It is enough <\/strong><\/h3>\nWhat happened to Emilie and Freja is something that stays private. It scarred them both and it was something awful they had to go through, but both women agreed that it is not about their personal stories. Emilie, who works as a nurse, does think that her experience with sexism comes from the hierarchy system in the hospitals. \u201cWhen you have a system like that, you see sexism more. In the hospitals it\u2019s everywhere. From experienced nurses, to new doctors, to doctors to be in the academic world, to nurses or doctors applying for a PHD scholarship. You see it everywhere, but nobody talks about it and that\u2019s very unsettling,\u201d Emilie tells. \u201cIf you are applying for a PHD scholarship and have to do that to your boss, while he is the one harassing you, you have nowhere to go. You can either accept it or not get the scholarship, or job in other cases.\u201d<\/p>\n
But details about what happened, is and will stay private. \u201cIt is about the fact that there is <\/em>sexism happening on the work floor and it \u2018doesn\u2019t matter\u2019 what kind of it is. It can be a slap on the butt or rape; it is both sexism and it is both a problem that needs to be addressed in the Danish society,\u201d explains Freja. Emilie agrees: \u201cIt is enough, women have told their personal stories many times. Even though it\u2019s important we keep talking about it, more important now is conversations about what needs to change and possible solutions. Instead of always criticizing women to come forward and neglecting their stories.\u201d<\/p>\nBreaking silence <\/strong><\/h3>\nBut after years of having to stay silent about what happened and not being able to talk about it, it was freeing yet nerve wracking for both women to come forward and say: \u2018Hey, this happened to me too\u2019. \u201cIt felt like a really safe space where I could share my story with women who went through the same. We were eleven women, standing there together on the front page of the newspapers, instead of just me alone,\u201d shares Emilie. Getting the testimonials from many Danish women was really overwhelming, as Freja describes. \u201cIt was a safe place, but we were all a bit nervous in the beginning. What will happen to my career and what will this mean for me when I speak up? Will people retaliate? But we were saying no together and that was a really empowering feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
The petitions received hundreds of signatures and testimonials from women who wanted their stories to be told and heard. For the first time the women\u2019s voice were heard, listened to and broadly published in the media. It was a movement. But only being heard, isn\u2019t enough for Freja and Emilie: they want change. \u201cWe have been living in a culture where everyone knew that that one big boss was sleeping with his intern, but nobody said anything about it, because \u2018that\u2019s just the way it is\u2019. We want to get to a place where that is not acceptable and where women can say no \u2013 without fearing that they will lose their job,\u201d Freja says hopefully. Emilie shares this way of thinking. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be the case that women just suck it up, because they are too scared of losing their jobs. They shouldn\u2019t have to choose between saying no and risk losing their job or staying silent about sexism just to keep their job. That\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n[aesop_quote type=”block” background=”#ffffff” text=”#000000″ align=”right” size=”3″ quote=”The choice is: suck it up or lose your job” parallax=”off” direction=”right” revealfx=”off”]\n
Change<\/strong><\/h3>\nThings the women would want to see change is for example having a confidential person at the workplaces. \u201cThis way women can report what happened anonymously, without having to tell their boss immediately. Because it very much could be that their boss is the one doing it.\u201d But also, they want written rules that you are not supposed to have sexual relationships in your workgroup, especially not between superiors and interns, because of the power dynamic that comes with that.<\/p>\n
The same consequences men followed in Europe or America during the #MeToo wave in 2017, hasn\u2019t happened yet for the men in Denmark. However, the first consent law was legalized in December, as Lise told. \u201cThat\u2019s a whole other problem, because when you are not sure if it was rape or not that you experienced, you don\u2019t take it to the police. They are not educated and would not help you in the way you needed,\u201d Emilie explains. She doubts Denmark will see people go to jail for sexism. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine,\u201d she says. But getting them into jail is not the priority, the priority is to keep talking about it, keep the movement alive and fight for change. And that\u2019s what Emilie and Freja will keep doing.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three years after the #MeToo movement travelled through the world, the movement stroke down in Denmark. The country that seemed to be a gender equal paradise, turned out to be everything but. Sexism was swept under the carpet for years and women who tried to talk about it, were silenced. Until now. Emilie Haugh Rasch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":866,"featured_media":1298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cbj","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Sexism is real in Denmark, despite what the world thought: \u2018The women were ridiculed and the men were applauded\u2019 - International Journalism<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n