September 29, 2010 • 23 mins
Scandinavian countries are reportedly tops when it comes to gender equality. Why? In this episode, Molly and Cristen examine the factors that contribute to Scandinavia's woman-friendly reputation -- and whether they're a good measure of gender equality.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From house stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristin. Kristen. If
(00:20):
you could go anywhere in the world right now, whe
would you go? Oh? My god? And was prepared for this.
If I could go anywhere in the world right now,
I'd go back to bed. Oh, Kristen, you're so cool. Ever, well,
I'm taking you on a special trip today via our
podcast to Norway. Can we fly first class? It's the
(00:41):
best for you, Kristin, only the best. And once we
get to Norway and other um parts of Scandinavian, the
Nordic and the Nordic countries, we will be treated first
class all the time, because apparently that area of the
world is just the top of the line when it
comes to gender equality. Yeah, supposedly, Norway, Sweden, denmorek these
(01:03):
are just the havens for women right there. These indexes
that come out every year, these countries always topped the
list of countries that have achieved equality, who have closed
gender gaps, who have you know, women in powerful positions. Uh,
all these all these factors we're going to talk about
today because you see these stories pretty often. Now, like
(01:26):
you want gender equality, you go to Norway, you go
to Sweden, and we want to know why is Scandinavia
so frequently cited as one of the best places for women? Right? Because,
for instance, the World Economic Forum comes out every year
with its Gender Gap Index that analyzes countries across the
world in terms of gender equality the state of you know,
men and women comparatively in the nation. And uh, last year,
(01:50):
like many years, like you said, Molly, in the gender
Gap Index, we have number one Norway, followed by Finland, Sweden, Iceland,
US doesn't even rank in the top two US as
a joke. So we have to find out. We have
to find out what we're lacking. And some of the
factors that this index takes into account economic participation, educational attainment,
(02:12):
political empowerment, and health and survival. Now, Molly, before we
go any further, the titles podcast is why is Scandinavia
so great for women? But you wanted to make a
little bit of a geographical footnote before we got uh
some emails saying hey, hey, girls, you need to look
at a map sometime. Right the countries that we're going
(02:33):
to be throwing out there in terms of fun facts
for women are Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland all
up together, all considered the Nordic Country Nordic dream Team.
But we are well aware that if you are talking
strictly Scandinavia, it's just Norway and Sweden and sometimes Finland,
which is like the sometimes why of the value vowels.
(02:55):
So we're just taking a little bit of podcast license,
if you will, um, because we thought Scandinavia just sounded
better than Nordic Peninsula gender dream Team. True, and uh,
let's get started with the dream team now. I think
that if you're going to have an m v P
on the dream Team, it's gotta be Norway. It's gotta
be Norway. I mean because not only m v P,
(03:16):
but also kind of most improved, because at first Sweden
was really leading the pack, but Norway, man, they just
really climbed to the top. And I think that you know,
as soon as you start doing searches for why is
Norway good for women, you come across the maternity leave policies,
So why don't we dive just straight into that now.
Norway got a lot of headlines earlier this year when
(03:38):
it topped Save the Children's annual Mother's Index that basically
breaks down the best places in the world to be
a mother and loan behold, Norway is apparently it, ladies,
if you want to if you want to have a
baby or ten whatever, go to Norway and well, specifically,
I think if you want to have a baby and
(03:59):
a career at the same time, because what they're really
leading the pack on is they're extravagant, especially to US standards,
maternity leave plan and you know, it's not just for women.
Dads have ten weeks in there that they can take
as well and think, and some of that time is mandatory,
like if if the dad doesn't take it, then the
mom can't use it. Some of that time can be
(04:21):
split between the two of them, but some of it
is mandatory dad time, which I think is really cool.
I think that as we go through and you know,
investigate all these different factors further, I think that that's
sort of the best example of how you can bring
up the cause of women without leaving the men behind,
right because we have to remember we're talking about gender
equality rather than you know, women being um kind of
(04:44):
put into the power positions at the detriment of men, right,
christ and I don't have the exact numbers in front
of me, but before we go on, while don't you,
why don't you lay out the exact deal that mothers
in Norway gap. So this is coming from Statistics Norway,
straight from the sore and this is the this is
the deal you get if you have a kid in Norway.
(05:04):
Check this out, Molly, forty six weeks with full pay.
How does that sound to you? Sounds glorious? Forty six weeks?
What's the I don't know off the top of my
head the average maternity leave in the States with like
six weeks, eight weeks? Like three? Yeah, a weekend, I
don't know, a long weekend. So you can take up
(05:25):
to forty six weeks with full pay or fifty six
weeks at pay. And that's one thing I really do
like about Norway, Christmas, this broaden definition of what part
time work can be because I do like that eight
percent plan. I think that that would make a difference
to a lot of mothers I know too, to be
able to view part time not as you know, fifty
fifty but like eight. Yeah, that one day that you
(05:47):
don't go to the office for those few hours you
live early every day, I think can make a big difference. Um,
so I do see that how bad is a benefit?
