Media Home
UN Web TV
UN Audiovisual Library
UN PhotoUN / WOMEN IN POWER
Download
There is no media available to download.
Share
STORY: UN / WOMEN IN POWER
TRT: 02:55
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / SPANISH / NATS
DATELINE: 12 MARCH 2019, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
12 MARCH 2019, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, General Assembly
3. Wide shot, dais
4. Wide shot delegates
5. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President, General Assembly:
“Ninety percent of heads of state and government are men, as are 76 percent of parliamentarism. The great majority of countries have never been governed by women, and this is so in all regions of the world. If the present trend continues, reaching parity will take 107 years, over a century. But the most critical is that just four years ago, in 2015, it was projected that in 30 years this gap would be closed.”
6. Wide shot, delegates
7. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Gender equality is fundamentally a question of power, as we still live in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture.”
8. Wide shot, delegates
9. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“I am proud to be a feminist. And for all those men that believe that gender equality is a necessity, I recommend that they also are feminists. We all need to be feminists in order to make sure that gender equality is achieved in our unequal societies.”
10. Various shots, press conference dais
11. Med shot, journalist
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Kersti Kaljulaid, President, Estonia:
“I am quite sure that – I mean – the Secretary-General was inclined to be a feminist before these elections, but – I mean – having defeated so many women and – I mean – he acquired a certain and special responsibility. And we, right now, we are always ready to support his reform agenda, and we are quite sure that indeed, next time again the sister who will come together and try to promote that both equality and also some of us to lead this organization. But this was not a waste of time. What Helen Clark and other ladies put in, they influenced the agenda. I am quite sure they did.”
13. Wide shot, journalists
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Paula-Mae Weekes, President, Trinidad and Tobago:
“While women are moving ahead, they are moving ahead very slowly because the cultural norms which affect both men’s and women’s thinking, keeps us from going quickly as we can. So that – as I mentioned in the panel – we do not have a fair representation of women in the stem fields. Girls have not been encouraged to take risks; they have not been encouraged to do science subjects, so that while there is access, there is no true equity, or very little of it.”
15. Med shot, journalists
16. Wide shot, end of meeting
General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa told delegates to the annual summit of women activists at UN Headquarters in New York today (12 Mar) that there has been a regression in the number of women leaders around the world.
The former Ecuadorian Minister of Foreign Affairs who leads the 193-member world body, pointed out that in 2105 it would have taken 30 years to close the gender gap, but now, she told the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), if current trends continue, gender parity will not be reached for “107 years.”
She said, “ninety percent of heads of state and government are men, as are 76 percent of parliamentarism. The great majority of countries have never been governed by women, and this is so in all regions of the world.”
In his address to the meeting, Secretary-General António Guterres, said “gender equality is fundamentally a question of power, as we still live in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture.”
Guterres said he was “proud to be a feminist” and added that “we all need to be feminists in order to make sure that gender equality is achieved in our unequal societies.”
At a later press encounter, the President of Estonia, Kersti Kaljulaid, said expressed support for the
Secretary-General’s reform agenda. Kaljulaid expressed her belief that Guterres “was inclined to be a feminist” before the elections in which he defeated several women candidates, including former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark for the post of Secretary-General.
She added that “this was not a waste of time. What and other ladies put in, they influenced the agenda. I am quite sure they did.”
For her part, the President of Trinidad and Tobago, Paula-Mae Weekes, said, “while women are moving ahead, they are moving ahead very slowly because the cultural norms which affect both men’s and women’s thinking, keeps us from going quickly as we can. So that – as I mentioned in the panel – we do not have a fair representation of women in the stem fields. Girls have not been encouraged to take risks; they have not been encouraged to do science subjects, so that while there is access, there is no true equity, or very little of it.”
As of October, only nine per cent of Member States had a female Head of State or Government and only 24 per cent of parliamentarians were women, according to the UN.
Moreover, in 31 States, women account for less than 10 per cent of parliamentarians in single or lower houses, with four chambers lacking any women members at all. And among the 2018 “Fortune 500” rankings of leading US businesses, only 24 have women CEOs and 12 companies have no women at all on their board.
