Regardless of race, class, creed or sexual orientation, there are very few women out there who haven’t experienced some sort of challenge as a result of their gender. Earlier this week, The Clinton Foundation initiative No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project launched a digital awareness campaign to both acknowledge progress that has already been made and to highlight what still needs to be done in order to achieve true gender equality. The new movement comes in honor of the 20th anniversary of United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women and the Beijing Platform for Action.
Using the hashtag #NotThere, signifying that we are “not there” yet in the fight for women’s rights, the campaign is posting images every day between September 8 to 18 featuring contrasting women of all different walks of life. The Clinton Foundation’s effort is partnering with MTV’s Look Different initiative, which educates young people about how to acknowledge and fight against bias. Look Different is sharing the #NotThere graphics each day on its tumblr page.
With this campaign, No Ceilings is addressing one of the most crucial but least acknowledged aspects of feminism: intersectionality. Race, sexual orientation, economic class, disability, faith and cultural norms all strongly influence people’s identities and play a large role in the types (and severity) of challenges women face.
Research conducted by No Ceilings since 1995 has found that far greater progress has been made in some areas than in others—women’s access to basic education and healthcare is greater than ever before, while increases in women’s leadership, participation in STEM-related fields and feelings of security (ahem, catcalling and street harassment, anyone?) are occurring at a much slower pace. Of the gains that have been made, they have not been enjoyed by all women—in different areas of the world, some are still struggling for even the most basic of human rights. For this reason, No Ceilings has made it a priority to “focus on girls and the most marginalized.”
From increasing STEM participation to ending child marriage, The Full Participation Project aims to give a comprehensive look at global gender issues. If you’re interested in getting involved, keeping reading up on these issues and like, share, retweet or reblog the #NotThere campaign to keep spreading the word! It’s called the Full Participation Project for a reason—only through our collective efforts can we finally get “there.”