As a lawyer and lecturer in ‘law and gender’ at UCL, Pascale Vielle is particularly interested in the extent to which the law contributes to - or prevents - equality between women and men. She also looks at the representations of gender roles incorporated into the law. She sheds light on changes in the way equality is taken into account, in companies and elsewhere.
When was gender equality first taken into account in the legal system?
It really began after the Second World War. In short, there were three major waves of progress. Firstly, attention was focused on the formal equalisation of civil and political rights, such as the right to vote, to hold a bank account, to work without having to ask her husband's permission or to seek a divorce on the same grounds as her husband. Until the 1970s, a man was only deemed to be at fault if he had maintained a mistress under the marital roof. All it took was for a wife to cheat on her husband for him to demand a separation... These were the first battles fought by feminists. In labour law, they led to the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’, incorporated into the founding treaty of the European Union in 1957.
So it was a big step?
It was more of a rhetorical question, given the motivation behind its inclusion... France already had a provision of this nature in its national law. However, it was concerned about the risks of distortion of competition that this could create in relation to its neighbours, particularly in sectors employing large numbers of women. The application of the principle to all Europeans was therefore driven by purely economic arguments, rather than a social conscience.
So there was no impact?
The provision remained a dead letter for 20 years. Until a groundbreaking case brought before the European Court of Justice by Gabrielle Defrenne, a Sabena flight attendant. She obtained the same access as her male colleagues to a supplementary retirement pension. Followed by two others, the Court's ruling made it possible to establish equality as a fundamental principle of social law. It also marked the recognition of the direct effect of Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome. From then on, any EU citizen could invoke it both against a state that had not implemented the equality obligation, and against any employer that did not apply equal pay. It then triggered the adoption of 13 European directives that gradually extended the scope of equal treatment to all aspects of pay, maternity leave, parental leave, etc.
How did the movement evolve after that?
All these advances were spectacular, but they were still very formal. We realised that they did not address the concrete, real situation of women. What is the point of the principle of equal treatment if women are never given the same jobs as men? A new battle has been waged against societal segregation, whereby women continue to carry out the majority of family and household tasks, remain concentrated in specific sectors of activity such as teaching or personal services, or are denied access to the most highly valued positions. In short, it's a battle for real equality.
What are its ‘weapons’?
They are the instruments of positive action, i.e. measures that give women access to positions and sectors where they are under-represented. In Belgium, this began in politics with parity on electoral lists in 2002. In business, the law requiring at least one third of board members of autonomous public companies and listed companies to be women dates from 2011. Quotas for senior civil servants followed in 2012. And soon there will be a European directive requiring companies to disclose their employees' salaries. This will enable comparisons to be made between men and women. This is important, because we can only correct what we can openly measure...
Now for the third movement you mentioned...
This is the ‘gender mainstreaming’ movement, which requires us to take into account the impact of policy measures on the respective situations of women and men. Some principles may seem neutral, but they are not. Take the allocation of a municipal budget for sport. Often, the first priority is to renovate a football pitch. But are we really doing enough to ensure that girls can play too?
The European Institute for Gender Equality has noted progress in the balance of domestic tasks. Not that men are doing more, but women are making more use of outside help, delivery services or technology...
We need to remain vigilant in the face of such general indices and look at them through the prism of intersectionality. The figures may be good for some groups and nil for others, depending on social class, women's level of education, culture, etc. Teleworking may have relieved women somewhat in terms of mobility or the organisation of tasks. But the real question is whether the man has a separate office and the woman works on a corner table in the kitchen, keeping an eye on the meal and the children. Finally, if domestic tasks are systematically delegated from a more affluent woman to another with an immigrant background, who is poorly qualified or undocumented, we are not making any progress on the issue of gender equality.
The Nordic countries have better results. Is this the result of more advanced legislation?
It's more profound. In these countries, societal values have been incorporating this issue for much longer than elsewhere. There is less conservatism. Parental leave has always existed there and behaviour is monitored very closely: who takes leave, when, etc. Legislation adapts, and then its effects are reassessed in turn. We now know that such rights have a real impact on men's behaviour.
