The Austrian petition “Frauen*Volksbegehren 2.0” was a redoing of the first of its kind, that was done in the 90s to demand structural and logistical changes, to work against gender inequalities in Austria. The second edition was started and initiated in 2016. I was able to join the core team in December 2017 and was the team lead for the website, and the content production for the website until December 2018. In total the petition got over 480.000 signatures and sparked an important debate during the far-right government at that time. The main demands of the petition were:
- Sharing Power:
- Half of all seats on electoral lists and in representative bodies at municipal, state, and federal levels for women* and men*.
- Half of all seats in political interest groups and social partnership as well as in various public advisory boards, committees, commissions, etc., for women* and men*.
- Half of all seats in management and supervisory boards of corporations and cooperatives for women* and men*.
- Effective sanctions if the quotas are not met.
2. Eliminating Income Disparities:
- Full wage transparency through a detailed breakdown of all company income reports into all salary components.
- The mandatory creation of concrete action plans to reduce income differences for equivalent work by those companies whose income reports show gender-discriminatory differences.
- Social and economic measures to curb the glaring wage differences between various labor market segments, industries, and corporate hierarchies, leading to a balanced gender ratio in these areas.
- Additional and further pilot projects with exemplary impact in the public sector in the field of objective work evaluation.
- Linking public procurement and subsidies to activities promoting equality in the workplace.
3. Distributing Work:
- A gradual reduction of working hours to 30 hours per week with variable wage and personnel compensation.
- State support for small and medium-sized enterprises to offset potential competitive disadvantages.
4. Fighting Poverty:
- A state-guaranteed right to advance maintenance payments as long as family allowances are received.
- Adjustment of maintenance measurement to appropriate standard need rates.
- Decoupling payment from the ability to pay of the liable party, while maintaining the obligation to repay according to ability.
- Nationwide expansion of state-funded, legally secure women’s and girls’ counseling centers.
5. Enabling Choice:
- The legal right to free, high-quality care for every child up to 14 years of age, regardless of the parents’ place of residence or employment status.
- Compatibility of the care facility with the parents’ full-time employment, i.e., all-day and year-round opening hours as well as easy accessibility.
- Standardized nationwide quality standards for needs-oriented care and individual (early) support.
6. Living Diversity:
- Ban on advertisements, marketing strategies, and other commercial media content that depict people in a derogatory, stereotypical, and/or sexist manner.
- Legal anchoring of gender-sensitive training for all educators with nationwide uniform standards and evaluation measures, as well as state funding and legal anchoring of institutions and counseling centers that offer training, education, and further training in this area.
- Ban on the sexualized depiction of minors.
- Ban on gender-discriminatory and stereotypical depictions in children’s and youth media, especially in schools and childcare facilities.
- Press promotion bonus for all media that commit to gender-sensitive, cliché-free reporting in their editorial line.
7. Self-Determination:
- The establishment and funding of contemporary education on sexuality, contraception, and pregnancy in schools and educational institutions.
- State-funded, legally secure, anonymous, and free counseling centers in sufficient numbers on sexuality, gender identity, contraception, and abortion.
- Contraceptives provided free of charge in counseling centers.
- Full coverage of the costs of pregnancy tests, contraceptives requiring medical examination and counseling, and abortions by health insurance.
- Offering and performing abortions in all public hospitals.
8. Preventing Violence:
- Nationwide expansion of state-funded and legally secure, easily accessible, free facilities and counseling centers for all women* affected by violence and their children.
- Expansion of cooperation between authorities, courts, and violence protection centers.
- Enhanced sensitization programs in schools, the judiciary, and the police, as well as prevention programs and anti-violence training for at-risk individuals.
9. Granting Protection:
- The legal anchoring of gender-specific and women*-specific grounds for asylum according to UNHCR guidelines and a gender-sensitive interpretation and application of migration law, as stipulated by the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Istanbul Convention.
- Mandatory training and sensitization measures for police, interpreters, and administrative and judicial decision-makers.
- The right to quick and safe family reunification.
- An independent residency status not dependent on a spouse.
- Gender-segregated accommodation, special protection rooms, and access to state-funded, gender-specific medical and psychological therapy and counseling.
The website can be found here.