Tuesday “Analysis and Debate Day”

We had a guest speaker Lubica Rozborova, who talked about Human rights perspectives on gender equality. She focused on the inequalities of the Slovakian labour market, which could be generalized for other member states as well unfortunately. The average wage of women in Slovakia is 24% lower than the average wage of men, though the pay difference itself does not necessarily mean discrimination. We should take into account three principles: equal pay for equal work, equal pay for work of equal value and equal job opportunities for all irrespective of gender. Talking about women in politics or women in top managerial positions, the situation isn’t any better: women are underrepresented. The systems are very male oriented and inherent to those structures women have a disadvantage in climbing up to higher positions and suffer hidden discriminatory tendencies. In Slovakia the facts are worse than in the rest of EU member states where at least one third of the women are in cabinet, Slovakia has a mere 20%. Talking about solutions for this, the quota system brings up a heated debate, but could be a mean needed to change mentality in people’s mind as well. This was for example the case in Norway where the Quota system is implemented and works very well. This has for instance been discussed in the World Café activity after the coffee break, where we discussed the different Human Right perspectives in small groups. I chaired the ‘women in politics’ debate which was very enriching for me. But besides that other themes were homosexuality, masculinity, abortion, domestic violence, multiple discrimination and so on.

After a good day of learning, discussing and absorbing information, we could set our minds free during the Karaoke evening! It was hilarious to see such a variety of young people singing songs we all know and after the Mika, Elvis Presley, and other look-a-likes, we went out and continued the party in the city-center!

 

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Monday “Discovery Day”

Monday the 22th was “Discovery Day”, meaning we got an introduction on the Gender theme, given by Katja, a Phd student from Tajikistan but living and working in Switzerland on Gender. She started by saying that “the more you know and read about gender, the more you will get confused” and so she got my attention right away! So if I recall right, the sex is a biological thing, while gender is a sociological constructed norm and one gender can have different gender roles. There can be only 2 sexes (man and woman) but there are endless genders? Well, maybe not endless, but it stirred up the debate about it! I especially liked the expression made by Simone de Beauvoir saying “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman” which catches the gender topic quite good. After the very interesting introduction on Gender and Gender policy, we managed a brainstorming session with almost 40 people. Impossible you would say, but not if you know Curly Peter.

With the brainstorm in mind, we continued listening to MEP Katarina Nevedalova who gave an interesting insight about gender in Slovakia and the position of women there. After the dinner and the coming together of the Buzz Groups, we had the international evening which is always fun. Bringing traditional food and drinks from different EU member states together really puts in practice the slogan of “United in Diversity”. And as this is a gender seminar, all helped dressing the tables with the delights, all helped consuming and afterword all went out for a small party. No better way to close up the first day.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/public/geoSearch/view.do?country=SK&partNumber=1&language=NL&id=96653

Malta-Belgium-UK-Germany

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