Although women and men are intellectually similar, with little or no difference between them in areas like creativity and overall intelligence, the genders differ greatly when it comes to physiology. Women are subject to health problems that men aren’t, such as the many conditions related to reproductive systems and childbearing. Women also mature and age differently and are more susceptible than men to some problems that affect both. For example, women account for about 80% of the recorded cases of osteoporosis. And UTIs (urinary tract infections) are nearly 30 times more prevalent in women.Yet many signs indicate that women’s health needs are under-researched and under-addressed. Of the new medicines developed and approved for use in the USA over recent decades, very few are for conditions specific to women. Women also tend to be under-represented in clinical trials of medications meant for both genders, which can lead to the marketing of drugs that are sub-optimal for women, and female cardiologists have struggled to convince their male peers that women’s hearts need different care than men’s.But it’s not just a matter of shortcomings on the medical and research fronts. Other factors aggravate women’s health concerns. The global “clean cooking” movement is trying to combat the use of pollutants like wood and coal fires in less-developed regions, since dirty fuels are both bad for the environment and harmful to those preparing food — who, in most cases, are women.Then consider a common mental health problem. According to the USA’s Mayo Clinic, women are twice as likely as men to suffer from severe depression. Staff at Mayo report that this is due partly to physical causes, as with premenstrual or postpartum depression, but that “life circumstances and cultural stressors can play a role,” too. These stressors include women’s “unequal status” in society, workload fatigue among women balancing jobs with duties at home, and incidents of sexual or physical abuse.Finally, we must recognize the effects of poverty. Poor people tend to have unhealthier living conditions combined with less access to good health care. And, in many parts of the world, girls and young women from poor families get little education about subjects like sexual and reproductive health.In short, women’s health is a critical and complex issue. It’s critical because health problems degrade women’s quality of life and interfere with their ability to contribute to society. It’s complex because health is connected to many other issues, from the social and economic to the environment. An effective Health Equity Moonshot should (a) be comprehensive in scope and (b) look for points of leverage where an improvement in one area can trigger wide-ranging ripple benefits.

India is the headline story of the next decade, an emerging market with the highest growth rate and, more importantly, also set to become the world’s most populous nation beating China this year. It is also a place where women’s quest for a full share of that development gets tangled in the complexities of Indian society. On top of the country’s regional and religious differences, a new caste system is taking hold along economic lines. As The Economic Times noted, free-market policies since the 1980s have spurred growth but have made India “among the most unequal countries in the world, with rising poverty and an affluent elite.” And as Oxfam observed, “These widening gaps and rising inequalities affect women and children the most.”India has begun 2023 with good news….a significant decline in the maternal mortality rate from 130 deaths per one lakh live births in 2014-2016 to 97, less than 100 per one lakh live births in 2018-20. Just this one statistic is a major change for women and children in India.The big question remains, however, how do we build on indicators like these? Per Oxfam, public spending on healthcare is insufficient, with crucial gaps in both prenatal maternal care and post-natal care: “The poorest Indian states have infant mortality rates higher than those in sub-Saharan Africa.”The 2022 World Inequality Report found women’s share of labor income in India to be just 18% — “among the lowest in the world” and just slightly above the 15% share in the Middle East region.Overall, the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Index ranks India a very low 135th out of 148 countries studied. Despite India’s growing tech economy, women’s participation in professional and technical work ranks only 118th. Only 2.8% of all Indian business firms have female-majority ownership, and just 8.9% have women as top managers. Conversely, women make up nearly 89% of India’s “informal” (and typically low-paid or non-paid) labor sector.Economic statistics don’t tell the whole story. Gender inequality has long been ingrained in India’s culture, often in oddly contradictory ways. A Pew Research survey found most Indian men OK with the idea of a female prime minister, while believing that women should be subservient to men at home. Violence and harassment remain big concerns — in a World Bank survey, 56% of women in Chennai said they fear for their safety when they must ride public transport — and many Indian families still value male children much more than girls.Steps are being taken on various fronts. The esteemed Indian Institutes of Technology recently reached a goal of having women make up 20% of their incoming first-year students. But that’s far from adequate. At MIT, the U.S. school after which the IITs were modeled, women are already 48% of the entire undergraduate population.It’s time to re-imagine a New India with women as equal participants as India takes it place at the global high table, leading the G-20 presidency this year.. India needs an Equality Moonshot