Now we have to say that a lot of the
articles about scandinamy countries you focus on these maternal lead policies. Yeah,
it always goes back to maternity and paternity leave. I
mean that's becoming a bigger issue as well. It's not
(06:07):
just the fact that they're extending this benefit for women,
but it's also you know, men who are getting acknowledged
as playing the active role in parenting, which I think
speaks to general equality and those kind of ideas and
in their society of the fact that it's recognized that, yeah,
the woman is having a child. But there is a
second half to this equation. But what about women who
(06:31):
aren't going to have children? Because while this is a
great policy for parents, you know, I feel like that's
the most defining policy we've been able to find so
far that you know, you get this great material leave,
you get paternal leave, were so equal and giving um
these benefits for children, But women who have children are
(06:51):
not the only women that hopefully would have gender equality
within a country. And so I think that that is
what first started to maybe raise our antenna a little
bit about whether this is truly a great place for women.
Let's let's investigate a little further. Okay, I want to
go to um women in power at businesses because this
(07:12):
is a pretty interesting thing. We've talked about quotas before
and whether they work well. Norway has enforced quotas that
um of a company's board of the biggest companies that
are operating in that country must include women, and if
they didn't include that, they were gonna be closed down
by the gender equality mud. There's a whole position in
(07:35):
the government who's just voted to enforcing equality. So in
Norway passed this legislation, which I might add was a
I was initiated by a male politician and actually was
not a woman who was saying, hey, let's get more
women on the boards because they thought it would be
a good thing for business. Because kind of like when
we were talking about gender quotas for political positions that
(07:58):
a lot of countries have adopted, it's sort of the
same thinking that you know, a group of men and
women sitting together in a room will come to a
better decision than just a group of men or even
just a group of women, you know, kind of that
whole collective ideal thing. And so uh so they get
all these women on the boards, and at first some
(08:19):
of the companies were saying, hey, you know what, this
isn't gonna happen because there aren't qualified women out there.
Well lo and behold not. So they actually had plenty
of women to choose from once they actually started looking,
okay um, and so a lot of these companies are
fulfilled the quota now then, I think a couple of
(08:40):
years ago, the study came out from the University of Michigan,
and the headline that was grabbed from it and was
circulated pretty widely throughout popular media was that the quote
the gender quota for Norway's boards had had a negative
financial impact on the companies that bring these women on.
Trying to institute gender equality hurt the bottom line, right.
(09:04):
The researchers kind of teased out what the effect of
the actual announcement was on the company. And some companies
that should be mentioned had already met the quota. They
already had very gender diverse boards, and these companies did
not feel the effect of a drop in stock price
of a market ripple. That these companies that were going
to have to enforce the equality did feel. These companies
(09:27):
did experience a bump, But the researchers took pains to
emphasize that that was just the announcement of the new law.
It wasn't you know, it wasn't once they put the
woman on um And that's what that's part of what
got distorted. Yeah, it got distorted so much actually that um,
we went back and found an article in Fast Company
magazine where the journalists tracked down the researchers and wanted
(09:51):
them to clarify their findings because the headline is so sensational,
um that they really missed the big nuance in it that, hey,
this wasn't an impact of gender. It was more stockholders
getting nervous about the experience level because the fact of
the matter was a lot of the women who were
taking these board positions did not have CEO level experience
(10:14):
like a lot of the men might have. But I mean,
come to the States and it would be you would
be hard pressed to find an equal amount of men
and women who have had that sea level experience because
those doors haven't been opened, so it's like you've got
to break through the ceiling at some point in order
to you know, have more women fill fill those ranks.
And then there was a further criticism of this law
(10:35):
in that there was a group of seventy women that
they called the Golden Skirts, and these women were experienced
that they had, you know, maybe had some experience at
the CEO level in the past um and there were
so many women, but they were on three hundred of
the boards, so that they were doing you know, more
than one some of them were doing you know, up
to a dozen. And people were like, how is this
actually the equality if this small group of women is
(10:57):
the one that's taking advantage of it. But it's to
be noted that that's often what men do. Men sit
on several boards. So I think that, you know, this
sort of added to my confusion Christen about why Norway
is still going to be number number one, because even
despite the fact they've got these force quotas, they said, hey,
we didn't have any problem filling these roles because there
(11:18):
are women with this experience. It's still a story in
that it uh and it was an easy to distort story.
