Women's rights in Belgium
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At the end of the 19th century, Belgian society was characterized by a patriarchal system in which the natural role of women was supposedly that of wife and mother. The women did not initially focus on enforcing women's suffrage, but tried to improve the education sector and civil rights for women. Women's suffrage was only introduced in 1948. However, Belgium has been the first country in Europe and the second country in the world to legislate gender quotas in politics since 1994 and is very successful in doing so.
Rights in education and in working life
At the end of the 19th century, Belgian women were committed to the role of wife and mother and were severely restricted in education and access to the labor market. This was the trigger for the emergence of a women's movement .
In 1880, the University of Leiden was the first Belgian university to allow women to study. Eight years later, Marie Popelin passed her law exam , but was not allowed to practice as a lawyer; a court found that as a woman she was not prepared for this job. Marie Popelin then founded the Conseil National des Femmes (Belgian League for Women's Rights) together with other women in 1905 in order to create higher-level structures for existing women's organizations.
Schooling for boys had been compulsory since the middle of the 19th century, but schooling for girls was very sketchy, mainly because there were few facilities for this. A secondary school for girls had been founded as early as 1864 and a year later a technical school; but it was not until 1892 that a preparatory course was set up for girls to enter the university, and it was not until 1914 that school attendance became compulsory for girls too.
Only at the end of the 19th century did women gradually gain access to a number of professions: from 1890 they could become doctors and pharmacists, and in 1922, long after Marie Popelin's death, lawyers; but it was not until 1948 that they were granted unrestricted access to judicial office.
Even after the introduction of women's suffrage in 1948, the social situation of women had not improved significantly: the struggle for emancipation , especially for married women, and the implementation of equal opportunities on the labor market did not begin until the second half of the 20th century. Previously, only progress in the field of education could be achieved.
Civil rights
Belgian legislation was heavily influenced by the Napoleonic Code and put women on a par with children and the disabled. Married women were under the tutelage of their husbands: he made all decisions concerning children, property and marriage, but also made decisions about the property of his wife and her actions. The women's movement campaigned for improvements here and achieved that 1,900 women were given the right to save money; this was important because it gave her the right to receive her own wages up to a certain amount. But it wasn't until 1932 that women were allowed to dispose of all of their wages.
From 1922 women were allowed to do money business and from 1928 they received their own pension. However, until 1976 married women were not allowed to manage their personal property with the exception of their wages. Although the legal equality of wives and husbands was laid down in law as early as 1958, it was not until 1976 that wives were given the right to decide together with their husbands about joint property.
Although women were allowed to manage their own savings and testify in court after 1905, progress toward equality was slow. From 1908 it was possible for women to take on guardianship . But it was not until 1978 that wives were on an equal footing with their husbands in raising children, and it was not until 1969 that clauses in employment contracts that made it possible to terminate married or pregnant women were banned.
A social security system was introduced in 1944 , but the 1945 and 1963 unemployment regimes provided lower unemployment benefits for women than men , even if they were single parents . It was not until 1971 that this inequality was eliminated. In 1921 it was stipulated that female teachers should receive the same salary as teachers, but in reality equal pay was more the exception than the rule.
Women's suffrage
It was not until 1948 that unrestricted women's suffrage was introduced in Belgium .
Women's quota in politics since 1994
After women's suffrage was introduced, women's participation in political life remained weak for four decades. Marguerite De Riemaecker-Legot , Belgium's first female minister , headed the Ministry of Family and Housing from 1965 to 1968. Until the mid-1990s, only ten percent of the seats went to women.
Belgian feminists therefore advocate gender quotas in politics. This was introduced in Belgium as the first European country and the second country worldwide. This measure is based on the changes in Belgian society: traditional social groups are losing weight, and more and more a balanced representation of key groups in positions of political power is advocated, be it groups with a common language, a common ideological orientation or the same gender.
In 1994, the Smet Tobback Act stipulated that only two thirds of those nominated on the nomination lists could belong to the same sex. The law was applied twice, namely in 1999 in the European elections and in the national and regional elections, and in 2000 in the local and regional elections. It was criticized on the one hand because of its inadequacy, because it did not ensure that women were listed in the promising front places. On the other hand, it was objected that it was unjust because it was not based on the principle of equality . In 2002, a new law required the parties to put an equal number of women and men on the lists. In addition, the candidates on the list must be one and two different sexes. These regulations were adopted for local and provincial elections.
Since 1994 the number of politically active women has increased considerably, which is often attributed to the introduction of the women's quota . Although this secures women places on the nomination lists, it does not guarantee that they will actually receive political offices. Two other factors were of great influence. First, the constituencies were enlarged, which benefited women. On the other hand, there was a change in attitudes among the male political elite: Because women received a great deal of international support, it was increasingly considered politically incorrect not to give women better positions in political life. After the 2010 elections, 39 percent were women in the House of Representatives and 43 percent in the Senate. The local and regional elections showed similar figures. This makes Belgium one of the countries with the most women in parliament.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Petra Meier: Caught Between Strategic Positions and Principles of Equality: Female Suffrage in Belgium . In: Blanca Rodríguez-Ruiz, Ruth Rubio-Marín (eds.): The Struggle for Female Suffrage in Europe. Voting to Become Citizens. Brill Verlag Leiden, Boston 2012, ISBN 978-90-04-22425-4 , pp. 407-420, p. 416.
- ^ Petra Meier: Caught Between Strategic Positions and Principles of Equality: Female Suffrage in Belgium . In: Blanca Rodríguez-Ruiz, Ruth Rubio-Marín (eds.): The Struggle for Female Suffrage in Europe. Voting to Become Citizens. Brill Verlag Leiden, Boston 2012, ISBN 978-90-04-22425-4 , pp. 407-420, p. 411.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Petra Meier: Caught Between Strategic Positions and Principles of Equality: Female Suffrage in Belgium . In: Blanca Rodríguez-Ruiz, Ruth Rubio-Marín (eds.): The Struggle for Female Suffrage in Europe. Voting to Become Citizens. Brill Verlag Leiden, Boston 2012, ISBN 978-90-04-22425-4 , pp. 407-420, p. 417.
- ^ Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 289
- ↑ a b c d e f g Petra Meier: Caught Between Strategic Positions and Principles of Equality: Female Suffrage in Belgium . In: Blanca Rodríguez-Ruiz, Ruth Rubio-Marín (eds.): The Struggle for Female Suffrage in Europe. Voting to Become Citizens. Brill Verlag Leiden, Boston 2012, ISBN 978-90-04-22425-4 , pp. 407-420, p. 418.
- ^ Petra Meier: Caught Between Strategic Positions and Principles of Equality: Female Suffrage in Belgium . In: Blanca Rodríguez-Ruiz, Ruth Rubio-Marín (eds.): The Struggle for Female Suffrage in Europe. Voting to Become Citizens. Brill Verlag Leiden, Boston 2012, ISBN 978-90-04-22425-4 , pp. 407-420, p. 420.
- ↑ a b c d e Petra Meier: Caught Between Strategic Positions and Principles of Equality: Female Suffrage in Belgium . In: Blanca Rodríguez-Ruiz, Ruth Rubio-Marín (eds.): The Struggle for Female Suffrage in Europe. Voting to Become Citizens. Brill Verlag Leiden, Boston 2012, ISBN 978-90-04-22425-4 , pp. 407-420, p. 419.