Women’s council under the dome

The debates over the bill “On Securing Equal Rights and Opportunities for Women and Men” continued since 1999. Only after six years the Ukrainian parliamentarians have managed to find middle ground and adopt this bill, which is designed to promote gender equality. That the “equality bill” was long in coming is due to the differences that it caused among the parliament members, who split into two opposing camps. One camp insisted on increasing women’s role in big- time politics simply by introducing appropriate amendments to the law on the parliamentary elections. Their opponents insisted on expanding conventional restrictions on the presence of women not only in politics but also in all other spheres of endeavor. They called for a separate bill on the equality of men and women instead of passing amendments and additions.

Another obstacle to the passage of the bill were debates over the number of women on party slates. The parliamentarians were sharply divided on this issue. Some of them criticized the bill’s authors, demanding that one half, and not a third, of all spots on party slates be reserved for women. Meanwhile, “political misogynists” insisted that even 30 percent is too much of an honor for women and demanded that this quota be reduced. Eventually, the parliamentarians agreed that the imposition of special quotas would only humiliate women, which is why the law contains no mention of any specific quotas. It only states that women and men have equal rights to be elected to different institutions of power, while political parties must ensure that women are duly represented on their election slates.

Put simply, even those popular representatives who believe that women and parliamentary work are irreconcilable will have to move over: the number of women in the new parliament will be significantly larger. Active participants of the current election campaign have taken into account the new law and interspersed their slates with women nominees. Political analyst Andriy Yermolayev believes that the emphasis made on gender issues in the parties’ electoral slates is not a homage to political fashion or the recently adopted law: “There is real evidence that women politicians are more successful and productive than their male counterparts. Most of today’s political leaders are the offspring of the Soviet nomenklatura system both in terms of their behavior and the way they respond to events. As a rule, such people look up to people of authority and often do not know what to say in their presence, so they choose a position of unquestioning agreement. In such circumstances, women who spent a long time outside of politics and are not encumbered by nomenklatura reflexes prove more effective and daring.”

“Today every party has women who are both symbols and drivers of these parties apart from being much more interesting than their political leaders,” says Yermolayev. As he puts it, proof of the political success of women are stories of Yuliya Tymoshenko, Valentyna Semeniuk, and Rayisa Bohatyriova.

At the same time, political analyst Antonina Kolodiy believes that Ukrainian women are not duly represented in politics if you take into account their otherwise active social role and involvement in the key spheres of science and education: “Our men do not wish and are unable to understand that a feminine face graces politics. Perhaps this is partly our fault: women are not persistent enough on their way toward the Olympus of power. Even some Muslim countries have outdone us in this respect.”

Without a doubt, matriarchy is still a long way off for Ukrainian parliament, but the ice has been broken and the company of political “bachelors” will soon be graced by the presence of parliament members in skirts and heels. The outgoing Ukrainian parliament has only 25 women, or 5 percent of all parliament members. Taking into account the forecasts of public opinion experts and the percentage of women on party slates that are sure to make it to parliament, the number of women in the next parliament might double.

WOMEN’S POLITICS IN NUMBERS

Overall for 45 parties and blocs running for parliament this year there are 1,459 women nominees, or 19 percent of all nominees listed on election slates. Nearly one-third of the women are aged 41 to 50.

The countries with the largest number of women in parliament are Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, where 40 to 50 percent of parliament members are women. According to the statistics of the International Parliamentary Union, Ukraine ranks 152nd among 172 countries in terms of the number of women in the top echelons of power.