deeply-rooted stereotypes, and ultimately a lot more work. So, why should men do it? It is not only a pressing moral issue, the argument is economic. Economists argue that if women — who account for half the world’s working-age population — do not achieve their full economic potential, the global economy will pay the price. A 2015 report from the consulting firm McKinsey Global Institute illustrates that $12 trillion, or 11 percent, could be added to global gross domestic product by 2025 by closing the gender gaps in work and society. Even domestic violence comes at a cost: in 2010 the World Bank estimated that absenteeism and lost productivity caused by domestic violence costs the world between 1.2% and 2% of GDP.
Besides, I think they gain more than they will lose. My husband was brought up in a family in which men earned the money and women ran the home. Today, he is much more involved in his daughters’ daily routine than his father ever was – and their relationship is much closer as a result.
My daughter eventually did play football with those boys. The father of the oldest on the pitch called his son and said “Make sure that she, and any other girl asking for it, play. Sport is for everyone.” Guess what? She turned out to be good, much to the amazement of the boys.
Italian journalist Monica Ellena is mother of two girls who attend the Kyiv International School.
