you love, and not fearing that you will be subject to abuse for it. Privilege is when a man known to have sexually assaulted women is elected President of the United States.
Acknowledging these advantages in our lives is difficult and takes a lot of reflection. Personally, I come from a very privileged position, and from looking around this room I know that a lot of you do too. I encourage you to think a little about your own privilege and also how others around you may not be as advantaged. The problem is that when you’ re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. I think some of the discussions in this room over the past few days speak very clearly to this, as does the rhetoric of the recent General Election.
While at the Commission, every single individual in attendance experienced a particular type of advantage, and that is the privilege of getting a seat at the table and being in the room where it happens. The Commission was one of the first widescale events in the US to feel the effects of President Trump’ s travel ban, and while attending events it was difficult not to be aware of the men and women who could not be there because someone decided their nationality was a threat.
The support of this church was crucial in allowing me to attend the Commission, for without your financial backing I would never have made it to New York. Thank you to the church and especially to the Global Partnerships Committee for their support. I hope that the funding to ensure attendance at future UNCSWs is protected. Each session of the Commission on the Status of Women focuses on a priority theme and a review theme. This year’ s focus was on women’ s economic empowerment in the changing world of work. One event that sticks out in my mind launched the Global Equal Pay Coalition, and featured contributions from actress Patricia Arquette and ex-footballer Abby Womach. Arquette’ s contributions were especially moving as her passion for this subject shone through. One of her comments stuck with me –“ we have cars that are about to drive themselves yet women are still not being paid equally.”
In every country, women have fewer economic choices, less income and less control of assets than men. They are more likely to work in low paying, insecure jobs, often in the informal economy and without legal protection. Women also make a substantial but invisible contribution to the global economy through their unpaid care work, which in turn reduces their access to income. Time spent on unpaid care work prevents women from engaging in paid work, particularly in the formal sector, as well as participating in education, politics and social activities. In the UK, women are more likely to be employed in low paid, part-time work, more likely to head a single parent household, likely to have less financial assets and more likely to live in poverty, especially in older age. The majority of unpaid carers in the UK are women and female economic inactivity rates are higher than male rates.
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