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Achieving Gender Equality

Achieving Gender Equality

GLOBAL CITIZEN ASSIGNMNET FINAL STAGE

Shahrzad Jabalbarez | MAN3025 | November 29, 2020

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Achieving Gender Equality

Executive Summary

The UN has many goals that it is trying to accomplish to help with our planet’s

sustainability. For this project I am just going to be weighing in on just one of those

goals. Achieving gender equality and empower all women and girls, focusing on the

workplace, this is something that has to get done. The UN is bringing this issue to the

light, and it is important for all companies to try and achieve this goal. My exemplar

company I chose that is constantly helping to reach this UN goal is, Girls who Code. The

case company that I chose who is not doing so well, who can learn from what Girls who

Code is doing, and who can try to actually achieve this gender equality goal is, Nintendo.

I have chosen three very specific options that the case company can implement to bring

them closer to achieving gender equality and empower all women and girls in their

company. But I will be mainly focusing on the one that I recommend the most, and

believe will really help Nintendo to reach this goal. That option is, to start actively hiring

women who are qualified for the job, instead of hiring more men.

“Life doesn’t always give us what we deserve, but rather, what we demand.

And so you must continue to push harder than any other person in the

room.” — Wadi Ben-Hirki

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Achieving Gender Equality

Table of Contents
Executive Summary …………………………………………………………………2

1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………4-5

2. UN Goal No. 5 …………………………………………………………………..5

3. The Exemplar: Girls who Code………………………………………………….6

4. The Case Company: Nintendo …………………………………………………..7

4.1 The Company ………………………………………………………………..7

4.2 The Current Issues ………………………………………………………...7-8

4.3 Recommendations …………………………………………………………..8

4.3.1 Start Hiring more Women who are Qualified for the Job ……………..8

4.3.2 Have Equal Pay between Men and Women …………………………8-9

4.3.3 Have Seminars in the Company to teach both Men and Women about

Equality ……………………………………………………………………...9

4.4 Recommendation and Implantation ……………………………………...9-10

. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………..10

References ………………………………………………………………………11-12
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1. Introduction
In this report I will be talking about how important it is to realize that

achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls, is something that

has not been fully accomplished yet. With the UN shedding light on this issue, it

is important for all companies to realize this and start adjusting to have this

become a reality for women in the workplace. Companies need to understand that

they are only harming themselves by not have gender equality in their company,

and mostly employing men. Women bring a totally different perspective to the

workplace, and this needs to be acknowledged. I have chosen to highlight and talk

about this UN goal, because I have been constantly seeing it go on with my own

eyes. I have been a women in a workplace that was predominantly a male

environment, and it is upsetting that this inequality is still happening today. I

chose Girls who Code as my exemplar company, because they are trying to break

the gender gap in tech companies (Girls Who Code. 2020). This is so important

because the tech industry is mostly men. Girls Who Code is trying to reach girls

all around the world with an interest in tech, and show them it is possible to get a

job in tech as a women. On the other hand, my case company is Nintendo. Out of

the eighteen Directors and Executive officers at Nintendo, there is only one

female and her name is Asa Shinkawa and her role is an outside director

(Nintendo. 2020). This is extremely upsetting, and there should be a lot more

women in these roles. That is why I chose Nintendo as my case company. I

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believe that they can learn from what Girls Who Code is doing, and implement it

at their company.

2. UN Goal No. 5
The UN’s seventeen goals are all ways the world can help accomplish

sustainable development. Each goal is very important and needs to be

accomplished. The UN goal #5 is all about achieving gender equality and

empowering all women and girls all around the world. The UN is trying to

achieve equality for all women and bring awareness about it, and educate the

world on how to achieve this goal. Some advances that have happened are, there

have been progress with more girls going to school, fewer girls forced into early

marriage, more women are serving in positions of leadership, and laws are being

altered to advance gender equality (UN. 2020). Those are some progressions that

have been made in relation to this goal. Even though those are all big deals, there

is still a lot that needs to get done to fully achieve gender equality and

empowerment to all women and girls.

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3. The Exemplar: Girls Who Code

The company that I chose as the exemplar and that is helping to reach the

UN’s goal #5 is Girls Who Code. Girls Who Code is an amazing company that is

really helping gender equality in the workplace. More specifically Girls Who Code is

trying to reach girls from all over the world who are interested in tech. They are on

track to close the gender in new entry-level tech jobs by 2027 (Girls Who Code.

2020). They have realized that the tech industry is extremely predominantly male, and

that makes it more difficult for a female to enter the tech industry. Girls Who Code

have club programs for younger girls, summer programs for high school girls, and

college programs for college girls. All three of these programs are free and they are

all trying to get girls who are interested in code/ tech and teach them the skills they

need to eventually get a job in tech. Therefore, breaking the male-dominate industry

and try to get closer to gender equality in the tech industry.

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4. The Case Company: Nintendo

4.1 Nintendo

Nintendo is a Japanese electronic and video game company. It is a

huge international company, that most people know of and love. Nintendo

makes gaming consoles and video games, they are located in Kyoto, Japan

and Redmond, Washington (Nintendo. 2020). I believe that Nintendo is a

good company to review because of how big and international the

company is, yet they have still not reach gender equality. As stated before,

out of the eighteen directors and executive officers at Nintendo, there is

only one female and her name is Asa Shinkawa and her role is an outside

director (Nintendo. 2020). You would think with being such an important

and huge company they would have more women on their board, but

unfortunately that is not the case.

