One of the 3 top EU jobs must be held by a woman
Although the Lisbon Treaty is still not fully ratified, there has already been a lot of speculation in the media about who would be suitable candidates for the 2 top EU jobs it creates along the -already taken- Commission President post: the President of the European Council and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
Annoyed by the fact that most of the names that are currently put forward by the media are only men, some top European women have started to react: read here, here, and there. In an interview to TheParliament.com on Tuesday, Commission Vice-President Margot Wallström said “It is shameful that, so far, no women seem to have been put forward as possible candidates. All we hear about are people like Tony Blair and other men”. I agree with her. But I would go even further. It is actually more than shameful: I feel it is an insult to all women.
So why is Margot Wallström and many other Eurowomen so annoyed by this. Just take a look at the most recent European Council family picture I could find (here below). Let’s play a game: What’s wrong with this picture?
- June European Council – CC The Council of the European Union
No it’s not the vibrant purple colour of Angela Merkel’s outfit (second raw, middle)… No it’s not the fact that Tarja Halonen, the female president of Finland (first raw, middle left), is not wearing a colourful outfit as top EU female politicians usually do… Try again. What is wrong is that apart from Angela Merkel, Tarja Halonen, and Mary McAleese -Irish President, not on the picture- there was no other female head of state (I’m not counting the queens) or government in the 27 European Union countries when this picture was taken (since then Dalia Grybauskaité was elected President of Lithuania). There’s roughly 98% of greyish/blackish suits on this family picture: that is what is wrong.
Here is a picture from a fellow French blogger that summarises the situation pretty well:
- Parité – CC Fred
There are plenty of talented, charismatic, competent women that could take one of the 2 top EU jobs left. Here is a list of the names that “some” journalists have put forward:
- Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, Christian-democrat
- Tarja Halonen, President of Finland, Social-democrat
- Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for institutional relations and communication policy, Former Swedish Minister for Culture, Social Affairs and Youth, Social-democrat
- Mary Robinson, Former President of Ireland, Former UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Independant
- Ursula Plassnik, Former Austrian foreign minister, Christian-democrat
That’s a short list. I’m sure there’s a lot more. Any idea? Feel free to contribute!
Cross-posted from eurosocialist.eu. Also available in French on eurosocialiste.eu
loading...
25 Comments
Trackbacks
- Snowblog - Has Iraq sunk Blair’s presidency hopes?
- Woman @ EU top: let’s enter the 21st century now! | Social Europe Journal
- Lisbon era starts in Europe while Merkel makes her historic US address… « Erkan's Field Diary
why would Angela Merkel go for an EU job when she has just been re-elected as German Chancellor? That would be mad! So you can surely take her from your shortlist.
loading...
Hello Dominic,
The list is just a compilation of the female names I have seen in the media in the past weeks. Some articles were written before the German elections. Obviously Angela Merkel will not go for one of the top EU jobs now but her name was put forward at some point. In fact we don’t know whether the other ones on the list would like to hold such a post either. The idea is to build up a list of the women one could imagine at such a post.
loading...
Why don’t you then build up a shortlist of women who would realistically accept the job if it was offered? Anything else makes no sense. You might as well argue that Thatcher could be on your shortlist even though she is way too old and hates the EU.
That’s why so many women quota make no sense. People are there not because they could or would do the job but simply because they are women.
loading...
Dominic,
The thing I don’t understand in your reaction is that when men names are put forward, nobody wonders beforehand whether they would “realistically” accept the job if it was offered. That is not the point here simply because it is up to the candidate to answer that question, not up to us. The question is who would be a good candidate. As the media do not put forward many women names, I have asked the readers to give me the names they can think of. This is a collaborative exercise, you see? Some people on my blog have already started doing so. Here’s a selection: Dora Bakoyannis, Anna Diamantopoulou and Christine Lagarde. Are there names you would like to add up to this list?
Let me just add that I think your last sentence is offending. It is really tiring that women still have to fight over that “competence” argument. All the women mentioned in this article have all the necessary competences to do the job. And do not forget, that more than a job these are “mandates” to represent the people. Like it or not, half of the world is female. Half of the world is not properly represented in this Council.
loading...
I don’t want to offend anybody first of all and I don’t think my last sentence was offensive.
To be clear, I absolutely want women in top positions but I just don’t think any of these arguments “one must be a women” does anything to address the problem: the under-representation of women in top positions. It just takes gender as a group and makes it a category to be considered when appointing people. That’s too simple I am afraid.
