Irish rock legend Bono has called upon the males of the world to step up and help fix equality issues.
The U2 singer was the only man honoured at the recent Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year awards for 2017.
He admitted it was a humbling experience and said it triggered an open discussion in his home with his wife and two daughters.
Bono said: “I was aware and I was glad that I was being offered up as a firestarter for a debate the magazine rightly wanted to have about the role of men in the fight for gender equality.
“It seemed obvious to me that the sex who created the problem might have some responsibility for undoing it. Men can’t step back and leave it to women alone to clean up the mess we’ve made and are still making. Misogyny, violence and poverty are problems we can’t solve at half-strength, which is the way we’ve been operating for a few millennia now.”
The 57-year-old went on to explain that he believes investing in the education of girls is the best way to bring the level of equality up.
Bono continued: “Because the research is clear – it’s plain on the page and has been proved on the ground – that funding girls’ education isn’t charity but investment, and the returns are transformational.
“The key lesson in my own home-schooling is something (my wife) Ali has been saying to me since we were teenagers ‘don’t look down on me, but don’t look up to me, either, look across to me. I’m here’.
“It just may be that in these times, the most important thing for men and women to do is to look across to each other – and then start moving, together, in the same direction.
“Making education a priority is a way of making equality a priority, and even men with limited vision should see that’s the only way forward.”