In honour of International Women’s Day 2018, the OECD Policy Dialogue on Women’s Economic Empowerment organised an inspiring event to learn about two pioneering initiatives from developing countries to tackle discriminatory gender norms in the household, one of the Dialogue’s thematic research areas. The discussion offers insights into the potential of the media to change social norms, and the importance of involving men in the process of achieving gender equality.

The first key note speaker is Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director of the Population Foundation of India, who presents on the power of entertainment education to transform behaviours for the benefit of gender equity. She talks about the strategies employed by their television series “Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon” (I, a woman, can achieve anything) to tackle issues such as women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the success of the series in bringing a change to gender norms across India and challenging patriarchy.
The next key note speaker, Tim Shand, Vice President of Advocacy and Partnerships of Promundo, shares their experience of working with men to promote active fatherhood as an entry point to promote equitable gender norms. He shares valuable findings from Promundo’s work such as the importance of policy levers, social protection, training programmes with men, and youth engagement in order to ensure that women and men participate equally in parenting and domestic work. The innovative approaches are showing that social norms in the household can be positively transformed with benefits for women, men, and their children.

To find out more about the work of the OECD Policy Dialogue on Women’s Economic Empowerment, visit:
http://www.oecd.org/development/womens-economic-empowerment.htm