Sweden Slams NATO for Poor Gender Quotas, Isn’t Even a NATO Member

The Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) claims the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) lacks proper gender balance in leadership roles because there are not enough women in senior positions.

The independent survey conducted by the FOI claims that NATO has found it hard to reach out to women in recruitment because the military alliance uses pictures of aircraft and other military illustrations instead of promoting careers like “policy work, counselling and programme management”, that may appeal more to women.

“That the senior management supports gender work, that there is a policy and an action plan in place are important conditions. Already there are shortcomings with NATO because there are no clear objectives for the action plan,”  FOI research director Helené Lackenbauer said.

The report is not the first time the Swedish government has pushed social justice and feminist issues, with the Stockholm city government adopting a feminist-inspired “gender-balanced” approach to snow ploughing in 2015.

The policy caused havoc the following year in 2016 as the city prioritised the ploughing of pedestrian areas because more women were found to commute on foot as opposed to men who drove cars.

In 2017, Sweden’s environment minister Karolina Skog put forward the argument that reducing the number of cars driving on the country’s roads was not only an environmental issue but also a gender issue because more men drive cars. “Cars are driven largely by men so by giving a lot of space to cars, we’re giving a lot of space to men — at the expense of women,” she said.

Later that month, equalities minister Åsa Regnér introduced another gender-based policy for the country’s universities, making a course on “men’s violence against women” compulsory for many subjects in academia.

“This is a basic measure that should have been in place for decades. Anyone who has studied these issues understands that, by bringing in these changes, the government is making history,” Regnér said.

 Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com