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How far do you feel we have to go to reach gender equality in the UK?



In the UK we’re making progress, and things regarding gender equality are moving forward, and moving in the right direction. It’s just moving so slowly, so very, very slowly.

It still shocks me when I find out women are being paid less than men for doing the same job. When women are not being promoted into senior positions, when women don’t get the same recognition, when women’s accomplishments aren’t supported in the same way. Something has to change, and as a society we need this change to happen. Not only for women but for men as well.

At the moment, there’s still far to many old, white, men, all from the same backgrounds, who have the same interests and same hobbies, making all the decisions. It’s an old boys club and if you’re not one of them then your not getting in.

The fact is the men in charge do have power and at the moment they're scared, they don’t know how to cope with this change (which is coming), they're not ready to adapt, and to be honest they don’t want to. What they’ll learn eventually is change is happening and it’s going to happen. They either need to get on board or move out of the way.

Men in positions of power are holding on for dear life to that power. They don’t know how to engage with people who aren’t like them. They may say all the right things and act in a certain way, but deep down they don’t believe it. They think things are going to go back to the good old days when, men made all the decisions and women stayed at home playing the pretty wife and bringing up the children with out a worry in the world.

It’s 2016, women work, women are an essential part of the workforce and they make up 52% of the population, but its still not being reflected in society and how they’re perceived.

I’m making massive generalisations, and I’m dumping loads of men in the same box. For every one man who’s a feminist and believes in equality and fairness there’s nine more who don’t know how to behave and how to act in 2016.

Pick any FTSE 100 company in the UK and take a look at its board structure. I’ll take a wild guess…. majority made up by white males with one female (generally in charge of HR as that’s a female dominated area). Pick up any paper today and turn to the back pages, and keep turning until you find any story about women playing sports. Every time I do this, I’m left disappointed, because there’s none. It’s almost like women don’t like sports, or don’t play sports, so lets not write about what women are achieving!

I feel we need to go all the way until we have equality.

I want to see Parliament 50:50.

I want to see boards 50:50.

Only then will the changes we need to happen, start to happen. We’ll reach the tipping point, which will have positive implications for all of society, which will benefit men and women.

Change is happening, its coming.

I just want it to happen quicker!

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