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AT LEAST TWICE over the past few years, the Italian MEP Licia Ronzulli has created a stir simply by bringing her young daughter to work. The resulting media coverage has filled me with an unpleasant sense of déjà vu.
Back in the 1990s, I was an assistant to an Irish politician, Patricia McKenna, who had a child during her first term in the European Parliament. Once, McKenna was shown on the main evening news bulletin minding her baby and participating in a committee meeting at the same time. For days afterwards, a popular radio talk show in Dublin received numerous calls from irate men (and, if I remember correctly, a few women). Most callers argued that nobody could do a job properly, while simultaneously attending to an infant’s needs. Behind their attempts to sound reasonable lurked sexist mindsets. The subtext of the argument was that parliaments are clubs for boys; any girls wishing to join would have to play by rules that the boys had written.
As a bearded bloke, I feel slightly ill-at-ease addressing issues of gender. Yet I’m convinced that feminism is an ideology that merits support from men. Every positive change is incomplete unless the discrimination faced by our sisters and wives is eliminated. So why am I less than excited about efforts by Viviane Reding, the EU’s justice commissioner, to place more women in corporate boardrooms?
Lest I be misunderstood, I think it is disgraceful that over one-third of large companies in the EU have no women on their boards of directors and that 97 per cent of all large firms are chaired by a man. The culture engendered by these male-dominated groups is likely to be despicable. Since the eruption of the economic crisis, a number of books have documented how sexual harassment was rife on Wall Street and – worse – how little, if any, action was taken against male bankers who sexually abused female colleagues. There is no reason to surmise that the behaviour of high-flying businessmen is more exemplary this side of the Atlantic.
The data I have cited comes from a survey that the European Commission conducted of almost 600 firms. Reding wishes to have quotas introduced whereby there would be a minimum of four women on each board of ten. Assuming the quotas are respected, this means that a total of 2,400 women would be promoted by the 600 or so top corporations. At most, then, Reding’s initiative will benefit a few thousand women but make no difference to the other 250 million women in the Union. Is this something to celebrate?
It’s a safe bet that Viviane Reding personally knows some of the women who would be promoted if her initiative is implemented. As a wealthy Sorbonne-educated Christian Democrat, Reding appears more eager to help advance women of status, than to help advance the status of women. Reding’s desire to promote women who are already in privileged positions cannot distract from how the institution she represents is causing immense harm to ordinary women through its slash-and-burn economic policies.
Women are frequently the first victims of the austerity agenda that the European Commission is overseeing. In Spain, the ministry for gender equality has been abolished altogether. Spending on child care – a vital service for women working outside the home – has been reduced drastically in Estonia and Bulgaria. In Ireland, the reduction in special needs assistants is placing an extra burden on the mothers of children with learning difficulties. The closure of schools in Greece puts extra strain on women. The gap between women’s and men’s pay has reportedly widened in Lithuania and the Czech Republic. Studies in Britain have shown how benefit reductions affect young women far more than men. This is particularly the case with cuts to allowances for single mothers as over 90 per cent of lone parents in the UK are women.
Germaine Greer seems to have attracted more attention lately for her comments about the Australian prime minister’s dress sense than anything else. This is a pity as many of Greer’s teachings remain as relevant today as they ever were. “If women can see no future apart from joining the masculine elite on its own terms, our civilisation will become more destructive than ever,” she has written. “There has to be a better way.”
This better way cannot be achieved simply by striving for some kind of equilibrium between the levels of testosterone and oestrogen in the headquarters of corporations. Nor can it be achieved by trying to make capitalism a bit more maternal. It can only be achieved by replacing the rotten system we have at the moment with something more humane.
Feminism is not about women being as tough as men. It is not about Margaret Thatcher declaring war on the Falkland Islands or Angela Merkel wrecking Europe’s welfare states. The equality it aims for is an inclusive one, not an equality confined to 600 or so corporations. Feminism is the antithesis of competitiveness, that inequality-widening doctrine enshrined in EU law. By weakening labour rights, competitiveness makes it easier for bosses to exploit women. It’s worth recalling that the feminist movement used to be synonymous with the battle cry “women’s liberation”. Surely, liberation means more than having a few more skirts and stilettos in the boardroom.
David Cronin is an Irish journalist and political activist based in Brussels. He is the author of Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation (Pluto Press, 2011). His next book Corporate Europe: How Big Business sets Policies on Food, Climate and War will be published in June 2013. His website is www.dvcronin.blogspot.com. This piece was first published on New Europe.
