Europe's women pioneering equality

The United States might consider itself a pioneer concerning women's rights, but most European countries make the nation look positively old-fashioned.\nFrance, for example, has offered the abortion drug RU-486 for 10 years. And morning-after pills, hard to find in the United States, are available from the school nurse at every French public high school, thanks to a government-established program.\n"The French government wanted to ensure that teens had good information about contraception," said Jean Robinson, associate professor of political science and dean of women's affairs. "Giving out the pill in high schools was a way to help young people who weren't supposed to be pregnant."\nRobinson added that European countries in general are more accepting of contraception issues than the United States.\n"Most European countries have been able to deal with lots of reproductive issues in terms of health concerns, while the United States deals with it in terms of morality," Robinson said. "The exceptions are Ireland and Poland, which are strongly Catholic."\nRobinson also mentioned that European countries provide much more inclusive maternity leave than is typically offered in the United States.\n"The United States has family medical leave without pay, but Europe has maternity leave with pay," Robinson said. "It's much easier to have a child and go back to work -- the effect is that for employed women, becoming a mother is less difficult."\nRobinson said that while U.S. women enjoy a slightly higher employment rate than those living in Europe, the gap is growing smaller and smaller. She also mentioned that in many European countries, women are beginning to gain more prominent positions in political offices.\n"In general, the further north you go, the more women you'll find in an office -- especially in countries like Scandinavia, Norway and Sweden," Robinson said. "Many countries have women in national government-level ministries and cabinet-level positions dedicated to women's issues. The United States has a women's bureau, but nothing quite comparable to cabinet-level policy making."\nIndeed, Slobadan Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, hardly enjoys the popularity Hillary Rodham Clinton has in the United States. Although she is a legislator and member of Parliament, Markovic is highly unpopular in Yugoslavia and is often called "The Red Witch," according to The Associated Press.\n"As far as major political leaders they've not had any," said graduate student Janet Johnson, who had lived in Moscow for several months and is now writing her dissertation on women in Russia. "They've had one or two female ministers, but no female prime ministers, the highest office available besides that of president. And there have been no female party heads."\nBut aside from the scarcity of women in political office, Johnson said being a woman in Russia is quite similar to being a woman in the United States.\n"Women make about 67 to 70 percent of what men make, which is about the same as it is in the U.S.," Johnson said. "Often during a transition women are the first to be fired, which is new, because the Soviet Union never did that. But that's because they guaranteed employment for everyone, so no one ever got fired."\nJohnson said that while most Russians view women as intelligent, many found her occupation as a researcher alone in Moscow rather confusing.\n"Russians had a lot of trouble with me because they couldn't understand why someone would want to come and study women's lives," Johnson said. "I was asked by women as well as men if I had my husband's permission to be there."\nJohnson also said there is plenty of sexualization and that pictures of half-naked women can be seen in magazines and in billboards on the streets.\n"Most women don't mind," she said. "They see it as a freedom they didn't have before."\nFreshman Till Hartmann, an overseas study student from Germany, agreed that women in Europe generally tend to be much more open-minded concerning sexuality than those in the United States, but added that women in Germany tend to dress almost as conservatively as those in the United States.\n"It surprised me -- the way the girls dress here, it's similar to the way European girls dress," Hartmann said. "European women tend to dress more elegantly than others, but about the same"