What about representation of gays, ethnic minorties, disabled people, etc. Surely if you bunch them into categories they would have as much right to claim a share of top positions as women. Let alone people who tick a few boxes. Every group that is underrepresented should have the same claim.
I think the problem must be tackled at the root, i.e. we need measures that encourage women (and other under-represented groups) to go into politics, become entrepreneurs, etc. in the first place. If you put up quotas you tackle the wrong end and try to force a situation that doesn’t really exist. Therefore women in top positions will be (wrongly most of the times) confronted with the competency argument. But you have to understand that it is there precisely because of quotas.
There is nothing to say against a soft quota, that favours the under-represented group if all other factors are equal. But starting by saying: this must be a woman is the wrong approach in my view.
About the shortlist. There are plenty of able women out there, no doubt. But every shortlist is a list of serious candidates, not a list of people the media dream up that could do the job. If candidates are in better jobs now and there is no chance they would take the job they shouldn’t be on a short list. Full stop.
loading...
Dominic,
Your statement “What about representation of gays, ethnic minorties, disabled people, etc. Surely if you bunch them into categories they would have as much right to claim a share of top positions as women. Let alone people who tick a few boxes. Every group that is underrepresented should have the same claim.” perfectly conveys that women are still considered as a mere “category” of the population.
Please keep in mind that a woman can be a CEO, unemployed, gay, part of an ethnic minority, disabled, young, old, and as you say, etc.
You obvioulsy do not understand Eurosocialist’s point that a people should be represented by both men and women (after all, isn’t it the principle of life? Isn’t it how everyone is born, out of a man AND a woman, is it?).
An equal representation of women in government is the very first step -and a fundamental one- to a fairer representation of the different sociocultural elements a society is made of.
However, your comments/reaction to this article just showed -once again, unfortunately- how much women still have to fight to be recognized as an essential part of what one may call “humankind”, or “mankind” if you understand this term better…
loading...
Sorry, but this misses the point. What is the real problem? Unrepresentative allocation of top positions in general? Or just the argument that women should be in those positions for whatever reason?
“However, your comments/reaction to this article just showed -once again, unfortunately- how much women still have to fight to be recognized as an essential part of what one may call “humankind”, or “mankind” if you understand this term better…”
This is frankly absurd. Who does not recognise women as 50% of humankind? Your snipe with the vocabulary “mankind” is completely unnecessary!
I have argued very clearly that I am absolutely in favour of a fairer allocation of top positions which would mean many more women in high offices. I just disagree with the method.
My very last comment on this as we won’t get anywhere: the way you tackle the problem won’t help resolving it and I know many women who disagree with your approach too. Look at the problem and search for solutions. You are just arguing for a “solution” before you analysed the problem properly.
loading...
This is an interesting debate. I have to say that I agree with many of Dominic’s points. I am in favour of a soft quota but had political arguments in the past where pushing a hard quota to some seemed more important than the issue it was supposed to address. But I am open to convincing and especially I would like an answer to an important question for which I haven’t heard a good answer yet. I am sure some people here can help out.
What is the argument for having a quota based on gender but not for other factors such as sexual orientation, ethnicity, … as mentioned by Dominic? Or should you have a whole variety or quotas? If yes, where would you start and where would you stop?
Obvioulsy if you have several quotas at the same time people would be in as many groups as there are quotas as each quota by definition needs to cover 100% of people. Otherwise it would not be a category suitable for a representation quota.
So how can this be resolved? Gender only? Then I’d like to know why. Several quotas? How would that work?
I’d be really grateful if somebody could address this. I am sure there are answers I don’t know about.
loading...
“What is the real problem?”
=>Watch the picture illustrating the article a bit closer.
“Unrepresentative allocation of top positions in general?”
=> Yes, you got it!
“Or just the argument that women should be in those positions for whatever reason?”
=> Where did you get that from? Silly you.
“I have argued very clearly that I am absolutely in favour of a fairer allocation of top positions which would mean many more women in high offices. I just disagree with the method.”
=> What method do you disagree with? The quotas? You got a point, so what do you think a better method would be, as you don’t seem to just be arguing for a solution… you probably looked at the problem and analyzed it properly, so please go for it!
“This is frankly absurd. Who does not recognise women as 50% of humankind?”
=> Well, not science for sure, but obviously politics (see the article)…
” Your snipe with the vocabulary “mankind” is completely unnecessary”
=> oh, come on, that was a good one! I didn’t mean to offend anyone, though.
loading...
