Enlargement, Gender and Governance (EGG)
EU Framework 5, Project No: HPSE-CT-2002-00115
Work Package 5 (Executive Summary):
Identifying Barriers to Women’s Participation
SLOVAKIA
By Alexandra Bitusikova, Matej Bel University
Work Package 5 focuses on defining barriers to women’s political and civic participation in
Slovakia. To identify the barriers, qualitative methodology was used. Researchers carried out
face-to-face interviews with Slovak female members of the Parliament (4), one of them the leader
of a political party, Slovak female MEP (1), a former female Minister in the government (1),
several former politicians at national level, mayors of villages, public officers and NGO
representatives. Quotes from the interviews are a crucial part of the report.
The barriers are divided into three categories:
1. individual
2. systemic
3. institutional.
Individual barriers identified include:
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psychological (low self-esteem; lack of assertive power; lack of women’s solidarity –
rivalry instead of cooperation);
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education (not considered a barrier generally as both men and women in Slovakia achieve
similar levels of education, but it should be a requirement when running for public
positions).
Systemic barriers:
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family
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stereotypes in society
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traditionalism in society
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urban/rural divide
-
religion
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politics seen as male domain
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low interest and distrust in politics.
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According to opinion polls conducted by the Institute of Public Affairs in 2002, 79% of women
and 70% of men think that it is mainly family duties that prevent women from entering politics.
47% of women and 29% of men think that the main reason of low women’s representation is a
systematic attempt by men to keep power and decision-making in their hands. 42% of women and
37% of men think politics is a dirty business, and therefore women prefer to avoid it. 54% of men
and 43% of women agree with a statement that women have low interest in politics. 7% of
women and 15% of men are of an opinion that women do not have necessary skills for politics.
Family plays probably the most important role in women’s decision-making on whether to enter
politics. The Slovaks value the family and marriage very highly, which was also shown in the
European Values Studies survey. When it comes to a division of family duties, 68% of women
and 55% of men believe that both partners should participate in child-raising and household care.
In reality, 88% of Slovak women usually cook, 81% clean, 68% do the shopping and 67% look
after the children. According to the opinions of the interviewed female politicians, politics in
Slovakia is only for women with adult or no children who are from the capital: “I have not met a
single woman in Slovak politics that has small children and is not from Bratislava… Women do
not want to risk the family”. “Family is what counts most at entering political career…”
Institutional barriers:
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electoral system
-
political parties
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institutional structures
In Slovakia, the electoral system is based on proportional representation on candidates’ lists,
which means that women have (theoretically) a better chance to be elected. The position of
women on the candidates’ lists is then crucial for their eligibility: the higher a woman is seeded
on the list, the bigger chance she has to be elected. In the 2002 elections, the share of female
candidates seeded in the top half of candidates’ lists was 20.9% and the share in the top quarter
was 17.9%.
Before the elections in 2002, the debate on quotas started. Despite slightly growing support for
quotas among Slovaks (64% of women and 52% of men supported quotas in the 2002 survey, as
compared with 60% of women and 37% of men in 1995), many women and men do not think that
introducing quotas is a good idea. Men argue that it would be humiliating for women to introduce
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a quota system because ‘our clever women can succeed themselves’, and it would be against the
basic human rights and equality of all. Women are skeptical mainly because of the experience
with quotas from the socialist past, and because they believe that the society is not yet prepared to
accept quotas.
In most political parties there are no clear strategies on the equal positioning of women and men
on their lists. However, before the 2002 elections, several political parties announced their
informal quotas on the candidates’ lists although only some of them stuck to the promise.
Institutional structures because of their multi-level hierarchy and complex decision-making help
to preserve barriers in such a way that proposals regarding any aspects of gender equality often do
not reach the top decision-making level. The structure is binding and there is no way to overcome
it.
Recommendations
1. Recommendations for national institutions:

Education is the key to combating stereotypes: education on equality and discrimination
is needed at all levels (from kindergartens to the top level including education and
training for politicians and all public officers, e.g. police, judges, public administration);

Media training: education of journalists should include gender equality; specialisation in
gender equality journalism is needed;

Improving networking and cooperation of women’s groups and politicians (cooperation
instead of rivalry) by organising common discussion fora;

Continue public debate on positive discrimination, show good practice examples from
other countries, bring interviews with female politicians from other countries and initiate
debates at local and regional level to get support for quotas (or zipping) from bottom-up;

Initiate discussions on quotas (or zipping) in political parties with the aim of introducing
strong and binding internal party mechanisms.
2. Recommendations for the EU:

Encourage networking and collaboration among women’s NGOs that specialise on issues
of women’s representation and participation (by creating a platform for exchanging good
practice examples);
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
Organise and fund an international conference on gender equality for media, targeting
journalists from leading newspapers;

Encourage leading European female politicians and MEPs to talk about the importance of
women’s representation in Central and Eastern European media and events.
3. Recommendations for the future academic research in Slovakia:

Apply for existing EU research grants on gender equality – it is one of the ways how to
improve international networking, knowledge and experience based on a comparative
approach;

Organise interdisciplinary research networks within the country and open the dialogue
among researchers on various issues of gender equality with the aim to build cooperation
and trust instead of rivalry.
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