Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-05-Speech-4-008"
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"en.20001005.1.4-008"2
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"Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, contrary to what the annual reports which we are discussing here might seem to suggest, European women’s equality policy did not originate three years ago, but dates back much further to at least twenty-five years ago. Its launch was accompanied by a great deal of legal creativity, audacity and lashings of political power of persuasion. If one examines women’s equality policy now, it seems to me, as we are all gathered here – and, of course, most of the people attending and taking part in the discussion are women – that while we are all naturally trying our utmost, we are also aware that European women’s equality policy is threatening to lose its momentum. It has become an issue for which you have strong feelings neither for nor against. To put it mildly, it is in a conceptual and political vacuum.
The reports we are dealing with here seem to reflect this mood. There is a great deal of activity, reasonable sums are being spent, fantastic conferences are being held, everyone does all kinds of wonderful things, but we do not know where it is all leading. Is this policy a success? Is it useful to draw the goals nearer? We cannot verify this, for – and the rapporteur also mentioned this in her report – the goals of the policy are not clearly defined and cannot be measured. What we need to do, therefore, is to formulate our goal more clearly, so that we know whether we are successful or whether the instruments we deploy are successful. We also need to define the problem more clearly and identify the problem which the policy is trying to solve. Twenty-five years ago, we were able to talk about social discrimination of women as a group and about unequal treatment. Does this definition of the goal or problem still apply? Is it still appropriate? What are the groups in society for which this definition is still appropriate? Is it not the case that the gap caused by this social discrimination has been partly bridged for certain groups and that others groups are doing very well indeed, in other words, that a kind of sham women’s equality has been created? In short, I would very much like us to address the question as to what the problem facing women consists of. What is the problem which the policy is trying to solve? Can we reframe this using a more modern approach and can we apply a theory and set of policy instruments which will breathe new life into the policy, so that we do not continue on the same path?
I may be critical, but it might be useful to shake up the house of cards, which women’s equality policy in Europe does appear to be, where we are all frightfully nice to each other and say everything is so wonderful."@en1
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