Contents

Formal political right – helpful to what extent?

The law prescribes, and yet…

Media (dis)function

Research Results

Conclusion

 

1. Formal political right – helpful to what extent?

“Women shall be entitled to vote in all elections on equal terms with men, without any discrimination”

“Women shall be eligible for election to all publicly elected bodies, established by national law, on equal
terms with men, without any discrimination.”

Convention on the Political Rights of Women, 1952*

Fifty-two years after the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, which has secured basic political rights to women, has been adopted, men still dominate political and parliamentary life in all regions of the world. It is true that the women’s status has undoubtedly improved since; women have right to vote in almost all states in the world [1] , they have right to run for the office, right to compete for any political function, they are part of executive government, they are presidents of political parties; however, implementation of the principle of equality of political rights is still far from full realisation. Achieving gender equality in politics is problem common for almost all countries, as women are underrepresented at local, regional, and national levels of decision-making. Tables 1 and 2 reveal chronic under-representation of wo¬men in legislative authority.

Table 1: Women in parliaments: world average
(as of March 31, 2004)

Total number of members of parliament	42 466
Gender breakdown known for	39 381
Men	33 328
Women	6 053
Percentage of women	15,4%

Table 2: Women in parliaments: regional average
(as of March 31, 2004)

	Single House or lower House	Upper House or Senate	Both houses, combined
Nordic countries	39,7%	–	39,7%
Europe (OSCE members, Nordic countries included)	18,4%	15,3%	17,8%
South and North America	18,2%	18,2%	18,2%
Europe (OSCE members, Nordic countries excluded	16,4%	15,3%	16,1%
Asia	15%	14%	14,9%
Sub - Saharan Africa	14,2%	12,8%	14,1%
Pacific	10,9%	20,5%	12,2%
Arab States	6%	7,5%	6,2%

Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union (www.ipu.org)

At the moment, there are 22 female speakers of Lower or Upper House in as much as 181 parliaments all around the world (68 of those consist of two houses). Therefore, women comprise only 8,8% of presiding positions out of total number of 249 [2] .

Marginalisation of women is more obvious in positions of power and decision-making, and there is a well-known pattern of women being more represented on lower than on higher levels of political system. Discrepancy between women’s formal and legal status and their real power in formal politics comes out of this relation of power and authority.

“The concept of democracy will only assume true and dynamic significance when political policies and
national legislation are decided upon jointly by men and women with equitable regard for the interest
and aptitudes of both halves of the population”
Inter-Parliamentary Council, 1992.

Inter-Parliamentary Council, 1992

This under-representation of women constitutes serious deficit in democracy, which under¬mines legitimacy of contemporary democratic principles. Concept of democracy presumes real partnership between men and women, and achieving gender equality is integral part of the process, which leads to the true democracy. As pre-condition, participation of women and men in all social circles must be ensured, and democracy has to become gender-mainstreamed and gender – sensitive.

Equality of sexes means that women and men are equally present in all spheres of public and private life, that they have equal status, equal opportunities for realisation of all rights, as well as equal benefit from achieved results.

Gender Equality Law, article 5

Political parties enlisted in political parties registry adopt action plan on issue of gender balance every
four years, and, in accordance with it, determine methods for promotion of more balanced representa tion of women and men in party bodies, on lists of candidates for election to Croatian parliament and to
bodies of local and regional self-administration.

Gender Equality Law, article 15

2. The law prescribes, and yet…

Croatian politics still suffers from lack of women. This trend has once again strengthened after the elections held in November 2003.

Election lists totalled 5155 candidates, and only 25% of them were women. Besides, it was more difficult for women to achieve high position on the list within their parties, and there¬fore the Parliament has remained working place for mostly men. There is a decline of 4% in number of women deputies in new assembly of the Parliament, in comparison with the situa¬tion after the election in 2000. There are 27 female deputies in new assembly of the Parliament, which is 18.7%, while there were 32 in previous one. After transition of deputies to executive authority, and delegation of substitutes for elected deputies, this percentage has changed in women’s favour, and now there are 33 women in the Parliament, which makes 21.7%. When looking party association, the largest number of female deputies comes from Croatian Democratic Party (HDZ), 14 of them. Twelve come from Social Democrat Party (SDP), two come from Croatian Peasants’ Party (HSS) and Croatian People’s Party (HNS), and one women deputy comes from Croatian Social-Liberal Party (HSLS), Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS), and Croatian Party of the Rights (HSP). Respectively, Croatian Democratic Party has a majority of as much as 66 deputies. When proportion of women in total number of deputies is taken into account, it is easy to conclude how far we are from realization of equal represen¬tation of both sexes on levels that stand for power and decision-making.

