Quotes of the Day

Freya Van den Bossche is, by any defnition, a success. At 28, she is Belgium's Minister of Environment, Sustainable Development and Consumer Affairs — the youngest cabinet minister in the country's history, with a portfolio that includes food safety and protecting children online. She's smart, self-aware and, at almost any hour of the day, hard at work. So it's no surprise that she rolls her eyes at old-fashioned notions of sexism and government-mandated gender equality in politics and business. "If you simply choose the best people for the job every time, you'll eventually get parity," she says.

Yet Van den Bossche's success is due, at least in part, to quota laws enacted in Belgium in 1999. She won her first election in 2000, becoming an alderwoman in Ghent, without the help of legislation. But by the time she ran for national parliament as a Flemish Socialist (SP.A) candidate in 2003, the law required that both sexes be represented in the top three slots on every party list — so her name was placed in a vote-getting position no novice male would have enjoyed. And part of her popularity, it must be said, has to do with her bright blue eyes and throaty voice. Van den Bossche regularly pops up on "sexiest Belgians" lists. "Some people assume I'm here because of my looks or because of parity laws," she says. "My job is to prove them wrong. Maybe these factors have helped, but I hope that in four years, people will be talking about my policies."

The quotas that helped Van den Bossche get ahead may be an inelegant and controversial solution, but they have worked — the percentage of women in Belgium's lower house of parliament has risen from 23% in 1999 to 35% in 2003. And though some European countries lag shamefully — France, Italy and Greece have an average of just 10% women in parliament, trailing 13 developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa — across the European Union as a whole, women now hold 26% of elected seats versus 14% in the U.S. That comfortably fits Europe's sense of itself as a progressive, liberal place.

But that feminist self-image takes a beating when it comes to women's participation in business and management. Women make up barely one-third of all senior managers, public officials and civil servants in most European Union countries, compared to nearly half in the U.S. The business magazines love to profile rock-star female CEOs — but they all seem to be American. That's why some European governments are trying to extend gender quotas to company boardrooms — something business leaders are fighting hard. And the legislative attempts to stamp out gender inequality don't stop there. One European Commissioner has put forward a stunning initiative to limit sexist imagery in the media and remove gender from insurance calculations. But the remaining barriers to equality may not be so easily brought down.

Being a successful career woman in Europe today — like everywhere else on the planet — is fraught with difficulties, and some think the challenges lead many women simply to opt out. Some women deliberately choose 40-hour weeks over 80-hour weeks. They set their own ceilings by taking time off to raise children or going part time. As a single mother, Van den Bossche wakes before 6 a.m. to read reports and write e-mails, so she can have breakfast with her 4-year-old daughter and then take her to school. She gets nasty looks from colleagues when she declines evening meetings. But not even Van den Bossche is sure full gender parity is achievable. "Maybe we shouldn't shoot for a situation where 50% of CEOs are women," she says. "Many women are happy to stay at home or have a comfortable, normal job." Lurking behind her observation is a question: Is this a battle the state should — still — be waging? And can any legal maneuvering make a difference to the way women are treated in politics, business and the media?

Politics: The Trouble with Quotas
In France, gender quotas for political parties have been in place since 2000. Most elections are based on proportional representation, so party lists must include an equal number of female and male candidates. But after the 2002 National Assembly elections, women held only 12.3% of seats — a mere 1.4% increase over the 1997 elections. The largest political parties chose to accept fines rather than fill half their lists with women. And some French women say they understand why. Equality "shouldn't be imposed, it should be logical," says Marguerite Capelle, a student at the élite Paris university, Institute of Political Studies. "The law is not going to change the minds of people."

But others say a polite shove is sometimes needed. They insist that France's largest parties failed to meet the quota requirements because powerful men didn't want to relinquish their positions to women. "There is still a lot of machismo," says Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist Party (PS) member who is also deputy mayor of Paris and a city councilwoman.

Even the left-leaning PS, which introduced the parity law in the first place, supplied an electoral list composed of only 36% women. Hidalgo says that there were ample female candidates available at the time but that the party leadership wouldn't place them on the list. "We're still fighting an old-school mentality," says Annick Lepetit, a deputy in the National Assembly.

In some of the places where women have been most successful in politics — in Sweden, for example — they have achieved more access through voluntary quotas. But even that strategy can prove superficial. In the 1980s, several parties in Denmark, including the Social Democratic Party (SD), embraced 40% quotas. Then, in 1996, thinking equality had been achieved, they abandoned the requirement. "The young women in the party felt they didn't need such rules," says Drude Dahlerup, a Danish professor of political science at Stockholm University. But in the next election for the European Parliament, all four Social Democrat front-runners were men. It was an embarrassment — so Ritt Bjerregaard, Denmark's European Commissioner, campaigned for a lower-placed woman who went on to win a seat.

Quotas, as the most reliable way to boost female representation, will probably take hold in other E.U. countries. But it isn't clear that they can equalize themselves out of existence. And if statistical equality is hard to achieve in politics — where most people agree ruling bodies should reflect populations — it will be rougher still in the private sector.

