In May 2019, the International Standards Organization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) signed the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) declaration on gender-responsive standards and standards development.1 As part of their gender action plans, the respective technical management boards of the ISO and IEC formed a joint working group on gender-responsive standards in February 2020. The mandate of the working group is to create tools for ISO and IEC committees to ensure that standards and standards development are gender responsive.
Fifteen members—from the U.S., Canada, Norway, Japan, France, Sweden, and Great Britain—are active in the work. The group consists of experts on gender issues, standards developers, and employees from standardization bodies.
I have had the privilege of co-leading this group from the ISO side. During the two years we have worked together, it has been clear that the level of awareness within the standardization community is...