Women in Europe

Photograph of a statue showing the face of a woman from ancient Greece.

The evolution and history of European women coincide with the evolution and the history of Europe itself. According to the Catalyst, 51.2% of the population of the European Union in 2010 is composed of women (in January 2011, the population of the EU was at 502,122,750).

Categorically, modern-day women in Europe are women who live in or are from the European continent, which includes women from sovereign states such as women from Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom (composed of women from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) and Vatican City.

European women also include women from states with limited recognition internationally, such as Abkhazia, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, South Ossetia, and Transnistria.

There are also women of Europe who comes from dependencies and other territories such as Åland, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Jersey, and the Isle of Man.

Women from these states, including those that are from European microstates, dependencies and territories, have developed their own culturally-related characteristics.

European women in sovereign states

Albania

Albanian woman (late 19th century/early 20th century)

Main article: Women in Albania

Women in Albania are European women who live in or are from Albania. Albanian women reside within a conservative and patriarchal society. In such a traditional society, the women of Albania have subordinate roles in communities that believe in "male predominance". This is despite the arrival of democracy and the adoption of a free market economy in Albania, after the period under the communist Party of Labor. Based on the 500-year-old Kanun of Leke Dukagjini, a traditional code of conduct, the main role of Albanian women is to take care of the children and to take care of the home.

Andorra

Main article: Women in Andorra

Legally, women in Andorra have equal rights under the laws of the Principality of Andorra. Politically, Andorran women won 15 seats during their country's parliamentary election of 2011; for this reason, Andorra became the first nation in Europe and the second country internationally to have elected a "majority female legislature". Among the problems that confront Andorran women at present are the existence of violence against them, the absence of government departments that deal with issues about women, and the non-existence of shelters for battered women that are managed by the government of Andorra.

Armenia

Main article: Women in Armenia

Due to the patriarchal nature of traditional Armenian culture and society, women in Armenia are normally expected to be virtuous and submissive, safeguarding their virginity until marriage. Most Armenian women thus customarily assume the roles of housewives and mothers. Nonetheless, some Armenian women have attained prominence in business and politics.

Austria

Main article: Women in Austria

The legal position of women in Austria improved since the middle of the 1970s. Based on a December 1993 study about the status of Women in Austria, the priority of legislation in Austria is based on the equal treatment of both genders rather than having equal rights only. Thus, Austrian women benefit from their government's attempt "to compensate for gender-specific inequality of burdens". However, despite of the legislative improvement in relation to the status of women in Austrian society, the concept of traditional roles prevailed. Austrian men regard most household chores and child-rearing responsibilities as being within the realm of Austrian women. Both education and gender are the basis of income levels.

Azerbaijan

Main article: Women in Azerbaijan

Women in Azerbaijan nominally enjoy the same legal rights as men; however, societal discrimination is a problem. Traditional social norms and lagging economic development in the country’s rural regions continue to restrict women’s roles in the economy, and there are reports that women have difficulty exercising their legal rights due to gender discrimination.

Belarus

Main article: Women in Belarus

The modern-day characteristics of women in Belarus evolved from the events that happened within in the history of Belarus, particularly when the "concept of equal rights for women was first developed and substantiated in the late 16th century". The so-called Grand Duchy Charter of 1588 - one of the most important legal documents in Belarusian history - protected the dignity of Belarusian women under the law. Women in Belarus and their contribution to Belarusian society is celebrated annually on the 8th of March, during International Women's Day.

Belgium

Main article: Women in Belgium

Women in Belgium are European women who live in or are from Belgium. Generation after generation, Belgian women are able to close the so-called "occupational gender gap". In younger generations, this is due to the increasing availability of "part-time jobs in services" for women. In 1999, the average earnings of a Belgian woman was 91 percent of the salary of a Belgian man. When not doing part-time jobs, Belgian women still "do more of the domestic work", depending on the agreement between female and male partners.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnian woman and girl, early 20th century

Main article: Bosnia and Herzegovina

Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina are European women who live in and are from Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), women of Bosnia and Herzegovina have been affected by three types of transition after the Bosnian War (1992-1995), namely: the "transition from war to peace", economic transition and political transition. The resulting effects include: the lowering of their public and social standing because their focus is to "engage in domestic duties" in their homes. Some Bosnian and Herzegovinian women opted to travel outside the country to search for jobs. The more vulnerable women among the social classes are women from the rural area. They are "more marginalized" because of lower level of education and their inclination to tradition, where they rely on men as "primary owners of land and other assets". They also have been described as with "limited access to land, training, modern farming techniques, finances and equipment", thus earn low wages.

