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  • 2018-07-24 (xsd:date)
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  • Are These the Defense Ministers of Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany and Russia? (en)
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  • A set of images purportedly comparing the female Defense Ministers of Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, and Germany with the male Defense Minister of Russia is frequently circulated online along with disparaging and sexist remarks implying that women are somehow less capable of holding this government/military position than men are: Both the logic behind this argument and the images themselves are outdated. The photograph showing the four female defense ministers was taken in 2014 at an annual security conference in Munich, Germany, and captured Ministers of Defense Eriksen Søreide (Norway), Karin Enström (Sweden), Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (Netherlands), and Ursula von der Leyen. The photograph was originally posted on Twitter by Hennis-Plasschaert: The story behind the taking of the photograph was chronicled by The Guardian: Although Ine Eriksen Søreide (Norway), Karin Enström (Sweden), Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (Netherlands) and Ursula von der Leyen (Germany) were all the Ministers of Defense of their respective countries in 2014, that is no longer the case. As of this writing, only Ursula von der Leyen still holds such a position. The Netherlands still has a female minister of defense (Ank Bijleveld), but men have since been appointed to those positions in Sweden and Norway (Peter Hultqvist and Frank Bakke-Jensen respectively). The man in this meme is indeed the Russian minister of defense. Sergey Shoigu was first appointed to the job in 2012 and is still in his position as of this writing. The photograph of Shoigu was taken in December 2013 at a military funeral for Mikhail Kalashnikov, the man who designed the AK-47: Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany are hardly the only countries who have had women serve in defense ministry positions. A recent paper by Tiffany Barnes, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, and Diana O'Brien, an associate professor at Texas A&M, found that found that by 2012, women had been appointed to the ministry of defense in 41 countries. (en)
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