Gender parity in the new European Commission is a huge success, as is the number of countries reaching parity for their MEPs; but, for true gender equality to exist, women must have equal access and roles in all levels of government including municipal, national and supranational.
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"Women are waking up. They know that men have ruled the world since time immemorial. And how has that world been?” These words were first spoken by Aðalheiður Bjarnfreðsdóttir, a fifty-four-year-old domestic worker, on an unusually warm and dry afternoon in fall 1975. Her audience, in her speech in Reykjavík’s main square, included 25,000 women from all walks of life. They, along with 90 percent of Iceland’s female population, had refused to show up for work that day, in order to demonstrate how much they contributed to the country’s economy. It made no difference whether their work took place in a school, factory, office, or home. They were determined to show that they mattered.
"During my time at RepresentWomen, I look forward to adding my passion as a feminist and my skills to help with the work started by the incredible people working here. Beyond this, I hope to learn more about the status of women's representation and leadership in my home country before taking what I have learned into the international realm."
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Brexit Flags (CreativeCommons) “Flags outside Parliament” by ChiralJon is licensed under CC BY 2.0
As the UK continues to Brexit, we’ll continue to look for the women missing from the national conversation.
Read moreNew Zealand’s actions for gender and Indigenous inclusion are working, it is now just a matter of ensuring Indigenous women have the same voice as their male and non-Indigenous counterparts.
To achieve progress in women’s representation in many countries, including Brazil, a change in systems which enable and support the disenfranchisement of women and minorities is needed.
“My young men are to lay aside their weapons; they are to take up the work of women; they will plow the field and raise the crops; for them I see a future, but my women, they to whom we owe everything, what is there for them to do? I see nothing! You are a woman; have pity on my women when everything is taken from them.”
In a speech to the International Council of Women in 1888, suffragette and anthropologist, Alice Fletcher said “I crave for my Indian sisters, your help, your patience, and your unfailing labors, to hasten the day when the laws of the land shall know neither male nor female, but grant to all equal rights and equal justice.” In the 131 years following Alice Fletcher’s speech, women in general have gained a great many rights, but the Haudenosaunee women have lost many of theirs, and there remains an upward battle for equal justice.
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