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WOMEN'S RIGHTS

Women’s rights on downward turn: anti-globalization activists

Anti-globalization activists have warned of a downward turn for women's rights across Europe, citing growing religious extremism and neo-liberalism as contributory factors.

The trend has been observed across the continent and even in Sweden, a country normally seen as a pioneer in gender equality issues, Maria Hagberg, a Swedish member of the European Feminist Initiative (EFI) network, told AFP.

“We have seen a backlash in recent years in Europe and also in Sweden, which is known as the most egalitarian country in the world, but that is only on the surface,” Hagberg said late Thursday on the sidelines of the European Social Forum being held in the southern Swedish city of Malmö.

The decline of women’s rights is a phenomenon taking place across Europe, said Soad Bekkouche, a representative of the French group Laicite (Secularity).

“We see it clearly in everyday life,” Bekkouche commented.

Hagberg said that in Sweden earlier strides were now being threatened due to politics and legislation, and pointed to a rise in violence against women.

Five years ago, 20,000 acts of violence against women were reported, a number that has since grown to 30,000, she said.

The growing inequality affects immigrant women in particular, said Soleyman Ghasemiani, a social worker originally from Iran and now living in Sweden’s second biggest city Gothenburg.

Paradoxically, authorities’ desire to display tolerance and respect of immigrants’ religions and culture could be accentuating the phenomenon.

“The Swedish authorities and politicians have a lot of respect for religions and traditions and they think it’s not possible to criticize Islam,” he told AFP, adding that in so doing they were playing into the hands of religious fundamentalists who want to suppress women’s rights.

He linked the decline in women’s rights in Sweden in part to the centre-right government’s arrival in power in 2006.

“The conservatives have more power now. There are more religious schools than five or 10 years ago (and) they get (state) subsidies. I am worried because I see a backlash on the ground,” said Ghasemiani, who has lived in Sweden for 24 years.

“You have people who are teaching their daughters that to be a good daughter is to stay at home,” he said.

Bekkouche said that across Europe, both “immigrant women and local women face the same problems amid the rise of religious extremism and neo-liberalism.”

She cited the case of Polish women who could previously get legal abortions in their country, which is no longer the case. In the former eastern bloc country, contraception was now “virtually inexistent”, she lamented.

“When we see the criminalization (of abortion) in Ireland and Malta, the battle is not won,” she said, adding that there was “a need to be vigilant all the time.”

She also expressed concern over growing poverty among women, in particular single mothers.

Bekkouche stressed that legislation aimed at creating parity between the sexes did not automatically improve women’s rights.

“Legislators want us to believe that women are making strides in European countries by adopting laws on parity. … These are minor laws,” she insisted.

Some 20,000 activists and 850 associations, non-governmental organizations, unions and other networks are taking part in 250 seminars and hundreds of cultural events being held in Malmö through Sunday, based on the theme “Making another Europe possible.”

WOMEN

Sex-ed to sexism: New series explores being a woman in Germany and the US

American YouTuber in Munich, Dana Newman, travelled around Germany to ask women their perspectives on topics ranging from sexism to maternity leave. The result is a compelling series not afraid to tackle taboo topics.

Sex-ed to sexism: New series explores being a woman in Germany and the US
Dana Newman. Photo courtesty of Dana Newman.

Spurred on by the #MeToo movement, American in Munich Dana Newman had several conversations with German female friends about their own experiences of being a girl and women in today’s society. 

READ ALSO: What you need to know about women's rights in Germany

“Sometimes I would tell my friends here in Germany stories of things that happened to me in the US that were more or less ‘totally normal for me growing up there, only to find my German friends respond with shock,” said Newman, who has lived in the Bavarian capital for the past nine years.

“‘What? Are you freaking kidding me?’ they would say sometimes.”

A video Newman made about her 'Sex Ed' experiences in the US, and how Germans react.

