Mumsnet goes to the European Parliament: your thoughts?

[KateMumsnet]

To mark the centenary of International Women's Day, Mumsnet has been invited to the EU Parliament for a rummage about. So we're off to Strasbourg, in a (possibly doomed) attempt to figure out what impact, if any, this labyrinthine institution has had on the equality of women here in the UK.

We'll be sitting in on a special IWD parliamentary session, where MEPs will be discussing what's been achieved to date to further women's equality across Europe, and debating what the next steps should be. The gender pay gap, the vexed issue of maternity leave, the lack of female decision-makers in business and politics, and the grim figures for female poverty across the EU are all on the agenda.

We'll be frantically trying to make sense of it all as the day unfolds; and with a bit of luck and a following wind we'll collar a couple of MEPs and policy bods along the way to answer your questions, and feed back your views.

So, whether you're entirely au fait with the EU's inner workings, or your heart sinks at the very thought of it, do post your questions, observations, gripes or suggestions here, and we'll try our best to get to the bottom of it all.

Kate
That was Ackermann, from the Deutsche Bank, I presume? His comment does not surprise me, he is an arrogant Swiss guy - the Swiss are not known for their women friendly working environment. Don't think there is much love lost between him and Merkel - there was a press conference last year (I think) about the banking crisis and he was very patronizing.

Talking of formula - couod you have a peek at my blog to save me writing out out again ladouceviesuisse.blogspot.com/2010/08/flaschennahrung-vorbereitung-how-to.html blog. Can you ask why the recommendations vary so greatly between countries?

Also interested in the maternity leave provisions. I found the german maternity leave good as it was obligatory to stop work 6 weeks before the due date, and 8 weeks after. On full pay. Which means that the women can take the last couple of weeks to relax, get bedroom, cot etc ready and not be faced with stress and commute. There is then a 3 year unpaid leave so that the company has to hold your job (or give you one of a similar standing). Very small companies are exempt from this, I believe.

Also - can you get hold of one of the idiot UKIP MEPs and ask him this:

On MN recently Nigel Farage was asked about Godfrey Bloom's statement:

The absolute bombshell came when he was asked about the statement by Godfrey Bloom:

"No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age."

Farage's reply:

Godfrey Bloom was 100% right, the view then seemed outrageous. It is now publicly supported by Lord Alan Sugar, and many businesswomen too. The point is that very small companies need breaks, need reliefs, from this kind of legislation and that young women are now being denied jobs with many of these firms.

The trouble with Godfrey is that it's not what he says, it's sometimes the way in which he says it."

What I would like to know is, how would that work?

Considering that, according to government statistics 97% of UK companies employ less than 20 people and 95% of UK companies employ less than 5 people.

So any of these companies could, if UKIP get their way, be free to block applications from women of "child-bearing age" - which biologically could be from 15 - 45 years.

Gosh MmeLindt. It's almost as if he doesn't want women to have a right to equal access to employment, isn't it?

Not only is Godfrey Bloom one of my MEPs but he sits on the committee for Women's Rights and Gender Equality. According to this. I assume he sits on the committee to argue they are bad things?

What Wills and Swallowedafly said.

Oh, there is another question then. Who decides which MEP is on which committee? Does anyone know?

Having Godfrey Bloom on the committee for Women's Rights and Equality is like Anger Management Training, led by John Prescott.

We live in changing times for women, increasing by necssity both parents are more economically active and thus more of parenting is shared than it was in the mid Seventies when the Sex Discrimination Act came into force. However, there is very little protection for men who want to work flexibly and this tends to entrench the position for women and thus the issues mothers and women of childbearing age face in the labour market. Some employers see mothers as a problem and many employers still discriminate against mothers or women of childbearing age.

Were 'parenting' a protected characteristic in the same way as say gender, sexuality, race, age etc.. then IMO this would help to promote equality, it would also simplify the legal position for both mothers and fathers.

I think that's decided by their party MmeLindt - but I'll find out. I agree it seems rather, um, counterintuitive that Godfrey Bloom is on the WRGE committee

Forster I think that's a really interesting proposal and not one which I've heard before. I'll try and explore further when I'm there. Thanks.

Kate that is fantastic . I have been involved in this issue for years, and despite the state of the current law and various lobbying by NGO's etc over the current problems the situation for a considerable number of women is dreadful. Many loose their careers/promotions following the advent of children/childbearing years. Current proposals to extend rights of mothers IMHO will paradoxically worsen the situation for mothers as they will be seen as even more as a liability by some employers - though there are some employers who have excellent practice. However realistically I despair of the situation ever improving for the vast majority. If anyone can change this Mumsnet can.

Good point Leningrad. If 'parent' were a protected characteristic, there wouldn't seem a logical argument against expanding that to 'caring' - anyone?

Also perhaps of interest: thought I should check out how much UK legislation comes from the EU, since it seems to be a heavily-disputed point .

UKIP leader Nigel Farage, in his hugely-enjoyable MN webchat, claimed it was 74%; his more exuberant colleague Daniel Hannan puts it at 84%. David Cameron, before he became PM, reckoned that the figure was nearer 50%.

