My grandfather was not a modern man. He had three daughters, and while he did care about them, his main aim was for them to be married off to a big farmer.

He himself was a small-scale farmer. When my mother decided to educate herself, eventually becoming a nurse, he saw little value in her accomplishment. In fact, he criticised my father for letting his wife work outside the home, as if that was “unmanly ”.

Unfortunately, this kind of thinking and behavior did not fully end with my grandfather’s generation. As we marked International Women’s Day on Friday, promoting gender equality remains a pressing international imperative.

Noting that I speak from a position of privilege as a man, I believe that men across the globe should stop and reflect on what we can and should do to help advance women in the workplace, promote gender equality and stop gender-based violence (GBV).

And we can do so by speaking up about women's rights, advocating for women in positions of power, calling out our male peers when they mistreat women, and helping empower the women around us.

Men can challenge the normalisation of violence against women. We should all strive to be #heforshe advocates.

Both my country, Norway, and SA have made good strides towards elevating women to positions of leadership and influence. The department of international relations and cooperation (Dirco) in SA is setting a good example with an increasing number of divisions headed by women, and 40% women ambassadors across SA’s 92 missions (as of 2022).

The SA parliament shows impressive numbers. SA is ranked among the highest in the world in terms of the proportion of women representatives in parliament, with 46%.

The Norwegian foreign service, which I represent, presently has a ratio of 48% women to 52% men posted ambassadors worldwide. The year 2024 is the first that we have nearly reached 50-50 gender parity for ambassadors.

So, it has taken us some time to get here. Even today, 55% of employees are women in the Norwegian ministry of foreign affairs, so they are still under-represented in positions of leadership.

Traditionally, diplomacy falls behind other sectors on gender balance, even though entry-level positions to an increasing degree are filled by women, worldwide. Despite this progress in foreign ministries, serious challenges remain when it comes to ensuring a fair playing field for the different genders across the board.

Both in Norway and SA, women are disproportionately affected by intimate partner violence. Although Norway has significantly lower rates of GBV than SA, femicide –women killed by their male partners – makes up about one third of murders in Nor way.

It is also seemingly difficult to transform boardrooms. In Norway, in private limited companies, only 20% of board representatives are women, while the number is 43% in public limited companies.

Women’s representation in Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) listed companies’ boards increased from 23% in 2017 to 32% in 2022, according to a Business Engage report on gender equality in the private sector.

The increase is attributed to the JSE mandating companies to adopt gender policies at board level as of 2021, that include requirements for companies to set targets and strategies for increasing women representation.

Norway is in many areas a champion of gender equality and is well known for its achievements in this area beyond the foreign service. Measures taken in Norway for the last several decades, like parental leave and the right to affordable childcare have given women greater manoeuvrability to work on an equal footing.

We celebrated 40 years of our legislation promoting gender equality in 2018. It is estimated that without this law, Norway would have lost R5.9 trillion ($317bn) in income in the same 40 years if the law hadn’t been applied.

Norway and SA, and many other countries, are aiming to break generations of habit, and (bad) habits die hard. I know, because I saw how little my grandfather cared for women’s rights even as society around him was changing. We must remain vigilant and be intentional about enabling women to break the glass ceiling to create an equitable world for all.

■ Saether is ambassador of Norway in SA