Study on non-legislative initiatives for companies to promote gender ...

Gender equality initiatives 15
practice can serve as complementary measure to illustrate practical experiences, but
do not directly initiate a change in the enterprises. Thus, they could be used for
information campaigns or in the framework of PR measures.
In some countries various types of initiatives are combined to promote gender
equality. For example, among labelled enterprises those most successful in
implementing instruments to promote gender equality may be awarded a prize. There
would be the possibility of awarding the “best performer” among the undersigned of a
charter, too. These combinations can profit from the advantages of different types of
initiatives.
In any case, it seems to be important that the responsible organisations of different
initiatives co-operate closely at national and European level to create a strong and
coordinated network for promoting gender equality. The networking should also be
fostered at the level of the participating enterprises to support the exchange of
experiences.
With a view to the design, implementation and further development of nonlegislative
initiatives for companies to promote gender equality at the workplace,
several aspects should be taken into account.
In terms of scope and focus of initiatives it is important to consider the general
development of gender equality in a particular country and the problem of
interdependences between the different fields of intervention. This could best be
addressed by initiatives with a broad thematic scope, while developments within society
can be considered by continuously shifting the focus towards the most topical
problems. The more specialised initiatives have the advantage of promoting best
tailored measures to a specific problem and putting emphasis on more controversial
issues. Special attention has to be put on the field of reconciliation: Being a
precondition for fostering many aspects of women’s equal labour market participation it
is naturally very important to promote initiatives which focus on reconciliation. But there
is a danger that gender equality is reduced to the reconciliation debate and traditional
gender roles are even reinforced.
To avoid the reinforcement of gender roles and gender stereotypes, more attention
should be paid to the fact that gender equality addresses both, women and men.
Thus, initiatives promoting gender equality at the workplace must support programmes
of enterprises which involve both genders. This is mainly true for measures supporting
the reconciliation of work and family life. Further participation of men in childcare and
household will on the one hand give women a real choice on how to combine work and
family life and on the other hand entail the breaking of gender stereotypes. The
participation of men is also crucial e. g. to tackle the vertical segregation. Managers –
mainly men – have to be convinced about the advantages of women in managerial
boards or male co-workers have to accept a female boss.
As non-legislative initiatives for companies have no end in themselves but want to
promote and increase the level of gender equality in a broad sense the design of these
initiatives must be adaptable to the changing social environment and the progress
gender equality registers. This continuous development is crucial for both the thematic
focus of the initiative in general and the concrete design with a view to requirements,
assessment criteria, and target groups (groups of enterprises and employees) etc.. An
adjustable initiative will also be easier transferable from one country to another.