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Medlemmar i Haro skriver nu en blogg tillsammans, och kommenterar aktuella händelser och artiklar.
Läs bloggen!
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Läs de senaste krönikorna från våra duktiga haroskribenter
Madeleine Wallin
Viktoria Klint
Leif Stille
Karin Yngman
Gästkrönikör:
Katarina Lindve
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...för och emot Vårdnadsbidraget!
För, Haro´s Jonas Himmelstrand
För, Kristdemokraterna
Emot, Arbetarrörelsens Tankesmedja
Emot, Socialdemokraterna |
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New York 2/3/07
Welcome!!
To our seminar/caucus with the theme
The importance of valuing women’s care giving work in the elimination of discrimination against women and the girl child”
There are many important reasons why women is discriminated, but we want to connect it to the importance of valuing the unremunerated work of women and girls.
We are from the European Association FEFAF – European Federation of Unpaid parents and carers at home – Federation Europeenne des Femme Active Au Foyer. Whose main subject is valuing women’s caregiving work.
We who are here comes all of us from Sweden and the Swedish organisation Haro – for Freedom of Choice, Equality and Parenthood. Haro is a national women organisation that also works for the importance of valuing the work in the home, mainly connected to the children, with taking care of, race and nurture your own children.
As we are from Sweden and also because of that Sweden have reached that far, we want to take Sweden as an example and think that it can be of interest even for you.
We are very well aware of the big problem women have in different countries all over the world, specially when we meet at this place where we can here about the tough and rough life that is a reality for many women.
We will take some examples concerning women and violence, women and health and women and economy.
To present us you have Mrs Therese Murphy, President of Haro, Mrs Jannice Jansson from the board of Haro. And my name is Majvor Sintorn, Vice President of FEFAF and Vice President of Haro.
We have a statement-resolution that we intend to hand over to the delegates after this meeting and you who wants to stand behind it are welcome to sign it.
As a background you know that Sweden always has been presented globally as a modern country for gender equality and for the success in carrying out the set goals for gender equality.
The Lisbon targets (2000) express the following as a goal for the European Union:
60% percent of women in each country have to have a paid job by 2010. And already in the 70’ Sweden did reach this goal and today it is more than 80%….
What will be the consequences in a modern society when both parents are working and the mother is double working?
Sweden is a perfect example of this as you will here from our presentation.
We have a theory that No Value means No Respect which means Discrimination and Violence.
VALUE>>>>>>>>>RESPECT>>>>>>>>>NON VIOLENCE
For instance there is a woman association in Poland that started with the issue Against Violence but after 5 years they did widening their work to mainly be about valuing women’s care giving work, because they found the problem so close connected to the lack of valuing and respect.
SOME information about Women and Economy-Work for the Swedish Women:
In a global level I think you all have heard this:
Women perform two third of the worlds work for 10% of the income and own less then 1 % of the assets!!
Women in Sweden is well educated but most of them is working in low payed work. 75% of the working women in Sweden are in the public sector, while 75% of the men work in the private sector. The government is the main employer of women working, in the huge public sector (health, childcare etc) The government has the means to raise salaries for women in Sweden, which would be a powerful tool in creating equality in the labour market. But, instead they focus on family plitics and claim that total gender equality can not be achieved unless all women leave home for paid work.
For what?
Doing what is done at home for low wages in the public sector!?
That is the Swedish success……
Another astonishing fact from Sweden is that only 1,5 % of higher executive positions are held by women, compared to 11% in USA. There is also a magical line in Scandinavian wages, that 80% of women are under and 80% of men over (source Key issues in women’s work, Catrine Hakim London School of economics)
For instance the staff at the day care centers in Sweden is mainly women, only
2 % (2006) where men. In the same time there has been a strong movement from the government to quote the parental leave assurance so the father will stay home with the small children. And isn’t it strange that world to send the children to, often 6-8 hours a day?
More girls than boys are studying at the University in Sweden, so Swedish women are better educated than Swedish men. (Statistik fran universitet och hogskola) but the fact is that only 7% are female professors in Sweden. Compare with Jordania where there are 20% of University professors that are women.
The only place we have succeeded with 50-50 is in the parliament where we have nearly as many women as men.
Women and Health
89. Women have the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. The enjoyment of this right is vital to their life and well-being and their ability to participate in all areas of public and private life. Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Women’s health involves their emotional, social and physical well-being and is determined by the social, political and economic context of their lives, as well as by biology. However, health and well-being elude the majority of women.
I wish I could stand here and say that in Sweden this is not true, that women are healthy and happy, but unfortunately it is not so.
According to a study, middle age women in Sweden are the sickest in the world.
We are constantly told that we can have it all, family and a career, all at the same time, and for the last thirty years we really have tried our best to do it all. Why are we then not healthy? Feelings of inadequacy and guit are often talked of.
Whatever women chooses, they loose out. I read an investigation made on how women are perceived
If they choose to stay home after they have a child, they are perceived as warm but incompetent, if a woman chooses to work shortly after having a child she is seen as cold but competent. Men don’t have this, they only gain from becoming fathers.
Fathers that take parental leave for more than two months are perceived as heroes, not mothers.
In most developed countries women are more likely to attain psychosomatic unhealthiness. Why is that, has it something to do with how their choices are perceived? That whatever women choose: to work, or to stay at home after having a child, it always has to be defended to someone.
Our experience is that many times women are the ones judging each other. And in other seminars we have been to this week, we have heard that it is so everywhere. Women are sometimes womens worst enemy.
The so called mommy war stay at home moms, against working moms, has to stop, and we need to start to respect each others choices and lifestyles, and work together for the wellbeing of our future generation.