Bulgaria

Bulgarian girls from Gabra, Sofia Province in traditional attire

Main article: Women in Bulgaria

Historically, before the founding of the nation now known as Bulgaria, the women in Bulgaria belong to family units of Bulgarian people whose men and grown-up male children practice a nomadic form of living because the latter were involved in breeding sheep and other cattle. Prior to the onset of the Balkan Wars, due to this nomadic activity of Bulgarian society, the women, such as those who reside in the towns of Kotel, Zheravna, Smolyan, Shiroka Luka and Dospat, only meet the male members of the communities during Christmas season until the end of February. In terms of military organization, women have historically been known to have recruited females to become soldiers for the Bulgarian army, particularly during critical times. As the name "Bulgar" - meaning "mixture" (of peoples) - implies that the racial profile of Bulgarian women, in general, had been the result of the assimilation and integration of Sarmatians, Scythians, Germanics, Slavs, Thracians, Romans, Greeks - whose religions may either be paganism, Christianity, Buddhism, or Judaism, especially during the time of khan Kubrat, the founder of the State of Bulgaria.

Croatia

Main article: Women in Croatia

Women in Croatia form half the population and in modern Croatian culture they are largely equal to men. In Croatia, gender equality is part of Article 3 of the Constitution of Croatia. A Gender Equality Ombudsman and the Office for Gender Equality has existed since 2003.

Cyprus

Main article: Women in Cyprus

Cypriot women were greatly affected by changes in the wake of World War II, as they received expanded access to education and increased participation in the national workforce. At the beginning of the 20th century, the proportion of girls to boys enrolled in primary education was one to three. By 1943, some 80 percent of Cypriot girls attended primary school. When, in 1960, elementary education was made compulsory, the two sexes were equally enrolled. By the 1980s, girls made up 45 percent of those receiving secondary education. Only after the mid-1960s did women commonly leave Cyprus to receive higher education. In the 1980s, women made up about 32 percent of those studying abroad.

Czech Republic

Main article: Women in the Czech Republic

The history, characteristic, evolution, and genealogies of present-day women in the Czech Republic can be traced back from many centuries before the establishment of the country now known as the Czech Republic. They have originated from ancestral Slavic settlers who had an economy that was based primarily on agriculture. After the period in the history of the Czech Republic known as the Velvet Revolution, many women have become individuals with full-time jobs and who, at the same time, are also focusing on their responsibilities as homemakers, giving themselves "a high sense of personal efficacy and independence" within Czech society.

Denmark

Main article: Women in Denmark

The modern-day character and the historical status of women in Denmark has been influenced by their own involvement in women's movements and political participation in the history of Denmark. Their mark can be seen in the fields of politics, women's suffrage, and literature, among others.

Estonia

Main article: Women in Estonia

In the past, according to Estonian mythology, the ancient women of Estonia believed in the female deity and protector of pregnant women in labor known as Rõugutaja.

Finland

Main article: Women in Finland

Finnish women enjoy a "high degree of equality" and "traditional courtesy" among men. In 1906, the women of Finland became the first women in Europe to be granted the right to vote. There are many women in Finland who hold prominent positions in Finnish society, in the academics, in the field of business, and in the government of Finland. An example of powerful women in Finnish politics is Tarja Halonen, who became the first female president of the country (she was Foreign Minister of Finland before becoming president).

France

Simone de Beauvoir (9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986), French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist and social theorist, is a prominent feminist figure.

