Imagine my delight when I jumped on the Santiago metro last week to find the train lined with pro-equality advertisements! The adverts are part of a campaign by the Chilean government’s ‘National Service for Women’, SERNAM, to promote equality in the workplace. The first reads Equal pay for women and men, the second Compatibility of work and family life for men and women.
As my Chilean housemates said: entre dicho y hecho hay largo estrecho/there’s a world of difference between saying and doing, but for me just the act of getting this issue out in the public domain is a positive one. SERNAM recognises this, stating that not all achievements are quantifiable; much of the work necessary to achieve equality lies in changing people’s attitudes and the way we relate to one another, and getting bored Metro passengers to start thinking about the necessity of economic parity, the importance of making the workplace compatible with family life and providing equality of opportunity for all jobseekers is certainly a step in the right direction.
