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Develop your Gender Equality Literacy

Gender Equality Literacy is the ability to understand, recognise, critically assess, and apply gender equality as a fundamental human right.
​It empowers people to identify discrimination, challenge stereotypes, make informed decisions, and contribute to more inclusive and equitable communities.

What You'll Explore

⚖️ What gender equality means
👥 Underststanding gender eguality. 
🎓 Gender Equality challenges
💼 How to be the change
🌍 Gender equality around the world
🚀 Empowering women

Why does it matter?

Gender equality is not only about women or men. It is about ensuring that every person enjoys equal rights, opportunities, responsibilities, and respect, regardless of gender. Building Gender Equality Literacy helps individuals understand how gender influences education, employment, health, leadership, family life, media representation, and participation in society. It also strengthens the ability to recognise misinformation, question stereotypes, and support evidence-based, human rights-centred solutions.
UN: gender equality, at the rate of progress as of 2023, it would take an estimated:
  • ​300 years to end child marriage,
  • 286 years to close gaps in legal protection and remove discriminatory laws,
  • 140 years for women to be represented equally in positions of power and leadership in the workplace, and
  • 47 years to achieve equal representation in national parliaments.

Understanding Gender Equality

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Gender equality is more than a fundamental human right.
​Women are entitled to live with dignity and in freedom from want, fear, and violence. Gender equality is also a precondition for advancing development and reducing poverty: Empowered women contribute to the health and productivity of whole communities and societies, and they improve prospects for the next generation.

Gender equality means that women and men, girls and boys,  must enjoy equal opportunities, choices, capabilities, power and knowledge as equal citizens. Equipping girls and boys, women and men with the knowledge, values, attitudes and skills to tackle gender disparities is a precondition to building a sustainable future for all. Still, despite solid evidence demonstrating the centrality of women’s empowerment to reducing poverty, advancing development and addressing the world’s most urgent challenges, gender equality remains an unfulfilled promise.
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The roles that men and women play in society are not biologically determined. They are socially determined, changing and changeable. While they may be justified by their proponents as being required by culture or religion, these roles vary widely by locality and evolve over time. Efforts to promote women’s empowerment should ensure cultural considerations are respected while women’s and girls’ rights are upheld.

​Key Principle of Gender Equality
Equal Rights: Legal protections and human rights apply uniformly to all people.
Equal Opportunities: Fair access to education, careers, healthcare, and financial assets.
Equal Representation: Balanced participation in leadership, political governance, and decision-making roles.
Equal Value: Socially valuing different behaviors, aspirations, and lifestyles completely equally
Gender Equality obstacles resumed as UN Targets Sustainable Development Goal no 5
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1 End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere
2 Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation
3 Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation
4 Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate
5 Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decisionmaking in political, economic and public life
6 Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences.
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Source: The Economist https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/05/the-world-is-a-long-way-from-meeting-its-gender-equality-target
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Women have had to fight for their recognition as full human beings and their basic human rights for a long time, and unfortunately the fight is not over yet. Although women’s situation has improved in many ways almost globally, societal factors still provide obstacles for the full and immediate implementation of human rights for women all over the world.

​The 20th century has brought many improvements, but also many setbacks, and even in times of peace and progress women and their human rights were not given special attention. Nevertheless, in all periods of history heroines can be found who fought for their rights, with arms or with words. Eleanor Roosevelt, for example, insisted that “all human beings are equal” should be used instead of “all men are brothers” in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) when it was drafted in 1948.

Challenges to gender equality:
1. The Danger of Gender Stereotypes

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A gender stereotype is a generalized view or preconception about attributes or characteristics, or the roles that are or ought to be possessed by, or performed by, women and men. Whether overtly hostile (such as “women are irrational”) or seemingly benign (“women are nurturing”), harmful stereotypes perpetuate inequalities. For example, the traditional view of women as care givers means that child care responsibilities often fall exclusively on women.