Main article: Women in France

The traditional role of women in French society involves domestic duties such as housekeeping, preparation of meals in the customary fashion that involves a "succession of courses eaten one at a time", child rearing, harvesting of crops, and tending to farm animals. Upon the onset of the industrial revolution in France, women's role changed with them becoming domestic helpers, factory workers, and washerwomen. This may not include women who have "bourgeois" status because they may become dependent on the financial support of their husbands; and such women of upper-class status - particularly in the past - had the tendency to send their own "children to wet nurses until" weaned. Further changes to the status of women in France became apparent in 1944, when French women gained the right to vote. But it was only during the 1960s when they were given the right to work without getting permission from their spouses, in addition to the right to open personal bank accounts. At present, due to effective health care provision in the country, the life-span of women is at an average of 80.9 years old. So-called "infant allowances" are available to subscribing pregnant women and their newborn children. In 1988, the unemployment rate among the French population was described to be "higher among women". However, in modern-day France, women who have attained a "suitable level of education" and training are gaining prominent positions in the fields of business and the engineering industry, particularly within Paris, the capital city of France.

Georgia

Main article: Women in Georgia (country)

Women in Georgia are highly esteemed in Georgian society and are accorded a chivalric form of respect. The statue of Mother of Georgia (Kartlis Deda, or "Mother of Kartli") that stands at a monument in the hills above Tbilisi perhaps best symbolizes such national character: in her left hand she holds a bowl of wine with which she greets her friends and in her right is a sword drawn against her enemies.

Germany

Main article: Women in Germany

The traditional role of women in German society was often described by the so-called "four K" in the German language, namely Kinder (children), Kirche (church), Küche (kitchen), and Kleider (clothes), indicating that their duty was only to mainly take care of bearing and rearing children, attending to religious activities, cooking and serving food, and dealing with clothes and fashion. However, their roles have changed during the 20th century. After attaining the right to vote in German politics in 1919, German women began to take active roles in assuming positions customarily done only by German men. After the end of World War II, they were labeled as the Trümmerfrauen or "women of the rubble" because they took care of the "wounded, buried the dead, salvaged belongings," and they participated in the "hard task of rebuilding war-torn Germany by simply clearing away" the rubble and ruins of war.

Greece

Main article: Women in Greece

The status and characteristics of ancient and modern-day women in Greece evolved from the events that occurred in the history of Greece. According to Michael Scott, in his article "The Rise of Women in Ancient Greece" (History Today), "place of women" and their achievements in Ancient Greece was best described by Thucidydes in this quotation: that The greatest glory [for women] is to be least talked about among men, whether in praise or blame. However, the status of Grecian women has undergone change and more advancement upon the onset of the twentieth century. In 1957, they received their right to vote, which led to their earning places and job positions in businesses and in the government of Greece; and they were able to maintain their right to inherit property, even after being married.

Hungary

Main article: Women in Hungary

The roles of women in Hungary have changed significantly over the past 200 years. In the Kingdom of Hungary, discourses on women’s roles, rights, and political access, along with feminist movements, have developed within the context of extremely traditional gender roles and, more recently, Communist doctrine on women’s place in society. The post-communist era in Hungary has produced a number of organizations to address the needs of the nation’s women and mobilize female voters, and several universities now have gender studies programs.

Iceland

File:Vigdis Finnbogadottir (1985).jpg

Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, president of Iceland from 1980 to 1996

Main article: Women in Iceland

Women in Iceland have a long history of personal independence and participation in public life. On 24 October 1975, 90% of women in the country went on strike, refusing to go to work or take care of the home - instead spending the day on the streets and protesting. Iceland had a female president - Vigdís Finnbogadóttir - from 1980 to 1996.

Ireland

Main article: Women in the Republic of Ireland

The role of women in the Republic of Ireland has evolved throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Until the late 20th century, Roman Catholicism in Ireland played an extremely important role in society, influencing societal policies on issues such as contraception, marriage and divorce (the latter which was legalized by referendum in 1995 - see Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland) and sexuality (see Magdalene laundries in Ireland). Abortion in the Republic of Ireland is still severely restricted. Despite this conservative background, many women in Ireland have reached high positions in the public sphere, including two consecutive female presidents: Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese.

