Aarhus' recipe fora success

The last major reorganisation of the Danish municipalities resulted in fewer women in top management. Right now, Aarhus Municipality is both facing budget cuts and major reorganisation of the municipality over the next four years.

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Luckily, there are politicians that take gender equality seriously. That is probably why Aarhus has been recently appreciated by the Ministry for Gender Equality as one of the top two municipalities in Denmark working actively for gender equality.

Since 1988, Aarhus has had a gender committee that has been working hard to keep the issue on the agenda. The committee consists of political members, employer's and employee's representatives.This mixture ensures both the political and organisational insights into what the challenges in the area are. Many of the decentralized public service managements already work actively with antidiscrimination and equal opportunities in the way they occurto be relevant in the specific area. The biggest challenge has been to create an interest in the common municipal gender equality agenda - mostly because participation in projects of this sort can be seen as an extra workload and thus it is not prioritized. The solution seems to lie in respecting and basing actions on local initiatives or opinions and trying to form the way in which the issues of gender equality are communicated.

For the coming strategy and plan for gender equality 2010-2013, the local departments were encouraged to articulate their own initiatives under four pre-chosen areas. In this way, they have been forced to engage actively in the process of setting goals for self chosen activities. The employers and employees in the gender committee have played an active role as consultants and ambassadors in the departments. Setting high and concrete goals and creating an active and engaged debate were a success. Local initiatives have been forming groups and networks. The feedback has been surprisingly good.

The second focal point at the moment is rethinking the way we speak of gender equality. The work has been continued on communicating a discourse that presents women as an under-used resource rather than talking about women's right to equal opportunities. More equal representation of women in management should be seen as a way of creating more diversity which in turn will create more innovation and cause management to be more efficient.

Also, a great effort has been made in integrating gender equality issues with issues of minorities. For example, activities that relate to ethnic minorities, sexual mi-norities, handicapped, etc. are combined and coordinated.

All in all 2010 is seen as a turning point in regards to the process of working with gender equality. Rational recognition of local needs and abilities combined with a stringent communication style seems to be a recipe for a success.