PES Manifesto

Gender issues: Be aware they're everywhere!

Published Wednesday, July 2, 2008 at 10:01
by rikkeindenmark (842 views and 0 comments)

Not long ago I learned about the PES Group in the Committee of the Regions. To be honest I didn't know about the group's existence until a year ago (ignorance is not always bliss), but it's a forum for local and regional politicians to meet and discuss EU politics. It's an interesting organization because many EU decisions impact greatly on the local level - and the PES Group is a chance for local and regional social democrats to meet and work together to influence EU policies.

I admit that this was a digression from the topic that I actually wanted to address in this post! The reason why I brought up the PES Group in the Committee of the Regions is that the group has its own PES manifesto consultation - and in this consultation there's a fifth point of discussion, in addition to the four 'traditional' themes - namely the gender dimension.

I agree very much with the view-point of the PES Group - that there's a significant gender aspect to all four manifesto themes - and I hope the 'pervasiveness' of gender issues will be taken into consideration when the PES manifesto is drafted over the coming months. Women's rights and gender issues are relevant to all themes - not just a few of them. Allow me to give some examples:

Save our planet

In most European families women are those who decide which food and household products to buy - and, hence, impact the environment with their choices. Since women are often the primary carers of children they also play an important role in stimulating 'eco-awareness' among younger generations. Further, women are more frequent users of public transport (statistics tell that when a family owns a car, it's more often the man who uses it for transport to work) and as we know public transport has a huge 'green element'.

New Social Europe

For this theme the gender dimension has already been debated extensively on Yourspace: Child care as a public service, men's right to parental leave, equal pay for women and men, etc. The gender dimension seems to be particularly visible for New Social Europe - but, in my view, this shouldn't lead to gender issues going unnoticed within other themes.

European democracy and diversity

As in the case of New Social Europe gender issues have received a lot of attention here - women's representation in politics (which I've also written about earlier on), discrimination based on gender, media stereotypes and much more. Again, the visibility within European democracy and diversity should not result in the gender aspect being 'overlooked' in other thematic debates.

EU in the world

Improving women's rights world wide - certainly an important socialist issue in my view! Every day many women's fundamental rights are violated; trafficking of women and children from the developing world, systematic rape of women and children in war (this is certainly a terrifying fact that is far from receiving as much attention from media and decision-makers as it should!) and female genital mutilation (often referred to as female circumcision, even though the very grave and painful procedure cannot be compared to male circumcision. For more information about FGM, please see the 'Respect everyone!' website. It's my hope that the final PES manifesto will explicitly address women's rights and gender issues in its section on EU in the world. As socialists we cannot ignore these violations.

This was a long story, but bear with me for another 10 lines. Here are my conclusions - comments are appreciated, let me know if you agree:

Firstly, and for now, it would be very interesting to see a stocktaking of the overall Yourspace debate on gender issues. Not just as part of the accounts within each theme, but rather as a 'trans-theme' barometer where all the small debates on women's rights and gender are brought together to form 'the big picture'.

And secondly, in the long run, I encourage the PES - and its member parties and activists - to consider the gender dimension in relation to all themes, in future debates and manifesto writing. In other words: listen to the local and regional social democrats who have already suggested this before me :-)

Those interested can read the conclusions from the debate on the gender dimension in the PES Group in the Committee of the Regions right here.

Tags: blogger of the week, child care, conflict, consumer, diversity, human rights, media, public services, transport, wages, women