Um so it still made me wonder, can this really
be some bastion of gender equality? If if this is
still a story and not just something that happened and
we got over it and Norway did just fine because
Norway's market did you did you just find in fact
(11:39):
that one of the leading politicians who have been effective
in bringing this law into place was like, this is
going to be our main export is gender equality. But
I mean it was a really controversial export that the
rest of the world didn't understand and didn't get right
when they reported on it. Yeah, they didn't get right. Now,
I think that we should say that other European countries
have followed in sue um Netherlands in Spain among them,
(12:03):
but none of them have really enforced it to the
degree that Norway has. And if we're talking about exporting
this kind of model, this kind of gender equality model
on the corporate level, I mean we were talking earlier.
I mean the big question is could could you take
it to someplace like, oh, I don't know, the United
States of America and have it work out? Probably not. Probably.
(12:26):
We've talked about quotas before, and you know, we've heard
from your listeners, you don't you don't love the idea.
And if having quotas is what makes Norway top a
gender equality index, will the US ever top and index?
Or can you only get to the top of this
index through artificial measures? You know? It just it was
another thing that kind of unwrappled my faith in Norway.
(12:49):
And I don't want to discouraging Norwegian listeners. I hope
you right in and explain to me how it's how
it is actually a great place. But so far I'm
a little frustrated. Well, yeah, because I think it's this
too is a product of uh, you know, or a
reflection of how the media really can can kind of
grab onto one idea and just it circulates like wildfire.
(13:11):
You know, if you need, if you need a reference
point for gender equality, for where things are good for women,
for where you know maternity leave and paternity paternity leave
are really great, just go to Norway. Yeah, so it
just kind of becomes this knee jerk reaction where you
don't stop and look at the actual statistics behind everything
and beyond you know, fifty six weeks of paid leave. Um,
(13:35):
you got to talk about how the media distorts things Kristen,
Shall we talk about an article that was in Bloomberg. Yes,
we'll jump countries. We'll go to Sweden Um and the
headline is Swedish sex equality won't help Mona Solon's election bid.
And this is an article for some Tymber fifteen two ten,
and it's the question of whether this woman, Mona Solum
(13:56):
will become the country's first female prime minister. Now, right
away the headline kind of grabs me because it says
Swedish sex equality. So right away, you know, we've got
this knee jerk reaction that you spoke about that Scandinavia
equals gender equality, Sweeten, with Sweden leading the pack too
right behind. They just got just got told by Norway
in that last poll. And so then the whole article
is about how Sweden is so you know about Sweden
(14:20):
just loves equality, but yet they're not going to elect
this woman to this position of power. And you go
on and read the article and this woman did nothing wrong.
Her party is screwed up right now, Sheelie. She's the
head of the Social Democrats party. So you know, it's
it's about how they pinned all the problems of this
party on how on this woman and we're able to
(14:42):
make it a story because she is a woman. And
that sort of sounded very reminiscent to me of of
Hillary Clinton's bid. People were saying, oh, you know, she's
gonna be elected or not elected based on whether she's
a woman, when in you know, in reality, she is
a woman who is running just like a man on
a policy, on a platform of certain beliefs. And it
just so happens that Mona Salon's beliefs are in vogue
(15:03):
in Sweden right now, and yet somehow it's her fault
because she's a woman, right, And listen to this. The
Bloomberg says that in interviewing thirty leading social Democrats, they
said that if Salin steps down and if her party loses,
then that would make it quote unlikely Sweden will get
(15:23):
a female leader anytime soon. And they go on to
quote a guys saying, you know, it is kind of
paradoxical that we've never had a female prime minister. And
I mean, yeah, it's having a female president or prime
minister the absolute and all definition of gender equality. No,
but yes, Sweden, it is a little paradoxical. And you're right,
you know that it is being twisted into you know,
(15:45):
it's not the Social Democrats failing, it's this woman politician failing. Yeah.
This is another quote from a calmness in a Swedish
newspaper who said it's clear the party needs a makeover
and Salin hasn't managed to do that. She simply gets
the blame for the party's long running crisis. So the
area is in a long running crisis. But yet the
headline is about how gender equality is not going to
help this woman get elected. So it's it's I and
(16:07):
this is the question we have about Scandinavian We hope
we have some Scandinavian listeners who can help us out.
Is it just our media that distorts the sort of
equality in the way that I think equality can be
distorted throughout the United States? Um, you know, I was
asking the question of Kristen. Would Scandinavia, if it's so
equal between the genders, would they need a stuff mat
never told you? Or would this be redundant in Sweden?
(16:29):
So is it just a matter of our media screwing
this up? Or is it really just not as equal?
I mean, is equality a given? Or does our media distorted? Well,
then it's also interesting when you hop over to Iceland
where you have um, an openly gay female prime minister. Okay,
and uh, there was this column in The Guardian with
(16:51):
the headline is Iceland the most feminist land in the world,
partly because they have, you know, this this female leader,
which is great, you know, it's very she's very progressive, etcetera.
