Women’s quota and Gender mainstreaming in Germany
European Union initiatives on gender mainstreaming have stimulated debates on relevant instruments, and over the years, it has a marked influence on the institutionalization of gender quality policy in Germany. The federal government in a cabinet resolution of 23 June 1999 recognized the aim of gender equality and adopted gender mainstreaming as a joint strategy for all national ministries. Women quota can be understood as one essential tool and was introduced in Germany in May 2015 to improve the development of women on the labour market and achieve equal opportunities in higher management jobs. Germany is a rank lower than other Eu member states by the European gender equality index because its performance in gender equality is mediocre. Germany has only achieved better results than other Eu member states in areas of work, money and time. Although little efforts have been made in promoting equality policies, the federal government has only focused on family policies. Both in political and economic areas women are underrepresented in the decision-making process; for example, in particular gender, most political parties have introduced nomination procedures for candidates.
Women encounter barriers in their life, although they are caught up with men concerning educational attainment. The paper aims to answer gender mainstreaming as an adequate tool in women quota in Germany, and it is going to talk about the definition of gender mainstreaming and the most important aims, women quota in Germany, obstacles of implementation of women’s quota and limitation and chances of women’s quota in context of gender mainstreaming.
3.Definition of Gender Mainstreaming
The congress officially introduced gender mainstreaming in 1995 as a new political strategy, and the concept was developed by the commission on the status of women on the third world conference in 1985, for example, it led to controversial debate about what gender mainstreaming is or how it should be because the concept was not outlined in detail. Gender mainstreaming is the development, improvement, reorganization and the evaluation of policy processes so that it is incorporated and involved in policymaking (Busch & Holst,2013). Gender Equality is the empowerment, equal visibility and participation of both sexes in public and private lives (Busch & Holst,2013). For example, gender equality aims to promote similar engagement of both gender male and females in society. The main goal of gender mainstreaming is to work on gender equality on an economic level, legislative level, public level and individual level, for example, the concept of gender equality on general and political mainstream is to create awareness on the importance of gender equality.
According to Busch & Holst political mainstream questions the current gender relations and the processes, structures and policies involving inequality. For example, it implies equal access to paid work and economic power. Therefore, Gender mainstreaming focusses on the goal of implementing gender equality on a broad basis. However, it is difficult to transfer the theoretical concept into practical tools or projects into a single country like Germany but on an international level or European Union. For example, evaluating women’s quota into an efficient tool is necessary to have a retrospective look at the development on it in Germany, which can be deduced from statistical data.
4.The View of Women’s quota in Germany
The German government approved 30 % of women’s quota for the supervisory board for large companies as well as the public sector on March 27th 2015 (Bundesregierung,2015). According to Manuela Schwesig, the Federal Minister for women to support Gender Equality is described as an apolitical decision, for example, it not the preference for women or women against men but it that woman should not have any disadvantages. This statement is comprehensibly considered the debate went for almost 30 years.
Manuela Schwesig highlighted the importance of women’s quota for economic wellbeing and argued that it should be given top priority. Women’s quota affected around 108 companies in 2016 for example companies were instructed to impose women’s quota on the executive board, supervisory board, senior and middle management and this move affected a lot of companies (Bundesregierung,2015). The federal public service was obliged to concrete targets for respective sectors to increase the proportion of women and men. The aim of the women’s quota in 2016 is that from 2018 the 30 % rate should increase to 50% to complete the gender equality, for example, all companies are obliged to report the progress regularly. The comparison development in other EU countries provides ‘Statistische Bundesamt für Deutschland’ with information on a statistical result in the following years. In Germany 2017 around 29% of women, leadership were filled for example making Germany be in the lower third compared to other members of the European Union because the proportion remained unchanged for almost two years (Bundesregierung,2015). Latvia women leadership was 46%, Poland and Slavia 42% each and Luxembourg 19% only (Bundesregierung,2015). Women quota failed to achieve its goals across the EU because 34%, which is one third were women. Therefore, the question is, why did it fail? And what is the main hindrance for the successful implementation of women quota?
