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The annual seminar “Women and Politics: Ten Years After", was held from 18th till 20th May 2006 in Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik. This year the international seminar 'Women and Politics' celebrated its 10th anniversary – Zenska infoteka is organizing it annually since 1996.
the seminar Women and Politics 2006 gathered feminists, theoreticians and activists round the discussion about various aspects of problem indicated in the title:
1.The period between 1996 and 2006 in Eastern Europe was a turbulent time and the period of big political, economic, cultural changes. 1996, the war in former Yugoslavia just ended; meanwhile, many of the countries from the former communist block have become members of the European Union, so the problems of globalisation came into focus like never before. Democracy was and still is the most common word and civil society was something like a regional catchphrase.
2.The question is whether the social dynamics related to women’s problems within the general idea of human rights have been equal to those related to the societies in general.
3.Focus on a particular important political question related to women, but which is at the same time a general political question of the period, to which we all relate as human beings.
4.Jubilee (ten years of the Seminar) will be used as the basis for summarizing efforts of the past, to see if some ideas and social phenomena which we discussed some years back can stand critical analysis today. The goal of such an approach is to find out what is happening with the development of women’s issues.
5. Is it perhaps the case that all that was on the agenda (in the world of the women’s/feminist movement) remained marginalized and unrecognised, or did some changes happen? If changes did happen, what kind were they? Has this been the time of deterioration of the status of women, or improvement, or stagnation?
Presentations were dealing with a whole variety of issues, which can be summerized as 5 crucial topics:
1. political representation of women
has been the subject of the following papers: 'Mirror like representation - Women in Politics and changes in gender social position/roles' by Oana Băluţă, 'Women in political decision making processes after the transformation of Hungarian society' by Katalin Koncz, 'Post-communist structural and discursive shifts: Question of gender quotas in the Lithuanian parliament (1996-2000;2000-2004)' by Aurelija Novelskaite and 'Political Participation of Romani Women' by Tatjana Perić
2. gender politics
was analysed in the papers: 'Between cooperation and confrontation: Not 10, but almost 20 years of gender politics' by Marion Oberschelp, 'Women in politics and changes in gender social positions/roles' by Gabriela Loskovska and '100 years of universal right to vote in Europe' by Milica Antić Gaber
3. women's social roles
have been investigated in the works of Magdalena Dabrowska: 'The Benefits of Breastfeeding: Women in Polish Political Discourse 10 Years After', Milena Davidović: 'Women in Politics in Serbia (1996 – 2006)' and Michaela Mudure: 'The New Wife and Romanian Politics'
4. women in the culture
Györgyi Horváth: 'Women’s Issues in Hungarian Literary Criticism After the Transition' and Mirjana Adamović:' Symbolic Power and Cultural Policy' presented papers on the gender aspects of cultural social system
5. transition continues
the works of Hoda Salah: 'Women in Islamic Movements in Egypt' and
Alma Kadragić: 'Women and the Cartoon Crisis: What’s Next? – Women East and West: Continuing the Dialogue' were the basis for reflexion upon the similarities and ties between Eastern European transition and the ongoing process of changes in the different Muslims countries from women's perspective
Papers were presented in the form of panel discussions. Discussions tried to give contribution by analysis, focused on the problems and questions contained within mentioned topics. On the topic of political representation of women we came out with the following conclusions: in the post-transitional times only a small number of politicians is willing to identify themselves as women and not as persons by focusing also on policies for women, but they have few supporters, both women and men. It is risky to act “as a woman in politics” and not as “a person in politics” since women will be slowly pushed at the outskirts of politics. It is necessary for the number of women in politics to increase, but the representation of women by women is not satisfying. Also, women politicians must not focus exclusively on representing women and their interests. Their initiatives must not be limitated to micro-policies (due to the fact that only here they are tolerated, only if they initiate policies for women) because macropolicies (for example, spending the public budget) has important consequences on women’s status.
A new ideology has been carved to justify the absence of quotas and small number of women MPs, as well as to avoid discussion of gender quotas: strategy of ‘blame a victim’ (women MPs and party members as well as voters). Men’s resistance towards enhancement of women’s position in the parliament becomes stronger when women demonstrate their feminist consciousness. Also, MPs’ position on gender quotas depends on one’s political party affiliation: social democrats are much more positive regarding the issue.
Another problem is the fact that in the post-communist period women's movement gets pluralized and the parties establish their female sections one after the other, as a part of the overall political system and parallel with this change. The intention and readiness to co-operate is limited or exceptional, which is harmful. A good example is the Polish women's movement, which is ideologically divided.
Participants acclaimed the positive changes like forming women sections inside each political party and creating women’s parliamentarian clubs in some countries, as well as the inclusion of the proportional electoral system and quotas regulation.