But it was all based around Iceland's initiatives to outlaw brothels. Essentially,
they called them strip clubs. So first you're just reading like, oh,
(17:13):
you know, this country might be just sex negative. But
then you know, it turns out that what they're calling
strip clubs actually are brothels and and covers for sex trafficking.
And so they talk about how the country as a
whole has this belief that women women, women's bodies aren't
for sale, that you know, they must be protected, and uh,
they talked about how this strong women's movement in Iceland
(17:36):
was affecting change. And this, to me was the only
point in which I kind of understood why you might
call the Nordic country so um progressive is because the
country does listen to this strong women's movement that doesn't
allow itself to get fractured and splintered like ours does. Yeah,
because I mean the very fact, like you were talking about, uh,
(17:56):
strip clubs and prostitution. You know, within UM feminism today
there are two distinct camps of people who are completely
for it, you know, saying that it's the way that
women empower themselves through the use and sale, if you will,
of their bodies and are very you know, I mean
they're in control of the whole operation. And then other
women who say no, it's completely degrading and you can
(18:19):
you can go at it for days and go around
in circle. So yeah, I think that there you make
a good point about the fact that at least there's
some kind of UM unified cause to get around. But
once again, I don't know that UM you know, having
the number of strip clubs really again like it's well,
it just brings us to our larger question. And this
(18:40):
is where we're gonna need our listeners help. We need
you to write in what is the definition of a
gender equal country? Yeah, because the way the media has
spun it here is that UM one quality one definition
would be that women can balance family and career by
having an adequate amount of material. You leave as fathers
(19:01):
can as well, right. The other definition would be that
you see women in a lot of positions of power
in Norway's quotas. And then the third, I guess would
be that you can close down your strip clubs. So
those are the three definitions you can find when you
start doing research on this. Because the one thing that
we haven't talked about is going back to the statistics Norway.
There's a huge packet of information that you can find online.
(19:23):
Molly will post it in our blog and it's a
statistical gendered breakdown UM from Norway, directly from Norway. And
when you start to look at say, pay gaps between
men and women, the career paths that men and women take,
for instance, the female dominated sectors and then the more
male dominated engineering sciences and all of that, and also
(19:45):
violence against women, the rpes of um rapes and things
like that, you start to get a very similar background
picture to what's going on in the United States. So
while yes, they have a fairly significant gender pay gap
in Norway as they do in the States, we have
issues with violence against women as they do. We still
(20:07):
have this issue of you know, kind of the girl's
educational path versus the boys educational path um and then
that leads on too, you know, the gendered career paths
if you will. So, really, are we just boiling gender
equality down to maternity leave, which I would find a
little bit questionable because that then just places, you know,
(20:28):
the only value on women for their reproductive capabilities. Right.
So that's that's what we found. And like I said,
there may be something that our media distorts because we
hope that we have some listeners from these areas who
will a in vinus to stay with them. Yeah, and
we'd love to know find out for ourselves and be
tell us what it's actually like. So, yeah, young women
(20:50):
in in Norway, Sweden, I wanna I want to know
what it's like. Are we are we just missing the mark?
I mean, is day today like, is it a gender
equal playground? Yeah? And everyone everyone else? We want to
know what a good definition of a gender equal society is.
So the email is mom stuff at how stuff works
dot com. And to finish up, let's read a one
(21:10):
email from that email address. All right, since we've been
pretty international this podcast, Kristen, why don't we why don't
we stay over in Europe? Because I'm going to read
an email from Richard in Northern Ireland. A great idea.
Richard writes, in Northern Ireland, we don't consider an instrument
like the flute in any way a female oriented instrument.
(21:31):
I would almost say more men play the flute to
a certain extent than women due to our tradition of
flute bands. Most flute bands will have a male majority,
depending on it being a truly loyalist or nationalist, or
just a marching band, which is usually mixed both in
community and gender. In contrast to the lamb bed drum,
which would be considered a male instrument played by many women,
though rarely on marches to the distance and weight involved.
(21:53):
When considering instruments like the harp, it's social class is
more considered, unfortunately, stopping many working class people from ever
being introduced to them. If you haven't heard what type
of music is being played by marching bands, I would
suggest looking at Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band. So thank
you Richard, and uh, it sounds like there's a lot
of male floutist in Ireland. So told the mail flouts
(22:15):
out there, send us Alon our email as Mom stuff
at how stuff works dot com. You can find us
on Facebook and share your thoughts with other listeners out
there as well. You can hit us up on Twitter.