Business: Boardroom Blues
The business world — where real power increasingly lies — is resolutely male in every European country. Disparities plague the reports of average earnings and the lists of most-powerful people. Only 3% of the top FTSE companies in the U.K. have female executive directors. Even in Sweden, where women make up 45% of parliament, half of all private companies still have all-male boards, and only 2% of CEOs are women. In Norway, 65% of the largest 600 companies have not a single woman on their boards and the chief administrators of all but the smallest law firms are all men, as are 98% of private board chairmen in sizeable companies. "The figures are lousy," says Grete Faremo, executive vice president of Storebrand ASA, a large financial-services company in Norway. "It's not easy to understand." Nor is it easy to accept for many politicians. Both Norway and Sweden are pressuring companies to fill their boards with 40% women, and the threat may crystalize into law next month in Norway.

Last year, Norway's coalition government threatened to require companies to make their boards 40% female if they did not do it voluntarily. A year later, the percentage of women on boards had only increased 2.2%, to 8.5%. In June, Ansgar Gabrielsen, Minister of Trade and Industry, and Laila Daavoey, Minister of Children and Family Affairs, decided to make good on the threat by introducing legislation specifying that if Norway's 600 biggest companies do not voluntarily achieve the 40% level by Aug. 15, 2005, the government can mandate it without further parliamentary action. Companies in violation after a grace period would lose the state certification they need to operate. "Otherwise, it will take another hundred years," says Daavoey. Parliament is expected to pass the bill after returning from vacation on Oct. 1. Last November, Swedish companies received a similar dare from Minister for Gender Equality Margareta Winberg, who vowed to require 25% boardroom quotas. Within a year, the proportion of female board members had nearly doubled, to 11%.

"We think it's wrong on principle," says Per Kveim, CEO of Software Innovation ASA, a Norwegian firm with $70 million in annual revenues. "The authorities can't be controlling who sits on the board. It's the owners who have to decide, and they have more important criteria than gender." Fair enough. But the government has long intervened in corporate decisions in Norway. And there is evidence that women can increase a company's value. Theresa M. Welbourne at the University of Michigan Business School studied stock value and earnings growth following initial public offerings in the U.S. and found that IPOs were significantly more successful when the companies involved had senior female executives. "Having women in the top management team results in higher earnings and greater shareholder wealth," she concluded. So why, in egalitarian havens like Norway and Sweden, haven't more women risen to positions of power in business? Could part of the explanation be that they don't want to?

In the U.S., women tend to climb higher in corporations than their European counterparts. And that discrepancy starts early — at London Business School, 37% of American applicants are women versus only 22% of British applicants and 18% of French. That may be for the simple reason that business is much more lucrative in the U.S., says Trond Petersen, a Norwegian professor of sociology at the University of California in Berkeley who has written extensively on gender equality in the U.S. and Europe. High-powered jobs in both the U.S. and Europe demand long hours, but they pay less in Europe, so the calculation between family and work tilts toward family in Europe, Petersen believes. Others say men are simply better at self-promotion. "Men push themselves forward," says Frank de Grave, a leader of the liberal VVD party in the Netherlands. "Women have to be asked."

"Blaming" the women is controversial, of course. But Petersen is quick to point out that career choices are steeped in cultural expectations, educational norms and other complicated realities. Women are still far more likely to take time off to raise children or work part time — both of which tend to reduce chances for promotion. And in parts of Europe, traditional roles may be inadvertently perpetuated by generous family-leave policies. "Family-friendly policies can sideline people," says Ilene Lang, president of Catalyst, a U.S.-based nonprofit that advances women in business. "For many years, people here said the barriers for women were that we didn't have the family-leave policies they have in Europe. But if you look at which barriers women now cite, it's more about stereotyping, a lack of experience, a lack of access."

Anne Wilkinson, 48, knew her career as a European Commission lawyer was on "skid row" when she decided to work part time in 1992 so she could take care of her four children. "There is an unwritten rule at the Commission that you simply do not get promoted if you work part time," she says. After taking a leave of absence in 1995, and returning to full-time work in 2002, she quit last month. She felt she was wasting her time. "I don't know many women who think it's an achievement to sit in an office and fly around the world for 80 hours a week," she says. "I think most women regard it as imbecilic." She says she has found a truer sense of achievement in raising her children: "That's where you have real power and influence over the future. "

Social forces and personal choices have, for many women, become more powerful than the groping boss. "If you don't pick up your children from school, people wonder what's wrong with you," says Mariana Burenstam Linder, a mother and a member of three company boards. "I know many women who feel it's just too high a price to pay." That pressure has not changed with the rules of hiring — nor has the pressure on men to be breadwinners. "I don't think men enjoy not seeing their friends and family any more than women do," says Charlotte Semler, an Oxford graduate who worked for an investment bank in London before starting a lingerie business in 2000. "But I think there is a larger subset of men willing to make the sacrifice than there are women." A 2000 study of engineers in Britain and Sweden by Val Singh at the Cranfield School of Management showed that most women at the top had spouses who were retired or working at home. Of course, these insidious problems can be seen as a victory of sorts. After all, there are many parts of Europe where they would be considered a luxury — where the leering, lurching boss is alive and well. The question is whether nuanced expectations and norms will prove any less tenacious.

