Globally, women are fighting to find an equal place, inside their houses and in the society too. While the progress has been slow the initiative has been able to create awareness. Today, people acknowledge that women had to tough. They have been subjugated for long and still get in many places. People from all walks of life are joining the movement.
To contribute to the cause the embassy of France in an Indo-French partnership has brought 'Bonjour India' back. One of its main trajectories—Equal World Equal Spaces (EWES)—focuses on gender inequality as a major social evil. The initiative is the result of a partnership of the French embassy, WHO and Women Work & Health Initiative. SheThePeople is proud to partner this initiative.
Bonjour India
“Bonjour India aims to establish, strengthen and create all possible partnerships between France and India. As two major democracies and two countries involved in tech. and also the social and environmental innovations, we thought that it was not possible to have such a large platform which encompasses 33 cities without addressing the issue of gender inequality which is not purely an Indian issue,” said the Director of French Institute in India and curator of Bonjour India, Bertrand de Hartingh on EWES.
Equal World Equal Spaces (EWES)
EWES aims to create an equality charter with pointers of solutions to various challenges that women face in India like pay disparity, safety issues, sexual harassment at the workplace, etc.
The Director says, “EWES strives to build something which is very simple actually, which we call ‘Equality Charter’ which could state in 10 precise points on how could I improve the state of women in an institution, school, enterprise, etc. The idea is to not criticize anyone and help people to use the many policies used around the world and in India. And also to encourage people to adopt the charter to solve issues of gender inequality because they are still an important debate. We expect our female colleagues to work even better than we expect our male colleagues to work. At the same time society expects them to be good mothers and wives and it's not fair. And EWES focusses on bringing the fairness by proposing practical solutions."
Men Standing up For Equality
About men equally participating in the
women's movement, Hartingh said, "It is time that we men assume our full responsibility in the fight. We cannot wish for a proper developed, balanced society without acknowledging that we have a tremendous responsibility to the other half. It will be totally senseless to not care about the opposite gender's issue just because it is their issue and it will be a total lack of efficiency as well. And I don't believe that it is a women's problem, it is a social and economic problem. We know that many initiatives of social change are started by women may be because they have a deeper sensibility and are more practical than men."
Hartingh said that he personally recruited 75% of the workforce in the Instute de France.
He adds,"I feel that it is good to have diversity in the team. I have divided the institution in four departments and three of the four departments have women heads. I don't have bias between men and women and I recruit people based on their capabilities to work."
EWES, as Hartingh describes, is kept simple because he says that when it is simple it works. The Charter of equality created will have 10 simple solutions to solve various issues of inequality in different spheres. The charter will be available for countries around the world to be adopted to bring positive change in the
gender space.
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