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I found it very liberating wearing a skirt to my board meeting. Never got that promotion though….
Lets plenty of air circulate around the bag anyway
“Let’s be frank”..”No,you were frank last night”
Seriously though, it’s actually sad the way Women are treated in every day dealings.
They have to work harder,aim higher and shout louder to get anywhere in a work enviroment.
I like to get my other half’s input because she thinks logically where I think physically.
In my working capacity I deal with a lot of high ranking and professional Women and I admire their professional ethics.
sure they all have lovely bottoms
David, I was mostly with you up until “The culture engendered by these male-dominated groups is likely to be despicable” statement That’s as bad as claiming that a female dominated group culture is likely to become a talking shop. Working for a large company with no lack of female middle managers and not bereft of female executives, I’m no longer surprised when women tell me they prefer working for men. Not surprised but still very puzzled. One answer I can think of is that women are one of their own worst enemies and much more critical of each other. Never seen a survey result on that question.
Why is it that when both parents have careers/jobs, it’s still usually the mother that does most of the childcare, the mother is expected to curtail or give up her job and nobody thinks that a lack of adequate childcare affects fathers that want to work, only mothers? Lets face it, when they’re out of the womb, either parent can care for them but the mother is expected to do the lion’s share.
This type of culture also affects men, some men may want to stay at home with their children but feel they should work outside the home as its what is expected.
The ideal situation would be both parents being able to choose what is best for their situation and family and for work places to be more family friendly towards women and men.
Socially constructed ideas and expectations influence both women and men and can take an awful long time to change.
Looking at the recent revelations about what went on inside the BBC ( and I’m sue the BBC wasn’t that unique) the culture of discrimination and tolerance of sexual harassment, abuse and assault is really shocking, it really depresses me that so many out there would hate me or attack me or want to control me or have me treated as inherently inferior just because I happen to be female.
I don’t understand that as I don’t want to abuse or oppress anyone just because they are a different sex, race, nationality etc. I can only assume that those who do are only concerned about power and status and want to keep it all for themselves.
That said I know many men who agree with feminist ideals, just as they agree with equal rights for gay people or ethnic minorities etc
If you like the status quo and you don’t speak up for others and want equal rights for all then you are just a small minded bigot, plain and simple.
@kelly davis
This old chestnut again, that a secret band of men in a room 1000 years ago ‘decided’ that men deliberately wouldn’t nurture children and they would foist this great falsehood upon women.
Maybe its *nature* kelly, and that the issue lies with women who reject nature rather than men ?
Whoever sold women the myth that they could hold down a high power job and raise a family has a lot to answer for.
The irony is that it was *other women* who sold that myth not men.
When did being a housewife, proudly raising a family and caring for a home become connected with ‘failing’ ?
Who decided this ?
Farming children out to a childminder from 7 to 7 every day is wrong, and by the time we realise the impact of it on children it will be too late.
Jim that’s just stupid talk.
If we’re farming our kids out, where are the men demanding less hours, or paternal leave? Or is it only mothers who have to stay at home? Why not demand a more sustainable work-life balance for everyone?
Problem with being a housewife is that you’re 100% reliant on another person (ie. a man usually) for survival. The work you do is unrecognised by the state, and generally in this society if you’re not making money you’re worthless. So aside from everything else, you’re seen as valuable, but unskilled and pretty useless in everything except wiping snotty noses and cooking dinner – getting a job if you’ve been off the job market to raise kids etc is pretty tough.
This myth that women can have it all is perpetuated by our capitalist society, and women fall for it mainly because there’s nothing wrong with wanting to contribute to society in more ways than one. And there’d be less of a problem if they weren’t left to do most of the cleaning, cooking and child-rearing even if they work as hard as or earn more than their male partners. That’s just not fair.
Our current system isn’t fair either and it isn’t working. We on the whole need less working hours, better benefits (something like they have in Sweden for example) in order for our society to be family-friendly. We need a shift in what we deem worthwhile in our society too, because just because you earn big bucks shouldn’t mean you get to feel any better than a parent staying out of the workforce to raise their kids.
She is NOT expected to give a motherly love to her kids . that comes naturally, men mean well but will never have the same instinct as a Mother, it is a simple law of nature, no different than the animal kingdom.