With all respect to the fellow men discussing here, but you are barking up the wrong tree.
Women are not a minority in numbers; they are a minority in power positions because, for many centuries, they were disadvantaged and disempowered by men.
Many positions are filled by men not because they could or would do the job best, but because they are men and remain, to the day, advantaged and priviliged because of that.
Women’s rights to vote and stand in elections were only introduced during the past one-hundred years – Finland was one of the first countries to do so, in 1906 – while the same rights have been a matter of course for men for much longer.
And boy, it’s not because women aren’t trying that they remain underrepresented in politics! It just ain’t easy for anyone to share – and thus: partly give up – power. Many men cling to what they have (and quite possibly, many women might just do the same).
It is, therefore, a vital and necessary element of democracies to install instruments that force people to share, rotate, and give up power.
And yes, quotas may well be the best instruments in some contexts: look at higher education, for example. More than half of all students are female, and women are often noticably more successful than men – and yet, it is mostly men who advance and take Ph.D. positions and professorships; the system in place is run by men and favours men.
In cases like this, an outside intervention is needed to break a self-referential structure up, because the system is unable to reform itself from the inside.
It is not just a matter of encouraging more women to study – they do – or a matter of encouraging women to apply for Ph.D. positions – they do. It is a matter of structural disempowerment that needs to be structurally challenged and changed.
And please, let’s not waste any time to consider men who throw so-called competence-questions at women. They just don’t like to be challenged by rivals, and if that question got turned around, many of the men asking would have to leave their jobs immediately.
loading...
Andreas, I agree with your well made points. There are structural obstacles, old boys networks,… you name it. That’s all true. The problem is agreed on.
But I still don’t know why the gender prism is or should (or should it?) be the only prism through which to look.
You mentioned higher education and what you say is absolutely true. Working at a UK university myself I also know however that it is not just women but for instance but also ethnic minorities (male and female) who are vastly underrepresented in faculties and departments.
Do you want to have a go at addressing my main question?
loading...
This is a man’s world, this is a man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl
You see, man made the cars to take us over the road
Man made the trains to carry heavy loads
Man made electric light to take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark
This is a man’s, a man’s, a man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl
Man thinks about a little baby girls and a baby boys
Man makes then happy ’cause man makes them toys
And after man has made everything, everything he can
You know that man makes money to buy from other man
This is a man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl
He’s lost in the wilderness
He’s lost in bitterness
loading...
Thanks for the sweet soul who brought in James Brown
Henning, my apologies – I got carried away a little, didn’t I?
The gender prism should absolutely not be the only prism through which to look. One main difference to other discourses is, however, that while men and women are more or less equal in numbers, they are absolutely not equal in terms of power.
This is different for all other aspects – sexual orientation, ethnic background, physical abilities – that may or may not define a person as seen by themselves and/or by others – they cut across gender and concern men and women likewise (if not necessarily in equal measure: in a particular context a lesbian woman may well be more strongly disadvantaged than a gay man, and there are many more similar examples).
Not all inequalitities can be addressed by introducing quotas, hard or soft as they may be, but the principle underlying such instruments of affirmative action holds across all of them: that to treat unequals as equals means to maintain and reinforce inequality.
Expecting and demanding, to give but one example, of a child of immigrant parents living in a disadvantaged neighbourhood and with access to education limited to a below-average school, to have the same level of expertise in the subjects required for entering university is ridiculous – it blends out that some persons have previously been limited by the disadvantages of the system.
Which instrument to employ to respond to such inequalities is so context-dependent that I cannot give a universal answer – in Finland, the Swedish language minority has guaranteed access to some fields of study considered relevant for the functioning of society at large and an independent minority (law, medicine, education). In Norway, all public bodies are required to have both at least 40% men and 40% women, and within both gender groups sufficient representation of minorities is a must.
loading...
“One main difference to other discourses is, however, that while men and women are more or less equal in numbers, they are absolutely not equal in terms of power.”
accepted. having only two groups in a category that are broadly the same size makes it easier to implement a quota as if you had several groups (for instance white, asian, african american, …) in a category “ethnicity”. So that makes the implementation easier.
“This is different for all other aspects – sexual orientation, ethnic background, physical abilities – that may or may not define a person as seen by themselves and/or by others – they cut across gender and concern men and women likewise (if not necessarily in equal measure: in a particular context a lesbian woman may well be more strongly disadvantaged than a gay man, and there are many more similar examples).”
