“Gender Equality: The Gap Between Aspiration and Reality—Areas of Action and Challenges for Improving the Quality of Life, Safety, and Participation of Women and Girls?”
In 2006, the CEMR launched the “European Charter for Equality of Women and Men at the Local Level.” Today, it is regarded as an important and effective tool in numerous European municipalities for promoting gender equality at the local level. The Charter has now been signed by more than 2,000 municipalities in 36 European countries, including over 60 German municipalities.
Together with our partner cities, we want to take a “European” look at the current state of key issues regarding equality and participation at the local level—at a time when anti-women and anti-democratic tendencies are growing stronger across Europe, when anti-feminist voices are becoming louder, and violence against women—physical, psychological, and in the digital sphere—is constantly taking on new forms and dimensions. What do women’s lived realities look like today, specifically, between aspiration and reality:
Where do we stand, which strategies and measures promise success, where might we need to explore new paths, and where must we fight even harder together?
We will explore these questions through an exchange of experiences. We will engage in conversation with practitioners from counseling, aid, and support structures, and of course with experts on their own lives—women with and without immigrant backgrounds, with and without disabilities, as single parents, as family caregivers, as younger or older women, as queer women…