- A parity government
- The reintroduction of a Women’s Rights Ministry
- The removal of all state funding for parties who do not respect the parity law (by fielding an equal number of men and women candidates for parliamentary elections)
- Big businesses will have one year to sort out the gender pay gap, or else lose national insurance credits
- There should be an abortion clinic in every hospital, fully funded by the state
- There should be more shelters for victims of domestic violence
- Children should be taught gender equality in schools
- Secularism (laïcité) is a safeguard of gender equality
Sounds good – but when you look a bit closer,
there’s not actually that much innovation here, and it is clearly driven by
electoral imperatives. There are some
smart political moves in these measures.
Some of them may sound familiar – promises made (but not kept) by
rivals; traditional Socialist strengths; or a contrast with less favourable
policies by others. Let’s start with a
parity government. Sarkozy promised
this, with some fanfare, in 2007. He has
certainly placed more women in his government than any predecessor, several of
whom have been in high profile posts.
But he never achieved his promise of a parity government, and the
presence of women has declined in both quantity and quality of positions with
every reshuffle. With a large pool of
prominent women in the PS – including party leader Martine Aubry, and former
presidential candidate Ségolène Royal – Hollande is better placed to keep this
promise.
The reintroduction of a Women’s Rights Ministry is
a reminder to voters that there used to be one, introduced by the Socialists,
which has since disappeared under the UMP government.
The proposal for parity in parliamentary elections
is a good move. It’s not as good as it
sounds, because it still only refers to the number of candidates selected, and
does not address the tendency across all parties to place women in less
winnable seats. But it would certainly
help to address the current situation, whereby parties lose only a small
portion of their state funding if they do not fulfil the legal requirement to
field women candidates in half their seats, which means that several parties
(including the UMP) don’t respect the law.
Removing all funding for parties unless they comply would force them to
comply – even the UMP could not afford to get round that one. The Socialists have already managed to reach
the target, facilitated by the fact that they have been in opposition for two
terms. Hence in most seats they do not have a sitting male incumbent and can therefore
offer these seats to women candidates.
By contrast, the UMP has a much weaker track record on gender parity,
and has a much bigger problem with male incumbents who would not wish to
surrender their seats for a woman candidate.
So a tightening of the law is a clever manoeuvre for François
Hollande. It would place the UMP in a
difficult position whereby they would either have to force some of their male
MPs to stand down (which would doubtless lead to internal dissent and possible
mutiny) or would be bankrupted. Meanwhile,
the Socialists have reminded the public that they are the frontrunners on this
issue. And Sarkozy will not be able to
oppose Hollande’s suggestion without looking sexist. All in all, a smart political tactic and
potentially a big step towards making gender parity more effective.
The threat towards big businesses who do not
respect a gender pay gap is really a reminder to voters that Sarkozy is cozy
with big businesses and Hollande is not afraid to stand up to them in the name
of equality. So this is a shout out to
the left of his party. The gender pay
legislation is already in place, introduced by the current right-wing
government, so all that Hollande is proposing here is to step up penalties for
non-implementation.
The support for abortion clinics is a veiled
attack on Marine le Pen, who has indicated that she would like to see a
reduction in state funding for abortion.
Finally, if support for victims of domestic
violence sounds familiar, it is because this is what Ségolène Royal promised to
do as her first act in office, back in 2007.
So several things old, something new, plenty
borrowed, and multiple attacks on the Blues.
It will be interesting to see if the other candidates attempt to do
something similar over the coming days, as the annual furore surrounding Women’s
Day gathers momentum. After a dip in the
polls earlier this week that saw Hollande’s lead over Sarkozy tumble to one
point in the first round, Hollande is today back up to a comfortable 3.5 point
lead. It will be interesting to see
whether this raft of proposals reels in any women voters.
He didn’t impress all the women though. In fact, while his advisors may have
presented him with a feminist discourse and set of policies, he let slip a
decidedly un-feminist gaffe. “It would be good in principle to have as
many men as women in the government”, he announced, before adding, “which is
not to say that they will have the same responsibilities”. Oops.
Just like that, the veil of feminism fell off. It didn’t go unnoticed, either. While the Socialist Sisterhood tweeted
enthusiastically about the policies listed above, Marie-Jo Zimmerman pounced on
this gaffe. “It’s scandalous to say such
things!” she told AFP. “That means that
women are just the under-under-secretaries and won’t be ministers or Secretaries
of State. I can’t understand how someone
could come out with such things in 2012. If Yvette Roudy [prominent feminist Socialist
and the first Women’s Minister] reads that she’ll scream, and with good reason.” Zimmerman is well placed to make such a
comment. A member of parliament for the
UMP, she is the president of the Parliamentary Delegation for Women’s Rights,
and the former director of the Parity Observatory, the government’s official
watchdog for gender parity. So François
the “Feminist” found himself getting shot down – by the Right.
A sharp reminder that you can offer many
women-friendly policies in a speech surrounded by feminists, declare yourself a
feminist, go through all the motions, and still manage to balls it up. I hope he has learned his lesson. Policies designed primarily to hurt his
rivals and score him points are all well and good, but if anyone is to believe
that these promises are underpinned by anything more than the desire to win the
election, he will need to start showing some sincerity. Perhaps he could start by reshuffling his
(male-dominated) campaign team?
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