Gender and Society

Messages for a gender fair society
January 2008

"MV United" is a Gender Mainstreaming Peer Review which will be hosted by Flanders, in Leuven, on 28th and 29th February 2008. From its title you might think that the event will focus on gender issues in football teams or in company mergers but instead it will be all about the vital role that the media can play in redressing inequality between women and men.

This Peer Review is one link in a chain of events organised by different Member States within the framework of the European Community of Practice on Gender Mainstreaming (GM CoP). The idea is that key people who are in a position to transfer good practices that have been developed either in EQUAL or European Social Fund Programmes can meet their counterparts from other Member States and explore together how these achievements can be used to integrate the gender dimension into their respective policy areas. Whilst past events have covered education and training, employment and business support and regional and local development, the Leuven gathering is targeting public and private media. During the event, Flanders will proudly present its awareness raising campaign that aims to overcome traditional gender roles and stereotypes. This campaign has a particular emphasis on television channels, but other media are also used to reinforce the message.

"Programme makers" and "decision-makers" from other Member States are invited to run a professional eye over "telenovelas," reality shows and "docu-soaps" that were, or are currently being, produced in Flanders, thanks to EQUAL funding. They will also have the chance to look at all the other products and projects including the interactive website that is at the heart of the campaign, a magazine that focuses on the reconciliation of work and family life, a theatre play, internet games and the various focus groups, which were organised to encourage open debates amongst different target groups: men from immigrant communities, young people and men who just became fathers. Questions discussed were about how participants plan to reconcile work and private life; if they wish to spend more time with their family or to share the unpaid work at home more evenly with their female partners. A white book documents the results of those roundtables.

All the different activities are intended to reach the public-at-large, and especially children, teenagers and young adults. The message is geared to stimulate thinking and discussion about gender roles in private life, in the labour marker and in society as a whole.

Even small glimpses of the stories reveal the innovative approaches used by the producers. For instance, "Emma", the telenovela named after its heroine, follows her difficult pathway to the labour market after her father has been murdered. Thrown out of the house by a cruel step-mother and after a modest start as a receptionist, she eventually builds a successful career in television. A story "à la Cinderella," but it then turns into a thriller with Emma chasing the murderer of her father. Clues to the eventually outcome are hidden in an internet game which has become a huge hit amongst young people.

"De grote oversteek" (The big crossing) is another television programme which attracts a huge audience because it involves humour and lots of strange situations. This series features men and women as they move from one village to another and, at the same time, change gender roles for a full week. So, a woman who worked in a newspaper shop has to start work on a farm and since the owner has a bad back, she has to do almost all the jobs on the farm. In another case, an older man who could not cook and never washed the dishes was matched with a younger male from the other village who was equally useless in the kitchen. To avoid going hungry, they had to learn how to cook and run the household. The older host, who had always preached that housework was a task for women, made a real laughing stock of himself when forced to take on a homemaker role.

The Peer Review that is being organised by the Flemish ESF Authority will provide a forum for the producers to present these innovative elements of the campaign and to discuss them with counterparts from 12 European Member States. Workshops will provide the chance to view film footage with English subtitles and also enough time for a sharing of experiences and ideas. This Peer Review will not only involve media professionals but also the decision-makers who have responsibility for programme content and financing. Representatives of European institutions have also been invited to join the debate.

Previous Peer Reviews have brought together decision-makers and practitioners from regional and local governments, employment offices and enterprises in Graz, enabled exchange and networking amongst gender equality bodies and experts in Dublin and promoted gender equality as part of personnel development of public and private enterprises in Florence. All these events are documented on the Internet platform of the GM CoP which is a meeting place for all those interested in gender equality and gender mainstreaming within the context of the ESF and acts as a warehouse that stocks gender equality products and tools from throughout the European Union.

Click here to have a look at the programme for the Peer Review in Leuven.

Film footage will shortly be available at the GM CoP's web platform but a little taster is only four clicks away: go to MV United then navigate via "De Grote Oversteek" and "Ondeek meer" (it's at the bottom of the first article on the "De Grote Oversteek" page) to "Bekijk de generiek."