The discussion on the gender politics in the last ten years focused on gender mainstreaming. Most participants, both university women’s representatives and feminist activists, agreed it is a rather controversial strategy, because it is thought of as a top-down process. Gender mainstreaming means that in all social encounters the variety of life situations and interest of women and men should be taken into account. To accept it as a top-down process means to take for granted that on the managing level there is a general willingness to take gender into account. However, even though it is a generally accepted political instrument since the 4th World Conference of Women by the UN in 1995 in Beijing and was made effective by the European Union five years ago, there are almost exclusively men in the managing and leading positions for organisational and personnel development of institutions, and they show very little enthusiasm when it comes to qualitative changes of gender social roles. There is fear that gender mainstreaming may be ineffective and noncommittal for women’s promotion and might even be used to undermine legal regulations. It presents the opportunity and chance to act on a fair gender basis, but, in comparison to women’s promotion with a determined goal, clear regulations and sanctions are seen to be missing here.
The contributions on the topic of women's social roles warned that sexism, as well as homophobia and nationalism have become legitimate rhetoric of political discourse in some countries. Nationalistic rhetoric is used to justify traditional division of gender roles. In Poland and Croatia the idea of nation was recalled every time when women’s issues were debated. Threat that the nation will die encouraged politicians to propose new pro-family solutions. Traditional gender roles division promoted by right-wing political discourse, based on ‘natural family’ and heterosexuality, rejects the concept of gender equality. It is interested primarily in family and mothers. In the abortion debate the notion of ‘fetus’ has been replaced by ‘unborn child’ and there was an attempt to replace the notion of ‘woman’ by ‘mother’. A disturbing example is that of Governmental Plenipotentiary for Family Issues in Poland, which in 2001 popularised a notion of ‘mother of un-conceived child’. It presented governmental program entitled “Health promotion of mother and child in pre-conception period.” According to this program, child should be protected even before it is conceived, and a woman is a mother not only after giving birth to a child, but also before it, even if she has never been pregnant! Division of childcare responsibilities between parents is in this discourse presented as ridiculous and impossible.
Considering the topic of women in culture, we gave attention to the fact that an important factor for the social position of women is certainly a lack of gender public role models, which influence social merits and conciseness of women. At the same time, culture and cultural industries today employ predominantly women. It is a social sector in which there is a space for the development and investment into female capital. This is not a new contradiction.
As for the feminist perspective in the study of culture, we still have a masculinist (literary) canon based on values “free of politics”. While in the West a critical study of the ideological and political functions of literary texts has gained recognition, the “cultural turn” of literary studies in the post-communist East seems to be constantly hindered by the memory of the cultural policy of the communist system. Literary criticisms in many Eastern European countries depend on the past, on the ways and modes the communist past is perceived, remembered and constructed – and strategically utilized to legitimize the present.
The last issue we discussed were the parallels in the social roles and opportunities among women from Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Both of these regions have faced, or have to face, the transition of society and transition of political systems and regimes.
Given the importance of women for economic development, it is no surprise that women are on the front line of modernization efforts. But empowering women produces tensions, because it often collides with the twin powers of culture and religion. Women are still marginalized group, especially rural women, women refugees and minority women, who “enjoy” the worst economic and social position. There is a discrepancy, e.g. in the availability in the health care system (information and services), between the urban and rural areas. In Eastern Europe, rural women are under represented or not represented at all, in governmental bodies or any other levels of decision-making. There is a high rate of unemployment, high rate of inactivity, and high rate of women as season paid workers, which asks inclusion of the gender equality in all the strategic documents. There is also a lack of technical aid from the state in order to encourage women to stand for elections. In the Middle East women regard political or social participation as a religious duty. But even though much scrutiny is given to the impact of Islam on women, often as evidence of a deep cultural rift between the West and conservative Muslim societies, the cultural rift also goes between highly traditional rural populations and their more modernized urban compatriots as well as between religious fundamentalists and more moderate interpreters of Islam.
As a conclusion of the seminar discussions it can generally be stated that we have observed the following positive changes regarding the status of women during the last decade: more women in the decision-making, establishing the cathedras for women's studies at some universities, new generation of young engaged women, there is more talk about the issue of violence against women, the language has become more gender sensitive, strengthening of women's groups, women leadership in many NGOs, creating women’s parliamentarian clubs in some countries, the inclusion of the proportional electoral system and quotas regulation The negative changes in the same period include: violence against women has either increased or become more visible, increased number of single-mothers and illegitimate children, the loss of the protection by the labour-union, discrimination at retirement, increased number of women who got fired, many rights gained during the communist/socialist regimes have been reduced, lost or brought into question. There has been no breakthrough for women in the transitional period, neither in the area of institutional political participation, in political power, nor in the attractive, well-paid fields of work. The concrete figures of what has been achieved move around plus/minus 10 percent. Even more stubborn is the patriarchal division of work in the private sector. Thus, in the two most important social fields, the political power of definition and the economic strength we have achieved no basic changes and it even takes daily efforts to maintain only what has already been gained.
As a part of the seminar we had opening of the exhibition/performance of Slovenian painter Alenka Spacal in cooperation with the Art Gallery – Lazareti.
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