Prague - Not only is there a critical shortage of female politicians in the Czech Republic; their "life and death" infighting dominates their lives. That's a claim by Forum 50%, a civic association studying the ways women are represented in society.
Several female members of the Czech Parliament were recently asked questions about how they entered politics, about their political careers, about links between their profession and family life and about their relations to other politicians, both male and female.
"The poll shows, for instance, that a female MP cannot rely on help from other female politicians. Strong rivalry dominates the relations between women in politics, both across the political spectrum and inside a political party," the director of the civic association, Lenka Bennerová, says.
All the others are competition
The female MPs confirmed this strong rivalry existed and said it takes many forms, from refusal to cooperate via a general egotistic approach to withholding information.
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Survey and statistics
- 31 female MPs were offered an opportunity to participate in the poll. 19 of them (61% of their total number) agreed to be interviewed. 12 of them said their political allegiance was left-leaning, 7 claimed right-leaning orientation. The interviews took place between May and June 2007.
- According to the Inter-Parliament Union's International Database, the Czech Republic is, with 15.5% female MPs at the House of Representatives of the Parliament, at the 69th place. It's almost 5% less than European average, and more then 26% less than the average for Scandinavian countries.
Source: Forum 50%
"Inside a party, a younger female MP is always worse off. The pull she has inside a parliamentary club is limited; she is accepted with reticence and suspected a priori of using the so-called feminine strategies. They themselves admit they would be refused more often than an experienced female MP," Lenka Veselá from Forum 50% says.
High politics defines the concept of the so-called gender stereotypes concerning "female weapons". Almost all female MPs claim these are taboo for them. But older ones among them think their younger colleagues are using them.
"In politics, women are currently underrepresented, and so they try to function as so-called 'guardians of the gate' because they believe it's not in their interest to become less exceptional by letting other women politicians in," as the political scientist, Petra Rakušanová, explains.
According to the researchers, young female MPs are at double disadvantage. The authors of the survey suggest the need for "networking". "Female politicians should communicate more and try to create networks across political parties on a specialist basis", Ms Rakušanová says.
Men's world
As a result of both insufficient numbers of women in the Czech Parliament and existing tensions among them, there are smaller numbers of female politicians who are represented in the key parliamentary committees.
For instance, there is only one woman MP on the Budget Committee and 21 male ones; on the Economy Committee there are 2 female and 20 male MPs.
When balloting on important, women-oriented legislation, e. g. several times after a debate on the draft law on substitute child maintenance, female MPs would vote exclusively according to the brief by their party.
Feminine element in the politics still very much the men's domain can have its advantages though. For instance during an election campaign.
"Those who took part in the poll say it's mainly because women are able to communicate better and are more considerate. Based on this research, we were able to establish women bring into the politics not only different themes, but first of all different understanding of public administration issues," the authors of the study claim.
READ MORE: Czech women demand a less chauvinistic constitution
Not enough candidates
The study also shows that women who are to enter politics are decisively influenced by their children's age. A majority of female MPs said they would not push for a political career should their children be too small.
Female politicians perceive time pressure on them, difficulties they face while trying to find a balance between their family and professional lives, lack of cooperation and rivalry, as the biggest obstacles to their political work.
Mirek Topolánek's Government recently established a committee charged with harmonizing MPs' family and professional lives. The committee is led by MP Lucie Talmanová, the prime minister's party colleague, partner and a mother of his child. Topolánek himself remains married to another woman.
The past surveys have shown the low percentage of women on voting lists is directly related to the lack of female politicians.
After the Communist Party and the Greens, the Social democratic party decided recently to start using quota for women candidates when compiling the voting lists in the future.
