Women's leadership: the challenge of gender mainstreaming

First of all, a word of introduction regarding my own political background and method. I have never been a feminist, and by this I mean that I have never been a member of the feminist movement, but this has not stopped me fighting frequently and with great conviction in favour of people of the female sex subjected to any form of discrimination. In doing so I have been guided by two things: the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man (whose full and universal application is still a distant goal), and simple common sense. The testimony I bring today is the result of the application of this approach, both in the course of my political activity in a party which defines itself as "transnational", and during my term as the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid (as well as for Fisheries and Consumer Policy).

I should point out straight away that all the "women's issues", large or small", that I have fought for have seemed to me first of all a question of the violation of established human rights. Or sometimes even a question of crimes against humanity, like the system of apartheid imposed on Afghan women by the illegal regime of the Talibaans; or the mass rapes in the former Yugoslavia. Or other similar horrors. This is why I believe that the sacrosanct battle of women for equality and emancipation should be able to count not only on women, but on everyone who fights for the respect of human rights, and on everyone blessed with common sense. For no society, whether it be advanced or backward, can hope to develop in an effective, harmonious way if it fails to use all the energies and creativity of half the population. Consider the extreme case of Afghanistan: is it not a sign of extreme irresponsibility (and not simply of male prevarication) on the part of the Kabul regime to hope to overcome the profound backwar

dness of the country while denying the female population the right to study and work?

Experience has taught me that to change things it is not enough to draw up and promulgate revolutionary international treaties. The treaties and conventions must be turned into concrete breakthroughs, and these breakthroughs must be defended - when necessary - day by day, stubbornly, against the temptation to turn back, which is also part of human nature. And as far as the violation of the rights of women is concerned, this is where the specific role of the female world emerges. It is often observed, in this respect, that women get angry more easily than men about the injustices in the world. We know why: because it is women more often than men who have to suffer these injustices.

I say this with full knowledge of the facts. Anyone who knows the reality of the great humanitarian crises of our time, in fact, knows that to speak of a "female side" of humanitarian action is not merely feminist rhetoric.

Women share with children the privilege - if this is how we choose to view it - of surviving contemporary wars in larger numbers than men, wars that are increasingly ruthless and in which the civilian population has become a deliberate target. In which to survive it is necessary first to live through the atrocities of the conflict and then, immediately afterwards, to face up to the consequences.

Among the survivors of man-made catastrophes there are now around 50 million people - including refugees and evacuees - 80% of whom, according to the UNHCR, are women and children. Statistics also tell us that in countries devastated by civil wars, the demographic imbalance between the two sexes brought about by fighting and massacres is such that the majority of families are headed by women.

The very women who have already suffered terrible atrocities directed specifically at the female sex.

Rape used as an instrument of ethnic cleansing, or simply just as a form of torture meant to subjugate and humiliate the body of the adversary, to destroy mental balance, is in fact a specifically female issue. I will always conserve the memory, as one of the most moving moments of my life, of my meeting in Tuzla in July 1996 - accompanied by Queen Noor - with the silent grief of the Bosnian women who had survived the massacre in Srebenica, in which they had lost their fathers, husbands and sons.

The victims of anti-personnel mines, the symbol of the barbaric practices of the battlefield, are also mainly women.

And women, usually responsible for making sure their families get enough food, are also the first and the main victims of starvation used as a weapon to break down the resistance of the civilian population.

We must not forget, however, that the very woman who appear so vulnerable in times of war can become the driving force behind reconstruction and rehabilitation:

due to the fact that they are more able than men to adapt to the new social and economic roles imposed by post-war circumstances;

because, being more inclined to peace than to war, they are more able than men to overcome the ethnic, linguistic or religious frontiers that are the cause and the effect of conflicts. And this happens for very practical reasons: to continue to work the land, to ensure access to markets and to primary goods, and to save "mixed" marriages and families.

There are other, age-old obstacles, that even war is unable to remove. The subordinate role of women is so deeply-rooted in the majority of contemporary societies that it is even found in the refugee camps, despite the fact that in them whole communities are endangered. With my own eyes I have seen the hierarchy of the sexes survive disaster and return as a sort of "hierarchy of despair".

It hardly needs to be pointed out that if the tendency to deprive women of power is unreasonable in "stable" societies (where women constitute half the available resources), then it is nothing less than aberrant in situations where women form the majority and the community has to start out from scratch.

