Gender Avenger and Female Quotient Join to Fight for Equality

As we have noted before here on Philanthropy Women, there are many reasons why it is very hard to sustain a nonprofit or a business that provides a gender lens. There are also frequently economies of scale that can be realized when two entities with overlapping missions join together to enhance their work. A recent announcement from Gender Avenger and The Female Quotient highlights both of these dynamics.

Image Credit: The Female Quotient and Gender Avenger

Yesterday, Gender Avenger and The Female Quotient announced that they will be merging. Gender Avenger, a nonprofit that provides data and tools about gender discrimination in public dialogue, announced today that it is joining forces with The Female Quotient (The FQ), a for-profit company “changing the equation and closing the gaps” in gender equality. According to the press release, the collaboration “aims to remove barriers and break down the intimidating scale of the equality conversation happening all around the world.”

There is so much work to be done to deal with the way that women are made invisible, told to shut up, and otherwise left out of the conversations happening in every realm of society. As of now, women only make up 20% of news sources, 28% of keynote conference speakers, and are vastly underrepresented in all decision-making levels of government worldwide.

Now, Gina Glantz and Shelley Zalis, touting a “collective 75 years of advocacy” for gender equality will be combining their tools and expertise that tell the story of the missing women in public dialogue, decision-making, and government representation.

“If recent events have shown us anything, it’s that we can, and must, do more for gender equality,” said Zalis. “We’re honored to continue the impact GenderAvenger has created for women on public stages. We’ll continue to support and use this moment as a catalyst to further amplify our shared efforts in changing the equality equation.”

“Equality is too urgent for anything less than bold accountability and decisive action,” said Glantz. “When thinking about bold decision-makers, Shelley is a leader with the imagination and drive to ensure that GenderAvenger will reach the scale necessary to accomplish its ambitious mission of ensuring that women are always part of the public dialogue.”

As a testament to Zalis’ commitment to advancing equality, the organization debuted The FQ Toolkit alongside this announcement. According to the press release, this new toolkit “takes a data-driven approach to empower people and organizations to investigate and assess levels of inequality, and then act to change the equation and close the gaps. The toolkit includes tools like the GenderAvenger Tally, Speaker Equity Assessor™, Advancing Equality Calculator™, and The FQ Equity Index.” 

We are so excited to see what this collaboration brings, and, of course, we also have lots of questions. My questions so far, which I have forwarded on to Gina and Shelley’s team, are:

1. How will this transition impact the staff of Gender Avenger? Will the staff in those roles be continuing?

2. Will Gender Avenger continue to be a nonprofit or will it merge into being part of the regular business organization of the Female Quotient?

3. What should fans of GA and FQ do to help make this transition successful? 

We look forward to providing an update to this post that offers more discussion of this exciting development in women’s media and gender equality leadership.

From the press release:

ABOUT GENDERAVENGER

GenderAvenger is an online activist community dedicated to ensuring women are always part of the public dialog … because women’s voices count. The success of GenderAvenger is rooted in its simplicity. The clarity of its mission and the user‐friendly tools it provides to individuals to take action has powered GA growth and impact. 

The nonprofit organization has created three primary tools — GA Tally, GA Action Alert, and GA Stamp of Approval — to communicate the value of gender balance in the public arena. Each tool creates specific opportunities and incentives to increase individual participation in guaranteeing gender balance and to broaden awareness of its importance. www.genderavenger.com

ABOUT THE FEMALE QUOTIENT 

The Female Quotient (The FQ) is changing the equation and closing the gaps. The FQ’s diverse mix of live events, online forums, custom research, media, and corporate advisory services identifies challenges, surfaces effective strategies, forges powerful networks, and ultimately sparks measurable progress. Through its intensive engagement with women around the world, in multiple industries, and at every level, The FQ has a rare understanding of what is on the minds of working women and what specific needs must be addressed to confront existing inequalities. For more information, visit www.thefemalequotient.com.

Related:

Measure and Inspire: How a New Tool Tracks Women, Peace, and Security

Melinda on Colbert: Cell Phones as Tools for Women’s Empowerment

New Sustainability Report Card Grades on Gender Equality

Author: Kiersten Marek

Kiersten Marek, LICSW, is the founder of Philanthropy Women. She practices clinical social work and writes about how women donors and their allies are advancing social change.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.