Denmark has in many respects come a long way with gender equality, but it also means that we have forgotten the many areas where it is still lagging.
This is how it sounds from former Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt (S), who on Monday publishes the book “The blonde’s considerations”, which is about gender, equality and #MeToo.
Here she touches on the fact that women are still lagging behind in salaries and positions at the top of the business world. They also take a bigger turn in the home.
At the same time, last year’s #MeToo wave has shown numerous examples of women being subjected to sexual harassment or abuse.
– I hear many say that we have equality in Denmark, and that everyone has equal opportunities.
– But we are not as far with gender equality in Denmark as we thought. It has made us lull ourselves to sleep, says Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
She felt like writing the book in continuation of the TV host Sofie Linde’s speech at the Zulu Comedy Galla last year, where she both pointed out imbalances in salaries and mentioned a violation from a man in DR.
With the book, Helle Thorning-Schmidt wants to kick-start the structures that slow down gender equality.
According to Thorning, one of the big problems is how women are viewed.
She believes that Denmark is still a patriarchal system where men are worth more than women – and that women are objects.
It permeates both society and the consciousness of the individual.
– We have some very fixed prejudices about what men and women are and contribute, and it affects how we arrange ourselves at home and how companies hire.
– I hope that everyone will start by being better at asking themselves what prejudices you have about gender and how it affects the way you act, says Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
In the book, she emphasizes, among other things, that in recent years Denmark has fallen behind in the “Global Gender Gap Report”, which the World Economic Forum publishes every year.
The report from 2021 includes 156 countries, and here Denmark has fallen 15 places to number 29. The other countries in the Nordic region are all in the top five.
Denmark’s position is partly due to the wage gap between men and women and the distribution of top positions in both the private business sector and the public sector.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt does not have a package of political proposals in the book that can solve the inequalities that exist in relation to gender equality.
However, she highlights the forthcoming model of earmarked maternity leave for fathers as a good initiative for increased equality in the labor market.
It was also on the agenda during Thorning’s reign in 2011-2015, but was dropped.
At the time, a proposal for women’s quotas on the boards of listed companies was also dropped.
Since then, no significant changes have taken place, and the status remains that less than one in five seats on the boards of Danish companies is occupied by a woman.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt could well see perspectives in the introduction of a requirement for companies to publish wage statistics by gender.
– But overall, it is not the politicians who have to do this. It is at home with the families, at the educations and out with the companies. This is more of a movement than a political project, she says.
Source: The Nordic Page