International Women's Day is celebrated on 8 March each year as a day to commemorate the struggles of the women's rights movement. March 8 has always been an occasion for a reminder of the changes that need to be made in society in order to effectively establish the principle of gender equality, but it is also a day of honour for women around the world who, through long and difficult struggles, are fighting for women's rights and the elimination of stereotypes.
Modern women, after many struggles, have managed to secure their participation in politics, science, and the workplace in general, but unfortunately, due to the patriarchal structures of society, they face a dilemma that their male colleagues rarely face. This great dilemma is: career or family. They themselves intuitively try to combine both. In the past, in traditional and patriarchal societies, women gained the respect and appreciation of society only through their roles as wives and mothers, but nowadays this has changed, as modern women are required to combine the above traditional roles with their role as workers.
Consequently, women in modern times are called upon to simultaneously fulfil multiple roles: wife, mother and worker, but unfortunately the result does not do them justice in all cases. Her absence from everyday family life and her absence from raising children creates in the working mother a guilty feeling of not fulfilling her role as mother and wife.
Women throughout time have been at a disadvantage compared to men because of their gender, and this is because gender equality is primarily a matter of power. Discriminatory practices and patriarchy from earlier times to the present day have created a large gender power gap in economies, political systems, and society, with women's participation rates in the above areas proving the point.
The main challenge, however, remains the continuous effort to change culture, to eliminate stereotypes, and to provide continuous education at all levels to get rid of entrenched attitudes that stand in the way of women gaining their rightful equal role in the social and economic positions of the country. Unfortunately, 114 years after the first observance of Women's Day, ways and support structures that could support and reconcile the increased responsibilities and multiple roles of women continue to be absent.
The Commission for Gender Equality in Employment and Vocational Training, through actions such as forums, seminars and information publications, aims to inform employees, employers, students and society as a whole about equality issues in the workplace. Its main objective is to be able to contribute to the definition or revision of the national policy regarding gender equality issues, through suggestions and recommendations to the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance, the monitoring and further improvement of the effectiveness of the implementation of legislation by the competent authority of the Ministry, the extraction of valuable conclusions through surveys and statistics, the provision of advice to all interested parties on gender equality issues. More generally, its aim is to contribute to the elimination of discrimination and inequalities in the workplace.
The Commission's aim is, through an ongoing effort, to establish a working culture free of direct and indirect discrimination against women, and that this is reflected both in national policy and in collective agreements.
(AF/EXP)
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