Gender stereotypes in all spheres of life influence very much people’s choices of work they do and how they can combine it with private life. They are at the root of occupational, sectoral, time and hierarchical segregation between women and men. 
Gender stereotypes related to the division of care responsibilities usually turn out to be detrimental for women and their career paths. Women opt for part-time work more often, with consequences for their life-long income, including pension, and with impact on their career possibilities. Likewise, stereotypical masculinity norms hinder men from fully participating in parenthood, and in caregiving in a wider sense.

Legal prohibition of gender stereotypes and gender stereotyping
Two international human rights treaties contain express obligations concerning harmful stereotypes and wrongful stereotyping: 

2. Discrimination against women

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Any distinction, exclusion, or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field. - Article 1 of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)

Key Forms and Areas of Discrimination
Women and girls frequently experience intersectional discrimination, facing compounded biases based on their ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, or socio-economic background.
  • Economic Inequality: Globally, women in the labor market still earn approximately 20% less than men. They also face the 'motherhood penalty' in career advancement and remain underrepresented in executive and leadership roles.
  • Political Underrepresentation: Women hold only about 27% of seats in national parliaments and 35.5% in local governments.
  • Bodily Autonomy and Healthcare: Sexual and reproductive rights are frequently restricted, preventing women from making decisions about their own bodies and health services. In some regions, discriminatory inheritance laws restrict women from owning land or family assets.
  • Gender-Based Violence: Interpersonal and institutional discrimination often normalizes violence and harassment, severely limiting women's physical safety and freedom of movement.
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What creates inequality?
Inequality against women stems from deeply rooted patriarchal systems, discriminatory legal structures, and cultural norms that enforce rigid gender roles. These factors limit women's access to economic opportunities, leading to a global gender pay gap, unequal sharing of unpaid care work, and underrepresentation in political leadership.The root causes of gender inequality encompass several interconnected structural, economic, and social factors:
  • Discriminatory Laws & Policies: According to the World Bank, dozens of countries maintain legal barriers that limit women’s economic participation, property ownership, or legal rights during divorce.
  • The "Motherhood Penalty" and Care Work: Globally, women perform up to 2.5 times more unpaid care and domestic work than men. This imbalance disrupts career progression, reduces workforce participation, and deepens financial disparities.
  • Economic Disparities: The United Nations reports that women still earn around 20% less than men for work of equal value. Women are disproportionately clustered in low-paying jobs and underrepresented in executive or high-level political roles.
  • Unequal Access to Education: In many developing regions, cultural expectations and safety concerns force girls out of school early, perpetuating generational cycles of poverty and limiting career prospects.
  • Social Norms and Gender-Based Violence: Adherence to strict, male-dominated gender roles normalizes control over women's choices. Violence—and the threat of it—restricts women’s physical freedom, limits their mobility, and prevents them from fully participating in society.

3. Gender Pay Gap

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​Overall women on average earn less than men per hour. This gender pay gap stands at 13.0 % for the EU27 in 2020 and declined only by 2.8 pp since 2010.
Several factors contribute to this gap:  
  • different working patterns of women, often linked to  their career breaks or change in working pattern to look after a child or other relatives;
  • gender segregation in low-paid sectors;
Often, women are even paid less than men for the same work.

4. Gender segregation in the labour market

The uneven concentration of women and men in different sectors of the labour market is a persistent problem in the EU. 3 in 10 women work in education, health and social work (8% of men), which are traditionally low-paid sectors. On the other hand, almost a third of men is employed in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (7% of women), which are higher-paid sectors. Find more statistics on the gender segregation.

5. Intercultural Perspective & Controversial Issues

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The concept of universality is of central importance to human rights, but especially indispensable when it comes to women’s rights. Cultural diversity is far too often used as an excuse or an impediment to the full implementation of the human rights of women.

​Despite the widely shared concept of universality, many areas of women’s daily lives are still sources of controversy. In some religions and traditions women do not enjoy the same treatment as men. The denial of equal access to education and employment opportunities as well as overt exclusion from political decision-making is considered normal. In some extreme cases, these policies and perceptions even pose a threat to the personal security and the right to life of women.

