A new website has been launched with an online petition, calling for at least one woman to be nominated for one of the top four EU positions up for grabs in 2009 - Commission President, European Council President, High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, and President of the European Parliament (not sure why the latter is in there – it doesn’t have the standing of the others). This line argued for previously by Margot Wallström, while this campaign is run by Danish Social Democrat MEP Christel Schaldemose. The website for the campaign is rudimentary at the moment, but they claim to have more than 700 signatures already.
I’m female and I’m not sure whether I care enough to sign the petition. I’d rather have someone doing a good job. The gender doesn’t matter, as long as good people can grab some top jobs no matter what their gender is.
I agree that the best candidate should get the job. But I feel that is not incompatible with the idea that there should be at least woman in one of the top EU posts (whatever they are in the aftermath of Lisbon) and find it hard to believe that not one woman in a population the size of the EU would be considered suitable by the (predominantly) men that decide.
Of course the truism is that women need not just to be as good as the best men but better. And there’s a relatively small pool of top political women across the Member States who’d be willing to sacrifice their hard-fought career in national politics…
Perhaps the EP President option would be the most straight forward to start off with, just a case of balancing the political groups and getting beyond buggins’ turn rather than getting 27 Member States cooperating?
By the way, there’s also a facebook group for the females in front campaign. Rather like this site I’m never sure whether joining the facebook group equals signing the petition or whether visiting both is necessary.