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	Feminist struggle changed society in the Nordic region by Ida Mawe Nordic Information on Gender Sweden   Trump in the White House and growing right-wing populism in Europe. It is easy to feel frustrated with the situation in the world. However, it is important to remember the feminist advances that have been made and the multifaceted struggle that is underway around the globe. Today Nordic Information on Gender talks about reforms that have been critical to women’s economic independence and that may never have seen the light of day without feminist resistance and Nordic cooperation.   Which reforms in Nordic gender equality history have had the greatest effect on gender equality? According to Kirsti Niskanen, professor in history at Stockholm University, the issue of women’s economic independence runs as a common thread through the entire 20th century.   ‘The liberation in the family sphere has been a gradual process. Throughout history, women’s economic independence have been tied to the home and household in a completely different way than men’s.’   Kirsti Niskanen says that these issues, to be able to earn an income and create a life for themselves, are essential components of the feminist struggle. Today we are witnessing how other rights, such as the right to abortion, are under attack.   ‘But to be able to choose whether you want to have children or not, economic independence is of central importance. The same is true for violence in intimate relationships. It is difficult to leave a destructive relationship if you can’t make enough money,’ she says.   Still to this day, women have a weaker position in the labour market than men do. According to Kirsti Niskanen, the parental insurance has been a step in the right direction, as it has enabled women to take a job outside the home. At present, the right to paternal leave differs across the Nordic countries. But they have one thing in common: Men continue to stay home with young children much less than women.   ‘The unequal use of the parental insurance affects the position of women in the labour market, their wages and lifelong income. So I believe individualised parental insurance and the right to full-time work are important issues for today’s feminist movement.’   The society we live in today is a result of legislative changes, which in turn are the results of an intense struggle. The women’s movements in the different countries have sometimes joined forces, collaborating across national borders and gaining inspiration from each other.   A first key reform was the new marriage law that Sweden adopted in 1920, Norway in 1927, Denmark in 1925 and Finland and Iceland in 1929. In Sweden, the new legislation removed men’s guardianship of their wives and gave women full rights to their own property. This issue, in combination with women’s suffrage, which was introduced in the Nordic region 1906–1921, was one of the most important to the women’s movement.   ‘The vulnerability of married women was a hot topic throughout the late 19th century in Europe. Prior to the reform, married women could own property in Sweden, for example real estate and land, but only the husband was allowed to sell it,’ says Kirsti Niskanen.   Because of previous laws in Norway and Denmark, the new marriage law did not imply the same dramatic change in these countries as it did in Sweden. For example, Danish women had been able to own whatever property they brought into their marriages since 1899. Nevertheless, the last fragments of men’s legal advantage in the family sphere disappeared with the new legislation also in these countries.   ‘In Norway, the new law provided that family finances should be managed jointly by the two spouses,’ says Hilde Sandvik, history researcher at the University of Oslo.   The issue engaged the women’s movements across the Nordic borders.   ‘At the political level, a special Scandinavian family law commission was established. In 1915, female representatives from Norway, Denmark and Sweden were appointed to the commission, and their inquiry paved the way for the new legislation,’ says Bente Rosenbeck, professor at the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen.   In 1939, Sweden adopted another law of key importance. It prohibited employers from firing women on the grounds of engagement or marriage. Until then, it was common that women were forced to quit a job when they got married.   Back then, many people thought that married women should not be working outside the home, since there was a risk they would push men out of the labour market. In Norway, which was in the midst of a recession, the Confederation of Trade Unions argued that married women should stay out of the men’s way in the labour market.   ‘There weren’t many jobs, so it was a commonly held belief that only one person in the family should work. Consequently, married women stayed home,’ says Hilde Sandvik.   In Sweden, a commission was formed and asked to look closer at the position of women in the labour market. Karin Kock, Sweden’s first female professor of economics, carried out the first study of the gender distribution in the Swedish labour market. The commission found that women did not compete with men at all.   Instead, they found that the Swedish labour market was highly segregated – men and women worked in different sectors. And if women had similar jobs as men, they had lower valued tasks and wages.   ‘The results led to a change in direction, and Sweden became the first European country to prohibit employers from firing women on the grounds of engagement or marriage. This was a very important reform that had a tremendous effect on married women’s opportunities to participate in the labour market,’ says Kirsti Niskanen.   Debate on joint and individual taxation   The taxation issue was the next big challenge for the Nordic women’s movement. At the time, spouses paid taxes on their combined income, so-called joint taxation. This could make the tax liability so high it was hardly worth it for married women to work. Moreover, if both spouses worked outside the home, they often had to pay for childcare and a maid. Individual taxation changed this, there were no longer any financial argument for the old model of family providing.   ‘There was an intense debate on joint and individual taxes in the 1960s. The housewives’ association and a successful action group called “Rädda familjen” fought for joint taxation, just as parts of the national Social Democratic women’s group,’ says Kirsti Niskanen.   ´The individual taxation meant a change of system. It put an end to the house wife era. Women’s professional work became a rational choice, both from the family’s and the woman’s point of view, she continues.   The issue received attention in Denmark and Norway as well. In Norway, spouses gained the right to individual taxation in 1959. In Sweden and Denmark, laws regarding individual taxation were adopted in 1971. ‘As a result, married women’s finances were no longer tied to those of their husbands,’ says Bente Rosenbeck.   Since the issue was discussed across the Nordic region, each country could refer to what was going on in the other countries when making their points. This increased the opportunities to push for changes that in turn helped increase the gender equality.   http://www.nikk.no/en/latest/news/ Visit the related web page
