FEMINISTS DEMAND GENDER EQUALITY

Several of the articles had been rejected in November, including one regarding equal pay for equal work, because parliamentarians said Estonia wasnit ready. The presentations drew heavily upon a United Nations report released at the beginning of the year, "Toward a Balanced Society: Women and Men in Estonia," which confirmed Estonia as a nation is straggling behind in views on gender and equality. According to Voldemar Kolga, head of Tallinn Pedagogical University_s womenis studies center, Estonians are often ironical about the political correctness of the West. "[They hint] that it is only a facade. . .Of course it is a facade, but it is also known sooner or later that every facade starts to exert an influence on what is inside," he wrote in the UN report. The conferenceis speakers agreed that a lack of women_s rights is sooner laughed at than acknowledged by the mainstream population.