In municipal institutions – Geneva women should pay less than men – News
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Women should pay 20 percent less than men to visit museums or other public facilities.
The Geneva city councilors debated late into the night on Wednesday, until the motion was finally passed. Now the international city, headquarters of the UNO, is to officially introduce discrimination between men and women: female city dwellers are to receive a card with which they can get into all city facilities cheaper than men. Men continue to pay 100 percent of the entrance fee to the theater or the pool, women pay a discount of 20 percent for being a woman.
“This is how we make wage inequality visible,” says Brigitte Studer, who sits in the city parliament for “Ensemble à Gauche”. Studer has accompanied the project from the start and remembers: “The idea came about during the women’s strike in 2019. With the women’s discount of 20 percent, we draw attention to the wage difference between men and women in Switzerland,” says the 74-year-old.
The left-green side of the council once again makes all women the weaker sex who need help.
“It’s a symbolic measure,” Studer explained to SRF News. The proposal was submitted as an application, and there is also leeway for the city to implement it.
Does the city have leeway?
State and constitutional law expert Bernhard Waldmann sees no room for maneuver: “Such a regulation is clearly unconstitutional. The city of Geneva is bound by the fundamental rights of the federal constitution and may only make differentiations according to gender for very good reasons.” And that is definitely not the case with a symbolic law that is also discriminatory, says Waldmann, who teaches at the University of Freiburg.
That’s why the left-green parliamentarians in Geneva’s city parliament are fouting themselves. They counter that they violate the constitution with equal pay, which is also in the constitution but has not been implemented for 25 years. “And that’s just accepted,” says Studer, which also points out that the women’s discount of 20 percent may also be intended as a provocation.
Does the movement remain just a symbol?
However, the politician ignores the fact that the federal parliament introduced a law less than two years ago that forces companies with more than 100 to control wages – this affects 46 percent of all employees in Switzerland. The measure, however, does not go far enough for Studer: “This does not abolish the wage difference.”
The Geneva councilor Michèle Roullet, who sits in the city parliament for the FDP, finds the initiative completely cross: “The millionaire can now go to the opera at a reduced price, while the student continues to pay the full price. The left-green side of the council once again makes all women the weaker sex who needs help.”
But the motion hasn’t helped anyone one way or the other. Because the Geneva city government must now propose the implementation of the women’s discount to Parliament. In the context of the applicable federal laws, this is likely to be a tricky task that may not even be feasible. In fact, the movement would remain nothing more than a symbol – just as ineffective as other measures for comprehensive wage equality.