Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation - Competitions page

Bulgarian women in politics - positive vs negative assets

Recently, a EP-sponsored conference on the role of women in decision-taking, took place in Sofia. Presently, a mere 23% of MPs are women, which is even 5% down from their number in the previous 39th Parliament, Iliana Stoicheva from the Gender Research Foundation in Bulgaria, told BNR. The number of women in decision-taking posts in local government is still smaller. A sheer 10% of all mayors, elected in the last 28 October local government elections, are women. This has been no departure from traditional trends in Bulgaria, commented Iliana Stoicheva.

“There has been only one exception at the MEP elections in the spring of 2007, where nearly 45% of elected EP Members were women. However, available statistics reveal that in terms of equality with men in decision taking, the Bulgarian women fare poorly in comparison even with European and world averages. Take Finland, for instance, where women account for no less than 40% of MPs, or France for that matter. We seem to be running middle-of-the road where new EU-member countries are concerned”, commented Iliana Stoicheva.

She believes vigorous measures need to be taken to diffuse traditional stereotype mindsets concerning women, pursuing unremitting policies, targeting gender equality, included. “Politicians to tend to ticks off the issue of gender equality, possibly because they believe it has been achieved in Bulgaria. Ahead of Bulgaria joining EU, we were encouraged to work on the issue of discrimination and hence the Discrimination Act, which we consider to be one of the best relevant laws in Europe. And yet we continue to prefer to stand aloof from equal gender opportunities”.

Iliana Stoicheva refers further to the issue of setting down women quotas in politics by virtue of law, which in her phrase, is highly sensitive and widely discussed on a global scale. She argues this is not the only decision to equality. Political parties and male political leaders must be made sensitive to the issue. They must begin to account for the fact that by failing to name women in eligible spots on their election tickets, they may, at some point be at risk of generally losing the election, because women account for over 50% of the population in Bulgaria.

“Received wisdom says that men think about global issues, while women think about running-a-home and daily routine issues. Let a woman win a place in politics, even if we assume that she is capable of thinking only of daily life minutiae, then our daily life will definitely improve. We need to become aware in this country we’re not going to make any headway if we refuse to work hand-in-hand. We’ll never be able to attain that better quality of life, we’ve all been aspiring after”, said in conclusion Iliana Stoicheva.

Written by Tatyana Obretenova Translated by Margarita Dikanarova

Source: BNR.bg

05 March 2008