- Obstacles and successful implementation of women’s quota
According to Matsa & Miller (2013), women’s quota was not strong enough to reach Gender Equality in Germany. For example, they argued that the core problem is laying and the structure of companies and the labour market as a whole and they are based on traditional hegemonic masculine structures. They are still stereotyping that constitute a different perception of both men and women in the labour market, which has a decisive effect on the distribution of jobs (Matsa & Miller, 2013). For example, men are considered to have high attributes towards higher management. In contrast, women are deemed to have different attitudes towards work, and they lack certainty, and therefore they seem inadequate for these jobs.
These stereotype of women for higher management jobs corresponds to the traditional gender roles of family and women as care work, and domestic Laboure and men are supposed to work full time to secure their families. To become a mother for many any women is a tough decision for many women because staying at home for an extended period can make lose their career and not staying at home can make them be uncaring parents or mothers to friends and the public opinion. Therefore, these phenomena are described as glass ceiling (Zetterberg,2008). For example, women have the same qualification as their male colleagues, and they also have the rights to go to the senior management level and not to remain in the middle management level, this happens because the higher ranks require people of the age of 30 and 35 years and during this time is when a lot of women decides to be mothers. Therefore, paradoxically even though a lot of women want to concentrate on their careers and live the motherhood, they are expected to be mothers soon.
Stereotypically there are a lot of views supporting that they are a lot of male representatives in the higher management positions and they are ready to conserve and transfer these positions because they usually block a lot of women in the top rank positions of the more senior management (Verloo, 2005). Therefore, acknowledging these problems and tackling them is the best way to solve women’s quota, and it is an adequate tool of the overall concept of Gender mainstreaming.
- Limitations and Chances of Women’s quota in Gender mainstreaming
In the beginning, women’s quota is implemented by law by the federal legislation in the concept of Gender mainstreaming while Gender mainstreaming achieves Gender equality on a broad basis as a legislative implementation. For example, from above, it can be seen as an improvement tool, but rather it is an authoritarian act of state that underlines the structure of the free economy (Mushaben & Abels, 2015). Therefore, women’s quota strengthens the existing stereotypes that women are placed on higher ranks, although they are not qualified for those positions as men. For example, such an assumption has been supported by the government because women’s quota may not break the hegemonic masculine within more prominent companies.
Additionally, the slow placement of women in the middle management positions one may argue that it could lead to a gradual change of structures within companies resulting in a general change of mind. For example, when women proof to be qualified in the middle management level, they are expected to be taken to the top management positions rather than following the traditional Gender terms of women (Hoogendoorn & Van, 2012). Therefore a small representation of women in the high rank may serve as a perfect example for other women as well as for their male colleagues because it may gradually change the public opinion. However, it may take a long time it will reach the status of Gender equality in the labour market.
The major disadvantage of women’s quota is that it catalyzes the public opinion about Gender roles and their participation in the labour markets (Morrison, White, & Van,1987). For example, general view may not recognize this problem before but through the implementation of women’s quota leads to the existing of gender equality in the public sector (Schmitt, 2015). Therefore, this goes on growing a more prominent reflection on women’s problems, especially concerning labour markets. For example, the overall concept of Gender mainstreaming gives rise to public awareness of the issue of Gender Equality.
7.Conclusion
In conclusion, through reviewing the implementation and the statistical data of women’s quota in Germany has dramatically failed, for example, only a small portion of jobs in the higher management ranks have been reserved for women, although in other countries such as Latvia has had a greater success in the implementation of women’s quota. This failure is caused by crucial barriers within the inherent masculine structures and the career women on the public perception of the stereotypical gender roles because they are hard to break by a single legislative act.
Besides, Women’s quota is heading in the right direction as a tool supporting public debate and changing the general mind of the society, for example, offering women central position in large companies as the first step to renew these structures and raise awareness of women’s quota and the qualifications of women to the society.
When using the women’s quota and discussing it in the concept of gender mainstreaming, there are two crucial concepts to keep in mind. To begin with, is the discussion about objective and constructive level, for example, the limitations of women’s quota and public debates about their advantages may cause a great danger to particular groups because political parties always exploit this topic and gain public attention through voters and when they are elected, they forget it. Therefore, women’s quota and the concept of gender mainstreaming is a very complex topic and can cause a lot of harm to many people. Besides, women’s quota is considered as a universal solution to abolish gender inequality. For example, women’s quota is a single political action as indicated by statistics and has minimal results. Therefore, women’s quota is considered as a separate tool among a variety of activities and projects in society and thus will lead to the concept of gender mainstreaming being transferred to active and constructive practice.
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