I don’t quite get what is “different”. All categories cut across all others because they cover the whole population. It does not matter whether you are male or female if you argue that african americans are generally disadvantaged compared to whites (to use two groups of the “ethnicity” spectrum).
You can expand this by adding the gender category. Then you can say person x belongs to two disadvanatged groups: women and african americans – and is therefore likely to be even more disadvantaged.
You could then add the sexual orientation category, or religion, …
But this is precisely my question: how many of these categories do you want to use? 1, 3, 10? And if you only want to use 1, why gender? Only because there are only 2 options and because the distribution between these options is roughly 50:50 in almost all areas?
These characteristics make the application of a gender quota easier. Agreed. But it does not resolve the intellectual question of why “gender” is a more appropriate category definition than say “ethnicity”.
Basically I am asking: Is gender only more appropriate than ethnicity (as an example) because there are too many different ethnicities to be realistically worked into a quota and because the ethnic mixes vary greatly across the globe?
That can surely not be the whole answer. There should be a more robust intellectual argument for why gender. I would be interested in hearing that.
loading...
While typing this, I am hesitantly wondering whether a key difference between gender and other aspects would be at what scale and in which direction the disempowerment works.
Let me try to explain this carefully with two examples.
1. It is widely assumed that any argument claiming that men are more intelligent than women is, to phrase it positively, voodoo-science. Returning to our example of higher education, where women have finally begun to be successful in equal numbers, but have trouble to proceed academic careers nonetheless: this is where I would argue a quota – such as 40 % representation of each gender – makes most sense, at least for some time.
2. In Germany, where I currently live, migration from the Mediterranean is said to be concentrated on families from smaller villages and a comparably conservative mindset. In Germany, immigration policies have usually resulted in cultural groups residing in special parts of town, where their own culture and language thrive and, it is claimed in current debates, their German language skills and cultural integration suffers. (I have no numbers to back this up, and have the impression much of this consists of misleading generalisations, but for the sake of my illustration allow me to abuse the stereotypical image.) I have numbers, however, regarding the educational achievement of kids with a migrant background, which is remarkably lower than the general level of success. This is a situation where instruments as brought up by J Pearson below might be more useful.
What I am trying to exemplify, I guess, is that in many areas of power and influence traditionally dominated by men, women are disadvantaged at large (individual cases notwithstanding), and a general and generalising response seems well-placed. For aspects such as ethnic background and sexual orientation this seems to be less clear-cut and possibly less institutionalised, and therefore a general instrument may be the wrong response.
But Henning, let’s face it, you have a point – as far as I am aware, there is no universal consistent robust intellectual argument why gender quota should exist and other diversity quota should not.
loading...
Andreas,
If only more men thought and acted like you, the world would be a better place, for you and for me
loading...
How do you get an empurpled men sitting in front of a machine early in the morning?
*blush*
loading...
What is the real issue here? That there might not be a woman filling on of the positions referred to in the article? No, of course not, the issue here is gender inequality, the fact that very few commentators consider any female politicians as serious candidates for these top jobs. The 20th century saw many welcome and much needed political reforms that have empowered women but recent progress in the fight for gender equality has been sluggish at best and it is shameful that we’re well into the 21st century now and gender inequality is still an issue.
But would the appointment of a female into one of the roles mentioned really bring greater equality for females, or result in a better represented female Europe? I seriously doubt it as the jobs these roles cover have universal effect on both males and females. The image shown of the European Council does indeed paint a very bleak picture for those of us who strive for gender equality, but are those leaders in the European Council to represent their gender? No, of course not, they’re there to represent their individual countries. Each and every one of them has been democratically elected into those offices by men and women alike, both genders holding equal votes.
Change must happen at the source of the problem and this source cannot be located in the upper echelons of government. No-one commenting on this article believes that women have any less ability to govern than men, but we need to be drawing more women into politics so that any gender imbalance is purely coincidental and we need to be tackling the notion that the best leader is an ‘alpha male’ character.
We should be ensuring that children are taught politics at a younger age as part of their curriculum so that both boys and girls can develop an interest in politics. Quotas are never the best solution but we need to fastrack progress to counter the attitudes that have sunk in so that we can avoid them being transmitted to younger generations. Gender quotas such as the 40% in Norway should be brought into practice in all appointed government positions. In the UK this must include the House of Lords in its current form and the Prime Minister’s cabinet so that female leaders can be seen to be in the centre of politics.