With the growth of the internet and international trade, we take it for granted that we live in a “connected” world. But we also live in an increasingly collaborative world. It may seem strange to say that, given the constant flow of bad news about armed conflicts and political tensions around the globe. Yet the truth is that governments, organizations, and groups of all kinds cooperate across borders to a greater extent than ever before in human history. We are going to need even more such cooperation in the years ahead.Global cooperation is needed to address common problems such as climate change, war, and poverty. It also plays a positive role in improving everyone’s quality of life, by bringing together the ideas and resources of people everywhere. Here is a very brief overview of some forms of cooperation that are currently in place. Going forward, women of the world must build upon and leverage global networks to create a worldwide Equality Moonshot.First, consider how nations collaborate at present. The United Nations provides global arenas for cooperation that didn’t exist or were not effective previously. The UN’s World Health Organization has played a key role in eradicating smallpox and controlling other infectious diseases. UNESCO is active in education and environmental protection and supports international collaboration in scientific research. Altogether, we now have a multitude of platforms for nation-level cooperation. The World Bank and IMF provide financial help to assist economic development and recovery. Although it’s not global in scale, the European Union has become the most highly developed body of sovereign states on the planet.Independent NGOs have proliferated, too. Groups ranging from CARE and Human Rights Watch to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) work in various ways to help people in troubled regions.

Business firms also collaborate internationally more than ever — for example, in technology. Today’s complex products cannot be made by companies acting alone. Phones, computers, and electric vehicles all contain chips, batteries, and other crucial sub-systems designed and made by firms in multiple countries. Complex issues require collaboration as well. To tackle those around global healthcare, major pharmaceutical companies are now partnering with dozens of organizations in the World Economic Forum’s initiative on “Shaping the Future of Health and Healthcare for creating a healthier planet.

On the other hand, the Fashion industry, which employs a significant number of women and girls, is changing the fashion path, reducing its negative environmental and social impacts, and turning fashion into a driver of implementing a sustainable world. It’s time to reimagine global cooperation in all areas of fashion to promote projects and policies that ensure that the fashion value chain contributes to a thriving economy and a sustainable world for women and girls.Our purpose is to focus on women’s roles in building momentum in global cooperation in financial inclusion, sustainability, health equality, and access to equal opportunities.Many international women’s organizations exist or have existed. The oldest, the International Council of Women, was founded in 1888 and is still active. Groups for specific purposes come and go. Now that women finally have the right to vote in most places, the suffrage movements of the past have largely done their job, while new groups keep being formed for women in fields like technology and environmental policy. Women also are gaining greater representation in organizations such as the UN, the EU, and their numerous agencies. The task is to multiply and accelerate global efforts for a sustainable planet and inclusive economic growth for women and girls worldwide.

