CEDAW/C/GC/36 d) address prevailing organisational culture which is unfavourable to women’s upward mobility in the teaching profession; e) establish targets, within a given timeline, to ensure parity in Higher Education positions at senior positions, professorships and as Chancellors and ViceChancellors in Universities; f) establish policies and establish quotas for women’s equal representation on higher education governing bodies such as senates, councils and on research bodies. I. Rights through education 76. Since 1985, several UN international conferences have focused on human rights, women, social issues and sustainable development and identified numerous actions to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. Many of these conferences emphasized education as the means for achieving these goals and for improving women’s position in society. Access to education is expected to equip individuals to be adaptable to the needs of changing societies and therefore should have a multiplier effect in enabling women to claim rights in all spheres, beyond the school. However, women’s rights through education are far from being realized. 77. In spite of regional disparities, global data indicate that women are more highly certified and therefore represent the better source of human capital. However, men with lower levels of certification are favoured for certain jobs and positions over women with higher levels of certification, contributing to the universal phenomenon of horizontal and vertical sex-segregation of labour markets. Certification, therefore, does not carry the same social currency for men and women. Further, even where both sexes have equal levels of education men are often also privileged.14 78. These systemic patterns become entrenched, particularly in the labour market, which operates on the basis of the male breadwinner ideology resulting in men occupying dominant position in waged work. Consequently, in most societies, women experience lower levels of employment, higher levels of unemployment and higher levels of poverty; are more highly represented as part-time workers; on average earn less than men; are disproportionately represented in vulnerable areas of work and therefore are less exposed to opportunities for experiencing decent work conditions. Furthermore, they are under-represented in decisionmaking positions at the micro and macro levels of social and political institutions and lack real personal autonomy. Although increased access to education has improved the condition of women’s lives and that of their children, the potential of education, as presently exists, to shift the overall balance of power in the economic, political and social spheres and to make a strategic difference in terms of women’s empowerment, has not been achieved due to cultural beliefs and practices that reproduce entrenched gendered ideologies, structures and systems. 79. The major explanation for this consistent pattern is linked to gender socialization processes which reproduce and maintain a sexual-division-of-labour, that defines what is feminine and masculine, in turn linked to a public/private dichotomy. In this system, males dominate the public sphere and females the private sphere. The result is that rather than being transformative, institutionalised schooling becomes an instrument of the state for reproducing the gender order and maintaining the male/female, dominant/subordinate and public/private hierarchies.15 80. This trend continues into women’s participation in political processes and decisionmaking, where, because women remain poorly represented, they cannot effectively influence policy that affects them. In 2017 the global average of women’s representation in elected or nominated government positions was approximately 1:4 female/male representation. In the Lower Houses women represent 23.4% and in the Upper Houses 22.9%. The same trends are evident in female participation on public and private sectors Boards as members or as Chairs. 14 15 18 UNCSW 2011. ibid. UNCSW. 2011. ibid.