ANN HASSAN shows that gender inequality has many different faces and explains why equality is essential for women and girls to flourish.

The United Nations’ fifth Sustainable Development Goal is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The UN asserts that this goal is essential for two reasons. First, gender equality is a human right. Women are entitled to equality; we have a moral responsibility to achieve it. Second, providing women and girls with the same opportunities as men and boys — with equal access to education, healthcare, decent work and political representation — will benefit societies and humanity at large.

In New Zealand today we can look to every institution — the hospital, the school, the court, the Beehive — and find women in positions of power. And yet women everywhere, and at every level of society, continue to suffer violence and discrimination.

The Boko Haram kidnappings in Nigeria in 2014 showed us that women are used as political leverage and that their plight is ignored. Closer to home, rest home worker Kristine Bartlett showed through her pay parity case that equal pay is a fallacy. And recent revelations about the culture of leading law firm Russell McVeagh show that harassment and gender discrimination is a feature of life for even the most privileged women. True, freedoms have been slower and harder won in some countries. But here, too, equality is a goal rather than a reality.

Boko Haram

Boko Haram was a Jihadist group based in northeastern Nigeria. Since 2015 it has been rebranded as part of the Islamic State. Known for its extreme violence, it was ranked as the world’s deadliest terror group by the Global Terrorism Index in 2015.

On the night of 14 April 2014 the group kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from the Nigerian town of Chibok. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau initially announced that the girls would be sold as slaves. Some reports suggested that the girls would be used as living bargaining chips to negotiate the release of imprisoned Boko Haram commanders, but Shekau later made statements suggesting they had instead been “married off”. Some 50 girls escaped soon after capture, but the fate of the remainder was mysterious, with conflicting reports reaching the media.

Beginning with local posters, which President Goodluck Jonathan worked to suppress, the slogan “Bring Back Our Girls” became popular, trending as a hashtag on international social media. United States First Lady Michelle Obama was a vocal champion of the cause, but in general the Western media was criticised for not giving the story the airtime it deserved, and international governments were accused of inaction.

It is now four years since the kidnapping. Some girls have escaped, some have been released, some have died, some have borne children to their captors. Video footage of the remaining girls has been released, but its verity is questionable. Perhaps the most depressing element of this story is that released or escaped girls have often found themselves rejected by their own communities, stigmatised by the sexual violence they experienced while in captivity.

What is so shocking about the Chibok kidnapping is that the girls themselves do not matter. They are not, like the kidnapped children of the very rich, for instance, or abducted political figures, taken for who they are, but rather simply for the terror that the act of kidnapping 276 people can produce. And, arguably, the international community was able to ignore the plight of the taken because they were “just girls” — in and of themselves essentially powerless and unimportant.

Pay Parity

In 2014, Lower Hutt rest home worker Kristine Bartlett brought a case to the Employment Court. She argued that her low rate of pay — $14.32 per hour — was evidence of gender discrimination. Bartlett proved that the almost all-female rest home workforce was paid less than males doing similar work in other areas, and that if a legion of men suddenly became rest home workers, pay rates would increase.

The success of Bartlett’s case led to unions and employers forming a working group to establish the parameters for future pay discrimination claims. The group considered not just health and disability support workers but all female-dominated industries.

Aged care providers have always argued that wages were paid at a minimum because their industry was under-funded by government. But over the last quarter century, the rest home industry has proven to be lucrative, with shareholders receiving impressive returns. Ryman Healthcare, for instance, returned a full year underlying profit of $178 million in 2017, up 17 per cent on the previous year.

After the success of Bartlett’s case, the Employers and Manufacturers Association immediately warned that New Zealanders may have to pay more tax to cover these mandatory pay increases, showing that for many paying a fair wage to women is seen as an unnecessary burden rather than a moral obligation.

Russell McVeagh

Russell McVeagh is one of the “big three” law firms in New Zealand. Established in 1863, with 350 staff and partners at offices in Auckland and Wellington, it is a national institution. Along with other large firms, it operates an aggressive recruitment strategy, touring university campuses to pitch to the brightest and best.

But earlier this year the firm, which describes itself as “committed to operating at the cutting edge of legal practice”, found itself at the “cutting edge” for all the wrong reasons. It is alleged that senior male lawyers routinely engaged in consensual and non-consensual sex with female interns. Over the course of a few weeks’ news, a picture of the firm’s culture emerged: a boozy boys’ club in which male staff are acutely aware of the power they wield over young women in junior roles — and are keen to use it.

Dame Margaret Bazley has been appointed to conduct an internal inquiry. Other accusations of gender discrimination in the legal profession have since emerged: several alumni of Otago University reported inappropriate behaviour at a second-year law camp, and the University is now investigating these.

The women at Russell McVeagh are not what we typify as the “usual” victims of discrimination. They are high-achieving university students, admitted to a limited entry course and winning internships at a top firm. They are articulate and — as students of the law — they have a better-than-average understanding of their rights and responsibilities.

Our Responsibility

No one is immune. Nationality, wealth, education, religion, family support — none of these inures women against violence — sexual or otherwise — and discrimination. It is easy to look back on the enormous, hard won achievements of last century and think: “Well done us. We’ve made it”, but we’re not there yet. For women in some countries, those battles for structural equality — the vote, the right to work, even to live freely — are still to be won. In countries like our own, we need to face the reality that there is still a mountain of work to do. All women — kidnapped, harassed, working the hardest, most important jobs in our community — have a right to equality, and we have a collective responsibility to ensure they get it. And as the UN asserts, an equal society will benefit all of us — women and men.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 225, April 2018: 4-5.