A Female Government for a better Serbia

A Female Government for a better Serbia

During the three-week campaign that turned into a public opinion survey, 19 ministers, deputy prime ministers and a prime minister – Ružica Đinđić – were chosen.

Serbian government’s Council for Gender Equality vice-chairwoman Dragana Petrović believes that the fact women and men are formally guaranteed equal rights tends to lead to false impressions.

Dragana Petrović: There is a false premise here since equal rights do not automatically translate to equal status. Statistics show that women’s status in Serbia, compared to that of men, is worse. Since women make up 52 per cent of the population, they ought to be better represented and have appropriate influence. On the other hand, this is an issue pertaining to the resources, because a country that neglects half of its population cannot be said to have intelligent concerns about its future.

B92: What was the campaign’s goal?

Jelica Minić, European Movement in Serbia: The goal was to empower women by encouraging their self-confidence and self-respect, and to, albeit in this virtual way, influence their political ambitions. The idea was to mobilize the female population in country’s politics since it is our estimate that they can indeed influence the healing of the Serbian politics. B92: Although last year’s report on gender inequality in Eastern Europe showed that women in the region still suffer discrimination when it comes to employment opportunities, earning and political representation, it seems that things in our surroundings are slowly changing?

Jelica Minić: Women hold high political offices in Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia. The Croatian government has five women within its ranks. All this shows that the prejudice is disappearing in the Balkans, and that women are counted on for their exceptional political capacity, especially in the process of the European integrations. Something of that nature happened in Serbia too, where women did the hard work while men took the roles of negotiators. Let’s hope all that background hard work will become more visible, and that this testing of the public opinion and of the expert female community will help turn the tables and lead women to take what they are entitled to.

B92: This type of promotion, introducing the successful and capable women not afraid to take on responsibilities, must be a significant encouragement for others?

Jelica Minić: At first we received about 1000 votes per day, sometimes less, and then the number went to over 2000. That means we managed to keep the public’s attention level high for three weeks. What I would like to point out is this enormous amount of positive energy surrounding the campaign.

I am also encouraged by the public opinion polls showing that women rank education, healthcare, personal safety first, dwelling on the issues such as myths, Kosovo, territory much less. We hope that this will push what really matters in our everyday lives to the top of the agenda, and positively influence the image we broadcast to the world. B92: It seems that most of the women mentioned in the Female government campaign were until now unknown to the general public?

Dragana Petrović: There are competent women, the story that there aren’t enough women, that women show no interest, is not true. The important thing is for them to be recognized, appreciated by the general public. As you know – when you have a small number of women working in an area, let’s say politics, then the politics tends to change them, but if you have a critical number of women present, chances are they will change the politics.

B92: This type of promotion, introducing the successful and capable women not afraid to take on responsibilities, must be a significant encouragement for others?

Jelica Minić: At first we received about 1000 votes per day, sometimes less, and then the number went to over 2000. That means we managed to keep the public’s attention level high for three weeks. What I would like to point out is this enormous amount of positive energy surrounding the campaign. I am also encouraged by the public opinion polls showing that women rank education, healthcare, personal safety first, dwelling on the issues such as myths, Kosovo, territory much less. We hope that this will push what really matters in our everyday lives to the top of the agenda, and positively influence the image we broadcast to the world.