– As delivered –

Statement by H.E. Mrs. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President of the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly

Delivered by Ambassador Kwabena Osei-Danquah, Chef de Cabinet

11 March 2019

Excellency, Khatuna Totladze, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, 

Excellency, Ambassador Kaha Imnadze of Georgia, 

Excellency, Ambassador Olof Skoog of Sweden,

Ms. Alia El-Yassir, UN Women Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia,

Ms. Erika Kvapilova, UN Women Representative in Georgia,

Ms. Nestan Nene Kvinikadze, author of one of the fairytales in the book There Once Was a Girl,

Your Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to acknowledge the presence of Swedish parliamentarians. There are also a number of young people in the room and I would like to welcome them to the UN – hi!

I am delighted to deliver remarks today on behalf of the President of the General Assembly, Her Excellency María Fernanda Espinosa.

Let me start by thanking the Permanent Missions of Georgia and Sweden for holding this event in partnership with UN Women. I am truly sorry that prior engagements prevent me from joining you in person.

As a poet and a politician, I know how powerful narratives can be. So I am excited by the launch of “There Once Was A Girl”, a beautiful collection of fairytales with female protagonists.

Dear friends,

The stories we hear as children shape how we see ourselves and our place in the world. Indeed, classic children’s books were often written with the express purpose of teaching social norms.

So many of us grew up with fairytales of passive princesses – usually fair, always beautiful – waiting for a brave prince to rescue them. If there were other women in the story, they were invariably nasty, ugly, old, dark-haired : the evil stepmother, the wicked witch.

Often, they didn’t feature women at all. A study of children’s books published last century found just 31% had central female characters. Even when the protagonists were animals, they were three times as likely to be male.

It is easy to see how these stories reinforce harmful stereotypes. Women who defy traditional roles are still called “nasty”. Boys are chided for showing vulnerability. Studies have shown that girls as young as 6 are already less likely than boys to describe their own gender as ‘brilliant’.

Excellencies,

These notions can have a lasting impact. Globally, less than 30% of researchers are women. Less than a third of female students select Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics STEM-related fields in higher education.

It would be wrong to attribute this solely to stereotyping. There are plenty of other barriers faced by women and girls, from limited access to quality education to bearing the brunt of domestic duties. But stereotypes underpin and exacerbate these factors.

We must address this challenge if we are serious about achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. According to UNESCO, we need 2.5 million new engineers and technicians to improve clean water and sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa alone. Men alone cannot make up this shortfall. We must do more to combat stereotypes and celebrate female role models.

So I‘m delighted that these fairytales are based on real women, like Aleksandra Japaridze, Georgia’s first female mountaineer. I hope that this initiative will inspire similar books in other countries.

I am delighted that, as of last year, Georgia is one of just 20 UN Member States led by a woman. I commend Sweden for its ongoing support for gender equality – I believe you have been the largest donor to UN Women since 2013.

And I look forward to discussing these issues with you at my High-Level Event on “Women In Power”, starting at 10am tomorrow in the General Assembly Hall. I hope you will all participate and share creative ideas to promote women’s leadership, such as this book.

As we approach the 25th anniversary of the landmark Beijing Platform for Action, let us redouble our efforts to advance gender equality so that women and girls everywhere will be able to live happily ever after.

Thank you.