Media: Managing the Subconscious
If these ingrained norms are to be changed by legislative fiat, quotas are not going to do it. Laws that delve into the core of gender inequities are messy, invasive, ill-defined and hard to enforce — not unlike the recent European Commission proposal to outlaw sexist stereotypes in the media and remove gender from insurance-premium calculations. By trying to regulate media, the E.U. isn't just courting censorship; it's confronting deep-seated national attitudes that are still enshrined in local law. In Italy, for example, the regional government of Campania recently decided to use European funds to finance a course to train veline, the half-naked dancing girls who adorn Italian quiz shows. The E.U. wants to bury that sort of thing once and for all.

In 2001, Anna Diamantopoulou, the gutsy if tone-deaf Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, started crafting a plan to fight "discrimination of all types," as called for by the 1999 Amsterdam treaty. "The idea of our discussion was to say, initially, 'How far can we go with this?'" says Barbara Helfferich, a cabinet member at the European Commission who led the drafting of the proposal. They seized upon insurance premiums as a realm where they might legally be able to act. "We started questioning the whole system," she says. "Should the fact that you have an X or a Y chromosome be the best criteria for how much insurance you pay? We don't think so." Never mind that insurance relies fundamentally on the statistics of risk — and the extra X chromosome that women have correlates with fewer car accidents and a longer life. Language was added calling for an end to insurance premiums priced by gender.

To insurers, it's fair to charge men and women different premiums because, statistically, they run different risks. So actuaries were baffled by the leaked draft of the directive. "It's fairly ridiculous," says Ian Maidens, a principal at the London office of Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, a worldwide actuarial and consulting firm. One of Diamantopoulou's arguments is that people can't help what sex they are — so it would be unfair to penalize them for it. But by this logic, it would also be unfair to charge the elderly higher premiums since people can't prevent themselves from getting old. If insurers were not allowed to take gender and other differences into account, everybody would end up being discriminated against — by paying higher premiums.

The draft's attack on the media also sparked panic. It targeted no less than "all stereotypical portrayals of women and men as well as any projection of unacceptable images of men and women affecting human dignity and decency in advertisements." The proposals were meant to awaken a dormant public consciousness of sexism by targeting degrading images. Diamantopoulou sees this as a natural role for the E.U. "The way that the media makes use of women's bodies is a real political problem," she says.

When someone leaked the 26-page document to the Financial Times in June, "all hell broke loose," says Helfferich. Lobbyists and other E.U. officials called the proposal "lunatic" and "preposterous." If that wasn't alarming enough, Britain's tabloid the Sun warned, "Saucy bra adverts face ban under the latest nonsense from Brussels." And, tidily demonstrating that old-school patriarchy is still alive and well, the tabs turned Diamantopoulou, 42, into a pinup girl. The Daily Mail ran a digitally altered collage of Diamantopoulou in a bikini.

Was Diamantopoulou's stance a study in political ineptitude or a brilliant tactic to shift the debate to the left and then pass something less frightening? People who know her say she is no fool. Certainly, to rise out of Greek politics with such idealism intact demands a certain stamina. And Diamantopoulou is now making the rounds with insurance and media lobbyists to try to clean up the draft. "We will examine business, political and legislative practices all over Europe to determine areas where there is discrimination, and where something has to be done," she said last week in testimony before the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities. This included the insurance industry, she said, but she admitted that "we have no legal basis to act on stereotypes in the media." Diamantopoulou will make a final decision next week on whether to propose a formal directive. Until then, she urges patience. "We don't know yet what the exact wording will be," she says. "But we do know that men and women should be treated the same way in society." She may know that, but the rest of the E.U. is not so sure. In Norway, even lad-magazine editor Svein Hildonen supports boardroom quotas; in Italy, it was only this summer that a court finally struck down the right of men to slap women's bottoms.

Politicians have been writing laws to combat sexism for nearly a century, never without controversy. But now that the more obvious injustices have been ameliorated, and Europe is trying to operate in concert, the task may have gotten even harder. However differently men and women are treated, in insurance or in the media or at work, many Europeans seem far too fond of those differences to give them up without a brutal fight. Diamantopoulou has a long road ahead, strewn, inevitably, with bikini collages.

With reporting by Abi Daruvalla / Amsterdam, Helen Gibson and Elinor Shields / London, Walter Gibbs / Oslo, Emily Brady and Alexandra Hartman / Paris, John Miller / Brussels, Mimi Murphy / Rome, Ulla Plon / Copenhagen, Charles P. Wallace / Stockholm and Regine Wosnitza / Berlin

• AMANDA RIPLEY
• Gender equality's final frontier: The all-male boardroom