Why it must be a feminist global health agenda

Abstract

We need to re-think the interconnection between women, gender, and global health. Beyond increased physical risk factors, women are disadvantaged structurally, being over-represented in informal care roles and under-represented in leadership, decision making, and senior research roles.1 Global health policy and programmes are often blind to the differences between women's needs and men's needs (gender equity), and to women's unequal position in society (gender equality), rendering women “conspicuously invisible”.2, 3 In response, initiatives such as Women in Global Health have established a target of 50:50 representation in global health leadership by 2030. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called for gender “balance” in senior management roles at WHO, including its regional and country offices. However, addressing women's representation in the workplace (ie, by quotas) is not the same as promoting gender-inclusive and gender-mainstreaming practices.4