Interviewer: From you're perspective how far has the world come in achieving Gender Equality?
J. Capaldo: Not far enough.
Interviewer: What are the biggest problems the UN faces, when trying to achieve Gender Equality and how is it working to fix them?
J. Capaldo: So you want to distinguish two different ideas, one is within the United Nations and one is the United Nations work in the world. I think within the United Nations there has been a ton of progress and it's probably one of the most gender equal organisations in the world. We have had for a very long time, same pay for the same work. In perspective of gender we've had policies that privilege the hiring of women, and are consious of women's educational working constrains. So for example, when we hire someone who's not a woman we have to justify to a specific review body that there was no woman in the candidates pull that met the criteria. Women are allowed to qualify for a job, sometimes without having the same requirements as men in some positions. Some graduate degrees are required for men but not for women, and so on. Sometimes you are allowed as a hiring manager to suggest hiring a man, only if you have already tried hiring a woman, and she declined the offer. So in this sense, within the United Nations, I think the progress has been crazy. That does not obviously change the fact that, in a lot of positions there is still an imbalance. But in a lot of the sections of the United Nations we are close to 50 percent and sometimes it's 48, 45, 52, but we are basically there. Second point is about the United Nations advocating for gender equality in the world, and that's another story for 2 reasons. One is historical culture reasons, and the other one is reasons of limited ability to reinforce policies. The historical culture reasons are such that in some areas of the world there are customs that prevent women from accessing certain professions. From enjoying certain rights fully, this is not just the case for women, it's the case for a lot of groups, but for women it's probably one of the most obvious cases. So that means that the United Nations being an institution that reflects every countries' votes, and policy directions. There is a limit to the United Nations' actions, that comes from the fact that certain countries do not support certain policies. And that brings us to the story of reinforcing, the United Nations is a forum for discussion of policies and ideas that matter to the whole world. It's a permanent forum where countries discuss ideas to come to a common understanding or compromise more often. The purpose of this is to keep world peace. That inevitably ends up spilling over different areas, and gender equality is certainly one of them, because that is the way in which a lot of rights violation and cultural conflicts happen. So in this sense, the United Nations can favor these discussions but it certainly cannot inforce these policies. They can set their own values, it does have a value chart, it's been discussing women's rights for a very long time. Even before the United Nations were found.
Interviewer: Have you ever seen or experienced gender inequality in your own life or community? If so, how did it affect you?
J. Capaldo: I have, I've experienced plenty. I have experienced it both for women and men. And sometimes it's been in violations of rules, and sometimes it's been in applicational rules. This is what makes it particularly complicated. A typical example is: We are in a work place, and perhaps the office is mostly staffed with men, you get the feeling that somehow women don't get the same opportunities to do meaningful work, because men sometimes prefer to work with men. Maybe because they are not used to working with women in the same way. Maybe because they are not used to consider the opinion of a woman on the team in the same way. This is not as bad as it was, at least in the areas where I worked. But it's certainly still the case. Women get interrupted more, women get promoted to leadership roles less, and so on so forth. And this is a fact, but there are a lot of instances when we try to remedy this, in which the situation can be reversed. Sometimes it's not obvious to remind us what the meaning of that is. So for example, in my lifetime I have had in a career of about 18 years, I have had about 6 or 7 different bosses, and all but one have been women. And all but one, of my bosses' boss was a woman. So in other words, I've always reported to women and those women have always reported to women. I have been in women led teams, for almost 18 years. And in many cases I have applied for jobs, I have been interviewed, have not been selected, but I have been told that I was the most qualified canditate. However, the rules were such that it was necessary to hire a woman. And you see, when this happens once, it's easy to remind ourselves that we are doing it because there is an injustice in the world that needs to be fixed. And it starts turning into sacrifices. But when this happens over an extended period of time, that is harder to remember. But the problem remains, and I think that this points to the need to not just keep the policies there, but also to have a conversation going to remind us why we are doing this. It also reminds us of the importance that when we do adopt those policies, which are important and are in favor of women's career promotion work place, then we really have to make sure that we hire the right person. If we do that just for gender, and we forget the competence then we create the opposite problems, there is going to be a lot of resentment. In the communities where I lived, this has happened and it keeps happening every day. But it's easy to think about gender equality as a stand alone issue, but it's not a stand alone issue, it's not unrelated to everything else around us. One thing that I will say is that there have been 2 major social changes in the last 6 years. One of them is the mass entry of women in the work force in the western world. And the other one, is what's happening today. A lot of conflicts that we see, have to be seen in this light of progress, in which women are now normally accepted as part of the work force. In some cases, providing for families, more income or just as much income as men. Furthermore, There are phases of unemployment, phases of lower salaries, phases of struggles for everybody. When that is not the case, then the question is: "Who do we privilige in the hiring?" And that typically, when there is an economic crisis, it's still women that take the impact because they are the ones who tend to quit their jobs to take care of their relatives. Because perhaps family budgets are tighter. And this tends to set back the situation quite a bit, and every couple of years this happens.
Interviewer: If you could change one thing in the world right now, to make it more equal for everyone, what would it be?
J. Capaldo: Probably, education funding. I think that a policy for funding higher education that allows women and men to develop knowledge and skills the same way, without economic struggles. Ideally without taking resources away from their families. I think that perspectively would make a tremendous difference. There is no silver bullet in this thing, just like there isn't for any complicated challange, in fact it is a medium/long term committement we need to make. But there is no secret that this would make an enormous difference, because we have seen it many times in history.