And then finally you can read our blog where Molly
will be posting all of these statistics and links to
lots of information about Scandinavia very soon, and you can
(22:38):
find that in our blog It's Stuff I've Never Told
You and it's how stuff works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, is that how
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home page. Brought to you by the re Invented two
(23:01):
thousand twelve Camri. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From house stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristin. Kristen. If
(00:20):
you could go anywhere in the world right now, whe
would you go? Oh? My god? And was prepared for this.
If I could go anywhere in the world right now,
I'd go back to bed. Oh, Kristen, you're so cool. Ever, well,
I'm taking you on a special trip today via our
podcast to Norway. Can we fly first class? It's the
(00:41):
best for you, Kristin, only the best. And once we
get to Norway and other um parts of Scandinavian, the
Nordic and the Nordic countries, we will be treated first
class all the time, because apparently that area of the
world is just the top of the line when it
comes to gender equality. Yeah, supposedly, Norway, Sweden, denmorek these
(01:03):
are just the havens for women right there. These indexes
that come out every year, these countries always topped the
list of countries that have achieved equality, who have closed
gender gaps, who have you know, women in powerful positions. Uh,
all these all these factors we're going to talk about
today because you see these stories pretty often. Now, like
(01:26):
you want gender equality, you go to Norway, you go
to Sweden, and we want to know why is Scandinavia
so frequently cited as one of the best places for women? Right? Because,
for instance, the World Economic Forum comes out every year
with its Gender Gap Index that analyzes countries across the
world in terms of gender equality the state of you know,
men and women comparatively in the nation. And uh, last year,
(01:50):
like many years, like you said, Molly, in the gender
Gap Index, we have number one Norway, followed by Finland, Sweden, Iceland,
US doesn't even rank in the top two US as
a joke. So we have to find out. We have
to find out what we're lacking. And some of the
factors that this index takes into account economic participation, educational attainment,
(02:12):
political empowerment, and health and survival. Now, Molly, before we
go any further, the titles podcast is why is Scandinavia
so great for women? But you wanted to make a
little bit of a geographical footnote before we got uh
some emails saying hey, hey, girls, you need to look
at a map sometime. Right the countries that we're going
(02:33):
to be throwing out there in terms of fun facts
for women are Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland all
up together, all considered the Nordic Country Nordic dream Team.
But we are well aware that if you are talking
strictly Scandinavia, it's just Norway and Sweden and sometimes Finland,
which is like the sometimes why of the value vowels.
(02:55):
So we're just taking a little bit of podcast license,
if you will, um, because we thought Scandinavia just sounded
better than Nordic Peninsula gender dream Team. True, and uh,
let's get started with the dream team now. I think
that if you're going to have an m v P
on the dream Team, it's gotta be Norway. It's gotta
be Norway. I mean because not only m v P,
(03:16):
but also kind of most improved, because at first Sweden
was really leading the pack, but Norway, man, they just
really climbed to the top. And I think that you know,
as soon as you start doing searches for why is
Norway good for women, you come across the maternity leave policies,
So why don't we dive just straight into that now.
Norway got a lot of headlines earlier this year when
(03:38):
it topped Save the Children's annual Mother's Index that basically
breaks down the best places in the world to be
a mother and loan behold, Norway is apparently it, ladies,
if you want to if you want to have a
baby or ten whatever, go to Norway and well, specifically,
I think if you want to have a baby and
(03:59):
a career at the same time, because what they're really
leading the pack on is they're extravagant, especially to US standards,
maternity leave plan and you know, it's not just for women.
Dads have ten weeks in there that they can take
as well and think, and some of that time is mandatory,
like if if the dad doesn't take it, then the
mom can't use it. Some of that time can be
(04:21):
split between the two of them, but some of it
is mandatory dad time, which I think is really cool.
I think that as we go through and you know,
investigate all these different factors further, I think that that's
sort of the best example of how you can bring
up the cause of women without leaving the men behind,
right because we have to remember we're talking about gender
equality rather than you know, women being um kind of
(04:44):
put into the power positions at the detriment of men, right,
christ and I don't have the exact numbers in front
of me, but before we go on, while don't you,
why don't you lay out the exact deal that mothers
in Norway gap. So this is coming from Statistics Norway,
straight from the sore and this is the this is
the deal you get if you have a kid in Norway.
(05:04):
Check this out, Molly, forty six weeks with full pay.
How does that sound to you? Sounds glorious? Forty six weeks?
What's the I don't know off the top of my
head the average maternity leave in the States with like
six weeks, eight weeks? Like three? Yeah, a weekend, I
don't know, a long weekend. So you can take up
(05:25):
to forty six weeks with full pay or fifty six
weeks at pay. And that's one thing I really do
like about Norway, Christmas, this broaden definition of what part
time work can be because I do like that eight
percent plan. I think that that would make a difference
to a lot of mothers I know too, to be
able to view part time not as you know, fifty
fifty but like eight. Yeah, that one day that you
(05:47):
don't go to the office for those few hours you
live early every day, I think can make a big difference. Um,
so I do see that how bad is a benefit?
