CDN Gender Group

The call for members of the Gender Group Coordinating Body is open. After a year’s work the group has decided to be renewed. So all interested and motivated people who want to take their share of responsibility for the coordination of the Gender Group, please apply! The call is open for every interested person who has a certain experience in dealing with gender issues.

During the last year, the group has organized a workshop titled “Gender and Art” that took place during CDN's study session “Youth and pARTipation” in Budapest in December 2010. Moreover, we published a series of articles dealing with the issue of physical, sexual and psychological violence against women published on occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25th and another one dedicated to the World Championship in Women's Soccer being held in Germany this summer.

To continue the working spirit and put new blood into the group, we are looking for new Coordinating Body Members. Members of the Coordinating Body should be regularly available on the e-mail for ongoing discussions and online conferences. On top of that, the Coordinating Body is responsible for the development of future plans as well as the coordination and implementation of ongoing activities, together with the CDN EC and office.

Click here to download the application form. Deadline for submitting applications is 25th August 2011. Please send your filled application to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The decision will be made a few days after the deadline.

picture: Steve Snodgrass / license: creative commons

An article about football associations, tolerance and equality by Josefine Paul, a young green member of North Rhine-Westphalian Parliament in Germany.

translated by Aljoscha Löffler

Kick-off for the biggest sports event this sommer. This year the “FIFA Women's World Cup” takes place in Germany. For everyone who does not know who or what the FIFA is, let it be explained as the world's football association whereas you could have recently get the impression that it was a branch of the mafia or money launderers. So talking about the “FIFA Women's World Cup” means talking about football. More precisely about women's football because football is still for many people a male sport.

From 1955 until 1970 football for women was officially prohibited by the German Football Association (DFB). But women did not want to let it be forbidden. Even in the period of the prohibition women kept playing drew people into the stadiums. In 1970 the DFB found out that they were no longer able to keep women away from the pitch. And the success confirmed the women: Since 1982 German female national teams won seven European Cups and two World Cup.

Nowadays women's football is even considered as sexy. There existed the prejudices that only “viragos” and “butches” would play football. And now the beautiful aspects and curves of football are discovered and the motto of the World Cup was picked in accordance: “2011 by its most beautiful aspects” Even some players try to fight against the image of little attractive women in football jerseys and took off their clothes completely – for the Playboy magazine.

Today, the DFB does not feel bothered any more by this “Advert for sports”. In 1976 the DFB decided that football shirt advertising is unacceptable because of “anatomical reasons”. At this time they did not want to talk about female amenities as football shirt advertising on the front of the jersey is suspiciously in breast height. This is just one out of many anecdotes out of the cabinet of curiosities in the relation between female football players and the (mostly male) administrators of the DFB. Until today football is a male association. The decisions are mainly made by men.

But nonetheless: Women and football, despite all oppositions, prejudices and dispensable marketing issues is a history of success. It is not possible to think of football without any girls and women. More than one Million girls and women are members of the DFB and the number is still growing. Even in school and on other football areas girls conquered their place and claim it with confidence. Furthermore more and more women get involved as coaches or referees.

Sepp Blatter once said distinctively: “The future of football is female.” A future in which the players will not be reduced to their appearance, in which women in the whole world can play without repression and in which women start finding their way into the institutions to take place in key positions. Although Sepp Blatter was not exactly talking about this ...

Josefine Paul, 28, is the spokesperson for queer and sports policy of the green parliamentary group in the North Rhine-Westphalian Parliament. Besides she plays football with passion and writes her dissertation about the history of women's football.

picture: summer.raiin / license: creative commons

An Interview between Gesine Agena, spokesperson of GRÜNE JUGEND (Green Youth Germany), and Theo Zwanziger, president of the DFB (Deutscher Fußballbund – German Football Association) about the Women's World Cup and equalization policy […]

translated by Aljoscha Löffler

Gesine Agena: We would like to conduct an interview about the Women's World Cup. As Green Youth we think that talking about football the encouragement of women is very important. Basically we support equality and that's what the topic of this interview is going to be.

Theo Zwanziger: I appreciate this, as the Greens were against associated sports and football for a long time. After they had discovered, that this is important for the society, they became my friends. Especially Claudia Roth, the representative for environment of the DFB.

