CHAPTER THIRTEEN. COUNCIL OF EUROPE.

Returning home after the PrepCom, some of the profamily NGOs and delegates had an opportunity to read through the stacks of material they had picked up off the tables around the meeting rooms. Among these was a report from a conference organized by the Council of Europe. This report, entitled "Equality and Democracy: Utopia or Challenge?", shows the link between feminist theory and government programs.

The Council of Europe, which promotes discussions of social and cultural issues among European nations, organized a high-level meeting in the Palais de I'Europe in Strasbourg, 911 February 1995, as part of the preparatory process for the Beijing conference. About 250 people attended the meeting, including representatives of the member states of the Council of Europe, other European states, representatives of international governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and experts. The prime minister of Slovenia, Janez Drnovsek, and the deputy prime minister of Sweden, Mona Sahlin, cochaired the conference. The president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, gave the keynote address. The president of Iceland, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, presented the final conclusions.

The thirty-nine-page report published in English and French provides an important link between feminist theory and the Gender Agenda of the Beijing platform. Some of the sections of the Beijing platform are open to multiple interpretations, but the Council of Europe report reveals the thinking c those who support the gender perspective and their ultimate goals. The Council of Europe report also reveals that the promoters of Gender Agenda have considerable power and influence, and intend to use it.

In her speech at the conclusion of the meeting, President Finnbogadottir emphasized the importance of "mainstreaming a gender perspective":

If we are genuinely convinced of the need to deepen democracy in a structural way, multi-faceted strategies are required so as to cast aside dominant patterns which tend to confine women and men to stereotyped roles in society and we must mainstream a gender perspective in policy-making. [Council of Europe, "Equality and Democracy: Utopia or Challenge?" (Palais de I'Europe, Strasbourg, February 1995), p. 35]

QUOTAS OR PARITY

In her speech, President Finnbogadottir admits that the goal of the woman's movement has changed from de jure equality (legal equality), which she admits has been largely achieved to de facto equality (statistical equality). In the report it is clear that the participants in Strasbourg clearly understand the obstacles to de facto equality and the measures needed to assure that men and woman participate in equal numbers in the various activities of society.

The participants in Strasbourg take it for granted that parity democracy (fifty/fifty, male/female representation) is the goal. The following quote, printed as it appears in the original, is the conclusion of the chapter on the "Equal Participation of Individuals and Groups: The Challenge of Parity Democracy" [Council of Europe, p. 9]:

In conclusion, many delegations agreed on:

the fact that many women suffer serious inequality where the right to participate in democracy is concerned;

the need to abolish the obstacles which hinder a priori such participation (namely, cultural and religious conditioning, social and economic dependence, segregated education, and training which fails to meet the needs of women);

the adoption, as a means for the active pursuit of equality and towards achieving more representative democracy for all citizens-both men and women-of:

either quotas

or parity.

The report offers various explanations for why equality of opportunity has not resulted in statistical equality:

The group reviewed the various factors explaining the low level of female participation in public life. Among these, particular stress was laid on the issue of maternity (freedom of choice and child care) and differences in the social conditioning of women. [Council of Europe, p. 10]

According to this view, women are forced into motherhood because they don't have access to abortion and child care and because they have been brainwashed into wanting to be mothers. Freedom from motherhood becomes a necessary condition for women's equality. The report takes it for granted that women should choose to run for political office rather than to be mothers. The participants in Strasbourg want to be sure that the next generation of women will be properly conditioned: "Education is an important strategy to change the gender bias in the process of socialisation of boys and girls. Stress was laid on the use of textbooks without the stereotype images of women's and men's traditional roles" [Council of Europe, p. 23].

The stereotypical images referred to are images of women as wives and mothers: "It is high time to make it clear that gender stereotypes are outdated: men are no longer only macho bread-winners and women not only wives and mothers. The negative psychological influence of showing stereotypes of women should not be underestimated" [Council of Europe, p. 26].

The participants in the discussions in Strasbourg appear afraid that merely seeing pictures of women as happy wives and mothers could tempt women and girls away from political aspirations. The work of the home is viewed as a burden from which women must be freed so they can achieve parity in political and public life.

"Women must be relieved of the burden of having two jobs, which can adversely affect their career prospects, disrupt their private and family life and prevents them from taking part in political and public life" [Council of Europe, p. 38].

There are no references to women who would prefer to be relieved of the burden of work outside the home, so that they could devote their energies to the care of their families.