Now we have to say that a lot of the
articles about scandinamy countries you focus on these maternal lead policies. Yeah,
it always goes back to maternity and paternity leave. I
mean that's becoming a bigger issue as well. It's not
(06:07):
just the fact that they're extending this benefit for women,
but it's also you know, men who are getting acknowledged
as playing the active role in parenting, which I think
speaks to general equality and those kind of ideas and
in their society of the fact that it's recognized that, yeah,
the woman is having a child. But there is a
second half to this equation. But what about women who
(06:31):
aren't going to have children? Because while this is a
great policy for parents, you know, I feel like that's
the most defining policy we've been able to find so
far that you know, you get this great material leave,
you get paternal leave, were so equal and giving um
these benefits for children, But women who have children are
(06:51):
not the only women that hopefully would have gender equality
within a country. And so I think that that is
what first started to maybe raise our antenna a little
bit about whether this is truly a great place for women.
Let's let's investigate a little further. Okay, I want to
go to um women in power at businesses because this
(07:12):
is a pretty interesting thing. We've talked about quotas before
and whether they work well. Norway has enforced quotas that
um of a company's board of the biggest companies that
are operating in that country must include women, and if
they didn't include that, they were gonna be closed down
by the gender equality mud. There's a whole position in
(07:35):
the government who's just voted to enforcing equality. So in
Norway passed this legislation, which I might add was a
I was initiated by a male politician and actually was
not a woman who was saying, hey, let's get more
women on the boards because they thought it would be
a good thing for business. Because kind of like when
we were talking about gender quotas for political positions that
(07:58):
a lot of countries have adopted, it's sort of the
same thinking that you know, a group of men and
women sitting together in a room will come to a
better decision than just a group of men or even
just a group of women, you know, kind of that
whole collective ideal thing. And so uh so they get
all these women on the boards, and at first some
(08:19):
of the companies were saying, hey, you know what, this
isn't gonna happen because there aren't qualified women out there.
Well lo and behold not. So they actually had plenty
of women to choose from once they actually started looking,
okay um, and so a lot of these companies are
fulfilled the quota now then, I think a couple of
(08:40):
years ago, the study came out from the University of Michigan,
and the headline that was grabbed from it and was
circulated pretty widely throughout popular media was that the quote
the gender quota for Norway's boards had had a negative
financial impact on the companies that bring these women on.
Trying to institute gender equality hurt the bottom line, right.
(09:04):
The researchers kind of teased out what the effect of
the actual announcement was on the company. And some companies
that should be mentioned had already met the quota. They
already had very gender diverse boards, and these companies did
not feel the effect of a drop in stock price
of a market ripple. That these companies that were going
to have to enforce the equality did feel. These companies
(09:27):
did experience a bump, But the researchers took pains to
emphasize that that was just the announcement of the new law.
It wasn't you know, it wasn't once they put the
woman on um And that's what that's part of what
got distorted. Yeah, it got distorted so much actually that um,
we went back and found an article in Fast Company
magazine where the journalists tracked down the researchers and wanted
(09:51):
them to clarify their findings because the headline is so sensational,
um that they really missed the big nuance in it that, hey,
this wasn't an impact of gender. It was more stockholders
getting nervous about the experience level because the fact of
the matter was a lot of the women who were
taking these board positions did not have CEO level experience
(10:14):
like a lot of the men might have. But I mean,
come to the States and it would be you would
be hard pressed to find an equal amount of men
and women who have had that sea level experience because
those doors haven't been opened, so it's like you've got
to break through the ceiling at some point in order
to you know, have more women fill fill those ranks.
And then there was a further criticism of this law
(10:35):
in that there was a group of seventy women that
they called the Golden Skirts, and these women were experienced
that they had, you know, maybe had some experience at
the CEO level in the past um and there were
so many women, but they were on three hundred of
the boards, so that they were doing you know, more
than one some of them were doing you know, up
to a dozen. And people were like, how is this
actually the equality if this small group of women is
(10:57):
the one that's taking advantage of it. But it's to
be noted that that's often what men do. Men sit
on several boards. So I think that, you know, this
sort of added to my confusion Christen about why Norway
is still going to be number number one, because even
despite the fact they've got these force quotas, they said, hey,
we didn't have any problem filling these roles because there
(11:18):
are women with this experience. It's still a story in
that it uh and it was an easy to distort story.