In 2002, a young Nigerian woman was sentenced to death by stoning by a Shari’a law court. According to Amnesty International Australia, the crime Amina Lawal had allegedly committed was giving birth to a child out of wedlock. This verdict caused an international outcry and questioned the compatibility of some cultural and religious practices with the universality of human rights. Regrettably, more recent incidents such as the case of Sakineh Ashtiani in Iran whose execution was postponed several times and in the end transformed to a ten-years sentence after a wave of international protest in 2010 and 2011. The 2012 case of a Mali couple sentenced to 100 whippings for the crime of giving birth to a child while not being married show that little progress has been made in reconciling religion or tradition and women’s rights.
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​6. Other Key Issues
Experience has shown that addressing gender equality and women’s empowerment requires strategic interventions at all levels of programming and policy-making. In addition to the different forms of gender-based violence and harmful practices mentioned above, key issues include:
  • Reproductive health: The ability of women to control their own fertility is fundamental to women’s empowerment and equality. When a woman can plan her family, she can plan the rest of her life. Protecting and promoting women’s reproductive rights – including the right to decide the number, timing and spacing of children – is essential to ensuring women’s and girls’ freedom to participate fully and equally in society. In addition, for both physiological and social reasons, women are more vulnerable than men to reproductive health problems. Collectively, complications of pregnancy or childbirth are one of the leading causes of death of women of reproductive age. In 2017, about 295,000 women died from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Failure to provide information, services and conditions to help women protect their reproductive health constitutes gender-based discrimination and is a violation of women’s rights to health and life.
  • Economic empowerment: Poverty is not gender-neutral: Globally, women are more likely to be poor than men. Economic disparities persist partly because women have unequal access to and control over economic resources, and much of the unpaid work within families and communities falls on the shoulders of women.
  • Educational empowerment: About two thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women. Lack of an education severely restricts a woman’s access to information and opportunities. Conversely, increasing women’s and girls’ educational attainment benefits both individuals and future generations. Higher levels of women's education are strongly associated with lower infant mortality and lower fertility, as well as better outcomes for their children.
  • Political empowerment: Gender equality cannot be achieved without the backing and enforcement by institutions. But too many social and legal institutions still do not grant women equality in basic legal entitlements and human rights, in access to or control of resources, in employment or earnings, or in social or political participation. And men continue to occupy most positions of political and legal authority; globally, less than one quarter of parliamentarians are women and the percentage is even less in the Arab States Region.​
  • Violence against women: Violence against women is one of the most widespread and serious violations of human rights and a major obstacle to achieving gender equality. It affects women and girls of all ages, backgrounds, and cultures, taking many forms, including physical, sexual, psychological, economic, and online abuse. Beyond its devastating impact on individuals, violence against women limits equal participation in education, employment, public life, and decision-making. Preventing and addressing gender-based violence requires strong legal protection, effective support services, education, and a shared commitment to promoting equality, respect, and human dignity. ​​​
​GENDER EQUALITY IN NUMBERS

  • In 2024, legal barriers to gender equality persist: 61 countries out of 131 surveyed (47%) still restrict women from doing the same jobs as men, 38 countries (29%) set 18 as the minimum marriage age with no exceptions, and 63 countries (48%) define rape based on lack of consent.
  • Nearly one in five young women aged 20–24 (19%) were married or in a union before turning 18. Although child marriage has declined globally, mainly due to progress in Southern Asia, it remains highest in sub-Saharan Africa (31%), where the number of child brides is projected to rise by 2030.
  • Globally, over 230 million girls and women have undergone female genital mutilation, with 4 million girls undergoing the harmful practice each year. Eliminating female genital mutilation by 2030 will require accelerating progress to 27 times the pace of the past decade.
  • In nearly 80 per cent of countries with data, fewer than half of women have ownership or secure rights to agricultural land, which are vital for empowering rural women and strengthening agrifood systems. 
  • As of 1 January 2025, women held 27.2 per cent of the seats in national parliaments; this is up 4.9 percentage points from 2015 but only 0.3 points from 2024.
  • Political leadership, investments and comprehensive policy reforms are needed to dismantle systemic barriers to achieving Goal 5. Gender equality is a cross-cutting objective and must be a key focus of national policies, budgets and institutions.
Source: The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2025

