Scantily clad women disappear from male-dominated workplace
Carpenters work on a restoration project. Especially in male-dominated workplaces nude calendars used to be popular. Photo EPA, Teresa Suarez
Northern Europe
In the past, workplaces of construction workers, car mechanics and even funeral homes would often be decorated with half-naked women on calendars. If a new Danish campaign is successful, this is a thing of the past.
Come and take – down, the cover of a newly printed calendar reads. The calendar, showing a woman in underwear on its cover as well, is part of a Danish campaign that aims to make male-dominated workplaces safer for women. Inside are pictures of workplaces where the nude calendars traditionally appeared often. They range from classrooms to funeral homes.
The new calendars should replace the old ones, says Troels Blicher Danielsen to Kristeligt Dagblad. He is in charge of the Danish mechanical and electrical contractors association, Tekniq Arbejdgiverne, which started a campaign against the nude calendars. Its goal is "a good debate and a general cleaning of companies." Therefore, the association sends each one of its approximately 4000 members an exemplar.
Dialogue
"Scantily clad women do not belong in any workplace", says Blicher Danielsen. "It is our job sometimes to challenge those who may not have kept up with the times." Young people do not appreciate the images of scantily clad women, Tekniq Arbejdgiverne hears from its member employers.
Therefore, Blicher Danielsen wants to encourage companies to go for a walk and "take down the outdated calendars or use the calendar as a dialogue tool with employees."
In practice, the nude calendars do not serve any real purpose anymore, the employers' organisation notices. Many suppliers have stopped sending them out, but the old calendars are still hanging around.
The campaign against the calendars will consist of video features from different companies that have taken the calendars down. In addition, member companies are encouraged to share photos of their 'clean' workplace.
Attractive
By removing the images of naked women from the workplace, Blicher Danielsen hopes that the traditionally male-dominated jobs will become more attractive for women as well. "We have an underrepresentation of all genders other than the male. And we know that those who have the right culture and don't have nudity calendars are more likely to attract women", he says to Kristeligt Dagblad. He points out that women are very likely to feel more secure in a workplace that "is not decorated with other women who are naked."
He believes that it is important for companies to attract more women because if they want to make money, "they must attract the most talented people. But if [they] can only take from half the population, you don't have to go to school much to know that it does not add up."
Surprise
Last year, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine also noticed that the nude calendars are losing popularity. More and more companies stop the distribution of them.
Christine Maurer, who runs a Vespa workshop in Frankfurt, is happy about that. "When calendars like this hang up, it should not come as a surprise that men keep making jokes about women", she says to Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Some companies try to smooth things over by pointing out that they also have male calendars. But according to Maurer, it is not that easy. She notices that women are still seen mainly as sex objects and not as real people with skills and knowledge.
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