Young women at the EYE2021 battle for better policies
The crowd that wants to enter the auditorium is as tightly packed as the first row of a rock concert - which contrasts starkly with the business-like atmosphere of the Strasbourg European Parliament building. Many of the European Youth Event (EYE2021) participants try to get through the door, impatiently waiting to be let in. What they want to attend is not a meeting with a celebrity politician though, but a workshop with an intriguing name: Women’s Policies Battle.
As the name suggests, it was a policy competition specifically focused on policies impacting women. The rules were simple. The (overwhelmingly female) participants split into four groups and brainstormed policy ideas in three ‘battle areas’:
- How to achieve equal pay and equal access to the workplace?
- How to ensure work-life balance and equal sharing of care responsibilities?
- How to guarantee women’s equal participation in decision-making?
Then, two groups would ‘battle’ by pitching their ideas for better policies in a randomly chosen area. After the two pitches, the group had to answer questions from the jury made up of 7 young women from the organising think tank Re-Generation Youth, and then let the audience vote on their pitched ideas.
One group came out of the battlefield and was named the winner: the “50/50 group” led by Agnieszka Homanska from Poland. True to their name, the group’s pitch called for hiring quotas with a 50:50 balance not only in high positions, but across all organisational levels. However, they also suggested that job positions should be protected for two years after maternity leave and that free leadership workshops should be offered at schools to empower all students.
“For me it was a very big success,” said Serena Mazzei, an economist educated at King’s College in London and the creator of the workshop, “as we did not expect so many people.” She also mentioned that the organisation and logistics of the workshop required a great deal of work.
However, she had the support of the other members of Re-Generation Youth, the Italian think tank she is a part of. The think tank was, in fact, created after EYE2018. It comprises 15 young women who research female empowerment, digital transformation and social regeneration and organise various activities, for example, online masterclasses for young women.
All in all, the other groups have proposed plenty other ideas. The workshop may not have been a rock concert after all, but the ideas the EYE participants proposed and discussed there are certainly ready to tour across Europe.
From May to October, the European Parliament ran the Youth Consultations for the Conference on the Future of Europe. Read the Youth Ideas report with 20 best ideas from these consultations. You can read many more youth ideas on search.youthideas.eu.
To make your voice heard or see what others want for the future of Europe, make sure to visit on futureu.europa.eu.
