IAAP: Special Project on Gender Equality
The International Association of Applied Psychology has established a special project on Gender equality in June 2018 to contribute to the UN SDG 5 on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. This is the first project of this kind in the Association’s 100-year long history!
Achieving gender equality is a global concern and, although some advances have been made towards this end, the issues of gender pay gap, the low representation of women in top managerial positions, the lack of career progression opportunities for women, and the lack of freedom to make their own vital decisions in some parts of the world are just a few examples of why we still fight for gender equality around the globe. It is important to highlight that achieving equality between women and men is a concern of everyone, not women alone. Effectively, gender equality is part of human rights and therefore, the whole society needs to work towards promoting it, achieving it, and protecting and sustaining it.
Our Mission
The project’s main mission is to gather and promote research evidence on gender equality across applied psychology disciplines. Specifically, we aim to create a worldword map, pinpointing the key research evidence that has strong policy implications for promoting gender equality around the world. We are keen to gather and give visibility to relevant research in applied psychology that contributes to the SDG 5, with special focus on implications for policy makers.
Our position on gender equality is aligned with the definition used by the United Nations:
“Gender equality refers to the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of women and men and girls and boys. Equality does not mean that women and men will become the same but that women’s and men’s rights, responsibilities and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male or female. Gender equality implies that the interests, needs and priorities of both women and men are taken into consideration, recognizing the diversity of different groups of women and men. Gender equality is not a women’s issue but should concern and fully engage men as well as women. Equality between women and men is seen both as a human rights issue and as a precondition for, and indicator of, sustainable people-centered development.” (OSAGI Gender Mainstreaming - Concepts and definitions)
In line with UN, we understand gender as “socially constructed attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female. These are context/ time-specific and changeable”. As such, we take the position that gender is not binary.
The main goals of our special project are:
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To collect the existing evidence on gender equality from across different disciplines of psychology
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To collect best practices on promoting gender equality across the world
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To bring together researchers or experts in the field of gender equality
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To champion and advocate for gender equality at the UN (CSW) and other stakeholder organizations based on scientific evidence in psychological research.
Resources
How Can Our Research in Applied Psychology Contribute Towards Gender Equality Around the World?
This webinar is discussing current gender equality issues across the world and how our research in different applied psychology disciplines can help address some of these issues.
Prof. Diane F. Halpern is talking about the current issues concerning gender equality in the US, Prof. Fanny Cheung discusses some of the most pressing concerns around gender equality in the Asia-Pacific region, and Dr. Tom Calvard elaborates on gender equality concerns in the UK. The session is interactive, where the participants are discussing how their research in applied psychology can address gender equality issues in different parts of the world. The event is moderated by Kristina Potočnik.
For more information, and the recording of the webinar (available for IAAP members only), click here.
UN – Sustainable Development Goal #5: Gender equality and women’s empowerment | Department of Economic and Social Affairs (un.org)
