07/03/2011

100 years of International Women's Day
A long and bumpy road to gender equality

By Edit Bauer MEP, EPP Group Coordinator on Women's Rights Committee


As a result of a decision taken at the Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910 International Women's Day was marked for the first time on 19 March 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies to fight for women's rights. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded the right to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination.



A century

In history 100 years is not a long period but there are still lots of unsolved, open issues concerning women that need to be addressed. Nowadays women do have a right to vote and to be voted into office, but it was just 40 years ago that the last European countries granted this right to women - Switzerland, Andorra and Lichtenstein among the latest in the early 1970s. What's more, some countries refused to grant women's suffrage by referendum. In the United States of America the procedure was slowed down by the alcohol-lobby, who feared that women voters would prohibit the consumption of alcohol.

Today

Granting suffrage is not a remedy to every problem. The percentage of women voters is way below the percentage of women in society - regardless of the political or economic decisions to be taken. On the other hand there is an interesting trend in developing countries where, despite the fact that women become members of national parliaments, stoning of women remains an everyday practice.

Economics

In the past, economic interests have both strengthened or slowed down the path to gender equality. In the 1957 Treaty of Rome the principle of equal pay for equal work was included within the chapter on economic competition, on establishing equal conditions for economic competition. However, this has not been fully ensured yet, even though since 1975 there is a directive that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender. The gender pay gap is still 17.5% and, thanks to the economic and financial crisis, could be even higher. The consequence of unreasonable differences in salaries between women and men is - amongst others - that elderly women are at higher risk of poverty.

Violence

European societies still need to do a lot in order to ensure an effective fight against violence against women. Some are raising the pretext that women are also committing violence against men, but we have to emphasize that the rate is 9:1.

EU 2020 Strategy

The EU's 2020 Strategy is forcing decision-makers to face new challenges. When demographic trends need to be changed and birth rates raised, there is an ongoing pressure on women's higher participation in the labour market. This results in old challenges remaining the same, with slow progress on their solutions. At the same time new dilemmas are raising their heads and new challenges need to be addressed too. One thing is sure - and all the experts agree on it - from "de jure" gender equality there is a long and bumpy road to "de facto" gender equality.

In Parliament

In honour of the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, Parliament will debate 2 reports on women on Tuesday 8 March, including Mariya Nedelcheva's report on equality between men and women.