On the last edition of The Voice of Europe radio program, we extensively covered the “debate” that took place in the joint meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in the European Parliament[1].
As one can hear in the news report, or see in the full video of the debate[2], only one individual in the chamber (the only man in there besides the chair) actually said that it is not the job of the politicians to decide who sits or who should sit on a boardroom of a private company. All the others engaged in a pat-each-other on the back competition, which is, in fact, the preferred activity in the EU. It even has a name: “the community method” – in which basically the consensus is forced upon individuals.
The proposal of the European Commission (drafted by our old friend Viviane Reding[3]) basically states that the EU should have the right to sanction private companies if they don’t have at least 40% women in their boardrooms. At first, it was only about companies listed in the stock market but, as one can see in the “debate” – it’s about literally any company, including Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). In other words, if you are a man and have a small company with two other men, you must employ at least one woman and put her in the boardroom, otherwise, the EU may eventually shut you down. That is, of course, provided that the recession generated by the economic prison of the Euro won’t shut you down or that she won’t file ludicrous sexual harassment charges and make you pay her enough money to lead your small company to bankruptcy.
In Eastern Europe, in late 1940s, the same thing was introduced by the Soviet Union (only it was about “the proletariat” and not women) and soon after the complete nationalization of the economy happened.
Moreover, the initial proposal of the European Commission contained a provision according to which companies that had less than 10% of the underrepresented sex should be exempted from this measure[4], therefore admitting that forcing construction companies to hire more women or nursery homes to hire more men is just not going to work.
However, the aforementioned joint meeting established that this provision should be eliminated through Amendment 8 [5] because heaven forbid someone might be able to avoid being screwed by the Eurocracy. Their justification for this is this:
Exempting branches just because they are dominated by one gender would consolidate such one-sided gender domination
All companies must comply with the obligation of enhancing gender-balance and therefore, no exemption should be foreseen. Particularly, the Directive offers to all companies flexibility in adopting adequate procedures, fitting the needs of their sector. Finally, non-executive directors usually perform supervisory tasks and give input on general management tasks which are not directly linked to sectoral issues.
See how this goes? Forcing companies to conduct their business according to the feminist principles of equality of outcome is not Soviet-style authoritarianism – but it’s “offering flexibility” to the businesses. Up is down. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is knowledge.
In the documentary Hjernevask (Brainwash), the former Norwegian Commissioner of Equality of Opportunity, Kristin Mile, tasked to try this kind of social engineering in Norway explains clearly that whatever the State tried (including coercion, like the EU wants to try now) only lasted for one or two years, and after that, the businesses either closed down, moved into another country, or just simply started to break the law and allow the natural tendencies of individuals to manifest themselves[6]. The Norwegian “egalitarian” State tried for decades to force more men to enter into nursery and more women to enter into engineering and construction. It didn’t work. And it will never work. Men and women are inherently different and will inherently want to work in different fields, regardless of what the gender ideologues or the bureaucrats from Brussels or Oslo believe.
Basically, the final form which will reach to a vote in the European Parliament this fall openly states that women must be preferred over men, even if the objective reality suggests otherwise.
Also, to say that non-executive directors usually perform supervisory tasks and give input on general management tasks which are not directly linked to sectoral issues is simply incorrect. The chief of a construction site, for instance, is a non-executive director. How can someone correctly manage a construction site if that person never actually worked in the field? Well, according to the European Union, it doesn’t matter.
The original proposal of the Commission tried to have a little common sense embedded in it, albeit only marginally – but the joint meeting eliminated all that. For instance, the original proposal stated that:
In order to attain the objective laid down in paragraph 1 [that is to have 40% women on boards – author’s note], Member States shall ensure that, in the selection of non-executive directors, priority shall be given to the candidate of the under-represented sex if that candidate is equally qualified as a candidate of the other sex in terms of suitability, competence and professional performance, unless an objective assessment taking account of all criteria specific to the individual candidates tilts the balance in favour of the candidate of the other sex.
However, the part in italic was removed[8] claiming that it’s redundant. Well, it might be redundant in the La-La Land in which the MEPs seem to live. But in the real world, if you have to choose between a pregnant woman and a single man, one will choose the latter. And this is for the simple reason that the labor laws in Europe entitle the woman to an up to three years of maternity leave – during which the company must still pay taxes for her, save her job, and the company is also obligated by the law to receive her back after three years, upgrade her salary to the level from that time (but not downgrade it – in case things go wrong during her three year vacation!) and grant her the benefits as if she worked in the past three years (that is paid vacation days) – in other words, another two to three months of vacation paid directly by the company.
For an SME, these kinds of provisions are impossible to meet.
Another provision of the European Commission’s proposal, in the Article 4, paragraph 2, states that[9]:
The number of non-executive director positions necessary to meet the objective laid down in paragraph 1 shall be the number closest to the proportion of 40 per cent, but not exceeding 49 per cent.
By this standard, if the board of an SME has two men and one woman, then the “objective” and the “progress” is attained. However, after this joint meeting, the provision became[10]:
“The number of non-executive director positions necessary to meet the objective laid down in paragraph 1 shall be at least 40 per cent.
Therefore, by this standard, an SME must fire one of the men and hire a woman otherwise the EU will come and shut the SME down in 2017. Is anyone still in doubt as to whether the EU is up to ruin economies through promoting female superiority?
This measure, if approved by the European Parliament in the next plenary, will hurt the remaining struggling SMEs, take the level of institutionalized misandry to a whole new level and will eventually backfire against competent women as well – for the simple reason that the competence of every single female manager will be put into question when negotiating (both internally and externally), given the likelihood enshrined in the law that they might not have ended up there by virtue of their merit, but by virtue of their sex.
The European Union is already de-industrialized and recession is hitting more and more countries. This measure will just make more companies move their business outside the EU (Ukraine and Serbia are increasingly attractive in this regard) or shut down their operations completely. And, more importantly, the national governments won’t be able to do anything to prevent this because if this becomes a directive, the national government is coerced to adopt it in the national law.
This Friday, on the Voice of Europe, we will discuss this measure thoroughly and come up with ideas as to what individual MRAs can do in order to stop this. One might want to check the list of feminist MEPs and prepare to start writing letters.
This is not a joke! The economic freedom of men and women living in the European Union is in serious danger!
[1] http://www.blogtalkradio.com/avoiceformen/2013/07/12/the-voice-of-europe-prostitution – The news report starts from 30:50
[2] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ep-live/en/committees/video?event=20130709-1115-COMMITTEE-JURI-FEMM – Full video of the joint meeting
[3] http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/feminist-lies-feminism/eus-feminist-crusader-never-stops/
[4] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2012:0614:FIN:en:PDF Full text : European Commission’s proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on improving the gender balance among non-executive directors of companies listed on stock exchanges and related measures – p. 25, paragraph 6
[5] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/cj02/dt/938/938160/938160en.pdf – Committee on Legal Affairs and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in the European Parliament – Working Document – p. 6
[6] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiSWqwWbFEg – Hjernevask – Likestillingsparadokset (Brainwash – The Gender Equality Paradox) – Full episode. Kristin Mile’s explanations start at 4:20 (in Norwegian)
[7] op. cit. Proposal – p. 24, Article 4, paragraph 3
[8] op. cit. Working Document – p.6, amendment 7
[9] op. cit. Proposal – p. 24, Article 4, paragraph 2
[10] op. cit. Working Document – p.5, amendment 5
