About the Tool
Knowledge and information sharing events – forums and conferences, meetings and panel sessions, among others – provide mining sector professionals, experts and practitioners with an excellent opportunity to disseminate their work, network with like-minded individuals, and form collaborative relationships for future endeavours. However, these opportunities are rarely distributed equally between women and men and are seldom available to, or meaningfully engage, vulnerable groups and minorities.
Promoting gender equality should be a primary consideration for all organisations hosting knowledge and information-sharing events. Unfortunately, many events, including the mining sector, struggle with gender biases. Some reinforce gender stereotypes and exclude or discriminate based on sex, gender, race, age, nationality, and socioeconomic status, among other social markers. Research suggests that this often manifests as reduced opportunities for women to participate in the same capacity as men in speaker panels or high barriers to participation such as less funding and lack of family-friendly resources. To address these issues, the tool provides an opportunity to examine the gender-responsiveness of such events and opens possibilities to integrate a gender-responsive approach for future events thereby contributing to a more inclusive and diverse mining sector.
Gender-responsiveness means identifying and understanding gender gaps and biases and then acting on them, developing and implementing actions to overcome challenges and barriers toward improving and achieving gender equality. Being gender-responsive goes beyond “doing no harm”. Being gender-responsive means recognizing and considering the specific needs of men and women, vulnerable groups and other minorities.
If you have any questions or feedback regarding the Tool, please send an e-mail to info@womenandmining.org.
