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6 Things We Learned From Emma Watson's HeForShe Campaign's First Report

Emma and co. are making great strides towards gender equality

Back in 2014, with the aid of Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson, the UN launched HeForShe, a campaign aiming to engage men as well as women in bringing about worldwide gender equality, no mean feat for sure!

In January last year they launched IMPACT 10x10x10, a further campaign which brings together gender equality leaders from around the world to make real change within and outside of their organisations which range from universities to big corporations and world leaders within the UN.

Yesterday they revealed their first report showcasing what they’ve been up to and how on earth they plan to go about tackling such a mammoth task! It’s a pretty long document but since we think this is such an important issue we waded on in to bring you a brief overview of what it says. Here we go:

1. It’s all about parity

Parity is defined as anywhere between 40% and 60% of each gender in any given role. Basically it just means that there should be equal parts men and women in any business or organisation and this is what HeForShe is striving for.

2. Some pretty big names are taking the lead

Along with Emma herself as their ambasador,HeForShe have enlisted the help of 10 big companies including Barclays, Twitter and Vodafone who have agreed to reveal the percentage of women working in their companies for the IMPACT 10x10x10 campaign and this report.

3. We’re closing in on parity company wide

Across the 10 companies involved in this report, 39.7% of all staff are women, so close to the required 40%! (Although 50% would be better and is still a way off…)

4. We’re not closing in on parity in senior roles

Things aren’t looking so good in senior roles though with only between 11% and 33% made up by women and only 28.6% of board member positions filled by women

5. These numbers are above average

Though these numbers might appear shockingly low, they’re actually above average. The great work HeForShe has been doing with these companies over the last few years means that they’ve made active steps to increasing their numbers of female employees. The average number of women in senior roles worldwide for example is just 18.5% (as of 2013).

6. Transparency is the key to equality

HeForShe believes and has shown with these increased steps towards parity that the answer lies in leadership and transparency. If heads of big (and small) companies are seen to be encouraging equality and are willing to disclose the inequalities (or hopefully lack of) in their workforce then change is accelerated. Twitter for example have been disclosing the number of women within their workforce since 2014 and have seen increases in both progression for women within the company and in the hiring of women.

You can read the full report hereor watch the release here. IMPACT 10x10x10 is just one of the amazing areas HeForShe are working in, head over to heforshe.orgto find out more!

- Henry Boon

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