A fair and equal Europe

A fair and equal Europe
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A fair and equal Europe

We have come a long way since 1908, when a strike by the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union in the United States inspired the first International Women's Day. Today, many women have rights that our grandmothers could only dream of. For some, though, those rights remain dreams even today.

In my home country, Denmark, and throughout Europe, we owe a debt of gratitude to activists like Fredrik and Matilde Bajer, and thousands of people like them. They were the people who didn't give up, but insisted on campaigning for progress. In 1886, Fredrik proposed a bill to give women the vote in Denmark. The bill was rejected at first, but after 30 years of campaigning by groups like the Danish Women's Association, which Matilde co-founded, Danish women finally achieved suffrage in 1915.

Without those people, I wouldn't have had the chance to stand for Parliament. And I wouldn't have been nominated as a European Commissioner.

So today – on International Women’s Day – it makes sense to reflect on gender equality. Because I know that a hundred years ago in Europe – and even today, in much of the world – women wouldn't even have the chance to be heard.

Gender equality in Europe today

There has never been a better place to be a woman than in Europe today. In my generation, women in many fields were still blazing new trails. Today, young women can look to role models in every walk of life.

Many European countries can offer examples of a female president or prime minister. In the world of business, many women are role models as well. Women who want to combine family and career – which, after all, is what men have always done – can now look to many successful examples. They will find women who know how to make that work, and men who also share the family responsibilities.

In Europe we have come further than ever before in treating women and men alike: as human beings with equal rights. This progress is a product of women fighting for their rights, including the right to be themselves, and not just someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, or someone’s mother.

Our great-grandmothers fought for the right to vote, even though people said, "well, your husband can already speak for you."

Our grandmothers demanded their own legal existence, not to be treated by the law as children in the care of their husbands, even when people said, "your husband can already defend your interests."

Our mothers insisted on equal pay for equal work, even when people said, "husbands are the real breadwinners anyway."

They heard what people said, and they went on fighting anyway. Because what they were looking for was something much simpler. They wanted to be treated as equal human beings. They wanted it to be known that women’s rights are human rights.

Fairness and equality as European values

I think that this is something that we all share. Because fairness and equality constitute a fundamental part of who we are as a people.

The European Union was born from the ashes of a terrible war. And the lessons that Europe learned are still with us today. We know that every human being deserves the same respect, the same rights and the same freedom. We are determined that no one should be treated as a second-class citizen.

That is why Europeans insist on the rule of law. Because our rights are worthless without courts that uphold the right to a fair hearing. It is why we insist that our leaders face up to climate change, because our children should not be left with a planet that cannot support them.

Fairness and equality are also important in my job as Commissioner for Competition. As Europeans, we do not accept that some companies get a selective advantage by not paying their share of tax. And we do not accept that some companies take advantage of their position to force competitors out of the market.

A more equal society

At every moment in the history of women’s fight for equality, women could have asked themselves if it was worth the fight, when so much was still left undone. Whether campaigning for the vote was worth it, when their husbands still controlled their property. Whether it was worth fighting for the right to work, when they would get paid less than their male colleagues.

They knew, though, that every victory made a real difference to women’s lives. And they had faith that future generations would carry on their work, until those small victories added up to real equality for women.

When we look around us, it's clear to see their faith was justified. Our responsibility is to make sure that we don't break the chain.

We need to ask ourselves why, when women have the right to equal pay for equal work, women in Europe still get paid one-sixth less than men. We need to ask ourselves why, when women have been standing for election for a century, less than a third of the members of Europe's national parliaments are women. We need to ask ourselves why, more than a century after Marie Skłodowska-Curie won the Nobel Prize for Physics, only sixteen women have since won the prize for physics, chemistry or medicine.

And perhaps most urgently of all, we need to ask ourselves why, even though women are no longer controlled by their husbands, more than a fifth of European women have suffered physical or sexual violence from their partners.

To answer those questions, we have to go beyond rules and regulation. We have to consider how inequality is built into everything we do. Harvard Professor Katherine B. Coffman has studied how men and women respond to multiple-choice tests. She found that when men do not know the answer, they are more willing to guess – and therefore get higher scores as a result. When women are unsure of the answer, they stay quiet, as they have been taught for centuries.

Changing this mindset is not easy. We face the same questions that women have faced at every step towards equality. Do women not have enough rights already? Should we not just be a bit more modest, so that we do not make men uncomfortable?

But there is no room for modesty when you are insisting on being treated as a human being with equal rights.

Anyone who doubts whether women are ready for that fight just hasn't been paying much attention. On 20 January in Brussels, I got together with thousands of people – women and men. We lit candles in the name of equal rights for everyone. The same weekend, millions of women around the world marched in defence of their rights.

Women of the world will not give up the rights they have won over generations. Instead, they will serve as an inspiration for all of us who are fighting for equal rights, both men and women. After all, this day is about the fight to be equals as human beings. And that is a fight for both men and women.

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