Gender equality

1. Give your conclusion as to which country is better suited for women to work and rise without too much chauvinistic resistance.

Gender equality is a fundamental principle rooted in the history of European construction, regardless of the changing society since the Second World War, gender equality has to become effective in our lives. If equality is a major component of economic growth, all too often companies and administrations have a good excuse to deny women access to the responsibilities they deserve, particularly in France. To the stupid question "who will keep the children?, I really want to reply; "I didn’t make that child alone". So in order to change mentalities, we need to make the right diagnosis by favoring the global approach, not to mention the fact that we are monitoring our European neighbors; the Nordic countries, and in this case Norway!

Norway is the best student in the field. The results are convincing since Norway, which has imposed quotas on its companies, is characterized by a very high rate of women administrators. Norway has demonstrated its ability to rebalance gender relations. In this country, there are now practically as many women as men in the labor market. The key was the creation of child care centers. Good practice is to reconcile family life and working life, due to the establishment of the childcare system. For example, a man is entitled to a paternity leave of 6 months with a wage compensation of 100% whereas in France, a man is given 11 days of paternity leave.

Women's representation in Norwegian political life is high: 40% of deputies are women. In fact, this result was obtained as a result of the campaigns preceding the elections, and then of quotas put into place. To achieve such an admirable result, the Norwegian equality policy is to be thanked. The Norwegian equality policy is innovative, ambitious and fair. Generally on the principle of equality, it promotes equal rights, the absence of sexual violence, equal distribution of power, women's economic independence, equal opportunities in the labor market and equal opportunities for access to education.

Talking about sexual violence, while doing some research for this homework, I came across a very interesting blog written by a French girl from Marseille who moved to Norway and on her blog called “A frog in the Fjord”, she tells her story as a how one tries to adapt to a new culture and this case, the Norwegian culture. She wrote a very interesting article called “The joy of being a woman in Norway” where she describes typical sexism attitudes of the French society and how in Norway, it’s not the case.  In this article, she also mentioned how in France, even in the metro, she would experience sexism. When she would go out at night, she would have to re-think what to wear depending on whether she would walk home alone later that night. Wearing a skirt or a dress was impossible whereas in Norway such attitude is unacceptable, whether it is on the street, at work or in politics. Men seem to actually respect women, and those who don’t get huge social blame for it.

The policy of gender equality in Norway is an inspiration to take for France. The goal is to tackle the roots of evil, to eradicate gender-based discrimination and thus give access to women in positions of responsibility. The strategy focuses on education in the early years to prevent the construction of stereotypes, thus avoiding sexism. By copying the system of parity in Norway, perhaps we will be able to modernize the French functioning of our institutions that are too into conservatism. Through the exercise of democratic principles, these countries, even if inequalities persist, have overcome such obstacles, which is still a problem in France.

...