In most cases, women’s rights within a given country depend on having an open, democratic society, and that kind of society needs freedom of the news and communication media. The three are interconnected. Therefore it is not surprising to see women’s rights being limited or imperiled in countries that are less democratic and don’t grant much media freedom. An Equality Moonshot for women must include measures to help support both political and information freedom.Iran stands out as a current example. While the protest movements in that country have varied in intensity, they show definite signs of continuing into the new year. If the protests should manage to bring about substantial change, it would be a historic event — perhaps the first time in modern history when a movement originated by women, on behalf of women, grows to liberalize an entire nation. The protests are unfolding in a society whose record on freedom of information is, at present, very weak.In the 2022 global Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, Iran ranked next to last at 178th of 179 nations studied. Only Eritrea scored worse. Recent suppressions of media freedom in Iran have included arrests of journalists covering Mahsa Amini’s funeral and the subsequent protests, as well as throttling citizens’ internet connectivity.Freedom of information can be stifled in various ways. In China, the government owns the major TV and radio outlets, newspapers, and news service, exerting strict control of what is reported and how.All media receive regularly updated censorship guidelines. Independent journalists run the risk of arrest, and imprisonment is common. Citizens’ use of online media is subject to monitoring, and access to many foreign-based websites is blocked.Elsewhere, Russia has rolled back freedom of the press considerably in recent years. State media outlets prevail and many independent outlets have been closed. Surprisingly, the United States ranks only 42nd on the Press Freedom Index, despite having an abundance of independent media and a government that doesn’t intervene in their operations. However, the flow of reliable information has been impeded by other factors.These include the under-funding of local news, the funding of biased coverage by wealthy major-media owners, and political efforts to sow distrust of certain media while limiting reporters’ access to government information. And — though it may be hard to trace a direct cause-and-effect link — women’s rights in the U.S. also have been eroded, as with last year’s Supreme Court decision that overturned a national ruling on reproductive rights.It will be challenging to mount an Equality Moonshot in this area. Situations differ greatly from one country to the next. In the places where democracy and media freedom are weakest, this is usually the result of suppression by a deeply entrenched government, which will actively fight any attempts to change things. But difficulty cannot be an excuse for inaction. The future of many may depend on our ability to marshal peaceful but effective means of change.

Women in the Middle East face huge barriers to reaching equality. While the recent protests in Iran have drawn wide attention, the status of women remains a thorny issue throughout this region around the Persian Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean. Many countries have laws and customs that relegate women to being second-class citizens. In extreme cases (which aren’t rare), women are essentially viewed as property of their husbands and/or male relatives.There has been progress on various fronts during the past decade or so. Women in Saudi Arabia, for example, have won the legal rights to drive cars, vote in elections and hold public offices. Yet the fact that these basic rights were once denied is startling. And while some countries have opened up their societies much more than others, the region as a whole needs an Equality Moonshot.Statistics tell a grim story. The WEF’s Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI) is a combined metric that measures the standing of women vis-a-vis men in a nation across four areas: economic, educational, and political participation, and health. In the GGGI table for 2022, Israel and the United Arab Emirates ranked 60th and 68th out of 146 countries surveyed — but they were the only Middle East nations ranking above the bottom quartile, and the only ones with Index scores above 0.70 (representing 70% progress toward full gender equality). The next-highest ranked was Lebanon at 119th, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others all having similar but slightly lower Index scores. Near the tail end, with a significantly lower score, Iran ranked 143rd in the global 146. Syria and Iraq weren’t listed in the 2022 Index, but they landed at 152 and 154 out of 156 countries in 2021.The roots of the issue are complex. Although many countries have modernized and grown wealthy through oil and gas revenues, modernization is a fairly new phenomenon. As a result, conservative mindsets and ideologies persist, including patriarchal traditions that say men should rule the roost in both public and private life. Violence against women remains a problem as well. It can take many forms, from domestic abuse to state-sanctioned violence, as when the protests in Iran were triggered by a young woman dying at the hands of the nation’s morality police.On the positive side: Young women are now the majority of students at many Middle East universities. More will need to move into professional positions, as women’s share of labor income across the region remains very low at around 15%. The UAE, seen as a progressive Arab nation, has high-ranking women in business and government along with increasingly female-friendly legal codes. Women also make up 61% of university STEM students in the UAE and are starting to play a larger role in technology startups.Finally, women’s rights organizations are taking root across the Middle East. Many are national in scope; others are region-wide or focused on specific issues, and there are cases of women taking charge of events informally at the grassroots level. Amid the civil war in Syria, women who normally would stick to household duties have formed groups to mediate local conflicts and protect refugees from harm. The task now is to greatly accelerate the momentum for positive change.

