A friend recently told me that the board of the company where she works made the decision to stop paid maternity leave (a board of seven men and one woman): a cost cutting measure in an economic downturn. The Irish government has made cuts to statutory bodies as unemployment creeps close to 12% and the economy is in free fall. The most drastic of those cuts was made to the Equality Authority; its budget was cut by 43% in the 2008 budget, which has left the only statutory body dedicated to the eradication of inequality in Irish society more or less unable to perform even its most basic tasks. Another more damning government proposal was to merge the Equality Authority, the Equality Tribunal, the National Disability Authority, the Data Protection Commissioner and the Irish Human Rights Commission. Meanwhile, more and more Irish companies are using the recession as an excuse to rid themselves of thorns like paid maternity leave for staff and staff on flexible hours. These so-called measures to deal with the economic downturn are clearly affecting women adversely.
Making conditions even harder for women to work and have a family will unquestionably cause a further increase of the gender imbalance in the decision-making process. Currently, only about one-third of Euro MPs are women and a 2007 report undertaken by the European Commission showed the proportion of women in the single or lower houses of national/federal parliaments of the EU member states was an appalling 23.6% (Women and Men in decision making 2007. Analysis of the situation and trends. European Commission). How can the representative democracy model used throughout the EU be remotely representative if women are absent from the decision making table ? So what needs to be done to ensure a parity democracy in these challenging times?
Obviously the long hours and travelling will always be a big deterrent (not just for women!) but there's also the issue of candidate selection. The simple fact is you can't be elected if you're not selected by your party to contest the election. So should Europe impose a quota on party candidates? I don't think that kind of top down policy making from Brussels would foster a culture of gender parity in decision-making on a national, regional and local level. No, the solution must come from the ground up or at least from national government.
In Finland, the percentage of women in the national parliament has been as high as 42.0%. A quota system is in place but it has created a culture of gender balance throughout the Finnish society. It works as follows; the proportion of both women and men in Government committees, advisory boards, working groups, other similar preparatory, planning and decision-making bodies, and in municipal bodies and bodies established for the purposes of inter-municipal cooperation must be at least 40 per cent. This quota provision does not apply to municipal councils. Also, there is an Ombudsman for equality which monitors compliance with the Act on Equality between men and women. The Finnish government also has an Equality Unit which prepares the governments' gender equality policy and a Council for Equality which is a permanent body with advisory status within the state administration. In addition the Finnish government has also passed legislation on the right to day care being guaranteed for all pre-school children (Cabinetis Equal Opportunities Programme 1996-1999). These measures are clearly effective and in Finland more women enter politics, more women hold positions of power, more women come out and vote, more men vote for women and every piece of policy is gender reviewed.
Talk of change is everywhere. Could this be an opportunity to improve democracy, to make it more representative by looking to systems that have worked, like Finland, and developing policy with a gender focus? Sadly, it would appear the opposite is happening.
