Human Rights Club 3rd Meeting - Gender Equality

In our last Meeting we spoke about the topic of Gender Equality. How Gender and Gender differences are perceived in different countries? Are the women in our countries more focused on career or prefer to give priority to the family? What are the expectations that society and family have towards women?

At the Meeting participants were from Russia, Austria, UK and Italy, so we just decided to discuss how gender equality takes place in our societies, and what we

                                                                                       think about gender roles in Russia.

We think that in Russia a lot of women see family as something fundamental and often they prefer family over career, so there’s a more traditional idea of woman. Still we have to recognize how sometimes it’s so difficult for women to combine the two things, it’s really hard to look after your children in the best possible way, and still work all the days and try to manage your career.

Companies usually are not too sensible on this matter, and women are “obliged” to go back to work, after the birth of their children, quite soon, and can’t take advantage of their maternity leave how it should be.

In Western Europe we feel less that a woman value in society is connected in having a family. Women prioritize often their studies and career,  a lot of times they marry quite late and have kids later than in Russia.

In all countries it’s fundamental that the State guarantees some good infrastructures (like kindergarten) and laws that help women as mothers and workers.

We discussed how relationships between the sexes are also a bit different in each country; in Western Europe we think less to women as a “weak” sex, but we rather prefer to consider ourselves more on the same level; this also implies that men are usually less “attentive” in regard to small gestures that in Russia are so common (like open the door for a women, always paying when out on a date, for ex.), but also they have less say on what a women should do or not.

There is no right or wrong, just we agree on the fact that a woman should choose freely what is the best for her life, without feeling too much pressure from the society, but the society instead should help them to find their own ways.