The male wonders for new territory and hunting grounds at the same time defends the existing patch, from intruders the mother cares for her child, after all she is the only one who truly knows that the child is hers
It’s a lot more complicated than that though. People love to hark back to our caveman past for answers, but the problem with that is you can cherry pick the information you want and go on a tangent that may in the end have very little to do with the truth.
And the truth is that most mothers have a very close bond to their children. Especially at the beginning. But this is not necessarily the case – there are many factors that would influence this. Post natal depression would make bonding difficult, the ability to breastfeed, if you’ve had a caesarian section it could interfere with bonding too. Also, some women just…aren’t motherly or have motherly instincts. I know women with children who aren’t close to them at all, don’t really know what to do with them.
On the other hand – studies show that testosterone levels in fathers drop significantly depending on how much time they spend with their child. The more time they spend, the more their hormones change in order to make them caring, loving and protective fathers. So in fact it is twice as important for fathers to spend more time with their children in order to form a bond with them.
That’s the current thinking. In my experience, I’ve seen fathers who do a much better job at being the “mother” and mothers who are much more like traditional “fathers”. I reckon there’s a million shades of grey in this area, so why bother putting men and women in separate boxes? Let them figure it out for themselves and do what they want.
who let Kelly out of the kitchen?
@j-im ahh jim ahh jim- Not once did I say being a housewife was failing, neither is being a househusband, I think you’re quite insulting to men who want to be involved with and nurture their children, who are you to speak for all men?. I’m a woman, who are you to tell me what my nature is? Who are you to say I’m rejecting my nature? How do you know what my nature is? Societal expectations and pressures are not nature.
I never said anything about farming out children to childminders 7 days a week, I said both men and women should have the opportunity to work around their families, its a reality that people have to work, we’re not living in a 1950′s American sitcom.
I also never said anything about “a secret band of men in a room 1000 years ago ‘decided’ that men deliberately wouldn’t nurture children and they would foist this great falsehood upon women.”
If you’re going to comment on what I said then at least read it properly first, also my name is Kelly Davis-Jordan, you don’t have the right to change it or shorten it and at least I’m commenting openly.
Who are you to say that I can’t have a career and a child? Do you think maybe we should stop educating women altogether? I mean, what’s the point if we just exist for producing children and cleaning houses? What about intellectual fulfillment and a sense of achievement? Is that the preserve of men and women should just sit at home whether they want to or not? Both parents produce the children, both are responsible for them. The last time I looked, lots of women hold down jobs, high powered or otherwise and have children so its not a myth no matter how much you say it is, it’s a fact.
You don’t speak for all men just like I don’t speak for all women, plenty of men want to nurture their children, if you don’t that’s your loss.
The difference between you and me is that I don’t think I’m better than the opposite sex and I don’t want to oppress anyone because I’m not afraid of losing power and control, I believe in equal rights for all, if you believe that one gender should be given no options,choices or opportunities then you you do not, so I suppose that means you want to control the lives of others.
You’re entitled to your opinion but frankly it doesn’t make even the tiniest bit of difference to me or any other woman or the men who support us, it doesn’t make any difference to the choices I make with my life because you don’t have any control over it.
The world is changing, men and women both work and men and women both look after their children, you disagreeing with it won’t stop it.
Maybe you can invent a time machine that only goes backwards or move to Afghanistan where your archaic and misogynistic views will make you fit right in, good luck to you, cheery bye now.
Oh by the way, all of the above are my opinions although I’m sure if you had your way I wouldn’t be allowed to express them, I’m so glad I don’t know any men like you.
Yet another article in The Journal of which the basic premise is men=bad women=good. OK. We get the message now, thanks. Loud and perfectly clear. Any chance we could go a week without another one? In reality, there are attributes of both genders that the other finds positive and negative and we are infinitely more complex than something that can be reduced to male versus female. There’s a discussion to be had on this topic that would be most beneficial to everyone and deals with the changing roles of the respective genders in society however every other day I log on here there’s another article condemning the evils of the male gender from a height. It’s been done to death at this stage and is just getting boring. If you can get past the schoolyard chant of “girls/boys are better than boys/girls” then for the love of god write about something else.
Oops. That should have been a comment in it’s own right, not a reply. Sorry!
“The culture engendered by these male-dominated groups is likely to be despicable.”
Oh dear. If that comment referred to anything other than “male dominated groups”, any minority or any ethnic group you’d likely find yourself arguing the point with a judge.
