Do you believe a woman's life should be centered around her kitchen, raising her children and, whenever she ventures into the outside world, limited to attending church? Or do you believe, quite on the contrary, that - 53% of the European electorate being made up of women - it would only be fair that 50% of elected politicians be women?

Jezebel, Messalina, Catherine de' Medici, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir... Throughout the ages, women who decided to play an active role in politics were too often portrayed as immoral and ruthlessly - yet unfairly - slandered by historians (who, incidently, all happened to be males!). Women had to wait until the twentieth century to be granted the right to vote and to be elected, and many disparities still exist: Parity Democracy in decision-making bodies and Equal Pay seem to exist only on paper, while violence against women (including prostitution) and stereotypes conveyed in education and in the media still need to be eradicated. Although the principle of equality between women and men is now enshrined in EU legislation, there remains a lot to be achieved for it to become a reality!

Created by Michèle Sabban, the AER Observatory on Gender Issues has been a place where women or men, elected politicians in regional assemblies or civil servants interested in or in charge of equal opportunities between women and men, all actively contributed to make Europa a fairer place for both women and men.

From Observatory on Gender Issues to Standing Committee on Equal Opportunities : a political recognition!

On November 26, 2009, the AER General Assembly decided to transform its AER Observatory on Gender Issues into a full-fledged Standing Committee, equal to the AER's Standing Committees on Institutional Affairs and on Monitoring and Evaluation, while adding all equality issues to its mandate. This development is of course very positive, as AER, through declarations of its Observatory on Gender Issues, has already condemned all discrimination on grounds of gender, race or ethnic origin, religion or beliefs, disability, age or sexual orientation. However, President Monica Carlsson, during her speech at the General Assembly 2009 and before the voting procedure started, made it very clear that gender issues and equality between women and men will remain the core issue of the new Standing Committee’s work, while other equality issues will gradually be added, one block at a time, in order to develop the new Standing Committee as smoothly as possible. Regions are therefore heartily invited to send their proposals for the Standing Committee on Equal Opportunities to include issues such as homophobia, racism or age issues.

Join the AER Standing Committee on Equality Issues!

***

Mrs. Monica Carlsson, regional councilor in Norrbotten (Sweden) was elected President of the AER Observatory on Gender Issues in November 2008, while Mrs. Michèle Sabban, who was President of the Observatory from 2004 to 2008, was elected AER President. Since November 2009, she is the President of the AER Standing Committee on Equal Opportunities.

***

Mrs Monica Carlsson, County Council of Norrbotten, Sweden, was first elected in 2002 and re-elected  in the regional election in 2006. The former Upper-Secondary teacher, interested in equality questions, was appointed Commissioner for Gender Equality.

During her time in office so far, her main issues have been to impose the Equal Opportunities Act – within the organisation, to combat men’s violence against women- imposing action programs, fighting trafficking and prostitution and questions related to honour-crimes.

Her main objective now is the development of equality in health-care and the unconscious discrimination

***

"Dear friends,

I would like to invite you to join our working group on Equal Opportunities [...].

In the past few years, we have been active in informing regions on European policies and exchanging best practices. We conducted several surveys [...] and produced a series of political documents: the Manifesto of Catalonia (2002) and the Declarations of Venice (2003), Kiruna (2006) and Timisoara (2007) – which were all favourably received by a large number of MEPs and other key leading European figures, including [...] Mr. Romano PRODI, former President of the Commission [...] (or) the European Commissioner Viviane REDING [...]. We even visited women's associations in Brussels [...].

We came to the conclusion that we should focus on 4 main priorities, which I shall briefly sum up as follows:

• The promotion of Parity Democracy in Europe's regions;
• The elimination of gender-related stereotypes in society (basic foundation of misogyny and homophobia);
• The achievement of equal economic independence for men and women;
• The eradication of sex-related violence and trafficking in human beings.

[...]

Without your commitment and active participation, no result will ever be achieved! [...]. I therefore urge you to join our working group [...] and hope to see you soon at one of our meetings. [...] Thank you for your attention'

Excerpts from Michèle SABBAN's speeches to the AER General Assemblies of Udine (2007) and Palma de Mallorca (2006).