education, health, and safety are not “women’s problems” to be dealt with for and by women alone. Boys must be engaged in serious discussions about the social construction of masculinity and feminity in their contexts with the resulting implications for gender equality.
Strategy #4: Ensure the Next Set of Global Goals Focus on Gender Equality
At the global level, we must all work to ensure that gender continues to play a prominent role in the next set of global development goals. Whether gender is a cross-cutting issue that runs through all goals, or whether there are one or more goals that deal specifically with gender, the commitment to measuring progress for women and girls and funding policies and programs that improve conditions for women is critical and must be increased. Goals, metrics and policies should recognize that progress for girls and women over all often masks the lack of progress for large swaths of the female population. Even when average conditions for women and girls are improving, the situation for those affected by multiple forms of disadvantage, such as extreme poverty, remote location, conflict, disability, domestic abuse, negative gender norms, often remain unchanged.