PLMJ supports #HeForShe initiative

PLMJ is supporting the #HeForShe movement as the first corporate organisation in Portugal to make a public commitment to joining this initiative. The movement was launched by the United Nations in 2014 and is based on the principle that we are all on the same side: men and women, in order to build a world in which gender discrimination and violence have no place. Starting with the career. So that merit is the only criterion to be considered.

As an organisation, PLMJ aligns itself with this principle and, for this reason, besides making this support public, the firm held an internal awareness-raising session led by PLMJ's managing partner Bruno Ferreira: “We believe it is crucial to involve our people in this movement by inviting them to join voluntarily. In doing so, they become ambassadors of this very serious commitment. For us, individually and in our daily lives – personal and professional – this is to take the initiative and take action against gender discrimination, which has serious consequences for millions of women around the world and has worsened dramatically during the pandemic. As an organisation, we feel we also have a role to play in trying to accelerate the process of equality between men and women. For this reason, we have challenged all our employees to support this movement which, at its core, is simply a question of defending respect for human rights”.

During the firm’s internal session, we focused in particular on statistics to try to paint a picture of where we are as a country, and Portugal is still falls far short of parity levels. Above all, however, we talked about the reasons for the existence of the disparities, the main stereotypes, and the unconscious beliefs and social norms that end up defining our (men’s and women’s) behaviour and potentially drive our actions and decisions in a biased way.

#HeForShe believes it is possible to accelerate the process of gender parity if citizens, civil society organisations, universities, companies and government institutions join forces. This is why PLMJ has joined the United Nations movement, because it recognises that empowering and representing women brings many advantages.

For further information, please consult the website HeForShe