Institutional obstacles to equality between the sexes

After briefly mentioning the basic characteristics of the constitutional and legislative framework in which the people participate, I try to show how the legal system in Switzerland is biased in favour of men.Although since June 1981 the Constitution has guaranteed equal rights to men and women, women suffer significant discrimination. That discrimination is unchallengeable in court and difficult to overcome through legislative change, since the Swiss parliament is 90 per cent male. The institutional balance of power (between parliament, government, the courts and the people) means that women are excluded from the implementation of equality although they have a legal right to it. The refusal of the Federal Court to control the constitutionality of federal laws (which contain the worst discrimination) coupled with a restrictive interpretation of equality where it concerns women, makes it clear that our right to equality will remain ‘paper rights’ only for years to come.The constitutional amendment on equality of rights between women and men shows the myth of neutrality and objectivity of the legal system, and the necessity of referring to the notion of women as a group, and no longer as isolated individuals as classical constitutional jurisprudence teaches, for that is the only way to show the sex-based discrimination hurting women as women, and not as individuals at random.In our fight for equality we are faced with the dispersion of women in various groups according to class, religion, language, region, profession and so on and this means we cannot rely on a uniform conception of equality and of the means of achieving it, but must develop a new meaning of equality, going further than the dichotomy of ‘public man, private woman’, and fighting against male privilege, to achieve a better democracy.