Hard-won progress in the battle to achieve gender equality has been set back a generation by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even before 2020, women across the world were vastly underrepresented in positions of power, and large disparities remained in political participation and economic opportunity.

Now, the Global Economic Forum’s 2021 Gender Gap Report says early evidence suggests the pandemic has impacted women “more severely” than men and it estimates it will now take 135.6 years to close equality gaps, up from 99.5 years in the 2020 report.

Challenges also remain in achieving equality for women across the globe in front of the law and in tackling the high levels of violence experienced by women and girls.

With the outlook so challenging and efforts to introduce change set back, we are asking: ‘Will there be gender equality in leadership in a decade from now?’

Joining us to address this question and others will be Julia Gillard (chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London and the only woman to have severed as Prime Minister of Australia from 2010 – 2013) and Aleida Mendes Borges, a full-time research associate at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership. Aleida is also a PhD candidate with the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American studies.

Aleida is working closely with Julia and Rosie Campbell (Director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership to bring together research, practice, and advocacy to break down the barriers to women becoming leaders, while challenging ideas of what leadership looks like.

Hosted by Michael Bankole, PhD candidate at King’s, our roundtable event will be delving into Julia’s and Aleida’s views on where we started, where we are at present, and what we need to do in future in the fight for equality.

This session will take place on MS Teams and there will be plenty of opportunity for Q&A.