Gesine Agena: You are known as a patron of women's football. My first question is: Are you a fan as well?

Theo Zwanziger: Of course I am. To love football means always to be a bit of a fan. Concerning national teams: People get connected and move together, it's about tradition and passion. I intensely feel this passion when it comes to women's football. Since 2004 I am well-known as a fan of Turbine Potsdam, who played a great football in the cup final in the Olympic Stadium of Berlin.

Gesine Agena: Petra Landers, European champion in 1989, once said: It was not her who was discriminated but Gero Bisanz, the first team manager, who was confronted with a lot of prejudices. When did you come out as a fan? And what do you do against discrimination in women's football?

by Aljoscha Löffler (Green Youth Germany)

In Brazil football is the most popular and the most important sport. The national teams, both male and female, are playing with great techniques as if they were dancing samba. Both teams are always one of the favourites for the title and consist of exceptional players. Some of them were even elected as FIFA World Player of the Year. The last one for the men was Kaká in 2007 and for the women there is Marta who won this title five times in a row since 2006.

At first sight you could think that with this success there are no big problems in the reputation of women's association football in Brazil. But Marta is really an exception: She is one of three players of the current national squad that earn their money abroad. The others are playing in Brazilian non-professional leagues and struggle to get enough money to care for themselves and their families that mostly live in poor conditions.

But there were times when the difference between men's and women's football was even bigger. Under the governance of the Brazilian military government from 1964 to 1985 women were not allowed by law to play football until 1981. The society feared that they could lose their fertility by performing a male sport. It was not such a big problem when young girls played football before they reached puberty. But when they kept on playing, people would call them “lesbians” or “ugly broads”.

Even though women were then allowed officially to play football the acceptance in the population grew very slowly. Even in recent days there is no professional football league for women in Brazil and the players are lucky when they get some compensation money for their travels to the training ground or the matches in the amateur leagues. They can only dream of proper salaries.

But football is not the only sign of discrimination of women in the Brazilian society. Despite the 5th article of the Brazilian constitution from 1988 that declares women and men as equal, women still have disadvantages. The biggest problems occur in the employment. In general women are worse paid and it is more difficult for them to find a job. In the service sector 70 % of the workforce is male and the women are usually older. The employers do not want their female employees to get pregnant and some even demand sterilization certificates from their female applicants though this is prohibited by law.

Maybe with a government that is led by a woman, Dilema Rousseff, women's rights will be more respected in future. As an optimist, I hope that a positive result of the women's national team in the 2011 world championships can increase the population's awareness for women's associated football and for the situation of women in general.

picture: mariaguimarães / license: creative commons

by Lusine Grigoryan

Playing football is not anymore men business. Number of girls and women playing football is growing day by day and they are becoming serious football competitors.

One of the biggest problems in the history of women's football was that the sport was often violent, especially when played without a clear set of rules and was always shadowed by the men's football. Even today football is not considered a sport for the weak. This often made it difficult for women to play, but the ladies are determined to change this and come to equal standards with the boys. Contested every four years, the first Women's World Championship was held in China 1991. It featured 12 teams from six continents battling it out in a series of games to be crowned the first-ever Women's World Champion. The United States won the tournament.

June 1995 took the World Cup to Sweden where the world's best dozen teams gathered for a second time to play for the world cup. The top qualifiers were Germany, Norway and USA. Winner of The World Cup was Norway.

The host nation for the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup was the USA and the US ladies again won the tournament. The games were played in huge stadiums with media coverage and television audiences.

A devastating outbreak of the SARS disease forced FIFA to switch the venue the 2003 Women's World Cup from China to the USA. Germany was crowned World Champions for the first time and their captain Birgit Prinz was the star of the tournament winning both the Golden Shoe and Golden Ball awards.

In 2007 the World Cup goes back to China. The German national team has been very successful and they won the tournament for the second time. This year Germany will host 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup.

The tournament will be held in 9 cities throughout Germany and all 32 games, comprising four groups of four teams, will be covered by two public television channels in Germany. Both Germany and the United States have a chance for a hat-trick of women’s World Cup titles. The winners of the tournament will be crowned at the football stadium in Frankfurt in front of amazing 74, 000 fans.