Europe itself is characterised by a wide variety of situations. In Northern Europe, especially in Scandinavia, parity between the sexes in politics and in society has long been established. This is the model towards which the whole of Europe is moving, but it is a change, a cultural and social change, which in many countries (including my own) will take a few more decades, a few more generations. And it cannot be accelerated by dint of laws and decrees. I am thinking, for example, of the very "progressive" Italian law which, by offering working fathers the same rights as working mothers, releases women - in theory - from the obligation to look after new-born children. This is all very well. It is a pity, however, that the tiny proportion of Italian couples who take advantage of this law makes us doubt the real desire of Italian women today to change their role in society. It would be stupid to deny it. It is on the basis of the same principle that the Indian Nobel Prize Winner Amartya Sen warns us that to sa

ve a woman from daily violence and injustice it is more useful to provide her with education and work, rather than with a law that punishes violence severely but is not applied.

On the whole, I believe that in Europe we have entered a historical phase in which it is possible to judge women who hold positions of power on the basis of what they do and how they do it, independently of the fact that they are women. One example will suffice: the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her long stay in power. What characterised the "Thatcher era" most? Her sex or the powerful legacy of her economic and social policies?

The same could be said of the diplomatic career of Madeleine Albright.

Women in power are judged individually on their merits. Because the truth is that to be better it is not enough to be women. Just as it is not enough to be men. The only difference is that men have always thought it is enough, and many of them continue to think so.

The worst thing that can happen to a woman when she enters the halls of power - and unfortunately it does happen - is to assume male codes of conduct.

Having said this, is there a female way of exercising power? And in what does it consist? With all due caution - and bearing in mind the inevitable exceptions - I believe that every woman who enters public life brings with her a number of our recurrent characteristics:

like all neophytes, we perform the tasks that have been assigned to us with greater enthusiasm and determination than men;

for this reason the level of cynicism, generally very high among men in public life, is much lower among women;

since we seem to be blessed with greater common sense, we usually use a simpler and more comprehensible language than that which often characterises the rhetoric of male leaders;

finally, we women are usually extraneous to the cult of abuse and violence, to what we might call the "need for violence" present in a wide range of male types, from warlords to single hooligans and common criminals.

The most striking example of this difference comes from an unfortunate country and from a woman who I respect and admire enormously; a woman who is the very symbol - I believe - of the great dignity with which non-violence opposes the obtuse face of absolute power founded on violence. I am referring to Myanmar and of Aung San Suu Kyi. I am referring to a dictatorship incarnated by men in uniforms and challenged every day - in the name of reason and of human dignity - by a woman of fragile appearance but iron will.

I come from a political family which considers the respect of rules and principles as a taboo. A family which, under the slogan There is no peace without justice, launched the campaign for the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court responsible for trying war crimes and all crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law. A family which considers the right to life of every human being as inviolable, and which consequently continues to campaign within the United Nations for the abolition of the death penalty, and to fight to force those governments that still believe in the usefulness of capital punishment and in the right of the State to deal out death to accept a universal moratorium on executions.

No-one knows better than we women that the values and principles that inspired the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man - freely signed by all the legitimate governments that sit in the United Nations - are universal principles and values with which very inhabitant of our planet can identify. Principles and values that no so-called "cultural relativism" can allow us to forget, let alone to violate.

I am not so naive as to be unaware that the international community and its highest expression, the United Nations, is nothing other than a reflection of the will of the individual states that make up this community. What is needed, however, is for someone, somewhere, to state a very simple truth: that if a national or international authority tolerates the violation of established rules on a couple of occasions, it must be prepared to endure, sooner or later, the systematic violation of those rules.

Principles, values and international law are at the heart of the debate launched by Kofi Annan in September last year, on the relations between collective (UN) "ingerence" and national sovereignty. These notions ought not to be seen as mutually exclusive. Governments of the day can no longer use sovereignty as a shelter behind which massive and intolerable crimes can be perpetrated.

Yet, the backlash registered in New York (in many quarters: China, Non Aligned, Africans), against the thought-provoking speech of Kofi Annan, tells us that this debate will stay with us for some time. And that leadership and careful handling will be needed from all our capitals, for the UN to be able to deal with the Kosovos and East-Timors of tomorrow as an actor, rather than witness, in crisis management.

Putting the values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law at the core of our international action as women is ultimately in our interest. Because if we succeed, there will be more reliable government-partners in the world, more secure investments, fewer accident-prone and unstable regions, fewer and fewer man-made crises and tragedies to deal with. If this is what some commentators now call "Idealpolitik", as opposed to the somewhat more cynical, interest-driven definition of "Realpolitik", then I am a staunch supporter of Idealpolitik. Because I believe it serves our interests in the longer term, and because it is the best way for governments to account for their actions to Parliaments and public opinion. It is, in short, the only way to conduct sustainable and defendable foreign policies in the coming years.