Women and girls will never obtain full equality until society's patriarchal oppression has been overcome, President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca has said.
"We cannot go on excusing cultural narratives which justify anti-social and damaging male behaviour, by saying that 'boys will be boys,' the President told an audience at UNESCO's Paris headquarters today.
"Nor can we go on celebrating a “macho” culture, where violent and controlling attitudes are celebrated, without criticism."
In a strongly-worded speech at a conference about enabling female empowerment, President Coleiro Preca argued that societies had to challenge the status quo if they were serious about gender equality.
"We must do more to disrupt dualistic and narrowly gendered thinking," President Coleiro Preca said, "especially when it comes to the roles that women and men pursue in society."
Gender inequalities
She noted that careers historically associated with women were paid a disproportionately lower salary, and highlighted concerns about the gender pay gap - the difference between the average annual earnings of women and men - as an example of society's lack of gender equality.
Statistics show that Malta has a gender pay gap just shy of 11 per cent. In the EU as a whole, the gap is greater than 16 per cent.
The World Economic Forum's most recent global gender gap report estimated that at the current rate of progress, it would take 170 years to close existing gaps between genders.
The report found that while gender differences in health and education outcomes have been all but wiped out, gaps in economic and political participation remained significant.
This is confirmed by UN Women data, which last year revealed that fewer than one in every four parliamentarians across the world is a woman. In 38 countries, male MPs take up more than 90 per cent of parliamentary seats.
"Moreover, women who hold such positions are expected, and in some ways they are forced, to subscribe to patriarchal norms in order to be successful," president Coleiro Preca, who served as a Maltese MP for 16 years between 1998 and 2014, argued.
Solutions
In her speech, President Coleiro Preca identified a number of measures which she believed would help close gender gaps within society.
She urged the media to avoid perpetuating "harmful patriarchal ideas and stereotypes," urged UNESCO to be more active in encouraging men to be vocal about opposition to gender inequality, and called on the UN's cultural agency to promote media accountability.
"We cannot afford to deal with symptomatic manifestations of oppression, while ignoring the root causes," the president said.