Switzerland has long been a patriarchal society where women submit to the authority of their fathers and then to that of their husbands. Equal rights for women and men are relatively recent: only in 1971 was women's right to vote at the federal level established. Women are still disadvantaged in many fields: there are proportionally twice as many women as men without post-secondary education; even with a comparable level of education, women hold less important positions than do men; and with a comparable level of training, women earn less than men (26 percent less for middle and senior managers). Women's participation in political institutions also shows inequality: On the communal, cantonal, and federal levels, women represent one-third of candidates and only one-quarter of those elected.
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