The idea, launched by the Polish Women's Congress held last month, for parties to give half of places in their election lists to women, is supported by 61 percent of respondents and opposed by 27 percent.
'Poles are disgusted with politics. Polish parliament enjoys half of the public support that the European Parliament does. And if we can't count on the EU for help, we'd like to see gender parity in the hope that women wouldn't be fighting for power in such shameful ways as men do,' comments social psychologist Janusz Czapiński.
Women account for 20 percent of Sejm members today and for just 8 percent of Senate members.
Interestingly, support for parity is higher among respondents with primary (72 percent) or vocational (63 percent) education than among those with secondary (59 percent) or tertiary (42 percent) education. And the idea is embraced more enthusiastically in the countryside (64 percent of respondents in favour) than in the cities (57 percent).
Prof Mirosława Marody, sociologist at Warsaw University: 'This is against sociological science. Modernisation usually begins with well-educated city inhabitants. It is accepted only later by those less well educated or by rural inhabitants who, traditionally, see the woman at home rather than in public life.'
But perhaps the less well educated respondents are guided by an instinct of justice here: half of the places to the half of the population?
Prof Czapiński has a different explanation: 'The better educated respondents realise that the poor style of politics in Poland is a result of a short democratic tradition and the fact that power attracts careerists, and parity itself will change nothing. Because it's the role that dictates your behaviour. No matter what your gender is. The less well educated respondents have this na`ve notion that bringing in more women will soothe the savage beast.'
According to Prof Czapiński, rural inhabitants have a closer relationship with their local councils. Consequently, there are proportionately more women as village leaders than there are women as city mayors.
The organisers of last month's Polish Women's Congress have started lobbying politicians to support their initiative. In Sweden, Spain, Finland and even
Albania, women's representation in politics grew markedly following the introduction of electoral parity.
'Women were for years excluded from politics, it was believed that politics was a male thing and that women weren't good for it. Finnish feminists have calculated that it would take 90 years for this exclusion to disappear naturally. Gender parity is to accelerate this process,' says
Magdalena Środa, the Congress's co-organiser. Minister of Science,
Barbara Kudrycka, has already pledged to introduce parity in academic bodies, including the State Accreditation Committee and the Central Committee for Academic Degrees and Titles. Initially, 10 percent of seats will be guaranteed for women, to then rise to 30 percent.
The Democratic Left Alliance (
SLD), in turn, has pledged a bill decreeing 30-percent parity in the 2011 general elections, to be then raised to 50 percent, plus gender parity in public and local government administration.
But the idea remains controversial, and not only among men. Fifteen women journalists and academicians wrote in an open letter published yesterday, 'We oppose the introduction of 50-percent gender parity in parliament, government, science. Instead of promoting women, such a regulation would suggest that they are not talented and entrepreneurial enough to achieve success on their own, without outside support.'
The government representative for equal gender treatment, Elżbieta Radziszewska: 'I'm opposed to fixed parities. We should educate women, promote women, so that they start to believe in themselves and that men start to believe in them. The effect will be more lasting and there will be no nasty surprises like in France or Slovenia, where election list parity is law and yet fewer women get elected than in Poland.'
Also prime minister
Donald Tusk spoke on the issue yesterday. Commenting on the results of Gazeta's presidential preferences poll showing him getting defeated in the second round by ex-first wife Jolanta Kwaśniewska, he said, 'In the face of these results, we cannot ignore signals that women in Poland no longer want to a passive role. Women's presence in public life, in politics, has to increase.'
translated by Marcin Wawrzyńczak
