Women help in crises
COMMENT
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By Marjo Ollikainen
When society is faced with a crisis, women are called upon to help.
When the economy is in recession and there is no work available, women are reminded of the importance of mothers staying at home. And when economies are staggering under the pressures of a boom, it is important for women to pitch in to help the greater common good.
Over the next few years, municipal finances will be in crisis.
But not to worry: municipal spending will be cut through women caring for their children at home, as well as for their parents, and perhaps even the parents of their spouses.
Why is it always mothers and women? Why do we not speak about parents or citizens?
The demands for widening income gaps and for setting wages according to a corporation's profits and competitiveness sound incredibly reasonable, especially with that dreadful globalisation on its way from China.
Those who speak the warning words rarely remember to say that when wage differentials grow, sectors with a female majority are normally left at the bottom.
The Ministry of Finance has proposed that everyone across the board should receive a meagre 0.5% raise.
The business sector wishes to abandon all collective special allotments to women, and to decide upon most raises separately at the company level.
This model is fine for enterprises, but women are once again left in the weakest position.
Women are naturally promised that the difference in wages will be compensated through tax and social policy measures.
Oh, right, so would that happen by lowering the highest income tax rate and cutting back on day-care services, as has been proposed?
To cap it all, women have begun to bicker over what genuine motherhood is like. Will a career-oriented mother condemn her child to the couches of psychiatrists, or will a devoted stay-at-home mother smother her baby to the brink of psychosis?
I do not recall men ever slanging each other over taking paternity leave, or over choosing not to.
With society once again approaching a crisis, what we would sorely need is solidarity among women.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 17.10.2004
More on this subject:
 Position of women in labour market crumbling
MARJO OLLIKAINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
marjo.ollikainen@hs.fi
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