There is a need to formally acknowledge the real, essential and notable work performed by women in the Secretariat of the Council of Europe, mostly invisible to the historical record, mostly undervalued and mostly in “support” roles as assistants, secretaries, typists, clerks, etc.

Who typed up the 1949 Statute of the Council of Europe? Who made the tea in London on 5 May 1949?  Who made the photocopies and put the original documents into the envelopes?  Women did. All of the signatories were men, yes, as are all of the dignitaries in the official photo, even though from the very first day of work, the Council of Europe has been the employer of women as well as of men.  However, before the first woman was elected Secretary General in 1989, there are nearly no tangible traces of the role of women within the Organisation. Even in the period between the first woman Secretary General and the second, the progress of women in the Organisation was slow and irregular.  Human Resource policies detrimental or even prohibitive to women’s careers were commonplace, and the workplace environment combined with the expectations of society to discourage women from pursuing higher education or fulfilling careers altogether. Although it seemed perhaps inexorable after 1989, the “equal opportunity” we enjoy today was achieved with the hard work, disappointments and sacrifices of many “invisible” women. Women carried out not only essential clerical work, but drafted reports, made speeches, ran projects, negotiated policies and legislation, designed web pages, managed teams and led large departments. They were the many “everyday heroines” of the Organisation.

While in 2024 we can be grateful for a record number of high-profile positions in the Organisation held by women and while women staff generally no longer feel artificially restricted or held-back in their career aspirations, it also remains true that women continue to fill the large majority of support roles.
“Women’s work” is still today often undervalued, invisible and ignored. This is especially true for the support staff doing so-called “secretarial” or administrative work.  As in other areas of women's work, the work done by the support staff over 75 years often lacks proper recognition by the Council of Europe. Some of this ambiguity is accounted for by the fact that gender expectations are interwoven into the work role. Much of secretarial labour, including intellectual and emotional aspects of the work, is "invisible" to organisations, yet is essential to fulfilling organisational and professional goals.

This nomination is for all the invisible women whose valuable work over the 75 years of the Council of Europe’s existence has done more than any one single person to ensure that it is today the continent’s foremost pan-European intergovernmental Organisation dedicated to Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law.
 

Paul Faber, President of the Human Rights Commission and Polys Modinos, Registrar at the Court of Human Rights (02/07/1955)

Creation of the Council of Europe at St James's Palace, London (05/05/1949)

Session of the Committee of Ministers: Margaretha af Ugglas, Sweden Foreign Affairs Minister and President of the Committee of Ministers with Catherine Lalumière, Secretary General (20/11/1991)

72nd Session of the Committee of Ministers: Léo Tindemans, Belgium Foreign Affairs Minister and President of the Committee of Ministers with Franz Karasek, Secretary General (28/04/1984)

Women holding the European flag (10/10/1968) 

Winston Churchill speaks at the Parliamentary Assembly (11/08/1949)