A year after the purple wave that overwhelmed the country on June 14 and eight months after the strong feminization of parliament, what happened in the fight for equality? If it is too early to take stock, one thing is certain: the women are ready to score goals. Sixteen elected officials having announced themselves, they decided to create their own football team, which will start training next fall.
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This is more than an anecdote. In the last federal election on October 20, women took over the Federal Palace like never before. They are now 42% in the National Council and 26% in the Council of States. But the most difficult remains to do: to score goals, precisely.
This parliamentary session will allow a first temperature measurement. On June 17, the National Council must decide on a bunch of initiatives of the Socialist Party, all aimed at giving more teeth to the equality law, given birth in pain last year and likened to “a paper tiger ” Min Li Marti (PS / ZH) and Mathias Reynard (PS / VS) want to sanction black sheep and demand an extension of the scope of the companies audited: would be concerned all those employing more than 50 collaborators, representing 54% of the workforce Swiss work.
Saving the history of feminism in Switzerland
In committee, all these initiatives were rejected, but on less clear scores than during the previous legislature. “The current parliament has a different face than before 2019, it is more feminine and younger,” says Kathrin Bertschy (Vert’libéraux / BE), the co-president of the association of feminine societies Alliance F. “Up to ‘now we knew that some files had no chance. This is no longer the case today.”
An economist by training, the Bernese woman fights like a lioness to save the archives of the history of the Swiss women’s movement. These are managed in Worblaufen (BE) by the Gosteli Foundation, named after Marthe Gosteli, an activist who died at the age of 99 after collecting thousands of documents. To find the 2 million it takes a year to sustain the foundation, Kathrin Bertschy called on parliament to the rescue. The signals are positive. While the Federal Council has so far opposed subsidization, the two committees for science, education and culture (CSEC) have approved federal aid. In these bodies, 48% of women sit for that of the National Council, and even 62% of women for that of the Council of States.
Even if progress towards equality will be slower than many would like, nothing will be the same. Women no longer let anything pass, as their reaction shows when the coronavirus comes out of the crisis. No less than 60 women’s organizations have appealed to the Federal Council to demand “a say at the negotiating table”. In parliament, this call was relayed by the Green group, which asked for and obtained an urgent debate.
“The return of the strongman”
“During this crisis, we witnessed the return of the strong man seen as the only one capable of managing it, with Alain Berset or an almost exclusively male scientific council,” laments Senator Lisa Mazzone (GE). “However, it was women who were the most active at the operational level, whether in hospitals, in care work and in the retail trade. We therefore want to know how the Federal Council intends to revalue all these often poorly paid professions “, adds Aline Trede (BE), the new head of the Greens group.
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Women have made a strong entry into this real place of power that is the commissions, where very often important decisions are taken before the plenum debates. However, some commissions have been completely renewed: no less than 11 women – out of 25 members – now sit on the one that outlines the future of the army. “Women are now present on subjects where we do not expect them, such as transport or the army. They will give other impulses, which will be exciting to follow, “rejoices Marianne Binder (PDC / AG).
This is how, in financial policy, the notion of “gender budgeting” suddenly arose, that is, budgeting of public expenditure integrating the gender dimension. “When the Federal Council decided to make several hundreds of millions available to help professional football and hockey clubs, it did not realize that women will hardly benefit from this amount,” laments Lisa Mazzone.
On the right too, the cause of women has progressed. But from the PDC to the UDC, elected officials are reluctant to advocate sanctions against employers who do not respect equality. “I trust companies so they don’t risk their reputation on this,” says new PLR women president Susanne Vincenz-Stauffacher.
The feminism of Céline Amaudruz
The women of the center and the right prefer to assume a feminism lived in the facts, expressed by their engagement in politics. The oenologist Simone de Montmollin intends to commit to the upgrading of professions such as nursing or farming. The head of the center group Andrea Gmür-Schönenberger intends to discuss support for extracurricular infrastructure and violence against women. As for the vice-president of the UDC Céline Amaudruz, she confides having got used to the oblique looks of some of her colleagues when she supported the law on equality. “In my DNA as a politician, there are deep convictions such as the maintenance of Swiss sovereignty and my opposition to any institutional rapprochement with the EU, but also my status as a woman.”
All these women from the center right meet on a bitter observation: the lack of solidarity between the women themselves. “Women on the left do not support me, even when I advocate a more repressive policy towards aggressors in violence against women,” deplores Céline Amaudruz. Andrea Gmür-Schönenberger agrees: “For a woman to support another woman, she has to share 90% of her beliefs, while men help each other despite their differences,” she says. Despite this, these elected officials remain optimistic: “I am convinced that my two daughters, 22 and 24 years old, will be able to fight for a salary corresponding to their skills,” says Susanne Vincenz-Stauffacher.
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