Elizabeth Law agreed with statements made earlier by Rt Hon Baroness Verma and Justina Mutale that it is a positive and necessary thing to do to involve women in leadership in partnership with men. It is bad to exclude talent and a fresh perspectives.
She explained that the European Parliament has 35% women while the member states on average have 22% women in national level Parliaments and Assemblies. The European Women's Lobby had campaigned during 2008 to 2009 prior to European elections to increase the percentage of women in the European Parliament. The percentage had increased from 30% to 35%. They are hoping for increases also during the upcoming elections in 2014.
Ms. Law was saddened that there is still a gender pay gap even though there has been a lot of effort on this. It is surprising that we are tolerating a systemic pay inequality. We do not tolerate this by race, religion, age or disability. This extends to the feminisation of older poverty due to pension differentials.
The European Women’s Lobby is the largest umbrella group of women’s organisations whose role is to promote women’s rights and gender equality.