It’s being a little too simplistic. I don’t buy it that men are inherently sexist or “despicable” – but the culture created and perpetuated by male-dominated groups (stretching all the way back to before the Greeks and Romans) has so far been pretty damn despicable and is keeping it up right this minute. There have been mountains of volumes written in order to discover just why that is. But the fact remains, ya just have to pick up a history book.
And since there’s been no drastic change in our culture, or a great enlightenment, any male-dominated group is at high risk for being just as despicable thanks to the massive power-imbalance. Hence the need to challenge the status quo in order to keep everyone in check.
At the same time, there is not a group in the world who wouldn’t act as bad if they were given the same amounts of power and privilege because we’re all humans and humans are pretty horrible to each other. That’s just my guess though, since we’ve never seen any massive incidents of maternal cultures/societies (except in small doses – and incidentally a lot of them were very peaceful so my thesis could be completely wrong here).
I get why men get pissed at articles like this, but I also think a lot of them have to check their privilege and their facts before getting riled up. I think the men vs women attitude is stupid, but there is an onus on those with the most power in society to own up to it and stop the “what about teh menz” arguments because if we can’t change this world if we have to tip-toe around the feelings of those in charge lest we expose their privilege and wrongdoings, god forbid.
I think a lot of feminists have to stop being so “MEN ARE EVIL AND BAD AND EVERYTHING THEY DO IS WRONG”. But I’ve seen way more instances of men just not getting the point, silencing others and hijacking everybody else’s conversation and sorry but that’s just wrong. If that’s the way people act, we’re not going to get anywhere.
Feminism can be as militant and aggressive as any extremist ideology out there and some advocates do it more harm than good.
Yes women do need more empowerment and I support the Italian lady who brings her kid to work. Women get far less pay than their male counterparts, that should change.
Some elements of feminism is so masculine it puts me off. Women who are in power are masculine and cold re Thatcher and Merkel. Unfortunately society requires them to be aggresive. We dont value the feminine and exploit it.
I am strongly for women’s rights and am very conscious how they are undermined. However I refuse to be a feminist.
Martin Luther King had a powerful message and that is EQUAL RIGHTS! When you have mens rights you dont have equal rights as you are disregarding women and LGBT members. When you have white rights you are disregarding other races and vice verca.
Women’s issues are undervalued . Men dont have to carry babies and worry about work or getting a job while pregnant.
Equal rights for everyone and I agree that we have a bit to do to get women up there with their counterparts perks.
But please save me the feminism brigade as women who think that men are the sole cause of all their problems and directed so much hate , have stained that word.
You know, for years I struggled with the idea of feminism. I saw the supposed feminists that you speak of and I was put off. They didn’t seem concerned with equal rights, they wanted more rights than men! I described myself as an equalist, because I didnt want to call myself a feminist, the word seemed, tainted.. I didn’t want to be associated with it.
But then after discussing with friends and reflecting on it more, I realised, those women just aren’t feminists. not in the true sense of the word. They take an ideal, the ideal of an all inclusive society for women and men (be they straight, gay, black, white, young, old, differently abled etc), and pervert it to further their own agenda. Not exclusive to Feminism, most movements will have a radicalised element that take it all too far. At the same time, there are elements of society who whether consciously or sub consiously are not comfortable with women gaining equality, it challenges deeply held beliefs, it challenges what they had ingrained in them from their youth – whether right or wrong. We as humans generally prefer the status quo, having it challenged is always resisted. They will always see any woman asserting her rights as her “wanting too much”..
We owe a lot to feminism, we owe a lot to all our foremothers and forefathers, because what we have now – while far from perfect, is still so much better than what we had before they fought so hard to win, the passage to equality.
A man who considers himself a feminis is just a self loathing guilt junkie
Here is an idea, all board members should be elected, 50% by workers, 50% by society.
Any creature that bleeds for a week and doesn’t die is a force to be reckoned with ..
Feminism will be seen through the eyes of history as the scourge which plagued the earth. Totally responsible for the breakdown of society and family. Sure go ahead with quotas and all it will acheive is the ridicule of the females who get the positions purely because their gonads are ovaries rather than testes. personally I prefer the person to get the position on merit alone. Especially when lives may depend on it. Please answere me this all you feminists out there. If females are as capable as males or perhaps even more capable if you are to believe certain media reports then why do females constantly need more help, support, funding and hold handing than the other 50 % of the population who are males?
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