When it comes to winning equality for women in the workforce, we have focused much of our attention thus far on improving the numbers. We measure progress by tracking the percentage of women in STEM or executive positions. We judge the level of equality in a nation by measuring women’s rate of participation in paid labor and the size of the gender pay gap. These numbers are important. We must continue trying to improve them. But the traditional “representation” numbers no longer tell the whole story.To really address workforce equality and inclusion, we must add new dimensions to our efforts. The world of work itself is changing. Major trends in recent years include the growth of virtual remote work, the emergence of the gig economy, and a growing divide between high-paid professionals and people at the lower end of the scale. To address workforce equality and inclusion, we must add new dimensions to our efforts. We need to look at how women are treated and how they can thrive, rather than suffer, within the conditions of these new trends.Studies show that remote work tends to be a mixed blessing for women. On the positive side, working virtually from home eliminates commuting, reduces the need to dress up, and avoids unpleasant gender-based interactions at the employer’s site. In a McKinsey survey, only one in ten U.S. professional women preferred working on-site. For women with children or dependents, working from home can also help achieve a work-life balance. But here is where the negatives start to creep in. Working online while trying to manage just one small child can quickly become a huge hassle.Furthermore, 37% of the world does not use the internet. With more basic services moving online and the pandemic highlighting affordability challenges in wealthier nations, these deep digital gaps are intensifying inequality and preventing women and girls full particpation in the workforce.Lastly, the growing socioeconomic divisions between high and middle-to-low earners loom large over everything. Women are affected the most since they are disproportionately represented in the lower brackets in practically every country where statistics are kept. Women working in lower-end roles cover a wide spectrum of occupations. They range from janitors, maids, and personal care attendants to workers in assembly lines, call centers, restaurants, and markets. In less developed regions, they are subsistence farmers, water carriers, low-wage artisans, and the like.The overall picture is complex. An Equality Moonshot for women at work will have to be aimed at multiple fundamental issues, many intertwined from digital inclusion, access to internet, workforce reskilling and upskilling and redefining the future of work. This Moonshot will require innovative thinking and action if it’s to be feasible.

Moonshot to change how women are viewed and treated. We can even use that leverage to shape the future of global capitalism and the planet itself.Consider the purchasing power at our command. Women control or influence 85% of all consumer spending in the United States. Worldwide, women control over $31 trillion in spending, and our buying is not limited to traditional “female” categories such as food and cleaning products or beauty and fashion. Women also purchase most of products in male-oriented markets, from motor vehicles to consumer electronics.And yet in recent surveys, over two-thirds of women said they feel misunderstood, stereotyped or objectified in advertisements for key products and services. Certainly things have improved since TV and print ads depicted housewives as dutiful servants to their husbands. However, the U.K. consulting firm PLH Research points out that sexism is still ingrained in advertising. For example, while many ads suggest that men should buy certain products to fit with the admirable traits they have, it’s often implied that women need to change — and that certain products will make them prettier or better in some way. Notably, teenage girls are swamped with messages promising to make them more attractive. Influencer marketing has grown into a booming industry, especially in Asian countries, with legions of glamorous young women selling sexy clothes and cosmetics to their online audiences.All of this has to change. Given how much time we now spend online, both for practical needs and pleasure, women are typically exposed to thousands of ads and marketing messages daily. These messages are hard to ignore, and their impact is profound. They add up to a constant flow of stories we are told, about how life works and who we are.It’s time for women to reclaim this power of storytelling. No longer can we accept media narratives that depict us as inferior creatures or that promise fulfillment through fantasies of seduction and superpower. We must demand and create messages that speak to the real lives and true nature of women everywhere. In contrast to the old saying that “women hold up half the sky,” most of us are heroes in very down-to-earth ways. We juggle duties and demands; we hold together our families and communities; we make life on this earth possible and find joy in it. We don’t need miracle products because the everyday reality of women is a miracle in its own right. That is the story that needs to be told — in advertisements, in all media, and in our daily interactions.There are signs of progress. Although most creative directors at advertising agencies are men, women are moving into such roles increasingly. As consumers, we are starting to show that we prefer products from socially responsible companies. More than ever, we are looking at factors like sustainability and fair treatment of workers when we choose what to buy. We hold the power of change in our hearts … and the instruments of change in our wallets. A new economy is dawning. Women will light the way