Italy

Main article: Women in Italy

There is, today, a growing acceptance of Italian women, and people (especially in the Northern part of Italy) tend to be far more liberal towards women getting jobs, going to university and doing stereotypically male things. However, in some parts of society, women are still stereotyped as being simply housewives and mothers, also reflected in the fact of a higher-than-EU average female unemployment. In the field of education, women in Italy tend to have highly favourable results and mainly excel in secondary and tertiary education. Eversince the Italian economic miracle, women's literacy rate and university subscription has gone up dramatically in Italy. Women in Italy have a 98% literacy rate, have a basic education and often go to university. 60% of Italian university graduates are female, and women are excellently represented in all academic subjects, including mathematics, information technology and other technological areas which are usually occupied by males. In the field of labor, female standards at work are generally of a high quality and professional, but is not as excelling as in their education. The probability of a woman getting employed is mainly related to her qualifications, and 80% of women who graduate university go to look for jobs. Women in Italy usually get the same wages as men of their same position. Women holding white collar, high level or office jobs tend to get paid the same as men, but women with blue collar or manual positions are paid 1/3 less than their male counterparts. Some of these variables are quite changeable depending on what job the certain woman has.

Kazakhstan

Kazakh woman working in Kentau

Main article: Women in Kazakhstan

The social position of women in Kazakhstan has been and is influenced by a variety of factors, including local traditions and customs, decades of Soviet regime, rapid social and economic changes and instability after independence, and new emerging Western values.

Latvia

Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, who was elected president of Latvia in 1999 and re-elected in 2003

Main article: Women in Latvia

Although Latvia faced a difficult transition period in the 1990s, many women in Latvia have attained high positions in the public sphere, including Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, who was elected president of Latvia in 1999 and re-elected in 2003; and Laimdota Straujuma, prime minister since 2014.

Liechtenstein

Main article: Women in Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein is a traditional society, and the rights of women in Liechtenstein were slow to develop. In Liechtenstein, women were given the right to vote by the women's suffrage referendum of 1984. Three prior referendums held in 1968, 1971 and 1973 had failed to secure women's right to vote.

Lithuania

Dalia Grybauskaitė, president of Lithuania

Main article: Women in Lithuania

After the fall of the Soviet Union, women in Lithuania experienced turbulent times, being faced with economic, social and personal struggles, with the 1990s being a particularly difficult time. Nevertheless, Lithuania has a female president - Dalia Grybauskaitė - inaugurated on 12 July 2009 and re-elected in May 2014.

Luxembourg

Main article: Women in Luxembourg

Living in a country of Roman Catholic tradition, women in Luxembourg have long been expected to abide by conservative gender roles, yet since the 1960s, their position in society has changed.

Macedonia

Main article: Women in the Republic of Macedonia

Women in Macedonia are women who live in or are from the Republic of Macedonia. They live in a Macedonian society that is customarily patriarchal. Being in a country that was ravaged by internal conflict known as the Insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia, Macedonian women played important roles in peacebuilding during time periods classified as the pre-conflict period (before the conflict), the conflict period (during the conflict), and the post-conflict period (after the conflict).

Malta

Main article: Women in Malta

A clue that Maltese society gave importance to women in Malta can be found during the Temple Period (3600 BC - 2500 BC) during the History of Malta, wherein the figure of obese Maltese women had been used to in sculpting statues found in such temples to represent as symbols of fertility.

Moldova

Main article: Women in Moldova

Monaco

Main article: Women in Monaco

Montenegro

Main article: Women in Montenegro

The women in Montenegro are also known as Montenegrin women. They live in Montenegro a country in southeastern Europe, a region commonly known as the Balkans. They belong to a group of people known as South Slavs. An early description of women from Montenegro comes from a column of The New York Times on November 5, 1880, wherein the newspaper said that "The Montenegrin woman takes an equal share of labor with the man at field-work, and she does all the carrying" in relation to travel by horse ride and other forms of transport by animals. The newspaper further described them to be engaged in knitting or spinning.

Netherlands

Prominent Dutch feminist Joke Smit giving a speech in 1972.

Main article: Women in the Netherlands

Feminism in the Netherlands began as part of the first-wave feminism movement during the 19th century. Later, the struggles of second-wave feminism in the Netherlands mirrored developments in the women's rights movement in other Western countries. Today, the Netherlands has the happiest women in the world, according to one study. Women in the Netherlands still have an open discussion about how to improve remaining imbalances and injustices they face as women; in particular the low participation of women in full-time employment is a political issue. In 2012, 76.9% of employed women worked part-time, well above the European Union average of 32.1%.

