Changing roles of men and women in other areas - Europe

Even though the movement of feminism was first carried out in a large scale in the nineteenth century, the idea of feminism could actually be traced as far back as the fifteenth century. It is no longer new to the world that women are seeking for gender equality in all areas – even those that are seen by the society to be male-dominated industries e.g. military and politics. Indeed, the feminist activities have slowly attained that gender equality in today’s society. To illustrate further, it is no longer surprising to see women stepping into the male-dominated territories and might even have a greater success over and higher power in hand than the men.

In the past, it was impossible to see the rise of women as religious leaders as they were often marginalized and forgotten in religions. However, things have taken for a change in today’s world. Many women have taken up the heavier role in different religions. For example, in a rapidly changing Jewish Europe, the presence of Jewish women in leading communal roles is becoming more common. Female rabbis have held positions in France, Poland, and Germany etc. Jonas of Berlin, who in 1935 became the first woman ever ordained as a rabbi.

The third Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions held in Kazakhstan shows that among the 184 participants, 13 were women. Among those, seven of them were representing Christianity and among them two from Germany’s Lutheran church.

Furthermore, at the Bishop of Bristol, 32 women were elevated to priesthood and 1200 women were ordained subsequently.

Even though the percentage of women among those participants are still considerably low, it is to be noted that this is still a breakthrough for women as the idea that men should lead the religion is too deep-rooted in the people’s mindset, not forgetting that there are several beliefs held by some religions that women are not fit to hold the power to be in charge of the religion.

But discernible changes are taking place in some of the more conservative religions too. Islamic tradition that imams, who are always men, hold mixed services. But this tradition have now been bent to include women too. Professor Wadud has become the first woman to lead a mixed congregation in Islamic prayer in Britain. This thus shows that traditional image of women are changing among different religions and women could now be on equal status with the men.

Education for women in Europe and North America has never been as accessible as it is today. For almost two centuries, American education, following European traditions, barred girls from academic higher learning. In the past, education was the path to professions and careers open only to men. In addition, even after women were allowed to go for education, male were still commonly more educated and have a higher chance of getting places in schools such as university. However, the issue seems to be of total opposite in Europe now. From the Web magazine in 2001, showing the statistics of Netherlands, it seems that young women in Netherlands are better educated than men.

Women in the age group 25–34 years now have a higher level of education than their male peers. The level of education of young women is increasing rapidly. Indeed there are more women than men students in higher education.

Women and men in higher education

Majority of graduates are women

Among graduates from university and higher professional education (hbo), women are now in the majority. In study year 2005/’06, 56 percent of graduates from higher professional education and 53 percent of university graduates were women.

University graduation rates, cohort 1996


Young women much better educated than in the past

The education level of women has shot up in recent decades. Seventeen percent of women aged 55–64 years have completed higher education, compared with 29 percent of men in this age group. For women aged 25–34 years, 36 percent have completed higher education, compared with 32 percent of men. The share of women graduating from higher education has more than doubled in the space of one generation, while for men the share has risen only slightly.

Education level of the population, 2005

Jan Latten and Wieteke van Dijk
- Statistics of Netherlands

Even in areas that considered only the brute strength – the sports – women might now be more active than they were in the past. This seems to pose as a high possibility that sports in Europe might be dominated by women when speaking of the participation levels.

In an article reported in 2006, the UK Sport welcomed the findings of a report examining the progress made in the area of women and sport with cautious optimism. With two out of three key targets exceeded and progress made in the third, it was clear that a multi-agency approach to increasing participation, achieving excellence and ensuring more women are involved in significant positions of leadership within sport was delivering. The statistics shows that 48% of women are now participating in sport and physical activity on a regular basis, exceeding the original target set in 2003 by 5%.

However, it's not uncommon for male and female athletes involved in sports that "threaten" the traditional roles of men and women to be stereotyped and made fun of for being less than what a man or woman should be. It is not deemed "normal" for a man to be a ballet dancer, synchronized swimmer or ice skater because those are traditionally "feminine" sports. The barriers to men becoming involved in traditionally female sports may be harder to overcome than those in front of women participating in traditionally male sports because there is a certain level of novelty when a woman tries to participate in a male sport. She is tolerated only because she is so "cute" or because she won't be good at it anyway; for a man in a woman's sport, it is not necessarily the women, but other men within society who pass judgment on said man's masculinity. For men and women athletes who are involved in a sport that goes against the traditional sex and gender roles there are benefits in the long run, but the costs and sacrifices are, on the whole, more prominent.

