Another 100 years to wait for gender equality? No thanks

In many areas, including pay, pensions and employment opportunities, progress towards equality has either stalled or gone into reverse.

If attitudes do not change, daughters of future generations will have fewer rights than us, the women of today.

And it needs to be said that we are talking about half of the population of the EU here - yet only 67 percent of this half work. Of all entrepreneurs, just 31 percent are women. They are still massively under-represented in political and economic decision-making bodies or in diplomatic circles.

Due to gender stereotypes, they are still much less likely to get STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education and find a job in growing and better-paid areas of employment requiring STEM and ICT (information and communication technology) skills.

The goal to eliminate pay gap was established 60 years ago in the Rome Treaty, but we are still talking about how to solve it. Meanwhile, it keeps looming large at around 16 percent whereas at a staggering 38 percent, the gender pension gap threatens many women with old age poverty.

The attitude towards ensuring gender equality should change first by employing a holistic approach and tackling all areas simultaneously.

The EU must step up its efforts and make gender equality an overarching stand-alone goal and link it to all policies, actions and future financial frameworks, in order to protect it from drowning in the void of secondary objectives and check-list bureaucracy.

We will not succeed without such clear commitment, because previous experiences have shown that success in one or few areas cannot compensate for losses in others.

100 years since women first received the right to vote, they deserve a clear, ambitious and binding strategy and action plan spanning five years and requiring every possible effort by member state governments, EU institutions, civil society and the private sector to tackle all aspects of gender equality effectively at the same time.

The timing for bold steps has never been better.

The majority of Europeans (both female and male) think that gender equality is crucial for a fair and democratic society (91 percent), for the economy (87 percent) and for them personally (84 percent).

Moreover, the share of EU citizens who would like the EU to intervene more in this policy area has risen by 10 percent (from 55 percent to 65 percent) in just two years since 2016. This is the clearest possible mandate to act given by the Europeans in the history of the EU.

€140 trillion in lost wealth

Gender equality is not only a moral issue and a human right - every aspect of our lives depends on it, be it by allowing more women to become economically active on equal conditions to men, creating better environment for family members to share the load, or simply by reducing the psychological burden from the primary earners in the households.

Let's not forget the economic factor of gender equality: the world loses €140 trillion in wealth because of the fact that women don't participate fully in the labour market, and are not equally paid to men.

In simple terms, it is an amount of money, which would be enough to cover free health care, increase pensions, provide free education and other public services.

It is also time to broaden the spectrum and pay more attention to previously overlooked areas, such as the vital role played by the media in promoting gender equality - it is crucial to start acknowledging the consequences of gender stereotypes produced by media content, as well as of gender stereotyped marketing to children.

To kickstart the new and fresh approach to gender equality in the EU, the European Economic and Social Committee has just adopted an own-initiative opinion, where we overview the majority of issues women face today in the EU and provide recommendations on how to solve them.

Moreover, we strive to promote the importance of sharing our good experiences by providing an annex with a list of some of the best practices from all over Europe and the world.

And last but not least, the EESC has this year dedicated its flagship Civil Society Prize to the fight for gender equality and the empowerment of women.

It will honour individuals and civil society organisations whose innovative projects and initiatives aim to break gender stereotypes and fight for equal treatment s of women and men in all spheres of economic and social life.

We, Europeans, can all benefit from gender equality. So why should we sit idly for another century with hopes that gender equality will improve naturally by itself? I believe we deserve better.