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reserved themselves from some of the 16 Articles arguing that they are in violation of
national legislation, national culture, tradition and religions – a reflection of how these
countries see and value women. This clearly weakens the Convention and those human
rights applying to women. Cultural and religious motives may never be an excuse for
human rights violations.
Since 2010 the UN has a special department for all women’s issues, called UN Women.
LOCAL POLITICS WITH “GENDER GLASSES”
We politicians must contribute to gender equality by working systematically at
adopting a gender perspective. What do the politics in our respective portfolios look like
from a gender perspective?
Here are suggestions of some areas to focus on:
Elderly care: Do single men and women receive the same support and
attention?
Education: Do boys get more attention and time than girls? How do schools work
with gender equality – at all levels from pre-school onward?
After school hours: Does the municipality give more resources to traditional boys’
activities than to girls’ activities?
Housing and development: Do the plans meet both men’s and women’s needs?
Women’s health: How much focus is there on women’s health? Is there a difference
in care content and extent between men and women?
Abuse: How do we take care of abused women and how do we help both men and
women concerned? Do women have a safe place to go to and what do we do with the
perpetrators?
Wages: What is our Human Resource policy in our municipality – are there
discriminatory differences in wages and conditions?
We need to work systematically to map and analyze gender perspectives. One tool that can
help us to know more about how men and women are affected by a municipal program is
called 3R. Use the three Rs below to assess:
Representation
: How are men and women represented at different levels and in
different activities
Resources
: How are the resources divided between men and women in terms of
money, services, space and time
Reality
: What are the different realities of men and women’s lives?
We need to answer these questions if we are to integrate gender equality in municipal
activity. What must we as elected Social Democratic representatives in municipalities do?
We need to work at different levels at the same time. Overall we must spread the UN
Convention of Women’s Rights and make it an instrument for our political work. We must
scrutinize the municipal programs and describe reality. Gender divided statistics for all
activities are useful. The following actions are key: