Short answers, pulled from the story.
Gender equality is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making, and the equal valuing of different behaviors, aspirations, and needs. It is the fifth of seventeen sustainable development goals of the United Nations, listed as SDG 5.
UNICEF, an agency of the United Nations, defines gender equality as women and men, and girls and boys, enjoying the same rights, resources, opportunities and protections. The definition adds that it does not require that women and men, or girls and boys, be the same or be treated exactly alike.
The Shakers were an evangelical group who practiced segregation of the sexes and strict celibacy and emigrated to America in 1774. In 1788, ministry head Joseph Meacham had a revelation that the sexes should be equal and brought Lucy Wright into the ministry, partnering each elder with an eldress and each deacon with a deaconess for more than 200 years.
CEDAW is the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly and described as an international bill of rights for women. It came into force on the 3rd of September 1981.
Across the European Union, women earn 13% less than men on average because they continue to hold lower-paying jobs. Survey data shows women work more hours but for less pay, with adult men working an average of 23 hours per week compared to 15 hours for women, while women earn around 25% less.
UNICEF estimated in 2016 that 200 million women have undergone female genital mutilation. An estimated 125 million women and girls living today have undergone it across the 29 countries where data exist, about half of them in Egypt and Ethiopia.
In 2015-61.3% of Rwanda's Lower House of Parliament were women, the highest proportion anywhere in the world. It was one of only two such bodies where women held a majority, the other being Bolivia's Lower House of Parliament.
The Generation Equality Forum was convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of Mexico and France, culminating in Paris in July 2021 with a Global Acceleration Plan for Gender Equality. It announced nearly US$40 billion in pledged investments, with a five-year action plan running through 2026.