Inequalities between men and women have been occurring around the world since the beginning of time. Despite this being a major issue, gender equality did not become a global topic of discussion until the group, United Nations, was formed in the mid-940s. The establishment of the UN helped the feminist movement gain momentum, and in the 970s led to the general assembly of the UN pronouncing an International Womens Year as well as holding the first World Conference on Women in 975. Following this trend of increasing gender equality, in 979, the United Nations enacted the CEDAW, which is the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The CEDAW played a major part in constructing the International Womens Bill of Rights which formulates a plan to eliminate discrimination (UN.org). The assembling of these new policies and groups helped lessen the number of gender discrepancies, however, gender inequality is still prevalent in the present day. The UN is aware of these continuous gender disparities and has continued to make progress towards gaining full gender equality around the world. There is now an entire division of the UN solely designated to achieving both gender equali
ty and womens empowerment. Gender equality is also recognized as one of the United NationsΒ 7 sustainable development goals (DESA, UN.org).
The main reason this crucial problem is being discussed a lot more now than in the past is because of the new issues women are facing. The COVID-9 pandemic has been around for over one year now and is continuing to cause gender-related issues. According to the United Nations, the economic crises caused by the pandemic are affecting women significantly more than men. This is because women tend to earn less money, have fewer savings, make up a majority of single-parent households, etc. There is also the issue of job loss. A majority of the jobs being lost are those in which women make up a majority of the workforce. For example, domestic jobs, which are retail, entertainment, and food service jobs, are made up of about 80 percent of women. This is taking a harmful toll on women because around 72 percent of those workers have lost their jobs (UNwomen.org). Therefore, an introduction to a global set of laws that focus on pushing for gender equality may be a way to lessen this substantial difference between the way women and men are affected by global events that occur.