gender equality
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France has made gender equality a key part of its G7 presidency. The country has set five goals for fighting inequality in general during its turn at the helm of the G7, including fighting against gender inequality, specifically. Further, France has already hosted two meetings of the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council, which brings together a diverse group of experts and policymakers from across the world devoted to discussing issues of gender inequality. President Macron has encouraged the Gender Equality Advisory Council to help bring these discussions to this summer’s G7 summit.
Gender equality has been a large focus of Macron’s administration in general; in November 2017, the president announced that gender equality was “the great cause of his five-year term.” Macron’s personal efforts to promote gender equality have been received with mixed results. Though half of his party’s candidates were women in France’s June 2017 elections, some feminists felt let down when the young president failed to select a female prime minister.
In France, Schiappa’s other equality-driven efforts more closely align with the gender equality initiatives her country has prioritized for this year’s G7 Summit. As part of their focus on ending gender-based violence, the G7 Ministers that met as part of May’s Gender Equality Advisorty Council focused on finding solutions for cyber harassment. Similarly, a component of Schiappa’s harassment legislation focuses on online “group harassment,” working to punish groups of offenders who deliberately target one victim. In another recommendation stemming from May’s meeting, G7 Ministers urged online platforms to remove illegal content on their sites quickly; while working to pass her harassment legislation in France, Schiappa reached a similar conclusion, arguing that tech companies needed to be cooperative in government measures to police the internet. In the wake of her law’s passage, Schiappa identified cyberspace as an area where more work needed to be done to stop harassment.
Ultimately, Macron hopes that members of the Gender Equality Advisory Council propose tangible solutions for improving gender equality across the globe. Prior to this year’s G7 summit, the Gender Equality Advisory Council will meet again to finalize their recommendations for implementing laws designed to combat gender inequality. G7 states will then be invited to implement at least one piece of legislation from the “Biarritz Partnership” a collection of laws identified by the Council to best advance gender equality worldwide. Hopefully, August’s summit sees the dawn of several legislative methods for advancing women’s rights worldwide.
Allyson Berri is a Washington Correspondent at Diplomatic Courier magazine.
Photography
All photos courtesy of the French Government, DICOM, by Lewis Joly. Working session and meeting with the Gender Equality Advisory Council.