At the end of the spring-summer parliamentary session, the lawmakers adopted in the first reading two bills aimed at ensuring gender equality in politics. One of the bills provides that at least 30% of the persons on the lists of candidates in elections must be women, while the other one institutes a 40% quota. Moldovan society is patriarchal. A large part of the men consider that the women must give birth, take care of the children and family. But the women’s continuous work with the children and housework are not considered work. That’s why the imposition of a female political representation quota is a chance to educate society in the spirit of a democratic society. The initiative to institute a women’s representations quota is good, but the lawmakers, who are mainly male, resorted to artifices. They adopted the bills in the first reading without making sure that they will be implemented in the next parliamentary elections.
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We want to see Moldova in the European Union, but we should first bring the EU, or more exactly its standards, to Moldova. Our society must be educated. Moldovan men should be convinced that women have the same rights and that they can think and can manage a country. Some women in Moldova conform to certain stereotypes. A large part of the women living in rural areas consider that the women must get married immediately after they finish secondary school. If they are beaten by husbands, they consider themselves guilty because, as the saying goes, “the unbeaten woman is like the non-swept house” or “if he beats, he loves…”. That’s why society should be made to accept gender quality. The women must be represented in the administrative bodies to the same extent as men so that they are able to become involved in governance and eradicate the violent behavior towards women and so as to ensure the improved development of the country. The examples of other countries, where women and men are treated equally, show that this leads to benefits, including economic.
Men consider themselves discriminated if they are treated in the same way as women
Recently, somebody told me that a meeting of a high-ranking officials with residents of a settlement that is situated far from Chisinau centered on the women’s representation in politics and elections. The men vehemently opposed the introduction of a female representation quota, saying they are discriminated as the women must take care of the home and children. It seems that life in the capital city and life in the rural areas of Moldova form part of parallel worlds. I would say that namely in the rural areas the spirit of equity should be promoted as in cities and towns the women learned how to communicate with men from equal to equal.
Civil society insisted on a minimum women’s quota of 40% for the lists of election candidates and for the posts in the Government. The Communist Party submitted a bill to introduce a 50% quota, but this bill wasn’t examined. Paradoxically or not, but only the Communists have named a woman as Prime Minister and even wanted to make her head of state, while the representatives of civil society said the women mayors and local councilors principally form part of the Communist Party. But women should not play only a formal role in Parliament or in another executive body. Furthermore, women must not be written at the end of the list of election candidates, where they practically have no chance to get seats.
The men probably do not want the women to be equally represented in the administrative bodies also because they realize that this way their chances or becoming MPs or ministers will diminish. Statistics show that women represent 51% of the population and that 61% of the persons with higher education are women. Owing to the education drawbacks and the tendency to shut the women up, the women vote also for men. Therefore, there should be promoted the accomplishments of women minister such as Minister of Education Maia Sandu, who managed to implement a harsh reform for developing Moldovan education, or Foreign Minister Natalia Gherman, who negotiated the Association Agreement between Moldova and the EU.
Recently, a Liberal MP said in Parliament that women cannot be as good surgeons as men. If a lawmaker, who is considered to have a higher level of culture than the other people, thinks so, why should we be surprised that society thinks the same way – women are good for giving birth, not for managing ministries and drafting and adopting laws.
Moldova pledged to ensure the presence of at least 30 women in Parliament
Ecaterina Mardarovici, executive director of the Women’s Political “50x50”, said that under the commitment undertaken by Moldova through the Millennium Development Goals, the women must occupy at least 30% of the seats of MP. If this is not done, Moldova will report that it didn’t fulfill this promise. Moldova assumed the same commitment by the Association Agreement with the EU. As far as we know, the EU offers great support for work done according to the ‘more for more’ principle. If it undertook commitments that it does not make effort to implement, the country risks losing the promised support of the European partners and the chance to prepare society for the entry into the EU, where the women are appreciated and promoted to the same posts as men.
The most recent report on how Moldova fulfills the Millennium Development Goals, compiled by the Government and the UN Agencies working in the country, shows that the number of women in decisional bodies remains low. For example, in a Government with 21 ministers, only six are women, while in a Parliament with 101 MPs, 19 are women. The report says that though the presence of women on party lists rose to 28%, the number of women MPs decreased from almost 25% in 2009 to 19% in 2012. The men politicians are very astute and, even if they included at least 30% of women in the lists, the top places are occupied by men. Given the assertions of civil society representatives and political analysts that the seats of MP are bought with donations to parties and the fact that we have fewer businesswomen than men, we reach the conclusion that the women cannot buy a seat of MP.
As regards the representation of women in the local public authorities, the report reveals an insignificant rise. For example, the number of women local councilors increased from 26.5% in 2007 to 28.7% in 2011. At the same time, the report makes not very optimistic forecasts, saying the Moldovan authorities will rather not fulfill the assumed commitment to ensure a women’s representation quota of 30% in Parliament, of 25% in mayor’s offices and of 40% in the local councils by 2015.
Is the representation quota a temporary mechanism?
Fifty-nine countries have a mechanism for ensuring the presence of women in the public and political life. The states that ensured gender equality, such as the Scandinavian and Baltic countries, have the best social system in the world and significant economic development. The EU countries with the highest number of women in the administrative bodies are Latvia (45%) and Lithuania (41%). Among others, Lithuania was the first ex-Soviet republic that had a woman President. During the tenure of Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Lithuania joined the EU and NATO. Becoming President of Lithuania in 2009, Dalia Grybauskaite strengthened the women’s role in the European politics. The women’s political representation rate in Moldova is under the European and world averages and is higher only than the rate in the Muslim countries.
A part of the lawmakers who promote the women’s representation in politics say that this is a temporary mechanism that will be applied until society reaches a development level when the women’s presence in the public life will be something natural. The imposition of a female political representation quota is a chance for educating first of all the political class, which is as patriarchal, as the whole society is. Deputy Head of Parliament Liliana Palihovici said recently in an interview that the bill that introduces a women’s electoral representation quota of 30%, which was passed in the first reading, could be adopted in the second reading with an amendment suggesting that each third election candidate should be female. As to the bill to amend the Parliament’s Regulations put forward by the Ministry of Labor, which provides that at least 40% of the members of the Standing Bureau must be women, Liliana Palihovici stated that this bill was criticized harshly and it is actually rather hard to implement such a provision. It’s strange that neither the women in Parliament struggle to ensure greater female representation and accept the artifices of the men politicians.
In the discussions with men, many of them said that nobody bans the women in Moldova from becoming involved in politics. On the one hand, I agree with this. However, nobody helps them to get involved and, as I said, there is a tendency to shut the women up in our country. Thus, they should be helped to come out of the shell in which they found refuge from our patriarchal system.
Mariana Galben, IPN
