While 50% of the global seafood workforce is women, women and genderqueer people are significantly underrepresented in management and decision-making roles. Further, women and genderqueer people’s contributions to the sector are often ignored, unseen, and unacknowledged. Seafood and Gender Equality (SAGE) promotes gender equality in the global seafood sector, leading to a more resilient industry, thriving communities, and abundant resources for future generations. SAGE’s flagship Gender Equality Dialogues (GED) program promotes innovation and workforce development in the sector by co-creating space for industry leaders to develop actionable gender equality commitments. The GED, led by SAGE’s Director of Gender Strategies Becca Williams, completed a pilot cohort earlier this year. In this session, Rebecca will discuss the key takeaways from the pilot cohort, including the collaborative process for developing robust public-facing gender equality commitments.
The success of the GED can serve as a starting point for the sector to integrate gender and social equity into programs and operations. Specifically, the GED underscores the necessity of seafood companies and non-profit organizations applying a gender lens and adopting internal facing gender equality measures. It is not enough for seafood companies and organizations to apply this gender lens only when looking down their supply chain. In order for these adaptations to have long-lasting impacts, the industry itself must first UN has stipulated that gender equality is a necessary precondition for realizing all the sustainable development goals. Notably, gender is not integrated into SDG 14, which makes this work all the more critical. In addition to building and retaining a diverse and inclusive workforce, the promotion of equity within the seafood sector has significant implications for understanding and improving social and gender conditions, while also serving as a catalyst for mitigating the impacts of climate change, for decades to come