Women were once forbidden from taking part in any warfare or battles. But now, due to the changing roles of men and women, the latter are able to be sent to fight in wars and take higher ranks in a military force.For example, in Europe, Spain, the women now took up one-fifth of the whole military.

In September 18, 2009, Norway appoints her first female general, Kristin Lund from brigadier. When she was promoted to brigadier in 2007, she was also the first female brigadier in the army.

Petro Kostyuk, Head of Humanities Policy Department in the Ministry of Defence, said that there were 60,000 of women (27,1%) serving in the Ukrainian Army. Among them 42,300 are listed as civil personnel and 17,700 (13,5%) are recruited in military service. Interestingly, these figures exceed similar ratings in gender-sensitive countries such as Norway (7% of women in the Armed Forces) and Sweden (5%).

Moreover, this changing of roles had already been taking place long before our contemporary age. One of the most famous and successful military commanders of all time was a teenage girl: Joan of Arc (1412-31 A,D.)

But still, men are dominating over the military, taking up more than half or even three quarter of the whole forces. In some European countries, women are still considered to be a weaker sex and would be unable to withstand the harsh training in the army. Indeed, this is true to an extent due to the fact that female physical strength and make-up are more inferior to men in terms of strength only. As a result, women were often denied of active roles in the military – even till today.

Politically speaking, women were seldom given the political rights to be involved in decision-makings and governing of a country.However, for the first time in history, a European country has a government in which more women than men hold positions of power.

The new Spanish cabinet, sworn in by the socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has nine women alongside eight men, including Spain's first woman Defence minister, Carme Chacon, and its youngest-ever cabinet minister, the 31-year-old minister for equality, Bibiana Aido. This is the country whose exaggerated respect for masculine values added the word "machismo" to the English language.

The proportion of women in the Swedish parliament, around 14 per cent in 1971, soon trebled. In the 2006 election, women took 164 seats out of 349, or 47 per cent of the total, the highest proportion in Europe and the second highest anywhere in the world.

The principle of "every second seat for a woman" is now well ingrained in Nordic countries. Finland, Denmark and Norway are all in the top 10 countries in the world for the proportion of women in their legislatures. Norway has a Gender Equality Act which requires that all publicly appointed committees, including the cabinet, should be made up of at least 40 per cent men and at least 40 per cent women.

Egs.
Spain's female government
Cristina Garmendia, Science minister
Mercedes Cabrera, Education minister
Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, Deputy Prime Minister
Bibiana Aido, Equality minister
Elena Espinosa, Rural Environment minister
Magdalena Alvarez, Minister of public works
Carme Chacon, Defence minister
Elena Salgado, Civil Service minister
Beatriz Corredor, Housing minister


Countries Percentage of women MPs (equivalents) per member state:
Sweden 47.0
Finland 41.5
The Netherlands 39.3
Denmark 38.0
Spain 36.6
Belgium 35.3
Austria 32.8
Germany 31.6
Portugal 28.3
Luxembourg 23.3
Lithuania 22.7
Bulgaria 21.7
Estonia 20.8
Poland 20.4
Latvia 20.0
UK 19.5
Slovakia 19.3
France 18.2
Italy 17.3
Czech Republic 15.5

Even in countries such as France which has a lower proportion of women serving in public office than any of her neighbors in the European Union. Women make up 10 percent of the national parliament, compared to 45 percent in Sweden and 31 percent in Germany. The situation is even worse at the local level, where only 7.6 percent of French mayors are women. Even so actions have been taken in Year 2001 municipal elections, which political parties must field equal numbers of men and women as candidates.

The percentage of female local officials was estimated to jump to 45 percent after the elections. In addition, 74 percent of the French people believe the parity law would help revitalize local politics, according to a poll.

Percentage of women mayors in France:
1977 2.3%
1983 4.0%
1989 5.5%
1999 7.6%
Sources: Association of Mayors of France; European Database of Women in Decision-Making


Furthermore, in countries that had never had a female leaders in their history is now finally willing to take the step towards accepting women into their parliament. For instance there is Angela Merkel in Germany, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in Liberia which is also the first woman leader of the continent and Michelle Bachelet in Chile.

Despite the fact that women are just beginning to take active control over certain male-dominated areas, there are still many obstacles that stop them from achieving the goal. Even though women in Europe have been rising in the male-dominated areas, it cannot be denied that it is still not up to the standard that many expected. On the whole, the European leadership remains overwhelmingly male. 16 November 2009, the European Union (EU) leaders were even asked to pick a woman as the bloc's president or foreign affairs chief. However, there is the lack of female nominees, as the only one being formally nominated is Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.