Even though Women's football is the fastest growing sport in the world with over 45 million ladies participating in the game across the globe it does not receive the recognition and support it should get and this is a great opportunity to support them!

picture: teliko82 / license: creative commons

World Championship in Women's Soccer in Germany

As you may know, from 26 June till 17 July the World Championship in Women's Soccer is taking place in Germany.

Call for Articles related to Women's Soccer

On the initiative of the German Young Greens, we, the CDN Gender Working Group, want to gather texts on any topic related to women's soccer and the world championship in order to publish them as a series of articles on our website. Examples for topics may be: fair trade clothing, implementation of women's rights in a certain country, acceptance of women playing soccer, feminism, antipatriotism and more. We do not want to set limits to your creativity!

If you are interested in writing an article, please send an e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The submission deadline is 25 June. Feel free to write and tell us your opinion and story or anything connected to the topic! Your articles will be promoted and published on the CDN gender website.

We are looking forward to hearing from you!

CDN Gender Group Coordinating Body

picture: Michael Oh / license: creative commons

Call For Papers

The role of human activity in accelerating climate change is beyond doubt. The fourth assessment report (4AR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), confirmed that overwhelming scientific evidence links the impact of human activity to climate change and unless action to significantly reduce emissions of greenhouse gases is taken, the world is on a path to runaway warming.

Women are disproportionately affected

Gender aspects of climate change are a matter of justice, human rights, and human security. Women are the poorest people in the poorest areas. Moreover, several studies indicate that the death rate in natural disasters can be four times higher for women. We have compelling data on how women are more vulnerable to climate change. It is thus important to be committed to gender sensitive approaches. We must adapt the mechanisms in place so that they reduce, or at least do not increase the gender issues.

The Greens/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament encourages everyone to send them a paper with ideas and propositions on these issues. More information can be found here.

FYEG (Federation of Young European Greens), GYG (Global Young Greens) and the Kenyan Young Greens are planning to organise a seminar in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation Kenya on the topic of Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Nairobi, Kenya in November 2011 (preliminary date).

The main aims of the seminar are to:

• introduce the participants to the basic concepts and problems of sexual and reproductive rights
• enhance the networking between the different partner organisations on gender issues and in general (with special focus on partners from Africa and Europe)
• raise awareness in the local community around the issue

PREP TEAM COMPOSITION, TASKS AND MEETINGS

The international preparatory team will consist of eight people (including four representatives of the partner organisations GYG, FYEG and the Kenya Young Greens) in total. The membership of the preparatory team is based on a geographical and gender balance as well as between people with solid experience in the field and without. This team will then be in charge of the implementation of the event: the securing of the funding, the quest for partners, the selection of participants, programme development and realisation, reporting etc.

The prep team will also be in intensive contact with the local prepteam (Kenya Young Greens) for technical and other questions. The prepteam will have two meetings - one in April (to be confirmed) and one at the time and venue of the seminar itself. In between the meeting the members of the preparatory team will communicate through the special mailing list and skype conferences.

The prep team will be prepare a reader, an agenda, information sheet and all other necessary documents and forms. The prep team is also in charge of reporting to possible donors after the seminar.

HOW TO APPLY?

If you are a member of a FYEG or GYG member organisation and interested in applying for the prep team, please send the application form to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by 15th February 2011 11 PM CET. You can get further information and the application form on request. Just send a mail to  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

picture: Artnow314 / license: creative commons

We recently got the following information by the Gender Working Group of FYEG (Federation of Young European Greens). It would be great, if you could take part in the survey in order to evaluate our gender equality, too.

Dear everyone,

we are the Gender Working Group of FYEG and try to promote and research gender equality within the member organisations of FYEG and CDN. We want to collect everything done by the member organisations (MO's) about gender equality and women rights in this survey. With the results we will create a compendium public about the gender situations in the MO's of FYEG and CDN.

It will also serve as a database for FYEG on future projects. We will use the survey also to write an article for Ecosprinter and the german young green newspaper "SPUNK".

Therefore please submit urgendly the answers for the survey until the 1st of February 2011 to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . You can answer the questions below plain by mail.

Are you already registered on the FYEG public discussion on gender mailing list? Discuss with young people throughout Europe about women and LGBT rights or maternity leave, sign up here.

Your FYEG Gender Working Group