Gender Democracy

How does a society with a lengthy period of socialist experience in its recent past think of the oppression of women? Would it recognize the issue at all? How would it see the origin of this oppression? Finally, what needs to be done for the world to become a better place? The way these issues have been theorized in the former socialist region was quite different from how they were seen in the West.

Women’s organizations and feminist network are deeply dissatisfied with the final conclusions adopted by the governments at session of the Commission on the Status of Women on 4th March, 2010. We invite you to read their final statement.

Even though independent women’s organisations have managed to gather some experience and skills, and gain recognition and authority in the women’s issues, it cannot be called a mass movement that would be able to influence the social development and political decision making.

On the one hand, the state declares a will to improve women’s status and promote equal rights, but on the other, women are still deprived of opportunities in professional advancement, salary increases, access to professional positions and power.

The prestige and the influence of the Polish Church is closely linked to the role it played historically when Poland was occupied by foreign countries throughout the 19th century. It then appeared as the only centre of stability and resistance against the invaders, giving force to the equation: ‘Polish = Catholic’.

The sentence ¬Poland is a Catholic country is not a statement of fact but a sort of a spell, a self-fulfilling prophesy sanctioning existing power relations. The conviction that ¬Poland is a Catholic country is like a quagmire or swamp, sucking us all in, Catholic or not. The more we sink in it… the more we sink.

Although in this year's election women stood from far worse positions, with less chance to win, preferential voting helped them. Voters, given a chance to indicate two candidates from their chosen list, were more inclined to go for women – writes Zuzana Kostkovciková from Aspect

The lack of postulates connected to gender equality in the electoral campaign is connected not only to the fact that the largest parties neglect this issue. This oversight is also a result of the weakness of feminist movements among non-governmental organizations.

The project is a result of the long-standing project of the Heinrich Böll Foundation on gender and economics which was carried out in cooperation with Gender, Macroeconomics and International Working Group (GEM-IWG). The aim was to gender-sensitize economists from the wider Europe and integrate gender perspective into macroeconomic research and policy formulation in Europe with a special focus on the transition and emerging economies in Central, Eastern and Southern. In 2013 the focus was put on strengthening the network of feminist economists from CEE region and from the countries affected by financial and economic crisis.