Governing the most gender-equal society in the world, LI full member Progressive Party (Iceland), has brought together an international group of ministers, journalists, and civil society organisations at a ‘Barbershop Conference’ – a predominanty male event – to discuss new ways to address the gender gap around the world.

Hosted by Iceland’s Foreign Minister, Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson, at the United Nations in New York, the conference debated pioneering gender equality initiatives and invited male leaders to take a proactive role in restoring equality in their own countries.

Explaining why the conference focusses on men rather than women, Minister Sveinsson wrote:

We believe that by having men talk about masculinity and gender equality with other men we may get a different kind of insight and may produce innovative ways of engaging, mobilizing and motivating men to fight for gender equality and address unhealthy stereotypes of masculinity.

Having been credited with the highest rate of gender equality in the world, the liberal government of Iceland continues to fight gender equality worldwide. Foreign Minister Bragi was a lead contributor to the first edition of the LI Human Rights Bulletin last year, where he argued:

gender inequality is a global challenge and to solve it we must bring men and boys into the conversation.