Rebutting the assaults on gender equality

Tackling gender-based violence, on which an EU directive proposal is expected today, is key to restoring momentum to the feminist cause.

https://socialeurope.eu/rebutting-the-assaults-on-gender-equality


This year Spain will be the first European country to record all femicides as such

On International Women’s Day, it is opportune to recall its origins more than a hundred years ago, when it was closely tied to its socialist roots. It was to establish itself as a day of activism under the impulse of feminist ‘second-wavers’ in the 1960s. Their claims still loom large: tackling persistent gender-blindness across policy domains, economic empowerment, reproductive autonomy and the elimination of violence against women.

It’s a legitimate question to ask, over half a century and a devastating pandemic later, where we stand on gender equality in the European Union. Taking stock in 2022, progress has recently stalled, with serious risks of regression.

According to the Gender Equality Index 2021, compiled by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), the fragile gains Europe has made are imperilled. Far from being able to rest on one’s laurels, given some seeming advances, the data indicate that the EU gender pay gap has only marginally decreased, from 16 per cent in 2010 to 13 per cent in 2020. Indeed, it has even increased in some central- and eastern-European countries, due to deeply-rooted patriarchal social norms and stereotypes.

Unlike the 2008 financial crisis, the pandemic provoked a widespread ‘she-cession’, placing women at much higher and more immediate risk of job and income loss, while precipitating an alarming surge in gender-based violence. Lockdowns created enabling environments for physical, psychological, sexual and economic violence against women and girls, with limited access for victims to support services. The restrictions and economic uncertainties however merely compounded existing inequalities between women and men, with enduring consequences likely to outlive the pandemic.

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