MANIFESTO NFI 2007 MANIFESTO FOR A NEW EUROPE - ΜΑΝΙΦΕΣΤΟ ΓΙ | Page 11

committed to social justice, solidarity, democracy and peace
the poverty of children needs to be prevented by a new inter-
generational contract and the social security and social rights
of children need to be codified.
Gender discrimination – for equality of
men and women
OUR GOAL
The new Europe is pro-active in ensuring equitable relations
between men and women as well as a gender-equitable dis-
tribution of societal affluence. Child rearing and care must no
longer be perceived as ‘professional risks’ run by women.
WE KNOW
Gender equality has been on the Community agenda since its
foundation. Prompted by the predominantly economic orien-
tation of the EU, equality policies were focused on the princi-
ple of equal pay for equal work, right into the 1980s. In the
Treaty of Amsterdam, however, the principle of gender main-
streaming was pronounced to be one of the key policy areas.
Gender mainstreaming stands for the integration of the equal-
ity principle into all policy areas, in other words, not only into
the area of employment, and it signifies that each and every
political decision must be designed to promote the equality of
men and women.
And yet, gender inequality persists in the European nation
states. Societal affluence continues to be unequally distributed
between women and men. Women are underrepresented in
almost all national political bodies as well as in those of the
EU. Women hold a negligible proportion of top corporate and
academic positions in the European nation states. The (work-
ing) lives of women bear the hallmarks of low activity rates,
part-time and precarious jobs, low-wage jobs, low incomes and
bad career prospects (glass ceiling), and of a substantial lack
of leisure time. Wage differences between men and women
are still enormous, and women continue to be those respon-
sible for bringing up children and caring for dependent family
members, i.e. children and older people.
The axiomatic segregation of non-remunerated reproduc-
tive work (performed by women) and remunerated (male)
employment persists despite dramatic changes in the labour
market. There are either no or sub-optimal rules governing re-
productive work which, moreover, carries no social insurance.
The share of men in and their responsibility for child rearing
and care giving is marginal. There are hardly any incentives to
sharing care-giving chores in a spirit of partnership. Children
are considered a risk and an obstacle to gainful employment
and to the employability of people. The lack of affordable and
easily accessible care facilities for children of all ages which also
meet educational standards is one of the main obstacles to the
equality of men and women.
So far, gender mainstreaming has been a sluggish process.
To this day, there are many countries that have failed to ap-
ply the principle of gender-segregated statistics and data ac-
quisition, nor has the gender impact assessment of laws been
consistently carried out. Gender budgeting, which is designed
to establish gender-discriminating effects of public spending
is implemented very tentatively, with the result that the major
part of public spending continues to exacerbate gender dis-
tortion. Much less is invested, for instance, into local public
transport – which is primarily used by women – than into road
construction for private transport – which is a male domain.
Moreover, the argument of mainstreaming has, in recent years,
been used to close down state institutions for the advancement
of women and of equality.
WE DEMAND
Equality of men and women is conditional on the reorgani-
sation of work, especially by facilitating access of both men
and women to child rearing and care giving. This reorganisa-
tion inevitably calls for a reorientation of gainful employment.
Part-time work must not be perceived as a risk, but has to be
seen as an opportunity by both employees and employers,
and appropriate social insurance for part-time workers needs
to be institutionalised. A fair division of child-rearing chores is
conditional on more state child-care facilities. The Barcelona
target of the EU – child-care facilities for at least 90% of chil-
dren between three years and school-entrance age and for
33% of children under three years of age, needs to be swiftly
achieved in all national states and to be modified in the fore-
seeable future with a view to providing more places for chil-
dren under three.
Parental leave must not prevent parents from resuming their
careers, and, while on leave, they must be granted the options
of gainful employment and continued training.
When choosing their careers, girls and boys need to be
encouraged to cross the classical boundaries between girls’
and boys’ occupations.
The proportion of women in top corporate, political and
academic positions needs to be increased by way of quota rules
and mentoring programmes.
The EU principle of gender mainstreaming needs to be
expanded beyond the public sector and made binding on the
private sector as well. Gender mainstreaming – in other words
gender expertise input in policy and decision-making – needs
to be augmented by a democratic dimension in the form of
involving groups of women and the NGOs concerned into deci-
sion-making processes. This is the only way to achieve gender
democracy, the only way for women of all classes and ethnici-
ties in Europe to exercise their human rights. With this in mind,
state support and funds need to be provided for NGOs active
in the areas of women’s policies and gender equality.
International Friends of Nature 11