PETALING JAYA: More communication is needed among people and the participation of men is required to ensure matters involving gender equality gap are addressed progressively.
Women's Aid Organisation (WAO) executive director Sumitra Visvanathan said the recognition that women have the right to equality should be stemmed within society, and this can be achieved through conversations.
“So, we can talk about the structural change, the substantive change with laws and policies and the budget, but if the underline attitude doesn’t change, there is a problem.
“This can only happen through conversations on equality and non-discrimination, and one way through this, is education among family, in colleges and in the business environment.
“The visibility of equality is important; we need to get to a stage where we normalise seeing women in top positions. So how do we get to that when we see it normalised and it is a common occurrence,” she said.
She added how the government decides on how the development budget is spent is crucial, adding there is a need for a gender-responsive budget.
Sumitra added there was a need in recognising the social value of women’s work like unpaid care burden resulting in the loss to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Sumitra said this at the WAO forum on building gender equal workforce held in conjunction with the WAO Fest 2022.
TalentCorp deputy vice president (women programmes) Dinatra Mohd Saat - who was one of the forum's panellists – said that gender equality can be achieved progressively through different domains.
“If we want to achieve it all, it won’t take us too far, but we can focus on certain sectors like ensuring sustainability or financial sustainability, that would take us further.
“Indeed, having more conversation is important but it should not just be lip service and having men look at it as a trend.
“I think it is supposed to be something they want to do with valid reasons and to see the value of it all.”
Meanwhile, forum moderator Business Council for Sustainable Development Malaysia executive director Roberto Benetello said that it is important for businesses or employers to show the advantages of gender equality.
“There are a number of studies that show a positive correlation between companies with a greater proportion of women in senior decision-making positions and the economic performance of the company itself.
“You can start showing business if they act a certain way, they actually can trigger benefits for the organisation and transformation for change. We want to educate businesses and companies that this is the right thing to do,” he said.
Malaysia has been ranked at No. 103 on the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Gender Gap Index 2022, with Singapore at 49, Thailand (79) and Indonesia (92).
