Gender equality must be achieved personally, institutionally and programmatically for real change to occur.

Throughout human history, the roles of women and men in societies have been complementary. Hundreds of thousands of years ago humans learned to work together to survive. Women’s roles of bearing and rearing children complemented men’s roles of protecting families and nomadic bands from the dangers of pre-historic life. Men’s hunting expertise paired with women’s talents gathering edible plants, berries and roots. Many scholars believe that it was women who "discovered" the agricultural way of life through their gathering knowledge. This enabled people to settle in one place, raise crops and develop many other aspects of human culture such as writing, cities, and commerce.

Several theories exist to explain how gender roles became power-based:

Men’s physical strength may have transformed into decision-making power

Women’s ability to give life through childbirth may have pushed men to assert power over women’s mysterious ability

Women’s physical debilitation during childbirth may have led men to take leadership roles in families and groups

There are also plenty of examples of traditional and contemporary societies that demonstrate women’s leadership roles and abilities in families and cultures as well. Unfortunately, these examples are the exception rather than occurring in parity with men’s opportunities to aspire to and demonstrate leadership.

Culture is often used to justify inequality or to act as a constraint to equality. However, culture is a living thing created by people and therefore changed by people. Therefore, if women and men push for more opportunities and choices for themselves, their children and their elders, their culture will adapt accordingly. This is not to say that change will always be easy or conflict-free but change will occur as women and men push for it together.

Wile it is important to view the complementary and independent nature of gender roles. It is also important to challenge those stereotypes and attitudes that keep people in low status and prevent them from reaching their full potential. In other words, women and men have to build respect for each other’s roles and goals in life, share resources and decision-making, and demonstrate mutual support for gender equality to become a reality. This is essentially the definition of empowerment.

Sex and Gender – Sex is the biological status women and men are born with. Gender refers to how boys and girls are socialized differently to become productive members of their culture.

Gender sensitive – Understanding the differences between mutually respectful gender roles based on shared power and not using those roles to have power over another and restrict his or her personal growth and self-discrimination. Not discriminating or stereotyping on the bases of sex or gender.

Equality and Equity – In a perfect world all people are created equal in terms of opportunities to develop and reach their full potential. That is equality, a goal to which we can aspire. However, in reality we know that we are a long way from living in a world in which every person can achieve her/his potential. Equity means fairness, i.e., finding ways to help the disadvantaged and disempowered "catch up" with their more actualized fellow humans through opportunities for development and control over their lives.

When girls and boys are both officially allowed to go to school this is equality because both are given the same possibility to learn and excel. However, official policy and reality are often different: girls more often than boys are restricted from attending the class due to household responsibilities or taboos and the existence of real danger for girls in leaving the households. Therefore, exceptional measures have to be taken to help girls overcome the numerous barriers they face in gaining an education. These extra efforts constitute equity or justice, i.e., ways to give girls more chances at an education in order to close the gap between boys and girls.

Empowerment – The process by which women and men achieve skills, confidence and support to determine their own lives and make their own choices. It is the state in which people have access to resources and opportunities to control their own future.

The Maasai Women are traditionally marginalized in terms of educational rights and opportunities. Women’s roles are mainly reproductive, children rearing and undertaking household chores. While boys are normally traditionally favored and receive education opportunities, Maasai girls mostly remain at home and stay uneducated. This leads to a situation where girls are discriminated upon other areas because they are not empowered enough to know their rights.