Abstract

Humanitas Visiting Professor in Women’s Rights 2013

The Humanitas Chair in Women’s Rights has been made possible by the generous support of Mrs Carol Saper.

Ambassador Melanne Verveer, the first US Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues, will give a series of three public lectures and a concluding symposium on Gender Equality: A Moral and Foreign Policy Imperative.

The lecture will focus on women’s economic participation from an evidence-based argument. Today a range of studies and data underscore why gender equality and women’s economic participation are key both to women’s progress and a country’s progress. The discussion will focus on the importance of the so-called “missing middle” – the need to support women-run small and medium size enterprises as accelerators of growth, women’s income as a double dividend and women as consumers. The discussion will address challenges that women confront and ways in which the private sector and government are responding for social good. Finally, the lecture will also spotlight the role of women in the labor force and related inequities in the global economy. The gender gap in women’s economic participation is not just shortchanging women around the world, but also shortchanging global economic growth.

Full details: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/2286/