Women & the World
Virginija Langbakk dons many hats -the First Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality, Former Deputy- director at Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Former Gender expert, programme director at Swedish Institute for Public Administration & Former Project manager, gender expert at The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions. Virginija Langbakk has been mentoring and advising managers and politicians, in particular, young women. She loves structure, but also, out of the box thinking. She enjoys communicating and public speaking and would always find a visual link to the audience.
Read an excerpt of Talk with Virginija Langbakk
Rajni Vohra: According to EIGE, Gender Equality Index shows signs of a worsening situation for women in many areas of work and home life. Despite so many efforts on the ground level by government and private agencies to solve gender related issues, what possible reasons do you think can be attributed to such state of affairs ?
Virginija Langbakk: I cannot miss highlighting a few unique for EIGE’s Gender Equality Index, elements. Before its existence none of composite indicators of a similar nature enabled the analysis and aggregation of such a broad scale of indicators into one general score. The report of the first edition of the Index (2013) gives an extensive picture of similarities and differences between EIGE’s Index and other regularly used indices (e.g., World Economic Forum or United Nations).
EIGE has an advantage of regularly updated and fully comparable data for all EU-27 (and to some extent, the Candidate countries) and the common political framework of the European union that makes a unified monitoring of the progress (or negative development) possible and comparable.
Since 2013, when the first scores were published, it proved to be the trend in each policy area that makes the most exciting aspect to follow. As noted, the indicators, indeed, demonstrate a negative or a stalled development in several policy areas. The reasons are numerous, but stereotypes and slowly changing attitudes about the gender roles in the society are the main culprits of such a backlash. The domain of Work shows visible signs of indirect, and sometimes, even direct, discrimination of women in regards to career opportunities; you will also notice that gender-segregation hampers a more gender-equal pay, and you will be shocked by the largest pay gap of all, which is found in the overall earnings gap (domain of Money). The domain of Education signals that stereotypes sustain gendered choices of professions, which results in large pension gaps, etc. And finally, violence faced by women and girls also has its roots in stereotypes, where the society not only tolerates it, but also, blames the victim for the act of crime they were subjected to.
Unfortunately, stereotypes and society beliefs are difficult to measure, combating them needs long-term commitment and comprehensive measures, therefore, as long as gender mainstreaming is just a word called for in an isolated context, we will see a progress taking a snail’s pace forward.
Rajni Vohra: You have been very instrumental in helping and supporting refugees coming from Ukraine to settle down in European region- finding livelihood and accommodation in EU for their families, women and men. How challenging has it been so far?
Virginija Langbakk: The Russian aggression proved one thing- that not only geographically, but also, historically and culturally Ukraine is belongs with Europe, and this might be one of the reasons that the
refugees did not face the same attitudes, as the ones from other regions of the World did. One of explanations could be that majority of Ukrainian refugees were and still are women and children, in contrast to the start of the refugee crisis, when most of refugees were young men. It suggests that the European society feels more at ease to open their homes to mothers with children, help soothe their traumatic experience and share the toys with the children. High level of education in a similar academic system is another aspect that is typical for this group of refugees, and there is no doubt, that having the right education does help Ukrainian women getting a faster employment. A third very important factor is the common culture, which is grounded on the values that are similar to those we cherish in the EU. Beyond any doubt, the process met many challenges, in particular, in the functioning of formalised support and aid structures. If such centres and shelters did their share of giving the first relief, they are hardly the same efficient in ensuring a social integration. Having access to schooling helps the children to re-start a sort of ‘usual’ rhythm of everyday life and mixing the refugee and local children boosts their chances to learn the language and the culture. In a similar vein, some Member states employed Ukrainian women to the public sector and the private sector made necessary adjustments to their internal work cultures to accommodate
the new colleagues.
The establishment of a social or emotional tie between the refugees and the local community is the most subtle but most desired element; it needs to be valued and fuelled by the society itself, it needs the hearts and souls ready to embrace the ‘stranger’ and introduce her or him to their world and their network. It facilitates the understanding and agreeing on common values and opening one’s home to a person who flees from a conflict area or war.
Rajni Vohra: War and conflicts have far deeper scar & worse impact on women than men. Ukraine conflict compounds the vulnerability of women and girl child. What plan EU has to protect them from any sort of violence and bring them into the mainstream?
Virginija Langbakk: Vulnerability of women and girls in conflict zones has a defined and repeated pattern.
However, in case of Ukrainian families the pattern is a bit different. First, they did not have to travel for months following the smugglers and expecting sexual or other type of violence at every corner. Secondly, refugee centres, established at the EU borders, did not have to detain them at the first point of registration, and they were moving freely within the EU. It would be wrong to believe that the risk of violence or sexual violence was completely absent, and some groups, such as unaccompanied children and young women were more exposed to the danger of being trafficked. It is important to note, that despite the existence of a common policy, it is the government of each Member State, that decided how they deal with the practical implementation of the refugee support, and it seems, the approach differs quite much. Now when the topic of violence against women and girls has gained political momentum in Brussels, the chances that refugee or migrant women will be covered by legislative framework are much stronger than a year ago.
Rajni Vohra: As a woman leader, what is your message to other women?
Virginija Langbakk: First of all, build on your strong sides and let the world know what you can do! Make friends with women and people with different interests and skills than you have and tap on their knowledge. Find friends you can trust and get their advice and never give you your goal!
Rajni Vohra:Thank you for taking the time to talk to WahWoman.