	For women journalists in Southeast Asia, harassment is a persistent impediment by Brian Hanley Internews Regional Director for Asia Programs   Filipina journalist Maria Ressa was wrapping up a day’s reporting early this year when she opened Facebook and saw the chilling post:   “I want Maria Ressa to be raped repeatedly to death, I would be so happy if that happens when martial law is declared, it would bring joy to my heart.”   For Ressa, a former CNN war correspondent who has been the target of a vicious campaign of online harassment since President Rodrigo Duterte began consolidating power in 2016, the threat was nothing new. After a series of stories the Manila-based journalist wrote about government corruption on Rappler, the online news site she heads, Nessa said she was getting as many as 90 hate messages an hour, most specifically targeting her as a woman.   What was new was what happened next. Marshalling her talents as an online journalist, Ressa was able to track down the threats. They were coming from a 22-year-old university student using a fake account to harass Ressa. The man was forced to call her and apologize, and he is facing disciplinary action by the university.   It was a rare victory for a woman reporter facing harassment. Across the world, powerful cultural stigmas and a lack of faith that authorities will act upon complaints keep women journalists from reporting sexual intimidation and assault. While numerous international groups have reported individual instances of sexual assault directed against women journalists over the years, the sort of methodological research that quantifies other types of attacks against the press, such as murders and imprisonments, is non-existent when it comes to violence against women.   “It’s atrocious,” Ressa said. “It’s something I wouldn’t have thought possible, but this sort of open hatred of women, these threats, are climbing. Sexism and misogyny have escalated in the past year, and women journalists asking hard questions are targeted. The goal is to intimidate us. The goal is to stop us from asking hard questions. And yet women are afraid of reporting assaults. They fear being perceived as vulnerable or denied future assignments. And they fear, quite reasonably, not being taken seriously.”   While threats to women reporters in Southeast Asia are as difficult to quantify as anywhere else in the world, women working in the region say they seem to come from everywhere, grim and terrifying.   There is the groping at a press scrum, hands on your body so fast you cannot push away. There are the men spitting on you, calling you loose as you work to report a story on the streets. At a military base, you are singled out for harassment, jeers, sexual taunts while the male reporters around you do their work freely. Back in the newsroom, your own editor suggests you sleep with him - or face professional recrimination.   “It is an emerging problem, or awareness of it is emerging, and as more women get into the newsrooms the problem increases” said Eva Danayanti, Executive Director of the Alliance of Independent Journalists in Jakarta, Indonesia.   The reports like those above come into Danayanti from women journalists on a regular basis. But fearful of professional and personal reprisal, the women rarely use their names. In two instances within the past year, women journalists were physically harassed by military police, Danayanti said. In one instance, a woman reporter covering a governor’s race was threatened with rape by a politician’s supporters. And, Danayanti said, online threats against women journalists in Jakarta are common.   “Male journalists are harassed physically, but the whole thing takes on a terribly abusive, sexual aspect against women journalists,” Danayanti said. With local and gubernatorial elections slated for 2018, and the presidential election the next year, “we expect this to only increase.”   As sexual aggression against women in the region emerges as a persistent problem, and raises compelling press freedom and security concerns, Internews is seeking concrete means to ramp up awareness of the threats, empower women journalists in the field to combat them and minimize their incidence and impact.   Rowan Reid, project manager for Internews said women journalists face harassment in the countries he works in at every step in their reporting. They may be harassed by drivers, by security officials, by cameramen, sometimes by their own editors and colleagues, he said. They are sometimes groped by men around them while they are standing in a crowded press conference.   Online harassment of the sort Ressa experienced is pervasive, Rowan says. And sexual harassment of women investigative journalists is accepted behavior by authorities seeking to stop their questions.   “Definitely I think it impedes women’s ability to work in their environments,” Reid said. “The point is, this shouldn’t be standard. Our standard should be, if it’s not an issue affecting men, why should it be an issue affecting women?”   The two-year project for mid-level investigative journalists led by Reid is not, in its current form, a sufficient answer. It focuses on training for journalists across the board. It has no specific component - or funding - to empower women journalists to protect themselves from harassment, but Reid says the issue is persistent and merits much more support.   “No one is focusing on the specific security issues women face,” Reid said. “We want to do it at Internews, but we need more funding to really get it in the pipeline.”   Reid envisions a program that would convene a regional network of trainers to teach women reporters how to protect their digital profiles from trolls, and that would give them tools to protect themselves from physical harassment on the job.   “If you’re going to cover security issues specific to women you have to cover that with women and women only,” Reid said. “I wouldn’t even bother considering incorporating it into mixed gender training. You also want to cover some issues that are really quite sensitive. It needs to be a different approach, an approach that is really tailored to the sensitivities of each culture and each environment.”   “But in the end, this is a really frightening, frustrating issue. You can train as much as you want. But if men are going to continue to harass women, I’m not getting to the men. So you feel powerless to really stop it.” Visit the related web page
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