Stuck with unequal representation in the five years to come (c) abbyladybug on Flickr

Next week the newly elected MEPs will flock to Strasbourg for the inaugural session of the Parliament. Among them approximately 35% female Members. A slight increase compared to the previous legislature (until recently Parliament had 31% female MEPs) but way too little to be able to speak of an equal representation, after all 52% of  EU’s inhabitants is female. How will this make them feel?

Commission Vice-President Margot Wallström wrote on her blog : “Elections are about representation and if voters don’t see themselves reflected in who represents them, then they will be seen as distant.”

What lessons can be learned? Countries who did worst and will be sending less than 30% female MEPs to Strasbourg are Malta (male Members only), Czech republic (18% female Members), Poland (22%), Ireland, Italy and Lithuania (all 25%) and Slovenia (29%).

Women need to be like G.I. Jane

Consensus between my Czech, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish and Slovene colleagues is that politics are traditionally dominated by men in their country, difficult for women to get in. According to my Polish colleague women need to be “like G.I. Jane“. He adds that these bad gender results may also be due to the right and centre-right being the biggest parties in his country and they are “not champions in equal treatment”. My Czech colleague thinks many people in his country would like to have more women in politics like in Scandinavian countries but in order to vote for a woman you also need women high enough on the voting lists….

“The women on the list were highly qualified for the job…..!” says my Maltese colleague about the female candidates in her country. In Malta there is the situation that the candidates on the voting lists appear by alphabetical order, although it is by proportional representation and single transferable vote. Nevertheless if people do not know who to give their second, third preference etc it is advantageous to be higher up in the list. That is why the second person and third persons on the both EPP and PES lists happened to be men and the women were further down in the list due to their surnames.

But for future elections Maltese women have a big advantage men do not have: they can change their name! So if you are a Maltese woman and you want to go into European politics and you are not married yet: try to find a decent guy called Abela (preferably) Attard, Borġ or Buttiġieġ to increase your changes of being elected.

My Slovene colleague says having two female MEPs among the seven Slovenes needs to be interpreted as  ”super”, given the participation of women in politics in her country. Finally our Italian photographer explains that Silvio Berlusconi was confronted with too little public support regarding the number of women he wanted to place on the voting lists.

Silvio Berlusconi was confronted with too little public support.

Most Nordic countries did well: Finland (62%), Sweden 56%), Estonia (50%). and Denmark (46%). I asked my Scandinavian colleagues how come. “It’s natural” says my Swedish colleague. If only Iceland and Norway would join the EU……

Other countries with more than 40% female representatives are the Netherlands (48%), Bulgaria (47%), and France (44%).  In the Netherlands there is a tradition of women voting for women. Dutch female social-democrat Judith Merkies was 4th on the voting list but still will be in the three-person team of Dutch social-democrats thanks to preferential votes.

My Bulgarian colleague thinks that the good result for Bulgaria may be thanks to many very good and well-known female candidates on the voting lists (e.g. Commissioner Meglena Kuneva). She also mentions the communist tradition of women playing equal roles in society and occupying higher posts. Perhaps, but how come some other former communist countries did so badly then?

As for France since the introduction in 2000 of the loi sur la parité, there needs to be equal representation between men and women on the voting lists. The result is there with 44% female MEPs. According to my French colleague, often the even numbers on the voting lists are reserved for women and the odd numbers for men: hence no real equal representation but in any case legislation that deserves to be followed by other countries.

So here we are, stuck with this unequal situation. Is there anything that still can be done? Yes,  Wallström writes: “Now we need to focus our efforts on ensuring parity in the European Commission and for top jobs within the European parliament!”

To be continued….

“When men say they cannot find a suitable women, I would say: you should have your eyes checked.”

With the elections for Parliament only one month away, this is the time to finally achieve a 50/50 representation in the hemicycle. In order to achieve this, it would help if more women would vote and that they would vote for a woman. But would that do the trick? To start, we would also need a good representation of women on the voting lists.  A glance at the lists of the seven Dutch parties that are currently represented in the European Parliament, however, does not lead to much optimism: only two parties have a woman as a frontrunner….

