Гендерні аспекти праці та політики у дзеркалі громадської думки
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Date
2006
Authors
Оксамитна, Світлана
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Abstract
Building democratic society is usually accompanied by
transformation of gender relations towards reaching gender
equality or gender parity; democratization of the society always includes a gender component. It is obvious that this
process should be based on the research of men’s and women’s positions in the society, opportunities and obstacles
for their equal participation in all of its spheres, including
politics. The importance of this research is accentuated and proved by those European countries that have reached an impressive progress in the direction of gender equality. So far, in
Ukraine organs of the state power, which at the same time
are subjects of a struggle for this power, are not interested in
the results of such research, for they do not order and finance it, even though they do adopt and sign laws regulating
gender relations. The discordances between the microlevel
of gender relations and macrolevel of gender distribution of
power in the society are becoming more and more noticeable. This conclusion is based of the results of the sociological
research "Public opinion of Ukrainian population about democracy" held in spring of 2005 by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in the framework of the joint Canadian-Ukrainian project "Democratic Education" (the representative for Ukraine sample of 1600 people was used).
Results of the research confirm the existing public opinion about a job being a life need for women and men. Importance of work for everybody, regardless the person’s gender,
is accompanied by a dominant in the public mind belief that
women and men should be given equal opportunities to
compete for job places and career growth. Nevertheless, features of gender culture as granting equal opportunities for
career self-realization to a husband and a wife still do not
have a mass character among Ukrainian adult population.
An important part of regulating gender relations in the
society is the process of adopting laws aimed at ensuring
equal opportunities for men and women and their protection from discrimination. During the last decades such laws
were adopted in many developed democratic countries. In
2005 the law "About ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men" was signed in Ukraine. The results
of the survey give a reason to assert that people’s attitudes to
this document tend to differ significantly. Almost half of the
questioned people (47%) do not see the need for a special
law which would guarantee equality. There is a considerable
difference between men’s and women’s opinions. Among
men the number of those who do not see the need for a special law is one a half time bigger than the number of its supporters (52% against 32%), while among women the share of the law supporters slightly exceeds the share of its opponents (45% against 40%).
Results of the research incline to the idea that the regular Ukrainians have a much more positive attitude to pro3
moting gender quotas than the representatives of Ukrainian
politics of any ideological orientation. In general, the number of the supporters of gender quotas in the party lists equals almost half of the adult population (46%), and exceeds
the number of the opponents by one and a half time (30%).
During the years of independence the problems of gender equality have not become a priority in the process of forming Ukrainian society. That is why, regardless all the international documents signed before, the Constitution of Ukraine and a number of edicts, gender asymmetry is still being the characteristic feature of meso- and, especially, macrolevel of power in Ukrainian society. There is an impression that political parties, regardless all the declarations,
block women’s political activity using, for example, their
right to form the election lists exclusively or mostly on the
behalf of men.
Based on this sociological research, we can verify a certain discrepancy of what is happening on the macrolevel of
gender relations, first of all in power distribution, and on the
microlevel, meaning people’s everyday relations. The latter
tend to partnership in the family, distribution of chores,
proclaiming job a life need for both a woman and a man, career growth of women, strategy of positive actions. This is
why the microlevel of gender relations is no more the hindrance to gender equality and parity in the society, which
cannot be said about the macrolevel of the government and
peculiarities of functioning of social institutions, which keep hindering, instead of promoting, equal opportunities for
women in the spheres of politics and state government.
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Keywords
гендерна інтеграція, гендерний контракт працюючої матері, ринок праці, гендерні квоти, соціологічні дослідженння
Citation
Оксамитна С. М. Гендерні аспекти праці та політики у дзеркалі громадської думки / Світлана Оксамитна // Жінки в політиці : міжнародний досвід для України : збірник наукових статей. - 2006. - С. 156-174.