Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment: Feminist Mobilization for the SDGs
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12593 |
| Author | Gita Sen |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| Published date | 01 January 2019 |
Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment:
Feminist Mobilization for the SDGs
Gita Sen
Ramalingaswami Centre on Equity and Social Determinants of Health
(Public Health Foundation of India)
Abstract
This paper analyses the role of feminist mobilizing in formulating the gender equality agenda of the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs): the goal (5) to ‘achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’and gender-related targets across
other SDGs. It explores how three key drivers shaped its contours and the effectiveness: (1) context of socioeconomic and
political environment; (2) institutions; and (3) the processes of movement building. While feminist mobilizing led to significant
advances in the SDGs relative to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), important unresolved barriers of financing and
political opposition to women’s human rights and gender equality remain and will require continued feminist mobilizing. This
paper argues for the need to locate feminist mobilizing for the SDGs in the context of the history and persistence of gender
inequality and violations of girls’and women’s human rights, and the struggle against these violations. This history is located
within economic, social and political environments that are sometimes more open to progressive social change but often, as
in the current global conjuncture, may not be.
The role of civil society in mobilizing and advocating for the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been far greater
than for the preceding Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs), as many papers in this Special Issue attest. This
paper analyzes what women’s organizations were able to
accomplish with a particular focus on SDG 5 to ‘achieve
gender equality and empower all women and girls’and
gender-related targets across other SDGs. The paper devel-
ops an analytical approach towards such an understanding,
positing three critical drivers affecting feminist mobilization.
It draws on the available literature, including the grey litera-
ture of civil society statements during various SDG pro-
cesses, and the author’s own personal experience and
engagement in the mobilization.
In order to understand both successes and limitations, the
paper argues for the need to locate feminist mobilizing for
the SDGs in the context of the history and persistence of
gender inequality and violations of girls’and women’s
human rights, and the struggle against these violations. This
history is located within economic, social and political envi-
ronments that are sometimes more open to progressive
social change but often, as in the current global conjunc-
ture, may not be. Such a perspective is essential for a more
balanced understanding of where we need to go and how
to advance towards more sustainable transformations.
The feminist movement is no stranger to adverse eco-
nomic, social and political environments. Many of the cur-
rent cohorts of feminists came of age during the rising
years of neoliberal economic and social policies and ideolo-
gies in the mid-1980s and 1990s. Since then, the world has
grown increasingly fierce and difficult, with many opponents
and structures inimical to advancing women’s human rights
(Sen and Durano, 2014). To name a few: a limping global
economy with unprecedented levels of national and global
inequality; a deeply pessimistic scenario on global warming
and climate change with a growing number of climate refu-
gees; the proliferation of ‘illiberal’democracies in both high
and low income countries, and shrinking spaces for progres-
sive civil society; vicious unresolved conflicts and displace-
ment; and a growing backlash to bodily autonomy, integrity,
and sexual and reproductive rights, as well as to refugees
and migrants in receiving countries. As if this were not
enough, the communications revolution has led us into a
‘post-truth’world in which social media are sometimes com-
plicit in the spread of falsehood, hate messages and distor-
tions of reality.
Growing structural challenges, such as those above, have
been matched by sobering evidence on the continued persis-
tence of gender inequality. A recent version of the Global
Gender Gap Index ranking 144 countries by economic oppor-
tunities, education, political participation and health, pub-
lished by the World Economic Forum (2017), shows that some
aspects of the gap appear to have worsened in recent years.
The gap in estimated earned income (US$, PPP) increased
considerably after the global financial crash of 2008. The
report estimates that, projecting from 2017, it will take
217 years to close the gender gap in workplace equality, and
100 years to close the gap overall. While gender inequality in
health and education appears more likely to narrow, the eco-
nomic and political inequalities between women and men
seem to be hardy perennials that are getting worse.
The evidence from reports such as this one and others
presents a major stumbling block to the brave vision and
the goals, targets and indicators (GTI) laid out by the United
©2019 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2019) 10:Suppl.1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12593
Global Policy Volume 10 . Supplement 1 . January 2019
28
Special Issue Article
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