“No public money without equality”. This is what the High Council for Equality between Women and Men (HCE) is asking for on Tuesday in its “advocacy for public funding in the service of equality”. In terms of public spending, “billions are raining like never before”, but “do not land” among women, deplores Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette, the president of the HCE. This consultative body placed with the Prime Minister calls on the government and the candidates for the legislative elections to “take hold of the budgetary question to give a real foundation” to the cause of equality between the sexes.
The Covid-19 crisis was a good example of this, underlines the High Council: women were “in the front line” but “seem to have been forgotten” afterwards in the government’s recovery plan. According to a study by the Women’s Foundation cited by the HCE, “out of the 35 billion euros of the recovery plan earmarked for sectoral aid, only 7 billion were dedicated to jobs mainly occupied by women”.
The principle of “equal conditionality”
To remedy these imbalances, the HCE proposes to apply the principle of “equal conditionality”. “This complicated word covers a simple principle: not one euro of public money should be spent without a counterpart in terms of gender equality”, sums up Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette.
Companies benefiting from public funds should commit to setting up, for example, a “wage catch-up” for women, or quite simply to “respect existing laws on equality”, she adds. Because, according to the president of the HCE, “it seems grotesque to continue to fund public or private organizations that are in violation”, for example because their salary policy disadvantages women.
A “gender-sensitive budget”
Another possible device would be an incentive bonus: subsidies and other tax loopholes would be increased when the beneficiary undertakes actions in favor of equality “beyond compliance with legal provisions alone”.
Finally, advocates the HCE, public authorities should adopt a “gender-sensitive budget”, which would make it possible to “measure the impact of each budget line on women and men”. “Certain tax measures disadvantage women”, such as the marital quotient, and “certain expenditure favors men”, such as sports subsidies: with the gender-sensitive budget, we could “make these imbalances legible”, and thus better correct them.