Um so it still made me wonder, can this really
be some bastion of gender equality? If if this is
still a story and not just something that happened and
we got over it and Norway did just fine because
Norway's market did you did you just find in fact
(11:39):
that one of the leading politicians who have been effective
in bringing this law into place was like, this is
going to be our main export is gender equality. But
I mean it was a really controversial export that the
rest of the world didn't understand and didn't get right
when they reported on it. Yeah, they didn't get right. Now,
I think that we should say that other European countries
have followed in sue um Netherlands in Spain among them,
(12:03):
but none of them have really enforced it to the
degree that Norway has. And if we're talking about exporting
this kind of model, this kind of gender equality model
on the corporate level, I mean we were talking earlier.
I mean the big question is could could you take
it to someplace like, oh, I don't know, the United
States of America and have it work out? Probably not. Probably.
(12:26):
We've talked about quotas before, and you know, we've heard
from your listeners, you don't you don't love the idea.
And if having quotas is what makes Norway top a
gender equality index, will the US ever top and index?
Or can you only get to the top of this
index through artificial measures? You know? It just it was
another thing that kind of unwrappled my faith in Norway.
(12:49):
And I don't want to discouraging Norwegian listeners. I hope
you right in and explain to me how it's how
it is actually a great place. But so far I'm
a little frustrated. Well, yeah, because I think it's this
too is a product of uh, you know, or a
reflection of how the media really can can kind of
grab onto one idea and just it circulates like wildfire.
(13:11):
You know, if you need, if you need a reference
point for gender equality, for where things are good for women,
for where you know maternity leave and paternity paternity leave
are really great, just go to Norway. Yeah, so it
just kind of becomes this knee jerk reaction where you
don't stop and look at the actual statistics behind everything
and beyond you know, fifty six weeks of paid leave. Um,
(13:35):
you got to talk about how the media distorts things Kristen,
Shall we talk about an article that was in Bloomberg. Yes,
we'll jump countries. We'll go to Sweden Um and the
headline is Swedish sex equality won't help Mona Solon's election bid.
And this is an article for some Tymber fifteen two ten,
and it's the question of whether this woman, Mona Solum
(13:56):
will become the country's first female prime minister. Now, right
away the headline kind of grabs me because it says
Swedish sex equality. So right away, you know, we've got
this knee jerk reaction that you spoke about that Scandinavia
equals gender equality, Sweeten, with Sweden leading the pack too
right behind. They just got just got told by Norway
in that last poll. And so then the whole article
is about how Sweden is so you know about Sweden
(14:20):
just loves equality, but yet they're not going to elect
this woman to this position of power. And you go
on and read the article and this woman did nothing wrong.
Her party is screwed up right now, Sheelie. She's the
head of the Social Democrats party. So you know, it's
it's about how they pinned all the problems of this
party on how on this woman and we're able to
(14:42):
make it a story because she is a woman. And
that sort of sounded very reminiscent to me of of
Hillary Clinton's bid. People were saying, oh, you know, she's
gonna be elected or not elected based on whether she's
a woman, when in you know, in reality, she is
a woman who is running just like a man on
a policy, on a platform of certain beliefs. And it
just so happens that Mona Salon's beliefs are in vogue
(15:03):
in Sweden right now, and yet somehow it's her fault
because she's a woman, right, And listen to this. The
Bloomberg says that in interviewing thirty leading social Democrats, they
said that if Salin steps down and if her party loses,
then that would make it quote unlikely Sweden will get
(15:23):
a female leader anytime soon. And they go on to
quote a guys saying, you know, it is kind of
paradoxical that we've never had a female prime minister. And
I mean, yeah, it's having a female president or prime
minister the absolute and all definition of gender equality. No,
but yes, Sweden, it is a little paradoxical. And you're right,
you know that it is being twisted into you know,
(15:45):
it's not the Social Democrats failing, it's this woman politician failing. Yeah.
This is another quote from a calmness in a Swedish
newspaper who said it's clear the party needs a makeover
and Salin hasn't managed to do that. She simply gets
the blame for the party's long running crisis. So the
area is in a long running crisis. But yet the
headline is about how gender equality is not going to
help this woman get elected. So it's it's I and
(16:07):
this is the question we have about Scandinavian We hope
we have some Scandinavian listeners who can help us out.
Is it just our media that distorts the sort of
equality in the way that I think equality can be
distorted throughout the United States? Um, you know, I was
asking the question of Kristen. Would Scandinavia, if it's so
equal between the genders, would they need a stuff mat
never told you? Or would this be redundant in Sweden?
(16:29):
So is it just a matter of our media screwing
this up? Or is it really just not as equal?
I mean, is equality a given? Or does our media distorted? Well,
then it's also interesting when you hop over to Iceland
where you have um, an openly gay female prime minister. Okay,
and uh, there was this column in The Guardian with
(16:51):
the headline is Iceland the most feminist land in the world,
partly because they have, you know, this this female leader,
which is great, you know, it's very she's very progressive, etcetera.
