The Potential of Women and the Burden of Inequality

It is over 110 years since ICN was founded by the combined efforts of a small group of visionary women. These women recognised the need for nurses to reach out across countries to further the development of our profession through ensuring that it had a strong and coherent voice prepared to tackle the key issues of the day, as well as set direction for the future. At that time professions dominated by women tended to have little or no voice in political or other power circles. Whilst our profession has progressed considerably we still have work to do. It is not uniformly the case that nurses have a voice in all power circles so it is perhaps not surprising that women in some parts of the world have not fulfilled their full potential.

Two recent reports -WHO’s Women and Health: Today’s Evidence Tomorrow’s Agenda¹ and UNFPA state of world population 2009: Facing a changing world – women, population and climate²–could be seen as rather depressing reading. These reports highlight the great burdens and inequalities that confront women. We know that when women’s life expectancy is greater than that of men when women are educated, have access to appropriate services, support in childbirth and the opportunity to earn realistic and equal wages. Yet these issues are not always fully addressed. So why do we not see concerted action to take advantage of these opportunities? Can we afford to squander our most precious resource–life itself

The WHO report focuses on both women’s health needs and their contribution to the health of our society. It highlights the need for far greater and more coherent political and institutional leadership, visibility and resources for women’s health. Going beyond the health of women the report also draws attention to the consequences and costs to society as a whole for failing to address these issues. The report shows the impact of social and economic determinants of health and points clearly to their origins–societies’ attitudes towards women. Attitudes that we all have a role in changing.

The UNFPA publication focuses on a very different topic, yet highlights many similar issues and clearly shows that climate change is far more than an issue of energy efficiency and carbon emissions. Instead it has a real impact on population dynamics, poverty and gender equality. Despite the rather frightening consequences of our own and our predecessors’ actions -disasters, famine and war - the report highlights that women have the power to mobilise against climate change and other disasters. It also, importantly, points out that women can only do this if policies are in place to empower them to act.

Over the last century some progress has been made in relation to women’s rights, their health and wellbeing. However we must make a far more concerted effort. Otherwise slow progress will be set to continue, the optimum contribution of women will be blocked, disasters will continue to place our societies at risk and the true potential of our species will fail to be realised.

To these ends the announcement of the creation of a UN Women’s Agency is long overdue³. The agenda that it faces is considerable and complex, the opportunities to make an impact many and the potential rewards of reducing inequalities between men and women great. Learning from the past we know that the women’s suffrage movement played a key role in the founding of ICN and that the hopes and ambitions of a small group of educated and empowered women, acting in concert, can have a lasting legacy. What can women driven by the opportunities of the new UN Women’s Agency achieve in the coming months, years and decades? It is certain that their success will be magnified if all citizens work together to secure equality for women.

¹WHO (2009) Women and Health: Today’s Evidence Tomorrow’s Agenda. Geneva, World Health Organisation.
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241563857_eng.pdf

²UNFPA (2009) UNFPA state of world population 2009: Facing a changing world – women, population and climate. New York, United Nations Population Fund.
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2009/en/pdf/EN_SOWP09.pdf