There is a big difference in men and women’s health in our country. Women consume twice as much antidepressant medicine as men.
9 out of 10 children calling the Swedish helpline for children are girls! This week the Swedish social board came out with the latest reports about our youth and especially young women. The suicide attempts are steadily increasing as well as self-destructions in forms of cutting oneself.
According to the latest report from The Swedish organisation of children’s helpline, BRIS (children’s right in society) Swedish children are increasingly contacting them.
From last year to this year there was an increase with 11% in phone calls and e-mails, that totals 21000 calls from children in distress, remember that 90% were girls.
The reason why they call is in large that they have no one to talk to, no adults are present in their life. They are alone with their feelings and problems. What they express in their contacts are feelings of depression, abandonment, and lack of desire to live.
Despite the fact that Sweden places itself on second place in Europe, when it comes to children’s wellbeing according to UNICEF, our children are calling BRIS more and more. Why is that?
Some of the dimensions that were measured in the UNICEF report, (“child poverty in perspective: an overview of child wellbeing in rich countries”) were material wellbeing, health and safety, educational wellbeing, and family and friend relationships. Sweden ranked in the top third in all except family and friend relationships, where it came on 15th place out of 21. This should raise more concern in our country than it does, since intimate relationships with family and friends are highly connected with individual happiness. Swedish parents are excellent at keeping their children healthy, educated, safe and sound. It may be using biking helmets, nutritious food during pregnancies, or highly educated childcare workers in our schools and day-care facilities. Parents make sure that their children have plenty of after school activities.
But according to UNICEFs report, what our children wants is to be closer to their families and friends.
A term often used in Sweden is the hamster wheel, to describe our stressed society. It goes faster and faster for both parents and children. The demands to be a successful, slim, well trained person who has a great career doesn’t only weigh heavy on adults but on children as well. According to the company Cairos future, Swedish children are among the most stressed in the world.
Seeing children takes time and it’s hard for the most loving parents to detect problems without having the time to do so. This is clearly a backlash of trying to have everything at the same time.
Children in our country are growing up very much aware on how many things that need time priority before there own needs.
This sends early on a message to them that they are not number one in there parents lives and even though most parents would disagree with such a statement, because they do love and care for their children, our children’s health, and especially our girls, speaks differently. We suffer from lack of time, not of love!
It is hard for parents in our country to change this trend around, since we are told that daycares are better at taking care of our children than us parents. The unpaid care giving work that needs to be done, has to get a higher value and a higher priority. And we encourage you all to raise this question in your countries for the sake of women’s and girls health.
As we work to reach a gender equal society, we have to tread carefully and closely look at the consequences for our children. In Sweden when we work with the environment, we try something out, we stop, measure we look at the consequences. When it comes to reaching a goal of 60% of women leaving home for paid work, no adequate investigations has been made to look at consequences for our children.
Violence against women
118. Violence against women is a manifestation of the historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of women’s full advancement. Violence against women throughout the life cycle derives essentially from cultural patterns….
Despite the fact that Sweden has carried out very successful programs and actions for gender equality, Today we have about 80% of the women in the workforce and we still have big problems with violence against women and girls. Sweden’s relatively high level of gender equality hasn’t prevented violence enough.
Women’s liberation from male-dependency financially, has been seen and is seen as one of the solutions of violence against women. It would empower women to take charge over their own lives, and leave abusive situations. Today we can see that despite women’s liberation, the problem has not been solved. Why is that?
Talking about violence against women and girls is very difficult, because it is such a complex problem that varies from culture to culture, even within a country. But the result is the same, women and girls are abused.
Many talk about male power structures, a social tradition hard to break, but what is it that really hinders a woman in the Swedish culture, to take herself out of an abusive situation when in our country she has many possibilities to do so. Most women are working, there is welfare to be obtained if you don’t have work….as I said this is a complex question and I don’t want to simplify it. But with the possibilities and the empowerment there is…. What makes a woman allowing a man to hurt her?
(Is it only because of women’s financial dependency on men?)
If we look at this problem from our viewpoint of valuing women’s care giving work:
We have already talked about what happens with a girl when she is not seen and cared for. When she doesn’t feel like she is number one in her parent’s life. She will not feel that she, as a person has a value- that what counts is a career and amount of pay-And that it is the thing that gives her a value?
How will this affect her?
When you don’t value your self as a person you are much more likely to allow others to hurt you. You don’t see what you deserve. You don’t see what you can obtain when it comes to intimate relations with a spouse or a life companion. Not seeing your own Value makes it harder to remove yourself from an abusive situation.
A majority of men that hurt and abuse women and girls are coming from bad upbringings and have often been victims themselves of abusive parents. It’s a down going spiral, that is hard to break.
Therefore we see it of outmost importance to start working preventively and start to help men break this pattern and to help families be strengthen and educated in what family life is all about. How can we do this?
There is a lot of focus on educating professionals, healthcare workers, school personnel, social workers etc. All of these people are very much needed, but they are transient in a woman or a girls life. And isn’t this just treating symptoms of violence?
Wouldn’t it be more effective if we could change the way parents see their responsibilities to their children.
Family is always mentioned in negative terms because of the violence and abuse that can happen within.
But we also need to focus on the positive power that comes from a healthy, loving family.
There is a strong polarity in families, the worst things can happen there, but also the best. Healthy families prevent future abuse of women and children. That would be an up going spiral.
We don’t claim that this is the entire solution to end violence against women and girls, but sometimes when we try to change the world, we forget the impact that changing ourselves and the situation of our closest, can have on the world. It is a ripple effect!
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