4.2 The Current Issues

To improve themselves and reach the UN goal #5, Nintendo will

have to employee more women at their company. Especially when it

comes to employing people as directors or executive officers. These are

very important roles that are now 95% men and only 5% women. This is a

major issue and Nintendo needs to be aware of how this is making it

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harder to reach gender equality. This needs to change and more women

need to get hired into Nintendo.

4.3 Recommendations

4.3.1 Start to actively hire women who are qualified for the

job, rather than a man.

The first recommendation is that Nintendo needs to start actively looking

for women to fill the jobs that are available. They need to realize that the

company is predominately male, and they need to hire more qualified women

to reach gender equality. The HR department needs to be aware of this and

keep it in mind when they are interviewing potential employees. The cost for

Nintendo to do this is actually nothing. Since they will just be trying to

actively hire more women.

4.3.2 Have equal pay between men and women.

The second recommendation is that Nintendo needs to start paying their

women the same they are paying their men employees. This will help reach

gender equality by, having women know that when they are doing the same job as

a man they are just as appreciated since they would be getting paid the same. In

order to achieve this at the Washington location Nintendo will need to make sure

that for every dollar the women are getting paid the same. On average in America

for every $1 a man makes, a woman with the same job only makes $0.81

(PayScale. 2020). This will cost the America Nintendo location to increase all of
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the women wages to meet the men’s wages that do the same job. In Japan women

make 23.5% less than men do (OECD. 2020). For the Japan location Nintendo

will have to increase their women’s wages to the same as then men. This is a

small price to pay, in order to achieve gender equality.

4.3.3 Have seminars in the company to teach both men and

women about equality.

The third recommendation is to have Nintendo have multiple seminars a

year to teach both men and women about gender equality. By having both

men and women take part in these seminars it will help the awareness of

gender equality and it will have Nintendo take charge and try to achieve

gender equality. The cost of a seminar about gender equality can cost

anywhere between $0-$150 per person, majority of the time it is free (Hogue.

2018). This can be a fairly inexpensive way for Nintendo to help reach gender

equality.

4.4 Recommendation and Implementation

The recommendation I believe Nintendo should go with to really start

trying to achieve gender equality in the work place is, to start actively hiring

women who are qualified for the job, rather than a man. Not only does this not

really cost the company anything. But it is the main way to get more females into

the company. The timeline for this should start immediately. All jobs that
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currently need to be filled should be filled by qualified females. This should

continue until gender equality is fully met.

5. Conclusion

For Nintendo to take a huge step toward gender equality, they will be in

such a great position to pave the way for all other companies to follow. If

Nintendo decides to go with the recommendation to start to hire more women

who are qualified to open positions it will begin to slowly close the gender gap at

the company. It is important for Nintendo to look at this UN goal and actually try

to achieve it. Hopefully in the coming future more companies will come out who,

are similar to Girls Who Code and are trying to break a barrier and achieve a goal

that is so important.
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References:

Short, E. (2018, October 11). These are the top companies in the world for gender
equality. Retrieved October 04, 2020, from
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/careers/equileap-gender-equality-study-global

Guest. (2016, December 05). 3 companies fighting against gender inequality in tech.
Retrieved October 04, 2020, from https://telecoms.com/opinion/3-companies-
fighting-against-gender-inequality-in-tech/

Girls Who Code. (2020, August 25). About Us. Retrieved October 04, 2020, from
https://girlswhocode.com/about-us

Kooser, A.(2016). Empowered Women Make a Difference and Change the World. (n.d.).
Retrieved October 04, 2020, from
https://opportunity.org/news/blog/2017/03/empowered-women-change-the-world?
gclid=CjwKCAjw_NX7BRA1EiwA2dpg0iCH6dd_Jcc_D9AeHiZ5Sb-
k5xKjiaPUdmcN1cRdA0avr7_361bhihoCTmMQAvD_BwE

Shaw, T. (2020, May 15). How to Promote Gender Equality in the Workplace. Retrieved
October 04, 2020, from https://inside.6q.io/how-to-promote-gender-equality/

Nintendo Corporate Information : Directors/Executive Officers. (2020). Retrieved

November 16, 2020, from
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/corporate/en/officer/index.html

Gender equality and women's empowerment – United Nations Sustainable Development.

(2020). Retrieved November 16, 2020, from
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/

Gender Pay Gap Statistics for 2020. (2020). Retrieved November 16, 2020, from
https://www.payscale.com/data/gender-pay-gap

Earnings and wages - Gender wage gap - OECD Data. (2020). Retrieved November 16,
2020, from https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/gender-wage-gap.htm
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Hogue, J. (2019, March 12). Making Money in Paradise with Seminars and Workshops.
Retrieved November 16, 2020, from

https://myworkfromhomemoney.com/making-money-seminars-

workshops/#:~:text=Seminar%20prices%20generally%20range%20from,a%20lot%20of

%20add%2Dons