Outlook

Repairing the system

We have used the last twelve months to help you explore the broad spectrum of equality issues through the campaign sendasignal.today. Thank you for your interest and your constructive criticism!

Over the last year we have focused on a range of equality issues to show why it is so important for women and men to send a signal as individuals, too.

Claudia Böhm
Gender Equality Representative of the Federal Foreign Office

The wide range of feedback showed us which issues are particularly sensitive, and that many people – regardless of gender – are concerned by equality issues, since these call basic assumptions into question and also affect people’s own, very personal life decisions and plans. How can I balance my career goals with my private obligations, wants and needs? What do I do when the job I love suddenly puts an unexpected strain on my private life?
If these considerations led to lively discussion and provided food for thought, then that alone makes our campaign sendasignal.today a success.

I would like it if in ten years’ time it’s no longer something special for women to be working in leadership positions.

Michèle Carlowitz
Trainee at the Foreign Service Academy

The Federal Foreign Office should set an example of feminist foreign policy, with foreign policy that centres the interests of all people.

Julian Pohl
Trainee at the Foreign Service Academy

For seven percent of all women, violence is deadly. Society as a whole suffers the consequences. Help us to fight this.

Dorothee Meisner
Trainee at the Foreign Service Academy

I think, those who are able to balance family and career, have so many skills to offer, that they can enrich the daily work life.

Nicole Gonsior
Trainee at the Foreign Service Academy

What I hope for is for gender equality to be so normal in ten years’ time that it no longer has to be explicitly taken into account.

Emma Lauter
Trainee at the Foreign Service Academy

Our vision:
gender equality
at the Federal Foreign Office

To round off our campaign, we asked Foreign Service trainees how they picture gender equality and justice in their working environment in the future.

We are not done yet!

Equality is about justice and about creating awareness of and eliminating the structural causes of disadvantages for women and other groups within society. In this connection, approaches such as gender-conscious language and workplace quotas for women in certain roles are no more than individual instruments that can help to trigger a societal transformation process. However, in order to create a fair state of play where all genders enjoy equal capabilities and opportunities for participation, we need a comprehensive change in our organisational and working culture.

The starting point for our campaign was the annual Gender Equality Index of the top-level federal authorities. The Federal Foreign Office was ranked last among all federal ministries, with 24% of leadership positions occupied by women. There are many reasons for this. It is often not possible to reconcile personal obligations – managing a household, caring for children and other family members, and general “mental load” – with a leadership position. But it is also harder for women to gain a foothold and establish themselves in a world of work that has for generations been shaped by and for men in particular, with all of the attendant career rituals. This is not just disillusioning for women as individuals – it also means that our society loses out on important knowledge, experience, abilities, inspiration and perspectives.

Only by working together can we pave the way for a fairer world in which everyone has the same opportunities and options open to them.

Claudia Böhm
Gender Equality Representative of the Federal Foreign Office