In the countries in question all women have the legal and equal right with men to participate in the political process-the right to vote, to participate in political parties, to run for office, to lobby. The "inequalities" targeted are not inequalities in the right to participate, but inequalities in the rate of participation. Although the participants in Strasbourg do not admit it, what is really targeted here is women's choices-the choice to be mothers, the choice not to run for office, the choice to vote for men rather than women. "Quotas or parity" is the means by which the advocates of the gender perspective overrule the decisions of women.

FUNDAMENTALS

The Council report makes it clear that equality, defined as parity, is the standard by which everything else must be evaluated: "The advancement of the equality of women and the full enjoyment by women of their human rights is a fundamental legal and moral obligation of the Council of Europe and the international community" [Council of Europe, p. 16].

The participants in Strasbourg recognized that a strategy to achieve their version of equality requires "measures designed to change attitudes" [Council of Europe, p. 11]. And, they targeted culture, tradition, customary practices, and particularly, religion, as the sources of resistance: "The rise of all forms of religious fundamentalism was seen as posing a particular threat to the enjoyment by women of their human rights and to the full participation of women in decision-making at all levels of society" [Council of Europe, p. 13).

One of the problems with dealing with this kind of attack on religion is that religion is lumped with culture and cultural norms. For the secularist all three are human creations and therefore accountable to civil society. There are, of course, real abuses of the equality, rights and dignity of women which have been justified by appeals to culture, to tradition, and even to religion, but freedom of religion is also an important value that must be protected. The report calls for governments to interfere with the interpretation of religion: "[G]overnments, religious institutions, and all sectors of society should recognise the legitimate claims of women to have a significant role in the definition and interpretation of religious, cultural and customary norms and should take active steps to encourage women's involvement in these processes" [Council of Europe, p. 18].

In other words, doctrines considered by believers to be God's revealed truth are to be judged and accepted as legitimate only if they promote statistically equal participation. Furthermore, the report calls for the Council of Europe to investigate religion: "The Council of Europe should initiate comparative studies into the influences that different cultures, religions and traditions play in enhancing and impeding the full realisation of women's human rights within the member States of the Council of Europe" [Council of Europe, p. 18].

Freedom of religion would, as a result of these policies, be subordinated to the demand for statistical equality.

SEXUAL AGENDA

The reason for the attack on religion is not hard to discover. At the Cairo conference on population, Catholic and Moslem delegates blocked attempts to create new sexual and reproductive rights. Since achieving consensus in this area appears unlikely, the participants reject the consensus system: "While consensus may be a desirable method of proceeding in many circumstances, it was felt that the pursuit of consensus at any cost was potentially dangerous for the full realisation of women's human rights" [Council of Europe, p. 14].

The participants in Strasbourg wanted ,the expansion of human rights to include the right to abortion, sexual activity outside marriage, adolescent sexuality, and lesbianism:

The right to free choice in matters of reproduction and lifestyle was considered a fundamental right for women. The enjoyment of sexual and reproductive rights is a prerequisite for women to have genuine selfdetermination ....

The voices of young women should be heard since sexual life is not solely attached to married life. This leads to the point of the right to be different, whether in terms of lifestyle-the choice to live in a family or to live alone, with or without children-or sexual preferences. The reproductive rights of lesbian women should be recognised. [Council of Europe, p. 25]

The "reproductive rights of lesbian women" would include the right to adopt children and to utilize sperm banks and other forms of reproductive technologies, including surrogate mothering.

The report blames male control of religion for the failure to achieve "free choice in reproduction": "It is overwhelmingly men who control the process of interpreting and defining the relevant religious, cultural or traditional practices, and as a consequence these norms are defined in patriarchal ways which limit women's human rights, especially in asserting control over women's sexuality and in confining women in roles that reinforce and perpetuate their subordination" [Council of Europe, p. 15].

While this analysis reflects feminist thinking on religion, it ignores the facts. Christian, Jewish, and Moslem teaching condemns all sexual activity outside of marriage-men's as well as women's-and, following the logic of the report, this would limit men's "human rights" as much as it would women's. The traditional religious teachings on marriage, if followed, protect women from sexual exploitation and single parenthood.

The concerns of the delegates to the PrepCom that "gender perspective" concealed advocacy for homosexuality were well founded. What they failed to recognize was that promotion of the gender perspective is invariably accompanied by an unrelenting attack on traditional religions.

Since the participants at the Council of Europe meeting included representatives from the governments in the European Union, the report provided a clear indication of what could be expected from the EU during the Beijing conference.