Following on to the Status of Women in Girls in Hong Kong 2006, a two-year stakeholder engagement project was undertaken to explore barriers and formulate solutions to gender equality. This richly detailed exploration of some of the most urgent issues facing women in Hong Kong engaged community leaders with three foci: educating youth about gender stereotypes, lifting women out of poverty, and narrowing the leadership gap through nurturing successful women leaders.

Findings include:

• Women are especially at risk for internalising female stereotypes and imposing limitations upon themselves; combined with systematic external barriers, a disproportionate number of women possess unharnessed societal and economic potential.
• Stakeholders have pinpointed several priorities to address in the advancement towards a more equitable community: the need for more research, combating negative stereotypes, improving employment oppportunities for women, increasing the number of women’s leadership positions, and allocating more institutional resources towards important women’s issues.