Norway

Main article: Women in Norway

The women of Norway has benefited from the feminist movement in Norway which has made significant progress in reforming laws and social customs in the nation.

Poland

Main article: Women in Poland

The character of women in Poland have been shaped by the history of Poland, the culture of Poland, and the politics of Poland. They belong to the group categorized as women in Europe.

Portugal

Main article: Women in Portugal

Women in Portugal received full legal equality with Portuguese men as mandated by Portugal's constitution of 1976, which in turn resulted from the Revolution of 1974. Because of these Portuguese women received the right to vote and full equality in marriage. By the early part of the 1990s, many women of Portugal became professionals, including being medical doctors and lawyers, a leap from many being merely office employees and factory workers.

Romania

Main article: Women in Romania

Russian Federation

Main article: Women in Russia

In the post-Soviet era, the position of women in Russian society remains at least as problematic as it was in previous decades. In both cases, a number of nominal legal protections for women either have failed to address the existing conditions or have failed to supply adequate support. In the 1990s, increasing economic pressures and shrinking government programs left women with little choice but to seek employment, although most available positions were as substandard as in the Soviet period, and generally jobs of any sort were more difficult to obtain. Such conditions contribute heavily to Russia's declining birthrate and the general deterioration of the family. At the same time, feminist groups and social organizations have begun advancing the cause of women's rights in what remains a strongly traditional society.

San Marino

Main article: Women in San Marino

Women in San Marino are European women who live in or are from the Republic of San Marino. Present-day San Marinese women, or Sammarinese women as they are also called, currently share almost all social and political rights with men in San Marino. San Marino introduced women's suffrage following the 1957 constitutional crisis known as Fatti di Rovereta. San Marinese women received the right to vote in 1960. They received the right to hold political office in 1973. However, in a 1982 referendum, the women of San Marino did not win the right to retain their San Marinese citizenship if they married male foreigners (19,000 San Marinese voters voted to not abolish the 1928 law that striped San Marinese women of San Marinese citizenship if they married foreigners); as a result of losing San Marinese citizenship, the women also lost the right to vote, to work, to own property, to reside in, and to inherit property in the Republic of San Marino. These citizenship laws were later changed by the parliament in 2000, and 2004, allowing women to keep their citizenship and transmit it to their children and husband.

Serbia

Main article: Women in Serbia

Slovakia

Main article: Women in Slovakia

Slovenia

Main article: Women in Slovenia

Spain

Main article: Women in Spain

Modern-day Spaniards - the people of Spain - recognize the independence of Spanish women. But the delegation of labor to women may vary in the different regions of Spain and may also be affected by their class in Spanish society. Traditional work for Spanish women may primarily include child rearing, gardening, taking care of the household, laundry work, and religious activities. At present, many female Spaniards have left their customary status as homemakers to become active in the fields of business, professions, politics, and the military. Apart from attaining prominence as "queens and noble women" in Spain's history, Spanish women now also excelled in establishing their role as women of present-day Spain "without a marked feminist rebellion".

Sweden

Three Swedish women during the traditional Swedish celebration midsommar

Main article: Women in Sweden

The status and rights of women in Sweden has been affected by culture, religion and social discourses such as by the strong feminist movement as well as laws, and changed several times through the history of Sweden. Like the other Scandinavian countries, Sweden is considered as being advanced on gender equality.

Switzerland

Main article: Women in Switzerland

Women in Switzerland are women who live and are from Switzerland. Tradition dictates that the place of Swiss women is in the home in charge of housework and child care. Being in a society with strong patriarchal roots, Swiss tradition also places women under the authority of their fathers and their husbands. Such adherence to tradition changed and improved when the women of Switzerland gained their right to vote: women obtained the right to vote in national elections in 1971; while women obtained the right to vote at local canton level between 1959 (the catons of Vaud and Neuchâtel in that year) and 1991 (the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden). However, despite of gaining status of having equal rights with men, some Swiss women still have to be able to attain education beyond the post-secondary level, thus they earn less money than men, and they occupy lower-level job positions. According to swissinfo.ch in 2011, Switzerland's State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) were encouraging business companies to "appoint more women to top-level positions". Those who are already working in business companies, according to same report, mentions that "women earn on average 20% less than men" in Switzerland, and the ratio was 6 out of 10 women were working part-time.

