EWLA

First of all, I should like to congratulate my dear friend Herdís Thorgeirsdóttir on her election as chair of your prestigious association and thank her for her invitation to contribute to EWLA’s new website. Convinced as I am that EWLA can make a substantial contribution to women’s rights, my first, almost instinctive reaction was to write about the issue of gender equality. After all, this is the website of the European Women Lawyers’ Association. And so I prepared. I looked through my notes and reports on the situation of gender equality in the Council of Europe and on our initiatives in this respect, but also into the situation in Council of Europe member states and in the international context in general.

This, in itself, produced many relevant, important and worthy issues to discuss. Women are still discriminated against in all sectors of European societies, at every stage of their life, from early childhood to retirement. Although they often perform better academically than men, it is difficult for them to convert their academic achievements into an asset valued on the labour market. They are still marginalised in political and public life, paid less for work of equal value and are the victims of unemployment more often than men. Inequalities continue to be exacerbated in retirement because women have lower pensions as a result of unemployment, work time and parental leave.

But then I thought about it again and decided to change the focus of my remarks. Let me tell you why.

The fact is that gender equality is a right, a human right. It is also a fact that most European countries individually, and Europe collectively, still have a long way to go in achieving gender equality in practice, in all areas.

Against this background it is normal that the issue of gender equality is a constant priority for organisations such as EWLA, bringing together women who are professionally active in the legal profession.

But the point I would like to make today is that, while keeping it on the top of our agenda, we should resist the reflex to discuss exclusively gender equality related issues.

If we want to influence the situation we must become more influential. We need, deserve and have the right to an increased role when it comes to decision making in public and professional life. This is not only justified in the context of the right to gender equality, it is also justified by the quality of the contribution we are able to make.

To put it more bluntly, we are entitled to an equal role in decision making – in private, public and professional life - not only because this is our right – which it is – but also because we are very good at it!

It is true that perceptions and realities are slowly changing. Women in political and professional world are no longer seen as a part of the furniture, we are accepted as the ones who can and should move around the furniture. But it is also true that there is a lot of furniture and not enough of us to move it around. So we need more women at top levels.

This is something on which we need to continue to work but it is not the only thing we need to work on. In many respects, the world is not in a very good shape. We have good grounds to be concerned about the environment, terrorism, global security, energy and food supply, and I could go on. These are all issues which would benefit from a greater involvement of women in decision making. Not because we are women but because we are competent, experienced and good at what we do. I count on EWLA to show the way. (Strasbourg, 1. Sept. 2009)