Out of five Parliament’s deputy speakers, there are two women: Vesna Pusić and Đurđa Adlešić.
Gender structure in twenty-five Parliament’s working bodies reveals that there are six women vice-residents, and only three who are committee presidents.

Table 3: Gender structure of Parliament’s working bodies

Parliament Working Body	President	Vice-president
Committee on the Constitution, Standing Orders and Political System	M	Ingrid Antičević Marinović
Legislation Committee	M	M
Foreign Policy Committee	M	M
Domestic Policy and National Security Committee	M	M
Finance and Central Budget Committee	M	M
Committee on the Economy, Development and Reconstruction	M	Dragica Zgrebec
Tourism Committee	M	M
Committee on Human Rights and National Minorities	M	M
Judiciary Committee	M	M
Committee on Labour, Social Policy and Health	M	Snježana Biga-Friganović
Committee on Family, Youth and Sports	M	Marija Bajt
Immigration Committee	Zdenka Babić Petričević	M
War Veterans Committee	M	M
The Physical Planning and Environmental Protection Committee	M	M
Committee on Education, Science and Culture	M	M
Committee on Agriculture and Forestry	M	M
Committee on Maritime Affairs, Transportation and Communication	M	M
Committee on Election, Appointments and Administration	M	M
Petitions and Appeals Committee	M	M
Inter-parliamentary Co-operation Committee	M	M
European Integrations Committee	M	M
Committee on Information, Computerization and the Media	Željka Antunović	Katarina Fuček
Gender Equality Committee	Gordana Sobol	Karmela Caparin
Committee on Local and Regional Self-Government	M	M
Credentials and Privileges Commission	M	M

Source: Parliament (www.sabor.hr)

Situation within the Government reflects unfavourable women’s status, as well. Out of fifteen Government members, there are four women: Jadranka Kosor, Government’s vice-president and minister of family, war veterans and inter-generational solidarity; Vesna Škare – O<bolt, minister of justice, Marina Matulovia-Dropulia, minister of environment protection, urbanism and construction, and Kolinda Grabar – Kitarovia, minister of European integrations.

Bearing in mind Gender Equality Law, Article 6, which states: “When appointing persons to state bodies and bodies of local and regional self-government units, and other legal persons with public authorities, equal representation of both sexes should be considered”, it is easy to derive that both Parliament and Government should reflect gender structure of population. Question, which poses itself, is: Where have women disappeared, population that makes more than half of electorate?!

In order to answer this question at least partially, the research has been conducted on rep¬resentation of women politicians in media immediately before elections 2003.

3. Media (dis)function

Although the media cannot be held responsible for individuals’ actions, attitudes and behav¬iour, they are irrefutably powerful in creating public awareness and defining public discourse. As such, media play key role in reflection of gender roles and related stereotypes. Through maintaining negative and stereotypical images of women, media do not provide accurate and realistic image on multiple women’s roles in social and political life. As sovereign creators of collective consciousness, media should direct their power towards achieving gender equality.
In order to correct hitherto misbalance in political representation of men and women, media can help implant the idea on political participation of women as inseparable part of democra¬cy into public, to report on need for equal representation of both men and women in decision-making processes and to show role of both genders in non-discriminatory ways and without stereotypes; meaning, they can assure that women are not being attributed negatively, that they are not treated as objects, but as equal political protagonists, that they do not diminish women’s political abilities and their contribution in economic, social and political life, and in process of development in general.

Instead of acting as mere mirrors of social and cultural traditional patterns, media should be more sensitive for women and gender issues and act as mediators of changes within patri¬archal society.

Some of the media tasks in promotion of gender equality are listed in Gender Equality Law.

Media will promote development of awareness on equality of women and men through its pro-gramme concepts.

Gender Equality Law, Article 16

4. Research Results

The research has been conducted before official launch of election campaign, in order to make results more relevant, and respectively the review of presentation of women politicians in me¬dia more objective.

Analysis has included articles published in five daily newspapers: Vjesnik, Veeernji list, Jutarnji list, Slobodna Dalmacija and Novi list, in period between October 13 and October 19, 2003.
Sample has included articles that have covered election gatherings, pre-election activities, election goals, political party initiatives and politicians’ statements, while comments, columns, readers’ letters and pre-election analyses dominated by journalist’s attitudes and opinions were not part of the sample.
The research goal was twofold. We wanted to establish way in which media present women politicians; whether they attribute them in discriminatory way, or they treat them as equal political protagonists, and also to establish the way of power distribution within political arena in pre-election time; to see what is the representation of women politicians in political party appearances like and on what topics women politicians speak most often. We are also interested to find out whether the democratization of society and greater media freedom have brought larger number of appearances of women in media, and, finally, larger representation of women in politics.

