13 SDG 5 – Gender Equality – Team 13

Team Reflection
Promoting sustainability and gender equality is a fundamental objective in today’s society. By analyzing different business innovations, we can see the different approaches to achieving a sustainable society. Each story shared common themes revolving around gender equality, including women empowerment and gender inclusivity. These stories align with the concept of shared value. Shared value is the ability of a business to address societal needs through their business operations. Many companies demonstrate the aim to implement initiatives that not only promote gender equality, but also contribute to their own business success (Porter & Kramer, 2011). For example, the Fearless Girl Statue encourages companies to integrate diverse workplaces, which also can significantly raise their profitability by 50%. Similarly, the initiatives can be linked to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). For instance, Fidelity Investments contributes to societal advancement by investing in companies that promote gender equality. However, it is important to recognize that these companies may just be implementing sustainable initiatives as part of their business strategy to enhance their reputation. A paper by Sterbenk et al. (2021), analyzed the concept of CSR and stated that “femvertising”, which is advertising designed to promote gender equality, could be the new greenwashing. It is important to further examine these companies and their initiatives to confirm whether their actions are truly making a difference.
These stories have reinforced our understanding of intersectionality and the importance of recognizing the overlapping identities of race, class and sexual orientation in understanding diverse experiences and challenges faced by women. The social media innovation, Other Brown Girl, particularly strengthened our understanding of how important it is to hear about the unique experiences of women for addressing these challenges and advancing sustainable development. Additionally, we have recognized that we do not live on our own in this world and that people rely on collective action for positive systemic change. These initiatives also reminds our group of an Indonesian quote that states “It is better to give a poor man a fishing rod than giving them a fish”. The point of this quote is that we must empower people so they have soft skills that would help them in the long term rather than giving them social assistance that only lasts a short period of time. We believe these initiatives, especially Miss Cimory, do a good job in empowering people to change their lifestyles in a positive way.
We feel these companies have implemented unique initiatives that effectively address gender equality. They prioritize the participation of women, providing them with greater opportunities to contribute in society. However, we are skeptical about whether these companies are doing it out of responsibility or to boost their business reputation. Determining the genuinity of these initiatives and its overall impact is difficult when there is no universal sustainability measurement system in place.
We intend to apply the information we have learned from this experience into our lives. Reading these stories have empowered us to create our own initiatives that have widespread impacts. Also, we aspire to promote diversity in future workplace settings. We hope to promote an equitable and fair society by further educating others and supporting initiatives like these. Furthermore, if we want to make a successful and sustainable business, we have learned that we must consider how it will benefit the environment and impact future generations, ensuring that it is not a money-oriented business only.
From this project we learned how different countries and cultures are impacted by gender equality. We got to learn about the differences in gender inequality between Kenya, Indonesia, and Canada and how each country is working to improve it. By working with students from different countries we gained better insight into the different beliefs and values of each country and learned about the different perspectives on the issue of gender equality.
What we had learned in our courses helped us in this project by giving us an understanding of being a global citizen and being aware of issues around the world. Additionally, we had gained understanding of sustainable development, inclusion in the workplace, and CSR. Having learned about these topics, it gave us the ability to link our SDG and stories to these topics.
We conducted our work by messaging through WhatsApp at the start of the week to discuss the assignments and to divide them evenly. We then had the week to work on our parts and ask each other questions if needed. We would then meet on zoom to share and discuss our work. We would then create a google doc to put all the work together.
The way we conducted our weekly assignments worked very well. Everybody contributed and did so on time. Everyone showed up to all the zoom meetings and everyone would contribute. The only difficulties we encountered were that sometimes people had poor connection during the zoom meetings which sometimes made it hard to hear them and they would have to log back in. Sometimes someone’s schedule would change and we would have to change our meeting time but we were always able to find a time that worked for everyone.
The diversity of the group is one of our biggest advantages towards completing our tasks. We were able to finish our tasks to the best of our ability because of the diverse perspectives and insights. It was interesting to see how we all approached our assignments, allowing us to learn that our diverse backgrounds can influence the way we perceive and contribute to tasks and meetings. We also really respected and admired the diverse backgrounds of our team members. For example, during Ramadan, our Muslim teammate had night prayers, so we adjusted the meeting time to better accommodate him.

Individual Reflection

Jade
This was an amazing opportunity to learn about our group members, different countries and sustainability. I gained friends that I would love to remain in contact with. Our positive and respectful attitudes allowed us to navigate through this experience and handle meeting/time challenges that came our way. Our constant communication was key to finding new meeting times that worked best for everyone and for ensuring tasks were completed on time. The stories we analyzed enhanced my understanding of gender equality and the different ways this issue can be approached. They have expanded my knowledge of the existing efforts to address this issue and have empowered me to think of new ways to tackle it. This project inspired me to work internationally to collectively drive positive change.

References
Porter, M.E & Kramer, M.R. (2011). Creating Shared Value. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2011/01/the-big-idea-creating-shared-value
Sterbenk, Y., Champlin, S., Windels, K., & Shelton, S. (2021). Is femvertising the new greenwashing? examining corporate commitment to gender equality. Journal of Business Ethics, 177(3), 491–505. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04755-x