Empowering women​

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Despite many international agreements affirming women’s human rights, women and girls are still much more likely than men to be poor and illiterate. They have less access to property ownership, credit, training and employment. They are far less likely than men to be politically active and far more likely to be victims of domestic violence. Gender equality will be achieved only when women and men enjoy the same opportunities, rights and obligations in all spheres of life. This means sharing equally the distribution of power and influence, and having equal opportunities for financial independence, education and realizing one’s personal ambitions.
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​Gender equality demands the empowerment of women, with a focus on identifying and addressing power imbalances and giving women more autonomy to manage their own lives. When women are empowered, whole societies benefit, and these benefits often have a ripple effect on future generations.

Real Men are Feminist

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Gender equality and women’s rights are NOT women’s issues, they are human rights issues. Achieving an equal world for all iis impossible without men participation, without men questioning the power dynamics in their actions and words and taking responsibility for change.

Achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is about challenging the patriarchal beliefs, practices, institutions, and structures that drive inequality between men and women. It also requires men and boys to take responsibility for change, be engaged as gender advocates, and question the power dynamics in their actions and their words.
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Women in STEM -Studies & Careers

The European Commission study ‘She Figures’ (2021) confirms that there are fewer women in the digital sector: 
  • women represent only 20% of ICT graduates and only 17% hold tech sector jobs
  • women represent only 24% of self-employed professionals in technical professions, such as science, engineering or ICT
  • the pace of change is not promising:
    • the share of women in ICT jobs in the European Union (EU) increased by only 0.5 % between 2012 and 2016 (Source: European Institute for Gender Equality: Women and men in ICT: a chance for better work-life balance, 2018)
    • female scientists and engineers in EU Member States, from 39% in 2011 to 41% in 2020.​​​
FREYR Institute supports the EU actions in this field:

GENDER EQUALITY IS IN OUR HANDS: BE THE CHANGE 

Gender equality is not achieved through laws and policies alone—it also depends on the everyday choices we make. Challenging stereotypes, treating others with respect, sharing opportunities and responsibilities fairly, speaking out against discrimination, and supporting equal rights all contribute to a more inclusive and equitable society. Every action, however small, can help create a future where everyone has the freedom to develop their potential and participate equally in all aspects of life. GET INSPIRED: 

What Can We Do

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Gender equality is built through everyday choices, respectful relationships, inclusive institutions, and informed communities. Every action, however small, contributes to a more equal society.
Everyday actions: 
  • Challenge stereotypes.
  • Share care responsibilities.
  • Use inclusive language.
  • Encourage girls and boys equally.
  • Speak up respectfully.
  • Continue learning.

FREYR INQUIRY LAB

1 – Fact or Opinion?
"Women are naturally better caregivers than men."
  • Is this presented as a fact or an opinion? 
  • What evidence would you need to evaluate this claim?
  • Could cultural expectations influence this belief?
  • Which human rights principles are relevant?
  • Is there any issue in this statement?
2 – Identify the Stereotype
A toy catalogue shows girls playing with dolls and boys building robots.
  • Fair display of human traits or stereotypes?
  • How stereotypes influence children's choices?
  • Do they limit opportunities? If so, how?
3 – Human Rights Lens
A company receives applications from two equally qualified candidates. During the interview, one candidate is asked whether she plans to have children in the near future.
  • Is this appropriate?
  • Which human rights or equality principles could be relevant?
  • What risks could this create for equal treatment?
4 – Media Lens
Choose an advertisement, news article, or social media post.
  • How are women and men represented?
  • Are stereotypes present?
  • Are different perspectives included?
  • What message might the audience take away?​
5 – From Understanding to Action
Think about your own school, workplace, sports club, or community.
  • Can you identify one example of good practice that promotes gender equality?
  • Is there one barrier that could be addressed?
  • What small action could make a positive difference? ​
6 – Reflect
Have you ever encountered a situation where someone was treated differently because of gender?
  • What happened?
  • How did it affect the people involved?
  • Which human rights principles could help address the situation?
  • Looking back, would you respond differently today?
Resources:  Resources on GENDER PAY GAP: ​Violence against women resourses:

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