Support the 50/50 campaign

Dutch Commission Kroes is equally pessimistic. She would like to see two of the six top positions that will or have been opened this year on EU (President of the European Commission, EP-President, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and in case the Lisbon Treaty enters into force, President of the European Council) and NATO-level occupied by a woman but said this week: “You need to have about eternal life before half of the politicians is a woman”. Assuming the 67-years old Commissioner does not have eternal life, wouldn’t it not be nice she would actually be able to witness equal representation in her lifetime? Kroes said to find it strange that there are not even women in the picture for the position of EP President: “When men say they cannot find suitable women, I would say: you should have your eyes checked”. The link to the interview is here for those who read Dutch.

If you want to support this cause, sign the “Females in Front” petition that is about the four different leaders of the European Union that will be appointed during the next 12 months only (not about NATO). The humble aim of this campaign is that one of them should at least be a woman.

You can also sign the 50/50 petition that aims at getting women on those high EU-posts as well but is also about “putting  pressure right now on all national political parties and require them to ensure the equal representation and ranking of women and men on their electoral lists and to include gender equality as a priority in their programmes.”

“The reason why women have not yet achieved equality, despite the fact that they have been trying for decades, is the idea that they can do it by themselves, that they do not need men.”

Women’s Rights Committee Chair Anna Záborská recently gave us an explanation for this male-domination: “The reason why women have not yet achieved equality, despite the fact that they have been trying for decades, is the idea that they can do it by themselves, that they do not need men.”

In order to achieve the 50/50 representation we indeed need the help of men. They are certainly not unwilling or unintersted as a Eurobarometer poll showed in February that 83% of women and 76% of men agree that women can bring a different perspective to politics. So we can gently ask them to vote for a woman but will it be enough?
Perhaps men do need an incentive and we can learn something from the women’s rights movement in Kenya who announced on 1 May to boycot sex for a week in order to enforce better rights (today they will be able to take stock). The sad situation of women in Kenya cannot be compared to the situation of women in the European Union, but we may copy some of their good action practices and… improve them on the way…..

So, tell your bed partner as a little reminder that if on election night it seems there will be no equal representation of women in the European Parliament, there will be no sex during the whole summer (until the next elections would be better but that may have devastating consequences for Europe’s gloomy demographic crunch) .

And finally a plea to the 368 male MEPs that will be elected for the next term: follow in the footsteps of MEPs Raül Romeva i Rueda , Giovanni Rivera and Konrad Szymański : elect twenty lucky devils among yourselves to join the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality committee. They have plenty of work!

With thanks to Lena and Raffaella for their suggestions.

P.S. Still have not read enough about this topic. Go here, even if it were only to check out the great illustration

Politics: ‘a male-dominated world’

On my way to work this campaign caught my eye: A photo of a man and a woman and the question: “Is your work valued the same?” Yes I like to think so. And that as woman I have the same career opportunities as a man. But statistics gives another picture.

Women in Europe are paid 17% less than men. There is under representation of women in leading positions, in the board rooms, in politics, and inequalities often prevails in work and family life in general.

Just look at today’s (6 March) visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the EP. She attracted a huge interest, could any European do the same? 

For the European election campaign we were discussing ways to illustrate gender equality acheivements over the last 30 years. One idea was a photo from 1979 and one from 2009. We tried to think of current women in politics well known all over EU. Margot Wallström, and …? Not many other names came up. Famous faces we realised are often American.

Just look at today’s (6 March) visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the EP. She attracted a huge interest, could any European do the same? 

A European West Wing

EP Vice-President Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou made reference to a fresh Eurobarometer survey in an EP seminar this week: “83% of women and 76% of men agree that women can bring a different perspective to politics”. The survey also shows that women are less interested in European politics than men.

How can women’s interest and participation be boosted? I think more inspiring female politicians, leaders are crucial. Off course we real life “role models”. But imagine also the impact of TV-series? I really liked the (American) “West Wing” … Couldn’t something similar, set in Brussels, boost interest and participation? A European West Wing (“Place Luxembourg” ), with a female President Bartlet …

Just some thoughts ahead of Sunday’s International Women’s Day.  Any other ideas on how to promote women in politics?