We need to see a change in attitudes that will change the silent discrimination of women in politics and we need radical and immediate action if we want to see progress towards gender equality. Only if we can enact these changes at the bottom will a European Council with a gender balance actually mean anything.
loading...
Dear J.
You say : “No, of course not, they’re there to represent their individual countries.”
>The problem is that those individual countries are individually run (politically, economically, socially…) by men.
Perhaps the solution to the gender issue is to TEACH our children gender equality right from the beginning of their education (kindergarten). However, the same children are also taught history, which is mainly about men ruling the world (except for some kingdoms like the UK that have been more open-minded on gender issues (e.g. the UK), interpreting their religious god’s words as the “first child” should reign, as opposed to the “first MALE child” in former kingdoms such as France)…
History has been written by men, and the world has been ruled by men since the beginning of human times… for roughly 10,000 years. Is this pattern really going to change soon? A lot of improvement towards women’s rights has been made the last century, yet 100 years can’t compete with 10,000 years, it’s mathematics…
All that women want is to be recognized and represented politically, economically, and socially, they want to have the same salary as a man for the same exact job, they want to be treated as equals on an intellectual level. So political representation should not be a big deal… but women have to fight for that, men don’t. Because, let’s be honest, if women hadn’t raised for their rights, men would have never ever thought about gender equality…
loading...
Please do not take a very selective quote of mine out of context and use it to argue your own points. If you were to pay attention to my whole comment you will see that I provide many policies that could be immediately implemented at no cost to anyone that would bring greater gender equality and work towards reversing the “silent discrimination” of women. I know I’ve focused on political equality, as that has been the subject of discussion, but there are many similarly simple policies we can adopt to tackle gender discrimination of all types.
I call it the ’silent’ discrimination because it is usually not intentional on the part of individuals but instead the result of an attitude that has been entrenched into us all from an early age as a result of discrimination throughout history.
Teaching gender equality is, unfortunately, not the answer. Will a young child really pay much attention to that lesson over stories that catch their imagination better, stories of these male leaders in wars, ruling empires etc. Of course values of equality should be impressed upon children but only a minority of people actively oppose equality and deliberately discriminate against women. The main source of the issue is in the attitudes that people have developed, and we must ensure we don’t transmit those attitudes to our children.
Their early education is the key here, as you suggested, but lessons on gender equality are not what is going to make the difference. Instead we need to meet them where they are and not where we are. Making sure the books they read show women as equals, making sure that heroines of history are equal parts of their history curriculum. The Joan of Arcs, Florence Nightingales and Boudica’s. Those are what young kids will remember, what will shape their attitudes of people.
loading...
Wow! 18 comments on this article so far. I would never have imagined it would trigger such a lively debate, and nothing can make me happier. Thank you all for your contributions. Who would have thought gender equality was still such a controversial issue? Not me actually. Just one thing though: most commentators of this blogpost seem to be men. The same thing happened on my eurosocialist.eu blog, where the article was initially published, although I have made a call for contribution on Twitter to some women I know who might be interested in the issue.
Women seem to have a hard time entering debates on the public sphere, offline and online. I notice it at each debate I go. Although the audience is usually gender-balanced, the people who dare take the micro to express their views are most of the time men. If you look at the blogosphere, again most political bloggers are men. This is actually one of the reasons why I decided to start a blog because yes, if it was still not clear enough, I’m a woman. Why is it that even in public spaces where there are no objective barriers to women’s participation, still so few women get involved?
loading...
This question may well be drawing on a wrong assumption, says yet another man o:)
The experience you have shared is widely known, I am sure. But the set-up you have described is establishing quite substantial barriers for participation, because it requires a speaker – who has to present himself to the entire audience – to be an eloquent rhetorician or an arrogant idiot. I may be going out on a limb here when I say that there are, quite likely, eloquent rhetoricians in similar numbers among men and women, but there are definitely more arrogant idiots among us men – who believe that they have to say something so they are seen, that their position entitles them to blabber whatever into the microphone, who have this awful sense of being right while everybody else is wrong.
In situations, on the other hand, where the setup does not favor show-offs, but requires real dialogue, the person longing for a microphone has little to say (if they come or stay at all). When discussions take place in smaller settings, drawing on methods such as the World Café, calling for dialogue, requiring to listen to each other – that is where a lot of women, in my experience, speak out and often make strong statemens and bring the discussion forward.
loading...