'Taliban in Afghanistan showing violent extreme misogyny writ large': Anne Hathaway

Award-winning American actor and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, Anne Hathaway, while speaking during the ongoing UN General Assembly on Thursday, noted that the whole world has taken a remarkable step to empower girls. However, citing the current situation in Afghanistan and the COVID pandemic, the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador said, "We're at a global crossroads with evidence that this is both the most promising and most terrifying moment in recent memory." 

She reiterated that the world has taken great strides to empower women all across the sectors, but said that the current misogynist approach of the Taliban-led government can quickly reverse the developments made so far. Watch the video here:

Hathaway explained that while on the one hand the Generation Equality Forum in Paris has set a one thousand points goal and pledged $40 billion to empower women and girls across sectors, on the other, "the Taliban in Afghanistan are showing us violent extreme misogyny writ large, underlining just how quickly progress towards gender equality can be reversed." 

Talking about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women, Hathaway said, "On the one hand, we are seeing examples of people rallying to get through the COVID-19 pandemic on international news and in our own homes. On the other, as we locked down and locked ourselves in to protect our family's health, across the world women lost their jobs and income to take on childcare and homeschooling." She added that the situation forced women to move back to the traditional gendered household roles.

'Need to recognise caregiving work for sustainable development'

"Before the pandemic, women were doing three times as much unpaid care work as men. They became the shock absorbers for the crisis with 59% claiming they spent even more time on unpaid domestic work since the pandemic began," Hathaway said at a session on gender during the UNGA.  Further, the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador maintained to change the scenario by recognising caregiving work as essential as it has served despite not being paid at the time of crisis.

"We need to correctly promote and remunerate that work, putting care at the centre of a sustainable and just economy. One that can support everyone to flourish. We have a generational chance and an important to use the recovery to shape a better, more gender-equal and sustainable world. One that may finally be immune to the reversal of progress," Hathaway said.

Anne Hathaway, an Academy Award-winning performer and producer and long-standing supporter of girls and women’s rights, has been a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador since June 2016. In this role, she works to foster more positive mindsets and practical arrangements around workplaces that build and support equality for women, raising awareness of the issue of unequal burden of caregiving work in the home and advocating for affordable childcare services and shared parental leave. In addition, she serves on the advisory board for Lollipop Theater Network, an organisation that screens movies in hospitals for pediatric patients suffering from chronic or life-threatening illnesses.

(Image: AP)