At the other end of the scale, the House of Commons Library, which is politically neutral, came up with a figure of 9.1%. Which seems rather low.

The problem is that there?s no accepted base standard. UKIP appears to have got its figures from an analysis by the German govt, which has a very different legislative system from the UK. Cameron was talking about both laws and regulations which affect UK businesses; the House of Commons Library considered only ?statutory instruments? - legislation from the EU which passes into UK law by default, without being put before parliament; (although since statutory instruments make up the bulk of all UK legislation, not only the EU-driven stuff, that's potentially not unreasonable). In May 2009, a report by the British Chamber of Commerce found that the EU accounted for around 20 per cent of regulatory legislation in Britain in 2008-09.

Soooo. EU-UK legislative relationship status: It?s Complicated.

This page gives a snapshot of what other EU states reckon the percentage of their national legislation is EU-derived: 6.3 percent according to the Swedish parliament, 12 percent according to the Finnish parliament. The Lithuanians say it's between 12% and 19%.

And the House of Commons Library recently put out a much more comprehensive study of the percentage of UK laws that originate from the EU, and they now reckon on approximately 15%.

Enjoy !

Not only did I not know who my MEP was, having looked at that list I was to realise that I'd never even heard of any of them. Regardless of which party they are members of.

Anything that encourages any government to start thinking about 'parenting' and issue of childcare as a societal one, as opposed to one that only women are responsible for can only be a good thing. It's so frustrating to see it constantly written out as a problem for women. Wills and StillSquiffy's posts are a shocking example of this.

And as for the German banker - cockney rhyming slang never seemed more appropriate.

I'm interested, however, why legoverlil seems to think that MN are taking the devil's shilling? Should we not get involved in such important issues?

That is very interesting, Kate.

BIWI
That German is Swiss, btw.

Although there was Kanzler Schröder who referred to Renate Schmitt, the then head of the Family Ministry as "Minister for Women and other Kerfuffle" so the Germans are not much better.

What a brilliant job title!

"Minister für Frauen und Gedöns" :o

OK, l'Europe - je suis arrivée! And at only 9 train-hours door-to-door, the continent really is just a hop and a skip away .

So. Strasbourg itself is very pretty. For a comprehensive picture of the European Parliament building, imagine the Telford HQ of a medium-sized conglomerate, scale up x 1000, add a bajillion corridors, walkways and mezzanines, multiply by Heathrow, subtract fresh air and you'll be in the ballpark.

At 9pm the place was still a hive of activity - the entire Parliament shuttles to Strasbourg from Brussels once a month for a plenary session, which today started at 5pm and looked to go on well into the night. Disappointingly all the Eurocrats I've met so far have faces, and couldn't be more friendly and helpful. They are like us (but cheerful and urbane )

Tomorrow I'll be in the Chamber listening to the International Women's Day debates on the 2010 report on Equality Between Men and Women, and on the feminisation of poverty - and then at a smaller discussion about how to increase the numbers of women in positions of influence. With luck I'll also be talking to a policy bod from the Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee, to get a sense of past achievements and future challenges - so speak now or forever hold your peas if you've got points to make or questions to ask.

One quick observation before I hit the sack - the lovely press officer who's trying to ensure I don't end up in the laundry corridor instead of the Chamber tomorrow pointed out how few of the officials here are British - as the number of schoolchildren studying a European language has declined, so has the number of UK graduates applying for these (pretty fantastic) jobs. Two European languages is a minimum. Thoughts?

Like the description of the parliament

I remember trying to apply for an internship but they were all unpaid, so I understood then that you had to have pretty well-off parents to get your foot in the door.

Well I'd be amazed if any of our school children would stand a chance. How many of them do even one foreign language now, never mind two?

Hope it goes well today, Kate.

I'll have one. I have two european languages plus english.

get us a job while you're there kate would you be a dear?

x

I did three languages when I was at school - French O and A level, German and Latin O levels.

But these days, unless you're at private school (I assume), the option to do one language is limited, and doing two is very rare.

I think it's such a shame.

Right, after only 30 minutes wandering hopefully through identical corridors, I?ve just found the press gallery in the Chamber (basically a gigantic hollow wooden ball at the centre of the main building.) They?re debating a report on the Institutions? administrative budget and I?m listening via headphones to a simultaneous translation, which in itself is a rather dislocating experience, particularly since I currently have NO IDEA who the various members speaking are or which country they represent.

So far it is very sedate, though one MEP (not British) did just harangue the chair in heavily-accented English over the creation of 50 new posts which ?pay more than the British Prime Minister earns?. She peaked with a bizarrely British tabloid-style declamation: ?STOP this rip-off!!!?. Perhaps she was reading from a speech prepared by the British members of her Euro-sceptic group? It was most odd, though not as odd as the Danish official who told me, while processing my accreditation, that she once bought a black cab in Birmingham on a whim, and drove it back to Denmark.

It?s all a bit boggling so far to be honest.

BIWI,latin!
my poor y2 child hates me atm.
we are native french speakers so I am naturally constantly driving him absolutely mad with greek and latin etymology.
Ah good old times!