Turkey

Main article: Women in Turkey

The role of women in contemporary Turkey is defined by an ongoing gender equality struggle, contributing elements of which include predicate conditions for EU membership candidacy, prevalent political tides that favour restrictive Islamic patriarchal models, and woman's rights activism.

Ukraine

Main article: Women in Ukraine

Women in Ukraine have equal constitutional rights as men in the economic, political, cultural and social fields, as well as in the family. Women receive lower salaries and have limited opportunity for career advancement. Most of the around 45 percent of Ukraine’s population (45 million) who suffers violence – physical, sexual or mental – are women.

United Kingdom

Queen Victoria

Main article: Women in the United Kingdom

Women in the United Kingdom include those that live in or are from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The status of women in the Victorian era in the UK is often seen as an illustration of the striking discrepancy between the United Kingdom's national power and wealth and what many, then and now, consider its appalling social conditions. During the era symbolized by the reign of British monarch Queen Victoria, women did not have suffrage rights, the right to sue, or the right to own property. At the same time, women participated in the paid workforce in increasing numbers following the Industrial Revolution. Feminist ideas spread among the educated female middle classes, discriminatory laws were repealed, and the women's suffrage movement gained momentum in the last years of the Victorian Era.

England

Main article: Women in England

Women in England are women who live in or are from England. The A Guide to English Culture and Customs described the English women of the United Kingdom to be "equal to men, and should be treated fairly" and that they do "equal share of (...) household tasks and childcare"; but such description may be different in some "more traditional British families" where each couple may have their "own arrangement". As part of the English culture, social drinking is acceptable for women.

Northern Ireland

Main article: Women in Northern Ireland

Women in Northern Ireland are women who live in or are from the "traditional, conservative" and religious society of Northern Ireland. Their basic role, whether from Protestant or Catholic background, was to perform their duties as "wife and mother" in the family units. During the Industrial Revolution in Northern Ireland, the young and old women of Ireland worked for factories and mills. They struggled through the years of violence involving the Catholic Provisional Irish Republican Army (also known simply as the IRA) and the Protestant Ulster Defence Association (UDA), including when the internment of men - at the time - was enforced by the British army.

Scotland

Main article: Women in Scotland

Women in early modern Scotland were part of a theoretically patriarchal society, but how absolute this was in practice is unclear. Women retained their family surnames at marriage and did not join their husband's kin groups. In higher social ranks, marriages were often political in nature and the subject of complex negotiations in which women as matchmakers or mothers could play a major part. Women were a major part of the workforce, with many unmarried women acting as farm servants and married women playing a part in all the major agricultural tasks, particularly during harvest. Widows could be found keeping schools, brewing ale and trading, but many at the bottom of society lived a marginal existence.

Wales

Main article: Women in Wales

Vatican City

Main article: Women in Vatican City

Women in Vatican City are women who live in or are from Vatican City. According to the Herald Sun in March 2011, there were "only 32 female citizens" residing in the "smallest state in the world". Out of 572 citizens issued with Vatican passports, one of them is a nun. On February 26, 2013, Worldcrunch reported that there were around 30 women who are citizens of Vatican City. Ten years ago, also according to Worldcrunch, there were 2 South American women, 3 Swiss women, 2 Polish women, and some Italian women. As of February 2013, the majority of the women were from Italy.

European women in states with limited recognition

Abkhazia

Main article: Women in Abkhazia

Abkhazian women or Abkhaz women, particularly those of older age, are traditionally portrayed as peacemakers, decision makers, and mediators in times of combat and conflict. Despite of this distinction and character, female Abkhazians are underrepresented in the "councils of elders" of Abkhazian society. The Women in Abkhazia only have a marginal in number within the showground of Abkhazian politics. At present, the Abkhazian females are more active as participants in the realm of business and in activities related to establishing organizations for women in their country.

