Sarah Kaplan argues that instead of focusing on building a ‘business case’ for gender equality, we need to re-frame it as an innovation challenge.

MOST READERS PROBABLY REMEMBER that moment when newlyelected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked by a reporter, why he had appointed women to 50 per cent of his cabinet positions — and his now-famous response: “Because it’s 2015.” What is remarkable to me about that moment is not the Prime Minister’s appropriately-feminist response — although that was a welcome surprise; but the fact that the question had to be asked at all. How did we get all the way to the 21st century, and this is still a question? How are people still wondering whether women should have equal positions of leadership in politics, business — or anywhere else in the world? If I think back to my own career, it has been 30 years since I…

kaplan-gender equality as an innovation challenge-rotman mag-2017.