Women empowerment is needed to boost gender equality in Malaysia

Abstract

While the world has achieved progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including equal access to primary education between girls and boys, the women and girls continue to suffer discrimination and violence in every part of the world. The SDGs aim to build on these achievements to ensure that there is an end to discrimination against women and girls everywhere. Although many governments and organizations claim to be tackling the issue of inequality, there are still approximately 1.4 billion women and girls who are still victims of discrimination, violence, and sexism. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to address the issue of gender equality and women’s empowerment in Malaysia context in order to close the gap existed in gender inequality. Data were collected through in-depth individual interviews; the participants interviewed included nine women leaders in the public and private sector. The finding of this research indicated that women need personal, relational, and environmental empowerment that boost gender equality in Malaysia. As a conclusion, this finding will open the eyes of civil society, local grassroots advocacy initiatives, men & women, national governments, religious groups, tribal structures, international community, academia & research, as well as media in solving women related issues. This research carries values to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in enhancing the policy on gender equality; this would be the most appropriate tool in addressing and empowering Malaysian women in particular and ensuring inclusiveness and equality for them, as well as calling on the international community to reduce inequality within and among countries.