[Gesth-l] FW: Sweden - Gender Equality

[Borgos Anna]

A svéd mitoszról...


>From: "Claudia Belchior" <claudia.belchior at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: youngwomenfromminorities at yahoogroups.com
>To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
>Subject: [youngwomenfromminorities] Sweden - Gender Equality - "Myth as a 
>Shield Against the Reality"
>Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 01:44:23 +0100
>
>Gurdun Schyman, Member of Parliament, Spokeswoman of the Feminist
>Initiative in Sweden and Member of the Board of the European Feminist
>Initiative
>
>SWEDEN - GENDER EQUALITY
>
>Myth as a Shield Against the Reality
>
>Sweden is the country with the highest level of gender equality in the
>world. Many say so and that is often what Sweden is known for abroad. In
>a way this is true. We have progressed a lot in many areas. The
>achievements in some, like for example child care and parental insurance
>make women in other countries go green with envy. And they have absolute
>right to feel so. Without the persistent and indomitable co/work of many
>brave and creative women within the parties and outside the parties, we
>wouldn't be where we are today. None of the rights have been "given" to
>women. Neither by the "left" nor by the "right". We had to seize power
>ourselves. From the suffrage to the law that prohibits the purchase of
>sexual services. Do not forget this!
>
>Measured by international standards Sweden has achieved a lot. But in
>relation to the goal - an equal society in reality - we still have a
>long way to go. Therefore it is really worrying that the discrepancy
>between the political rhetoric and the practice is so huge. Everyday
>reality of women is not in accordance with the declarations we are so
>proud of - neither here nor there, neither in our parliament, nor in EU
>Parliament nor with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. We
>have a long way to go to reach the society where nobody is discriminated
>or subordinated due to gender. Still long way. Too long, think many of
>us and that is why we are taking new political and democratic
>initiatives to put these issues on the top of the political agenda. This
>provides every woman working with women's human rights more space for
>action in the politics.
>
>Together we strengthen the work needed to make the necessary step beyond
>the patriarchal power order in the society. Power order that has
>certainly existed for a few thousand years, that has survived every
>revolution, that has been a basis of every existing economic and
>political system and that besides this is being protected by every
>fundamentalist religious movement, but that should not be allowed to
>continue framing our lives for the sake of this.
>
>The consequences of the patriarchal thinking are also visible in the
>rest of Europe. The results are economic and political stagnation. Women
>who educate themselves, and more and more of us choose this option, are
>certainly not doing this to become housewives. If the society does not
>offer social services at reasonable costs in the form of the fully paid
>pre-school and school, women choose not to have children. If the
>geriatric care does not function, women are forced to leave the paid job
>and they cannot use the benefits of the education that both they and the
>society have invested into. If the EU economic politics have as an idea
>that the society should withdraw from the social responsibility of
>offering welfare and social services, the responsibility will be shifted
>back to the families, i.e. women. It is expected that the private market
>of services will offer welfare in the form of profitable enterprises for
>those who can afford this. In reality it implies that many women's
>unpaid work will increase and in the families where the man can afford
>this, other women will "work as servants". On the conditions that have
>perhaps been created in their own country, according to the principles
>of the country of origin, or at the patriarchal labour market in a
>Europe where the men agree that the women's work is always of less
>value... Very often this work is done by women who on their part take
>care of children and older parents in a country, far from Europe, in the
>other part of world.
>
>That's how the gender power order, that is global in its scope and local
>in its concrete expression is being maintained and reproduced. The
>monster is the same - the perception of women and with it the work that
>is stamped as female, that is less worth. Therefore, the whole labour
>market politics, both here and there should be reviewed through the
>feminist glasses. Demands for equal rights to work, regardless of
>gender, should be self obvious, as it should be self obvious that the
>society must guarantee these services and care that are a precondition
>for making it possible for anyone to combine parenthood and professional
>life, regardless of gender.
>
>Every unjust distribution of power results in violence as its extreme.
>That is why male violence against women is without doubt connected with
>this fundamental gender power order. Here and there. In Sweden, Europe
>and the world. Anybody who thinks that it is just a coincidence that
>nine of ten cases of death caused by violence are committed by a man
>should seriously reconsider the matter once again. The proposition of
>Maria Carlshamre, that was recently adopted by the EU Parliament (with
>545 votes for, 13 against and 56 abstained), refers to the extensive
>study in Sweden, Germany and Finland which shows that at least 30-35% of
>all women of the age 16 - 67 were exposed to physical or sexual
>violence. Furthermore, 700-900 women die every year in the EU as a
>result of the violence of their partner. Researches also show that
>65-90% of prostituted women were exposed to sexual assaults already in
>their childhood or later in their life. Many countries do not have
>complete statistics about the man's violence against women, something
>that the EU Parliament is now asking for.
>
>All those who voted in accordance with this proposition stand thus
>behind the definition of man's violence against women as a violation of
>the human rights and declare awareness and insight that this violence
>reflects the unequal distribution of power between women and men in our
>society. That clearly implies that we shall be never able to get rid of
>the violence if the distribution of power between genders is not equal.
>That means that we always need to look at the whole picture. We must
>understand that low salaries and insecure employment are a part of the
>same monster that is expressed in violence. We must understand that
>sexism, porno industry and prostitution are a part of the same monster
>that is expressed in the trafficking in women and children. We must
>understand that lack of women at leading positions in politics and
>economy, nationally and internationally, means that the picture is
>actually not whole.
>
>Now when EU member country Germany prepares for the WC in football by
>building mega brothels and designing fast purchase of sex in the form of
>"performance boxes", small car-port-like boxes, that with its full
>equipment with condoms and snack machines are going finally to cement
>the perception of the male's sexuality as unquestionably uncontrollable,
>the whole EU should stand up and protest. But here has the hypocrisy
>reached its peak. The prostitution is allowed in Germany. The fact that
>a crime in the form of trafficking is being planned, as German "own"
>prostituted women won't be enough, seems not to worry the ministers very
>much. Women from various organisations in many countries have reacted
>and are now planning actions and petitions. I myself have got the
>promise of the Minister of Justice to raise this question for his
>colleagues in the EU. It goes slowly, but still there is a progress. The
>minimum we can demand is a top meeting of the ministers and a decision
>to immediately stop all preparations of committing crime and violations
>of the women's human rights!
>
>So, there are still things to be done - both here and there. Those who
>give up should be ashamed. I believe that it has become clear to more
>and more people that the feminist dimension widens the political
>boundaries and vitalises the democracy. And it is self obvious that the
>parliamentary arena cannot be an excluded of it, neither here nor there.
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>Gurdun Schyman, Member of Parliament, Spokeswoman of the Feminist
>Initiative in Sweden and Member of the Board of the European Feminist
>Initiative, ife at efi-europa.org

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