Newman watched her wide-eyed friends as she described the “wait until marriage” sex education she received in a public school in the US state of Florida, or the strict dress code which her schools enforced to avoid “distracting” boys.

But other times, when topics such as body struggles, gender expectations or being pressured into sex came up, her friends could “absolutely relate” and shared similar experiences, she told The Local.

“When I heard other women sharing their stories,” said Newman, “I started being like, yeah, that thing that happened to me that I’d been holding on my shoulders as either something I did wrong or couldn’t put into words.”

'It's not what we say'

The 33-year-old, who has produced over 500 YouTube videos since 2014 spotlighting German culture from weird windows to language quirks for her Wanted Adventure channel, considered making one video comprising these conversations. 

Newman's latest video, published for International Women's Day on March 8th.

But she didn’t just want to scratch the surface. Instead, Newman and co-producer and husband Stefan embarked on a Germany-wide tour interviewing other female YouTubers, authors and academics for a full video series “Being a Woman.” They stopped in Stralsund in the north, Berlin, Hamburg and Düsseldorf, among other locations. 

“I realized I would need to share my own very personal, very intimate, very guarded and real stories and experiences,” said Newman, who sought the same from her interviewees – many who also opened up on camera for the first time. 

What she found was at times touching. “I love everything about being a woman,” states Sarah Jane Scott, an American Schlager singer based in Berlin. 

READ ALSO: How Germany's Schlager music is making a useful comeback

But it was also raw and honest. “I don’t have any girlfriend who is really 100 percent happy and comfortable in her body,” says German YouTuber Hannah from Klein aber Hannah in the most watched video of the series on body image.

“From a very young age we are taught that our body is a very big part of our existence,” said German YouTuber Marie Johnson. That it’s not what we say and what we know.”

The video in the series which has gotten the most views, nearly 100,000.

The series also spotlights societal differences between the US and Germany. In a segment on motherhood, Newman points out how new mothers in the US, where there is no paid maternity leave, often “don’t have time to give birth”, instead digging into vacation days and sick days, if they had any.

In Germany, by contrast, “you can take up to three years of Elternzeit (parental leave), and your employer has to accept that,” states German YouTuber Trixi from Don’t Trust the Rabbit.

READ ALSO: German parental leave – your guide

The series additionally shines light on the similarities in how gender is perceived in Germany and the US. “If someone cries, it’s okay for a girl and not okay for a boy,” said Cari Schmid from Easy German, echoing Newman’s statements about how girls in her home state were encouraged to “cry things out” whereas boys from a young age were told to hide hurt feelings. 

Both also agreed there was one emotion that was more socially accepted for men than women to show in public: anger. “Throughout history when women have gotten angry and passionate about something, they have been called hysterical,” said Newman.

Even Chancellor Angela Merkel is “very calm,” said Schmid. There’s also gender-specific speech used in Germany, like “wie echte Männer (like real men)”, she said, even though this is improving from generation to generation.

Videos für alle

While most of the interviewees are women, the videos are intended for everyone, says Newman.

READ ALSO: This is what German men really think about Gender equality

She also spoke to the German Ambassador to the UN Campaign #HeForShe, Vincent-Immanuel Herr, who states that, “I've learned from experience that some men are more likely to listen to other men talking about sexism than women, unfortunately.”

The trailer to Newman's Being a Woman series. Photo: DPA

Newman has so far filmed 18 videos, a number she wants to grow to 20. Her current challenges are finding a sponsor, and that several of the videos are automatically demonetized – meaning that YouTube does not allow advertising on them – when the algorithm detects that sex or “sensitive matter” is a subject. 

But Newman says the project, which was self-financed by her two person team, continues be worth it. 

“Afterwards many people said to me, 'Oh, that was a nice therapy session! I didn’t realize that I had been holding on to these things'”, she said.

Newman herself said she was “so nervous to talk about these topics, and now that I put them out there, I feel like a weight has been lifted. It's a big sigh of relief.”

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