23 may 2016

“The search for gender equality is a central element of a sustainable view, in which each member of the society respects others and plays a role that allows him or her to use his or her full potential”, that is how UNESCO defines gender equality. After knowing the legal framework that regulates equality between both sexs and the laws that punish violence, the search for equity must be a social priority.

Feminism is the practical implementation for searching equality and gender equality politics that reduce the pressure on women’s capacity of exercising their rights. In Spain we have laws that regulate it: the Organic Law 3/2007, 22 of March for the effective equality between women and men. This law states that the equality is a right and “the equiality betwen women and men is a universal principle of law recognised in several international texts about Human Rights, among which we stress the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, approved by United Nations General Assembly in 1979 and ratified by Spain in 1983”.

The main aim is to applied this equality from education, from the development of educational materials  to teaching process in order to every institution has an active role in the search of an equal society. People, as social assets, must know the importance of living in a society that does not discriminate for matters of sex. Violence against women is a social construction and its eradication is the main objective of equality: discrimination against women has no place in a society in which women and men are equal in rights.

Gender discrimination os deeply ingrained in our society, in which women are still labelled in the domestic environment. In fact, if they want to leave this task they have to justify while men have the freedom of choice.  Gender roles are created by society and they are learned unconsciously from one generation to the next. The sooner we realise the error of the unequal treatment, the sooner we will work on the problem.

Being a social construction, these roles can be adapted and changed to reality, it is not an immovable issue. Empowering women, that is to say, 50% of the population, is essential to achieve the development since we cannot move forward as a society if we set aside the talent and the worthiness of the half of the population. Enforcing the education on respect and raising awareness among younger generations that we are all equal and we deserve same opportunities is the beginning of an equal society: gender education is the present and future.