A minority in the minority? The Women of Minorities project goes into the next round

Are women underrepresented in minorities when it comes to the high posts? How equal is it in our organisations? That's what we wanted to find out last year – and the results of our study on the project "Women of Minorities" confirmed the impression we often get at FUEN events: in principle, women are well represented in the organisations, but mainly in the operational area. However, in leadership positions, i.e. in presidiums or boards, men dominate. "While men have taken the leadeship positions, women do the work," Zora Popova, scientific consultant and project leader summarised the situation.

The results, but also the great interest of many of our member organisations, showed quite clearly: there is a need for talk and action here. The project "Women of Minorities" is therefore entering the next phase, and the kick-off for this was an online meeting on 12 July, which focused on the desired contents of the interested parties as well as concrete projects. 18 participants from nine countries, representing 12 minorities took part in the virtual meeting, including FUEN Vice-President Olivia Schubert, who began by emphasising the great relevance of the topic, especially in Eastern Europe.

Photo: Screenshot Online-Meeting

Learning from the experiences of others, getting inspiration and networking on the topic of gender equality and gender justice – these were the wishes of most participants. While some are proud of very good quotas of women in their organisations, also in leadership positions, others criticise their lack of representation and a lack of culture to want to change this. They often lack courage, support – and perhaps also strong role models.

To ensure that strong role models are no longer lacking in the future, FUEN is planning to produce short video portraits of women from minorities who, overcoming different challenges, have made their way to the forefront in politics, business, education, science or culture. Proposals with a short justification are accepted at info@fuen.org.

In addition, a workshop on the topic of gender equality and gender justice in minorities is being planned, the concrete content of which will be based on the wishes of the participants. Numerous ideas were collected during the online meeting, which will now be evaluated and developed into a programme proposal for a meeting in Presence, probably in December 2023.