Basic hypotheses of the research have been confirmed in all previous Women’s Infoteka’s analysis [3] , and these are our starting points once again, but we hope that there have been some changes for the better since elections in 2000:

Analysis covers total of 99 articles. When looking at the analyzed articles, the greatest differences are between Novi list, which has expressed the greatest interest in political events (27.2%) and Vjesnik (15,2%). For the period of analysis, Vjesnik stood out by the number of comments of current political events, but such articles were not part of the sample. Differences among Vjesnik, Veeernji list and Jutarnji list are not significant, i.e., the difference in number of articles is smaller.

Graph 1: Newspapers

Although the research has been conducted before official beginning of election campaign, informative space of the analyzed newspaper has been reigned by election topics. Out of total number of articles, as much as 46,5% provides information on forthcoming elections. When sort¬ed by frequency of topics, the second and third place are held by articles covering work of the Parliament and the Government [5] (10.1%) and high education (9.1%). Topics of more or less concern for women (equality of sexes, maternal leave compensations, children’s allowance, women’s entrepreneurship) are covered with one to three articles. Issues such as violence against women, alimony, women’s non-governmental organisations’ work, women’s reproductive health, and sexual harassment were not present in media with a single article in analyzed period.

Table 4 Articles’ Topics

Topic	f	%
Elections	46	46,5
State structure	10	10,1
Economy	2	2
Employment	4	4
Agriculture	2	2
Health care	1	1
Social care	2	2
Ethnic and national groups	3	3
Demographic renewal	1	1
Gender equality	3	3
Tourism	3	3
Foreign affairs	5	5,1
Ecology	4	4
Domestic policy	2	2
Science	9	9,1
Displaced persons and returnees	1	1
War veterans	1	1

Women are either active or passive actors in only 39 articles, while men are in 89. This disproportion becomes even higher when we compare representation of men and women in analyzed articles. Namely, 356 persons were mentioned, and among them, there are only 55 women6, i.e. 15,4%!

Graph 2: Representation of Women and Men in Total

Furthermore, graph 3 shows proportion of men and women as active (speaking directly, or being quoted) and passive (being paraphrased or just mentioned) actors. Not only that women are less visible in media, they give their opinion on current topic much less frequently. Men are as much as five times more often active participants, i.e. topic bearers.

Graph 3: Active and Passive Actors Relation

Above stated data confirms two points: that women are less presented in media and that they are not treated as equal political protagonists. Hypothesis that women politicians less often express their opinion in media when “important” issues are involved is confirmed by data on their representation concerning thematic determination of the articles. Most often, women participate in articles on election (21), lesser on employment (3), work of the Parliament (2), problems of ethnic and national groups (2), internal affairs (2), agriculture, social care, demo¬graphic renewal, gender equality, ecology, and science (one article on each of these topics). There are no women in articles covering economy, health care, foreign policy, refugee and returnee issues, and war veterans. When we compare article topics with total number of women who are active participants, the results are crushing. Although women participate as topic bearers nineteen times, it is obvious that these topics are less attractive (See Table 5).

Table 5: Rang of frequency of topics and subtopics in which women are active actors

1. Elections	7
a) Elections in general	1
b) Inter-party co-operation	1
c) Campaign financing resources	1
d) Voting of minority groups	2
e) Election goals	2
2. Employment	3
a) Women’s entrepreneurship	2
b) Nepotism	1
3. State structure	2
a) Parliament’s work	2
4. Agriculture	1
a) Agriculture pensions	1
5. Ethnic and national groups	1
6. Demographic renewal	1
a) Maternal leave	1
7. Gender equality	1
8. Tourism	1
9. Ecology	1
a) Waste	1
10. Internal affairs	1
a) Defence	1

Analysis of graphics brought no surprises, either. In accordance with all stated data, women are almost non-existent in this dimension, as well. There are only four articles containing pho¬tos of women politicians, compared with as much as 44 articles containing photo of men politician. When looking at total number of photographs, as much as 63.8% depictures men, and only 5.8% women. 30.4% photographs capture groups, i.e., both men and women.

Graph 4: Photographs

It is forbidden to publicly display and present women and men in insulting, degrading, or humiliatingway, regarding their sex and sexual orientation.

Gender Equality Law, Article 16

Only one article refers to woman politician’s gender, describing her as “the fair sex.”

5. Conclusion

Role of media should be to precisely and objectively inform the public. Therefore, reporting should not be discriminating, stereotype-prone, and, judging on the Law on Gender Equality, should be gender sensitive.

Media analysis has confirmed that women are less often represented in media, that they are not perceived as equal political actors and that media still do not raise awareness on women and men equality.

Still, one should bear in mind:

“Women’s empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society,
including participation in the decision-making process and access to power, are fundamental for the
achievement of equality, development and peace.”

United Nations: The Beijing Declaration 1995

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