But it was all based around Iceland's initiatives to outlaw brothels. Essentially,
they called them strip clubs. So first you're just reading like, oh,
(17:13):
you know, this country might be just sex negative. But
then you know, it turns out that what they're calling
strip clubs actually are brothels and and covers for sex trafficking.
And so they talk about how the country as a
whole has this belief that women women, women's bodies aren't
for sale, that you know, they must be protected, and uh,
they talked about how this strong women's movement in Iceland
(17:36):
was affecting change. And this, to me was the only
point in which I kind of understood why you might
call the Nordic country so um progressive is because the
country does listen to this strong women's movement that doesn't
allow itself to get fractured and splintered like ours does. Yeah,
because I mean the very fact, like you were talking about, uh,
(17:56):
strip clubs and prostitution. You know, within UM feminism today
there are two distinct camps of people who are completely
for it, you know, saying that it's the way that
women empower themselves through the use and sale, if you will,
of their bodies and are very you know, I mean
they're in control of the whole operation. And then other
women who say no, it's completely degrading and you can
(18:19):
you can go at it for days and go around
in circle. So yeah, I think that there you make
a good point about the fact that at least there's
some kind of UM unified cause to get around. But
once again, I don't know that UM you know, having
the number of strip clubs really again like it's well,
it just brings us to our larger question. And this
(18:40):
is where we're gonna need our listeners help. We need
you to write in what is the definition of a
gender equal country? Yeah, because the way the media has
spun it here is that UM one quality one definition
would be that women can balance family and career by
having an adequate amount of material. You leave as fathers
(19:01):
can as well, right. The other definition would be that
you see women in a lot of positions of power
in Norway's quotas. And then the third, I guess would
be that you can close down your strip clubs. So
those are the three definitions you can find when you
start doing research on this. Because the one thing that
we haven't talked about is going back to the statistics Norway.
There's a huge packet of information that you can find online.
(19:23):
Molly will post it in our blog and it's a
statistical gendered breakdown UM from Norway, directly from Norway. And
when you start to look at say, pay gaps between
men and women, the career paths that men and women take,
for instance, the female dominated sectors and then the more
male dominated engineering sciences and all of that, and also
(19:45):
violence against women, the rpes of um rapes and things
like that, you start to get a very similar background
picture to what's going on in the United States. So
while yes, they have a fairly significant gender pay gap
in Norway as they do in the States, we have
issues with violence against women as they do. We still
(20:07):
have this issue of you know, kind of the girl's
educational path versus the boys educational path um and then
that leads on too, you know, the gendered career paths
if you will. So, really, are we just boiling gender
equality down to maternity leave, which I would find a
little bit questionable because that then just places, you know,
(20:28):
the only value on women for their reproductive capabilities. Right.
So that's that's what we found. And like I said,
there may be something that our media distorts because we
hope that we have some listeners from these areas who
will a in vinus to stay with them. Yeah, and
we'd love to know find out for ourselves and be
tell us what it's actually like. So, yeah, young women
(20:50):
in in Norway, Sweden, I wanna I want to know
what it's like. Are we are we just missing the mark?
I mean, is day today like, is it a gender
equal playground? Yeah? And everyone everyone else? We want to
know what a good definition of a gender equal society is.
So the email is mom stuff at how stuff works
dot com. And to finish up, let's read a one
(21:10):
email from that email address. All right, since we've been
pretty international this podcast, Kristen, why don't we why don't
we stay over in Europe? Because I'm going to read
an email from Richard in Northern Ireland. A great idea.
Richard writes, in Northern Ireland, we don't consider an instrument
like the flute in any way a female oriented instrument.
(21:31):
I would almost say more men play the flute to
a certain extent than women due to our tradition of
flute bands. Most flute bands will have a male majority,
depending on it being a truly loyalist or nationalist, or
just a marching band, which is usually mixed both in
community and gender. In contrast to the lamb bed drum,
which would be considered a male instrument played by many women,
though rarely on marches to the distance and weight involved.
(21:53):
When considering instruments like the harp, it's social class is
more considered, unfortunately, stopping many working class people from ever
being introduced to them. If you haven't heard what type
of music is being played by marching bands, I would
suggest looking at Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band. So thank
you Richard, and uh, it sounds like there's a lot
of male floutist in Ireland. So told the mail flouts
(22:15):
out there, send us Alon our email as Mom stuff
at how stuff works dot com. You can find us
on Facebook and share your thoughts with other listeners out
there as well. You can hit us up on Twitter.
And then finally you can read our blog where Molly
will be posting all of these statistics and links to
lots of information about Scandinavia very soon, and you can
(22:38):
find that in our blog It's Stuff I've Never Told
You and it's how stuff works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, is that how
stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
out our blogs on the house stuff works dot Com
home page. Brought to you by the re Invented two
(23:01):
thousand twelve Camri. It's ready, are you
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