Kosovo

Atifete Jahjaga, president of Kosovo

Main article: Women in Kosovo

Women in Kosovo are women who live in or are from the Republic of Kosovo. As citizens of a post-war nation, some Kosovar (or Kosovan) women have become participants in the process of peace-building and establishing pro-gender equality in Kosovo's rehabilitation process. Women in Kosovo have also become active in politics and law enforcement in the Republic of Kosovo. An example of which is the election of Atifete Jahjaga as the fourth President of Kosovo, and as such she became the first female, the first non-partisan candidate, and the youngest to be elected to the office of the presidency in the country. Before becoming president, she served as Deputy Director of the Kosovo Police, holding the rank of Major general, the highest among women in Southeastern Europe.

Nagorno-Karabakh

Main article: Women in Nagorno-Karabakh

The women in Nagorno-Karabakh are, in general, composed of Armenian women, Azerbaijani (Azeri) women, and other ethnic groupings. This “blend of races” of women in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic resulted because, historically, Nagorno-Karabakh became a part of Azerbaijan after the fall and disintegration of the Soviet Union. However, after the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the 1988 to 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh is currently occupied and governed by Armenia. The declaration of independence by Nagorno-Karabakh had not been endorsed by Armenia and Azerbaijan. At present, Nagorno-Karabakh is not officially recognized as a de facto nation by the international community.

Northern Cyprus

Main article: Women in Northern Cyprus

The women in Northern Cyprus are inhabitants of the internationally unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, where they have been contributors to the fields of science, law and justice.

South Ossetia

Main article: Women in South Ossetia

In 2010, the Caucasian Knot described the women of South Ossetia as females who can transmit change and reinstatement of "trust and peace" between the peoples of South Ossetia and Georgia. They have the capability and competence to defend and preserve their rights as women and to participate as activists and peacemakers. South Ossetian women experienced situations of armed conflict in their regions. The main organization that promotes and safeguards the status of South Ossetian women is the Association of South Ossetian Women for Democracy and Human Rights (sometimes referred to as Association of Women of South Ossetia for Democracy and Defence of Human Rights) and is currently headed by Lira Kozaeva-Tskhovrebova.

Transnistria

Main article: Women in Transnistria

Women in Transnistria are women who live in or are from Transnistria (may also be spelled as Transdniestria; and also known as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, abbreviated as PMR). Although still an country with limited recognition internationally, and although Freedom in the World 2012 had described that "[w]omen are underrepresented in most positions of authority", the current Transnistrian government includes 8 women and 6 men. 4 deputies of Prime Minister of Transnistria out of 5 are also women (Tatiana Turanskaya, Natalia Nikiforova, Nina Shtanski and Maija Parnas). Women are widely presented in Presidential Administration of Transnistria: both the head of Administration (Nadezhda Baranova) and all the 5 presidential advisors (Alyona Klyus, Nadezhda Zablotskaya, Natalia Garbar, Anna Yanchuk and Galina Sandutsa) are women.

European women in dependencies and other territories

Åland

Main article: Women in Åland

Faroe Islands

Main article: Women in the Faroe Islands

Women in the Faroe Islands are European women who live in or are from the Faroe Islands, an north Atlantic island group and archipelago that is under the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark. Traditionally, Faroese women have a high standing in the society of Faroe Islanders. Legally, women of the Faroe Islands share equality with men. In terms of labor, tradition dictates that women do household work and are responsible for the welfare of cows. Most care given to children come from the women of the Faroe Islands. When the family have guests at home, the women of the household frequently serve and offer food and drinks to the visitors. During the late 19th century, women in the Faroe Islands became wage-earners by participating in jobs such as fish processing and by becoming teachers. In 1915, they obtained women's suffrage. Eventually, Faroe Islander women were able to hold governmental positions.

Gibraltar

Main article: Women in Gibraltar

Guernsey

Main article: Women in Guernsey

Jersey

Main article: Women in Jersey

Isle of Man

Main article: Women in the Isle of Man

Svalbard

Main article: Women in Svalbard

See also

• Women in the military in Europe
• Demographics of Europe
• Ethnic groups in Europe
• Indigenous peoples of Europe
• European diaspora