My thoughts this month centre around #100years followed by the subsequent announcement of a £500,000 fund to encourage more women to become involved in politics in Scotland.
Some twitter surfing took me to a google search to find out more information about what the political gender gap looks like now. I was less interested in rankings (although its an eye opener!) and more interested in pace of change.
According to the Global Gender Gap Index – an annual index that measures the relative gaps between women and men across four key areas, the political dimension currently holds the widest gender gap.
It’s forecast that on current progress this could be closed within 99 years. Another #100 years does little to motivate me. The thought however of reducing this to say 50 years or 25 years, does. Funding is a start, but I think that we as community development organisations and practitioners also have a massive part to play. I don’t doubt this, but the question I always end up pondering is - politically, economically or in any other sector, is our role to empower individuals and communities to negotiate the current structures or do we have an obligation to help re-define those structures? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
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