FEMINIST LETTER NO 21
To all feminists
There is an on going debate in the country about children, child care and parenthood. The curious thing about this is that practically only women are taking part. Women who feel that things are OK as they are, but could be even better and women who feel that things are terrible the way they are and can only get worse. Women who had small children 30 years ago, women who have teenagers and women with small children today - they all have their points of view. They all have varied experience, both in relation to their parental leave and to how child care services work, and they all have something in common - a bad conscience.Regardless of whether we have a tummy ache because the child care centre does not function well, regardless of whether we show a stiff upper lip telling ourselves that at least things are better here than elsewhere(in the world), regardless of whether we actually think that we cope pretty well making daily life work, many women nevertheless experience a bad conscience. If for some reason a woman does not have one, she will, because she doesn’t have one. Even if I am content, people around me(the other parent, friends, parents, employers) see things in a different light. I understand that I spend too little time with the children and shorten my working hours, but still put in too many hours, though not at work to keep up with the general pace and to meet the demands in the switch-back world of careers.
The punishment will be lower wages. For all women, right from the beginning. The employer knows how women usually behave. If they don’t, there are statistics. 83-17 is the ratio for parental leave between the sexes. Many women start working part time, 75% when the children start nursery school. Women pay out of their own pocket for a reduction in working hours that is necessary for the sake of the children and of society, pay out of the poor wages that are the result of discrimination. However, it would be unwise to complain because one may be regarded as a person who isn’t prepared to make sacrifices for her chidren and that means one is self-centred and a bad mum. Women often continue to be “good”, which means they go on working part time, even when the children have grown up. Home and family need me, is what they say. Maybe a more adequate expression would be “caring for a fit husband in the home”. You don’t get any wages and no pension marks. Women subsidise men’s full time work and pay for it with low incomes, low levels of sick pay, unemployment and rehabilitation benefits and finally a low pension.
The debate is not new, but has been rekindled, partly because of the Social Democrat congress(the ruling party) and their handling of demands for reforms towards an individualisation of parental leave/insurance. Rarely has there been such a blatant demonstration of patriarchal exercise of power! On stage, i.e. in front of the press in full turn-out, the prime minister rode roughshod over the whole congress before the general debate had even got off the ground. S women and SSU, the youth organisation, have argued that individualising the parental insurance system is the single most important isssue in the struggle to change the labour market and strengthen the position of women. The prime minister, chairman of the party, declared before his audience that the rules of the parental insurance would not be altered, whatever congress decided. In order to draw a veil over this misuse of power, the congress proceeded to tack together a compromise solution that can be used in future debates(for the use of those who were disappointed) or mainly as a basis for the government’s decision not to pursue the issue further or to discuss it at all. Modern family policies were not given the chance of taking root at this Social Democrat party congress.
After various attempts at giving a more balanced picture, a good deal of confusion has arisen, but let no one be left in the dark as to what was actually said. Here follows Göran Persson’s attempt at calming down his Christian Democrat colleague Göran Hägglund during question time in Parliament last week: (from the minutes)
Göran Hägglund(KD):
Mr speaker!The Social Democrats have recently held their party congress. It was decided there that during the four years to follow the elections a larger share of parental insurance is to be linked to each parent separately. In plain Swedish - you intend to pursue the compulsory sharing of parental leave.
It is my opinion is that parents themselves know their children best and they are the ones to decide how parental leave is best shared between them. And surely the leave/insurance is there for them. It is up to the parents themselves, not the politicians, to decide how children should be cared for in their early life. My question to Göran Person is : why not create possibilities instead of forcing people to do something that is against their will?
The prime minister Göran Persson(s)
Mr Speaker! It is true that we have just held a congress. It was a blessed meeting, to use words that Hägglund can feel at home with. It is true that we discussed parental insurance. However, I cannot recognise Hägglund’s description of the decision we arrived at. Before we start extending quotas we want to ensure that women and men are paid equally for equal work. We want to ensure that the women who have involuntary part time work can work full time. And we want to raise the ceiling for parental insurance. When this has been achieved, if the result is not a fairer sharing of the parental leave, we are prepared to go further. But first of all we will do what I have just mentioned. And I am inclined to believe that we will hardly have tackled these difficult issues successfully by the end of the next mandate period. So Hägglund need not suffer from sleepless nights ….
Göran Hägglund (kd):
Mr Speaker! Since a good conscience is the best pillow I usually sleep well. But one does wonder what is going on when Wanja Lundby-Wedin, who is a member of the executive of the Social Democratic party and also chairman of the TUC, says that a proposal must be put forward during the mandate four years to extend individualised parental insurance, that is sharing decided by legislation. This is her interpretation of the decision.
Practically the same interpretation was made by the responsible minister Berit Andnor during the debate itself when she stated that the proposal put before congress, was no compromise, so this means that more months will be allotted to each of the parents ….//…Göran Persson has the opportunity here and now - and I would welcome his taking it – of promising Swedish families with small children that the Social Democrats will not put forward a proposal during the coming mandate period that entail the legislative sharing of parental insurance between parents.
Statsminister Göran Persson (s):
Mr Speaker!...//… First of all we wish to see parents sharing the parental leave more evenly. I hope that even Christian Democrats think that this would be a good thing. However, although this is a wish we hope to see realised, we see certain structural issues that are in the way. Fewer women than men have full time jobs, involuntarily so. This is the type of economic injustice we are talking of. Secondly, women and men do not have the same pay for the same jobs. Thirdly, we have so far had the situation where well paid men are penalised financially for taking parental leave. We intend to deal with these issues first of all. If we do not succeed in achieving a more even sharing of the parental leave, we will be back with new proposals. If this will happen during the next four year mandate period or after it remains to be seen.”
The above means that there will be no change in the parental insurance system until all women have full time jobs and a fair wage and men already take their fair share of parental leave. We shall have to wait for a long time! The government white paper on women’s power and influence from the end of the 1990s demonstrated that it would take 150 years before we had fair pay. Since then the pace of change has slowed down and in some professions we even see widening wage gaps. Last week it was reported that civil engineers, for instance, had starting salaries that gave women 1500 skr less a month. Not to mention the difference between industrial and nursing or caring professions. It can actually happen that a lad who has done mechanical engineering at school can be paid more than his mum gets as final earnings after 25 years in an old people’s home in the same town. Who has decided that this should be so? No one defends the system(aloud) but it lives on. Wage according to sex .(“lön efter kön” – a natty expression that rhymes in Swedish) both in the public and the private sectors. The answer lies in the way we view what it means to be a man and a woman respectively. The answer lies with the concepts established by the gender power structure.
The expectations we have through our gender roles decide our pay, not skills and experience. Women are expected to spend less time in the work place (because of parenthood) and the work done by women is worth less. Women do not choose low-wage jobs. It is the job that is valued less when women perform it. When women have reached a sufficient number within a certain field, pay rises come to a halt and the status falls. Teaching is a good example of this. The clergy are now in turn and the highest(male) leadership is worried. Women as a group are considered “risks” by employers. That is why the individualised parental insurance/leave is one of several important keys to reach the self-evident goal fair wages.
Mr Persson and Mr Hägglund are both united in their wish to sleep well at night, resting as is their habit on the patriarchal pillows of the gender power structure. To disturb them in their sleep is maybe not on the feminist agenda, but what we have to do is to continue influencing public opinion in order to achieve a modern parental insurance model. The disappointed S- women, the TUCs Wanja Lundby-Wedin and the young people in the youth organisation will be needing plenty of help after the next election!
Gudrun
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